heavy clashes in belfast leave at least sixteen policemen injured with the unrest triggered by the municipal council decision to reduce the days of the union flag flies over city all. french troops deployed in mali help government forces wrestled back control over the key city of qana after launching a series of aerial bombardments. and washington says its forces will shift to a support role in afghanistan sparking fears the u.s. military might linger beyond the withdrawal date.

and broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r.t. certainly glad to have you with us here at your top stories at least sixteen of police officers have been injured in the latest outbreak of loyalist clashes in northern ireland was triggered more than a month ago following the belfast council's decision to lower the union flag from the city hall except for eighteen days a year for a who is in the province reports on what's behind the tension. recreational rioting that's what some people are calling it. has been taking place all across the us in the past weeks many of them peaceful but in pockets violence breaking out in the process is on the other side many of them young their faces covered as police come under attack with rocks and petrol bombs mark easton's the

director of the east belfast mission creep is working with young protesters to try to calm the tensions some kids are doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister motives in terms of control terms of par in terms of ego some are doing it because it's sexier than a playstation you know young girls are doing it because and young girls even with young children we've seen on the streets who i don't think a fully realized what their actions can result. there just. in some ways having a laugh and yet there's nothing funny about it on the surface and this has been about the decision at the beginning of december to limit the number of days the union flag flies at city hall but in what's been the most sustained outbreak of violence since the one nine hundred ninety eight good friday peace agreement and it's clear that the problems run much deeper one of the protesters here asking. just a wonderful. pace to get off their backs age peter robinson least you're not really

not them he was the one to start. for us to come out on the street to protest against the amount. of flak. you know but when he wanted also it on the streets for his own actions we can make for do you think the protesters would predict that any kind of compromise when it comes to this when the flag of the flag turn out said. we know we're not. action because it's the majority. any unionist warns now to try to reengage politically but we're told much more will need to be done there'll be no quick fixes here i don't think there's any silver bullet i think there's so many different things need to happen economic. investment political

investment community investment by and by all the stakeholders in these communities to try to resolve the wide raft of issues that are a blight you say far there's been over one hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business revenue they these riots have been highly localized the damage has already been far reaching this is a new generation bringing firelands back on to the streets of belfast it's a far cry from the darker days of northern ireland's conflict that doesn't make it any less trouble. belfast of course hard to say or further is closely monitoring the developments in northern ireland and on our twitter feed you can find first hand information and pictures of the protests earlier my colleague spoke to jason walsh

a journalist for the christian science monitor who said the unrest has been flared up by the changing demographics. the protests from the leadership despite the appearance of some groups such as the ulster people's form no one is entirely sure exactly what it is that the protesters want northern ireland in general and belfast in particular traditionally being protestant unionists loyalists or going to. the recent census results should northern ireland no longer has a unionist one it's more a sort of fifty fifty situation i mean what can city hold do is got itself into a real rock and a hard place isn't it if they overturn the decision it's going to look like more brule take it over potentially cause a flare up on the other side this stuff going to get over this they counted and they certainly can't undo the decision. first or highly unlikely that irish nationalists councillors would go to the flag and second well even if they could be convinced to do so in the name of public order i think it would look very bad for

the council to. convert to block going to use of violence. now still ahead in the program by british that's the prime minister of the commons latest message to his country's citizens in an attempt to pre-suppose for the u.k. the ailing textile manufacturer. a french pilot has been killed during fighting in mali where france continues its air offensive after al-qaeda rebels made advances moving further south to the city of qana earlier mali's government troops with the help of the french military succeeded in chasing rebels from the city according to reports over one hundred militants and at least ten civilians including three children have been killed in the days of fighting. the u.n. security council called for a swift to the point of foreign troops to battle the rebels who had seized the north of the country last april and have since made significant advances far inland on friday french president francois hollande said france would only help mali

within a un framework ground based independent journalist robert honeys believes that french foreign policy contradicts itself. i think that as long as the french people aren't too bothered by the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite has a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to interfering other people's countries but if you if limited starts to get nasty i think you'll find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion these sort of islamist extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find that these people have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of their intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going to find it's a very dangerous place to intervene in mali has requested help and they get it

instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told are no we can't interfere to tell any particular regime were neutral. it to do even if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions in what they do. earlier a field mission to rescue a hostage who later perished in southern somalia left two french soldiers and the seventeen militants dead the raid in the area began hours after french troops intervened in mali tell government troops battle rebels there currently nine french nationals are being held hostage across northern africa. america is to leave local forces in charge of combat operations in afghanistan and switch to a support role this spring the announcement came from u.s.

president barack obama after a round of talks with his afghan counterpart on what's being hailed as the last chapter of the u.s. afghan mission that is going to church again comments and american involvement in the country looks set to rumble on during his election campaign president obama may have sounded very resolute to leave afghanistan in two thousand and fourteen but the white house is now negotiating terms to stay there the president said if u.s. forces stay their role will be different but critics argue it's an attempt to rebrand a military presence which both the majority of americans and afghans oppose take a listen to what president obama said about the mission after twenty fourteen i think. you know although obviously we're still. two years we're. concerned with assurance that this is a very different mission. and different tasks and a very different footprint for the u.s. if we're able to come to an appropriate agreement now one of the key points of the

agreement that the president mentioned there that key point probably is immunity from prosecution for u.s. troops so that the afghans cannot prosecute any american soldier if they commit a crime that's the deal that the white house couldn't get from the iraqi government the u.s. wanted to keep some troops there but couldn't because of how the oppose the iraqis were to allowing the u.s. to further operate there with impunity but with homemade karzai it could be different he indicated that he is willing to give that immunity and that he's willing to bargain besides he knows that he's in power because of the americans and many experts believe his government will collapse in no time after americans leave but whatever post twenty fourteen deal comes out of their negotiations it might not be easy for washington to sell it to the american people because despite the administration trying to present of ghana sent as a success story in many ways they see it as a failure and don't understand why their troops should stay any further

policymakers in washington can't really come out and say that they don't want to walk away and just just pack up and leave from such an important geopolitical position now that they've spent billions and billions of dollars to have a presence there but such chill political calculations may not sound very appealing to the american people at a time when the country's head over heels in debt brian becker from the answer anti-war coalition says hamid karzai is seen at home as a symbol of collaboration with the foreign occupation. the american government is sort of caught in a paradox it didn't want to give up afghanistan it wanted to use it as a strategic base but can't win a military victory they have to begin to draw down whether they will leave completely i don't think so so now you have cars i hear in washington meeting with obama he is extremely vulnerable but he is seen within the afghan population as nothing but an extension of the power of the occupiers and the afghan people like

all occupied people resent the occupiers and they resent those who are there collaborators so karzai i from time to time sounds like a nationalist he stands up any how is a little bit against american atrocities and again trying to play for domestic consumption but at the end of the day karzai is seen as just that as a collaborator with the occupation a very rich collaborator so he may have a way an exit plan of his own scripted out but i think he knows that without foreign occupation his government's days are very very precarious. well now that the afghan president has concluded his washington trip low harvest asks people in new york what they think of the u.s. campaign in afghanistan. is that we are told that there is because of that wonderful oil. it's all about money. opinion on the decade long invasion from the streets of the big apple coming your

way just a little bit later in the program. crime is a plague of the big cities but in a tiny arkansas town of twenty five thousand it is really getting out of hand pure gold is a property crime index of more than double the national average and rape burglary and assault are also way above average poor poor gold is a dangerous place to live in but what's the answer to living in constant fear of criminals well the mayor thinks that the answer to that problem is to live in constant fear of the government how logical the mayor and police chief have a doorstop plan to send out police patrols with fifteen's and full swat are to i guess intimidate the local population into submission well actually the plan is for them to stand around it ask people an important question ask them to show id the

answer to crime isn't a police state sending guys out with automatic weapons and body armor around just to check people's i.d. like it's the berlin wall or something won't do anything a guy who breaks into your house for crystal meth money isn't going to be affected by this only the good average citizens will have to show an armed thug of their id just to go buy milk but that's just my opinion. and live from moscow this is our team glad to have you back with us. spending of billions of dollars on its defense industry america keeps turning a blind eye on its creaking infrastructure and if a country's government ignores addressing their crumbling roads and flickering electrical grid the u.s. is going to face major trouble. explains over the past decade america has spent hundreds of billions in the name of national security wars

military intervention fighting terrorists and hunting online hackers meantime getting much less attention is a domestic danger lurking in and lighting up every corner of the country the u.s. power grid in recent months federal officials have warned that america's electric cables substations and transformers are not sufficiently secured and are vulnerable to attack by anyone with a weapon and some basic know how experts say the energy grid is also outdated and antiquated unable to prevent outages from cascading in october superstorm sandy hit twenty four states causing some sixty three billion dollars in damage more than four and a half million people lost power and new york was left crippled by massive floods leaving much of the city including half of the big apple plunged into darkness. two

months after the storm the streets of downtown manhattan remain clogged with coops wires and heavy equipment because dozens of the city's iconic skyscrapers still rely on generators for power things like this going true months with major buildings. that does not occur in hong kong in shanghai. amsterdam because they have built systems designed to deal with the reality of nature so what is this cutting corners feeling to invest in you know most you know what are you reckon economy when it comes to america's electricity ninety percent of the grid is privately owned by utility companies beholden to investors. energy sector in the united states is law actually privately operated and took her. there for. only by regulation only the federal government has meant that law it regulation to state local governments

though it possible to haul our grids to gather that he is saying there are many reasons not only financial but also policy reasons where really changes have to. if we want to change our safety and livelihood the changes aren't just limited to the grid engineers have warned that many of america's bridges roads dams levees and power plants are in danger of crumbling if not repaired especially as sea levels continue rising even one bomb is nothing compared to what hurricane sandy did across the northeast a thousand miles of destruction it was a very very big natural event. and you know to have congress

not funding the. repair of the basic industry infrastructure. is just staggeringly shortsighted a broken foundation that risks the chance of becoming the nation's biggest homegrown danger marina portnoy r.t. new york. we've got more stories for you on our website including residents of beijing putting on respiratory masks once again this time because air pollution in the city has reached a dangerous level at your website for the full story. for the first time in georgia modern history the country's lawmakers overturn president saakashvili veto and set free two hundred political prisoners you can find all the details that are to dot com. israel's prime minister binyamin netanyahu says stopping iran from making a nuclear bomb will be his top priority if he wins the upcoming parliamentary vote

the threat of an attack seems so high to many israelis that they are already snapping up gas masks and renovating bomb shelters as artie's possibly or has been discovered. mushroom clouds confusion hysteria this is israel's last day according to a young filmmaker who wants to shock his country into taking action i've created this morning to share my thoughts and my fears with the world about the potential threat that is coming from iran if you ask me this same question two years ago i will say that people don't think about it so much but today it is different we can see. the majority here of israel are preparing this i think most mentally one inch grandparents a holocaust survivors from a mania a foreshadow he fears of what could come it took hitler six years to kill six

million jews and it will take. all the six minutes. that's why and maybe some or many israelis are already uneasy fearing iran might be building a nuclear bomb and tehran isn't mincing its words threatening tel aviv it will teach it a listen if it tries to attack first warning is waning missiles will make sure israel does not survive the center of israel is a problem and that's where we have to move forward not only that we haven't got enough voters it's very very populated so everything that is falling in this area can cause casualties in two thousand and six during the second lebanon war rachel balmer also and her family hid here from the katyusha rockets raining down from across the border she never imagined she'd be restocking her shelter again so soon and for potentially more deadly consequences of course i'm afraid from the war from with iran because nobody wants war and peace. and now i have also

some rain children five grandchildren and i'm afraid i'm afraid because my cells will go to the army there are soldiers in the. i don't want it the recent war with gaza was a chance for tel aviv to test its iron dome missile defense system but he's raids are anxious in part because of widespread media coverage of just how unprepared for war the country is many bomb shelters and residential buildings are rundown and neglected or have become furniture storage rooms while most of israel's arab citizens about to twenty percent of the population lack shelters altogether as the chances of war start looking all too real the army says four times as many israelis are collecting state funded gas masks then they were several months ago i'm a big concern it's not like i think they're going to be aware of. this.

subside my fear just in case and with impending doomsday predictions circling the country no one wants to be caught unprepared police fear r.t. television british clothing manufacturers are calling for support from the prime minister and government amid growing concerns over the lack of products made in the u.k. but with more and more clothing being imported from overseas could prove tricky as artie's war smith reports. it's got the british flag on it but all these clothes made in britain a quick look at the label shows they're not made in china or made in vietnam anywhere but here and down on the high street the story's no different you'd be hard pushed to find anything with a made in britain label on it in any shop a recent survey by a daily mail journalist found just one item in sixty three with a british made label but now david cameron and his ministers are being urged to

back british from their hats to their socks and wear only british made clothes it's not impossible there are companies that still make clothes in the u.k. including the firm that's doing the urging private whites p.c. but the vast majority of what we were ninety percent at the last count and including everything i'm wearing today is made abroad since two thousand and fifty two percent has jobs in the textile industry have disappeared and we imported twelve and a half billion pounds worth more clothing than we export it last year even some companies that trade on their very british north don't manufacture here so even if david cameron and his colleagues did pledge only to buy british it's unlikely to revive britain's ailing textile industry has washington been bluffing about the

troop withdrawal from afghanistan and was the entire mission justified in the first place artie's resident hit the streets of new york to gauge opinion. the obama administration has recently said that it's considering having no troops in afghanistan after december of two thousand and fourteen is that a good thing a bad day or totally made up thing designed for political shenanigans this week let's talk about that do you think he's going to do it he said that to years ago and it didn't happen so i don't buy it so why does he keep saying it if he doesn't mean it. to get people like and their families will be happy with hopefully you know you finish what you started what did we start and what do we have to finish what is finishing mean. to capture or.

do you think that we've defined what the end means it's tough because you know we don't know everything i think we need to have a world presence to maintain the market why is it up to us to maintain a well presence why don't we just get out of everyone's business well that's a good idea too but if no if we don't do it nobody will and otherwise the world's going to go to war and we were in his stabilizing factor and until now and time it's been us but we're the ones causing all the wars. depends on your perspective i guess i'm sort board more defending than attacking but don't you think that there are some people in the world that feel like america imposes its will on their countries just put america's will lose its freedom and democracy at its heart it's not a fanatical you don't think it's its own might be money and imperialism a little bit too i don't believe that it is imperialism. and what about money do you think that money might drive some of our reasons for home of course but money

is going to help everybody i don't think it's happening i i just came back from afghanistan so oh so you don't believe that he's really going to pull the troops away. entirely i think that i think that there our presence there is important and therefore sustaining what we've done so far my opinion is that the reason we are over there is because of the wonderful oil and i don't have it's all about money and. that's a marine as someone who puts your life on the line doesn't that make you mad and makes me really upset because we have a lot of marines that are dying each and every day in afghanistan you know and you know for god's sakes i can be next you know so it does make me pretty upset that he's promising something that he's not owning up to the bottom line is we're so used to having u.s. troops all over the world up in everyone's business that we probably can't imagine us pulling out of anywhere and that makes americans the world's bullies whether we

like it or not. well from the streets of new york to the northwest of russia party takes a fascinating trip to the shores of the white sea after a short break. do we speak your language i mean some of the will not be in. the news programs and documentaries and spanish what matters to you breaking news a little turn it into angles couldn't stories. for you here.

in troy i'll teach spanish find out more visit eye to eye on t.v. dot com. well the. science technology innovation all the least of elements from around russia we've got the future covered. the whites see the surface remains choked with ice when at least seven months

a year. the chilly breath of the arctic ocean keeps the water freezing cold. near the coast however the high winds and bitter cold recede. that even in winter also can be seen through holds me ice. cold squeals and cracking sounds can often be heard around the thing. this is how so-called canaries of the sea communicate. typically they hide under the ice and the white sea is the natural habitat.