a mysterious canadian muslim cleric leads pakistan's destitute masses against the government with scandal ridden prime minister apparently the first to protest. in syria at least eighty die in a double bombing at the university of aleppo the center of a battleground between government forces and rebels vying for control of the ancient city. fronts builds up what it calls an anti terror mission in increasing its presence and calling for foreign aid the critics say it's the nato allies causing the global spread of terrorism. and the germans prepared to stand up for their money as the e.u. central bank plans to centralize control of members cash to send it to troubled

states. international news and comment online on the screen around the world this is. they promised a target here square and it's not looking too far from it gas has been used in warning shots were again heard outside pakistan's parliament where thousands of demanding immediate and sweeping changes leading the music charismatic an enigmatic cleric he said to be a favorite of the military among his in these photos demands are calls for broad government reform and a harsh crackdown on corruption in an apparent effort to modify the demonstrations pakistan's supreme court has ordered the arrest of the prime minister who is caught up in a bribery scandal correspondent has more now from islamabad. we

are standing here in a very crucial point actually it is called the famous disc where all the talk with the local language where dr qadri and his four testers are gathered and demanded the government to step down d. and he has added to that the seven demands which briefly sais that the all parliamentarian and legislative institution should be dissolved and the government has to resign immediately and the reason also said in his speech that he will not move from this place even if the last person would leave but he is going to continue his demands and continue his protest but the possibility of the possibility of continuations or proceeding this protesters on the other side where the parliament and the president the presidential house as well as the supreme court and the regional area where all the diplomatic enclave different i

think embassies are located the supreme court has given a verdict of the arrests winds of the prime minister raja previous archer of honor corruption cases so it is the development of the political development the decisions error taking place in very quickly and very unexpectedly actually observer believe that whatever the supreme court has taken it is a political move from the government maybe they have put their prime ministers as scapegoats if we called it to save the situation or to reduce the amount of anger and the amount of the protests and the living led by a car that he in this region's. the cleric muhammad thought he had all card but he has given the government an ultimatum to disband parliament or he'll order his followers to carry out acts of civil disobedience political analysts says to

unsettle the system would achieve little. he has besieged the capital at a time when it is in the middle of a very sensitive insurgency and people have been known to take advantage of that occasions don't know whether it is a very much of people have been movement because americans out of merging know for example the supreme court's order for the rest of the prime minister. exactly during the speech of mr. somewhere somebody is pulling the strings because suddenly there's a lot of funding and there's a lot of show of force but to give dr credit yes he has done his own but well he was very careful to religious sentiments from both sides of the sectarian the worried at a time when the divide was waning yes a lot of people were fed up with a government yes it failed to deliver yes people want change but again. the system at this point would perhaps do more harm than good in concentration issues like the corruption instead of personalities. it's a grim anniversary for the u.s. and vietnam. by the fact that they have great military supremacy

go in and just destroy a government occupy a country and we mold their country so it becomes a proxy war of quiet for the united states despite the huge losses both sides suffered in the conflict almost four decades ago we explore whether washington has learned their lesson or is ready to repeat its costly mistakes that still ahead. first up to eighty people have been killed by a double blast in syria's northern city of aleppo a university that the building is believed to be in housing refugees of course. has the details. more than eighty people who have been killed and more than one hundred and sixty people who have been injured but that number is expected to climb and climb dramatically as many of those who've been wounded are in critical condition in hospital we know that there were two explosions at the university of illinois it happened on the first day of examinations the state television has banned of this

a terrorist act saying that terrorists launched rockets at the campus so the activists on the ground say that the explosions were caused by missiles that were fired by warplanes immediately following the explosions a number of cars went up in fire there were bodies strewn across the street and tearful survivors managed to find refuge in a nearby building now we know that the campus is home to university students but also an additional thirty thousand people who have found refuge there since fighting broke out in syria in july last year at the same time the university is in an area that is under the control of government forces and what we've witnessed in aleppo is the constant fighting between rebels and troops loyal to the syrian president bashar assad this has lift the city divided and the fighting by and large has been in a stalemate position for quite some time now russia has said that it has suspended

its operations at its consulate in their pay and that if necessary it will evacuate its citizens from syria since july last year there has been constant fighting and increasingly in aleppo which was the commercial hub of the country before this civil war in this intensive fighting broke out about a year and a half ago aleppo also has been a major front in the conflict between government troops and rebel fighters who constantly exchange rockets as well as mortar rounds with each other in recent months we have witnessed both in the loop and also in the capital city of damascus a wave of suicide bombings. a lot of that happening in terms of car bombings with dozens of people being killed the most of the bombings are targeting government buildings and more often than not for sponsibility is being pained by the rebel groups so what you have waiting is a rebellion across the country that is de stabilizing the situation on the ground

it is also making extremist activity more and more possible and middle east analyst to manual on a spokesman alerted today he says that terrorists are targeting civilians in syria to send a message of horror to all those supporting assad this is your power it's with all of our civilians in high numbers it's the purest we can imagine we witness today see a billion building and university was attacked and i spoke today to the student performance if you would go to university were told me that one day before yesterday they were also warning from a car is. a shock to the university and they didn't do it so this was a punishment there's the word for what is taking place right now it's there were more a bomb being it is being towards the civilians that show be creased the more and if you disagree who obviously still support the government in its fight against this

earth some in the fight against the insurgency. russia has criticized a petition to the u.n. security council which calls for alleged syrian war crimes to be referred to the international criminal court where the document signed by dozens of countries was submitted by switching on monday not piskun of explains. many international organizations including the united nations confirm that the syrian atrocities and tens of thousands of people have been killed throughout this conflict or these atrocities are committed by both sides with the government troops often using excessive force of rebels taking to the most extreme measures like terrorism kidnapping and soren so it's evident that all those responsible for the deaths of civilians have to be punished but the reason why moscow does not support the idea of referring of the conflict to the international criminal court right now is because it says doing it at this time will hourman any peace efforts this is the

official quote on the screen of the foreign ministry they see untimely and counterproductive because their main goal right now is to get both sides of the conflict to put their weapons down immediately and simultaneously and for them knowing that they'll be prosecuted as soon as they do so is not the sort of motivation you want to be looking for secondly most western states have clearly taken the side of the rebels which you threatens how objective any court case on the issue would be and the international criminal court has been criticized before in this let's look at how it dealt with yugoslavia when the court punished around ten times more serbs than their opponents. there's been a new spate of rioting in belfast arrests and injuries as the seven week old under arrest in belfast turns violent again reports of protestants attacking churches and even the homes of catholics more for you in a few minutes from now. the first front says it will

significantly boost its intervention force to mali with the total number of troops deployed to the conflict zone expected to reach two and a half thousand an hour paris is carrying out attacks against islamic insurgents in its former african colonies only from the air but despite almost five days of intensive air strikes aimed at helping his government but it's of managed to grab more territory raises fears that the fight against islamist will not be as swift as france initially planned the u.s. and britain are among those who assist the combat mission in world powers is also seeking arab backing will mourn and some are joined live by lawrence freeman he's the desk at the executive intelligence review magazine why do you think lawrence that the u.s. is appearing to be reluctant to take a bigger role in this paris led combat action in mali and help with troops and weapons. i think the role the u.s. is taking is very similar to what we did in libya after the initial push by

obama and susan rice and others for the bombing campaign in benghazi the u.s. then turned over most of the operation to nato and made flew most of the sorties or the us to write intelligence logistics and even munitions for london yet now that the french for the moment are taking the lead us again. just fix aerial. on drones drones so we're very much involved you basically have the same trio of the u.s. great britain and france now and in another military campaign interesting to see in the new york times that they're saying that many of those now fighting against the mahdi government were actually trained by u.s. agents to combat terrorism not so has this experience and not actually then come

from within money. you have several ways that operate i mean first of all you had a after the death sas nation murder president gadhafi you had basically within hours to read no matter how this stream you course the border with pickup trucks no terry hardware etc but you've also had the failed attempt by the u.s. q so tree partners in mali and other african country and this. these new units moved their uniqueness very very quickly under the force of the islamicist and to raids who were trained in the hardcore training in the libya war and it was a complete failure and all these policies i'm going to when the french are pursuing they're all going to fail because you can't win a we'll solve a real crisis by military means per se there has to be complete cheap and strategic thinking forward thinking of the united states and the west that has to

focus on the underlying problems of economic development poverty food shortages xander that make these countries very weak and fragile and susceptible to these kind of attacks and misstep paradigm shift occurs and we're just going to be killing more people by to morrow's jets dropping bombs and will be in do nothing really to help africa but what about the implications for the french people paris is now tight security in the country to face a possible terrorist attacks how can the government justify this to its citizens the second pane who must now be on the alert of a possible revenge attack. raised this is a very serious question because in fact the french government is not providing for the people they're having a severe economic crisis they're carrying out similar sterry we see in european night states and so well launching this campaign which the jihad will use to create a quote holy war join us you know holy one of the moderated by the west and

this does set up the potential for more terrorist activity and really good stead of terminating orcon team in this conflict in mali with the west and the french and the us are doing may actually be spreading it and in fact in danger in their own security as a civilian in effect mali becoming a recruiting ground for more extremists in the way that we saw in iraq in afghanistan yes because look if you're look the whole drone policy of obama just killing people does not win the hearts and minds of people and we learn from vietnam and we've known from other battles where history the number of people you kill does not decide the victor in a war so the whole oprah watch that obama saturday june policy has actually increased recruitment and the areas in pakistan more of the population is anti-american or before the same in yemen the same thing is going to happen in mali i mean the french are not liked in west africa and this is certainly not going to

help the image people have of the french government just briefly funny there's less media coverage of this war in comparison to what we're seeing in syria what why they're hardly any images or live reports coming from the country at the moment and yet there's so much talk about it in sessional media. good point the fact of the matter is that in syria here the policy we have from obama on down is for the overthrow of the assad government and this is borders into. directly with al-qaeda and al-qaeda linked networks that we work with in libya and if you want to look at the paradoxes and ironies of these of this french campaign us campaign in mali we're attacking al qaeda allegedly these are the same our cable networks that we work with in syria and then we work with would be to what's going on here and the reason we have more coverage of the syrian operation is this is the

front end of a campaign that will bring us if it's not reverse we're going to be step by step by step getting closer to a confrontation of war with russia and china and that's the real date of the syrian crisis it's interesting perspective that lawrence freeman thank you very much indeed african desk editor executive intelligence review magazine joining me live here not in thanks not playing. the funeral for freedom of information activists aaron swartz is being held in chicago. and it's a twenty six year old was facing a lowly jail sentence and huge fines when he took his own life coming up in just a few minutes we've got more on how swartz was viewed within the hacking community and his legacy stay with us for that if you can.

wealthy british style it's time to. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with my next concert no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kinds of reports.

that he continues here analyse the funeral of freedom of information activists aaron swartz has been held in chicago for twenty six year old took his own life last friday after finding himself by federal prosecutors and facing decades in jail well this for illegally downloading academic documents like reports from chicago where the funeral was held. around ten am this morning local time a few hundred people actually packed the venue to pay respects aaron swartz who of course was found deceased four days ago in his apartment in brooklyn and today obviously he had fans family and loved ones from all over the world come and visit in order to aaron and kind of pay their respects for for something that that he's done that no one else in this very particular community has ever quite match just

in fact tim berners lee who is considered the inventor of the world wide web was actually here this morning to to speak of erin and actually referred to him as an elder of the community which is which is something really powerful when it's coming from the person who actually developed the world wide web aaron's partner teryn was speaking on you know so highly of him and said that he was he was so committed to to creating social change and for advocating democracy and letting people have open access to information is such an ethical and moral person yet when it came down to what the massachusetts attorney general wanted. there was just this this incredible attempt to assassinate aaron's character and to make him this this criminal hacker where whereas his peers his colleagues his friends in this family all believe that he was doing nothing but good. just who used to work for one of the companies that the sentence for

a sponsor activist far outweighed the crime he was being prosecuted for. when everything was said and done nothing in that area downloaded was ever distributed and they did not pursue any charges against him i think that should have told the prosecuting attorney something you're looking at a crime that essentially amounts to downloading p.d.'s to a hard drive. no person was harmed. there was no financial benefit murder received less punishment i mean i can't even imagine how scary and terrible that must be to have your government hell bent on putting you in a cage for thirty years for downloading some p.s. if you're a depressed person that amounts to a death sentence next week israelis will head to the polls as the country holds a snap parliamentary election with the situation in the middle east heavily dependent on the outcome the whole world will be watching the vote closely so don't

miss all of the special coverage next tuesday. how will tensions with to run develop. isolate can there be peace with gaza what's next in relations with america we'll let you know who survive his snuff election on january twenty second. israel decides on our team. protesters angry at their decision to stop flying the union flag permanently over city hall in belfast and again clashed with police leaving an officer and a bus driver injured this is the latest eruption of violence and seven weeks of demonstrations will for more i'm joined by john of this jason walsh from the christian science monitor while you've been holding been watching the unfolding protests in belfast and talking to us here at r.t. about the situation over the last week or so what stage is the unrest that now. well this evening seems relatively calm there there's no sign of any violence yet which is actually quite surprising will come to at the moment but there are

roadblocks as they're of been for at least forty days over the past seven weeks now . today there was. a. conviction overturned a man who had been previously convicted of a. killing of two soldiers so i'm quite surprised that there hasn't been any violence this evening and well though the fact that there hasn't been any so far doesn't mean that the protests won't continue as i've said it's been relatively sporadic and just explain why you think that violence would have perhaps happened tonight as a result of what you just said. well it's well known that the proximate cause of the riots has been the lowering of the flag over belfast city hall and instead of flying three hundred sixty five to zero it will fly on your team doesn't it there is but there is also a wider sense of this in french argument. among the unionist and particularly working class loyalist communities who feel that republicans are getting the peace process getting it working the peace process their own way now and the fact that

previously being convicted of. balder secondary player in the killing of two british soldiers. would you would think be likely to spark or of a sort of increase in that sense of being disenfranchised by the peace process but as yet that has not happened but the violence is it is termed very ugly it isn't just street writing any more is it that there have been reports of attacks on homes and churches by protestant loyalist so is it close to sparking to something very significant now how worrying is that. well it's quite worrying mean it's the worst outbreak of violence since the good friday agreement was signed in one thousand nine hundred and last night to the short strand which i should explain is a small republican don't live in otherwise uniformly unison loyalist the first and the catholic church that matthews was a target but of bombs under loyalists community worker jim wilson has said that loyalists didn't start the violence on that particular night and the charge that the proper question is whether or not republicans will will get drawn into it knowing on previous nights there have been indications that republicans were

throwing stones and bottles and other missiles if they start to respond in kind or indeed engage in their own kind of sparking off of significant trouble whatever bombs it could escalate it it's unlikely to result in a return to conflict on the sort of wide scale previous to a secret previous to the peace agreement it could get extremely ugly now that the first minister peter robinson he said that the protesters were being exploited by elements seeking to ruin the peace process what see talking about that what could those sentiments be. well this is the question i mean there are credible reports coming from east belfast saying that the local duty air filter volunteer force. is engaged in a short strength to talk about paramilitaries. yet loyalist paramilitary group isn't gay scene and in a show of strength because it fears the police service in northern ireland psystar who inquiry's t. know the story mccarthy has been looking into killings that were never solved norms

they were convicted for and on both sides republican a loyalist and and you have to remember that part of the peace agreement was that all of the prisoners were eventually released under license so any potential for people being arrested for cold case crimes is not necessarily going down very well now not said peter and since own party though it has no no responsibility for the violence those are responsibility and some regard for bringing protesters out into space in the first instance because this all started on december third with the city council vote to no longer fly the flag at three hundred sixty five days a year in advance of that vote mr robinson's already did leaflet his focus very heavily saying that there was a nationalist agenda to remove the floodgate and that is what without what actually grew up whatever is on to the street initially peacefully in the first instance but what is more and he said the first one is first mr peter a busy said this could ruin the peace process could it get really has been about off to all the efforts over the years is

a peace process really in jeopardy now no i think that's are probably the vast majority of people. want peace to continue even if there are times of great difficulty like this and as i said this has been the worst outbreak of violence since the conflict officially ended and that was how to make it now but where is it going to go now to could this die donald could it get worse i mean what's the thing you could do i don't it could get worse but it won't return to become a full scale return to civil war one on. there simply isn't the appetite for it even among unionists who would want the flag to be flown the vast majority are protesting and each of those who are vast majority of them are against in reading of the moment this is generally quite localized that there have been some instances when it's spread across northern ireland for example last friday that was not what lois referred to as operation stand still but there's no popular will for a return to war and you say people don't have the appetite for it what impact is this having on people in belfast on their life on the economy. well it's such

a devastating impact on the economy and we've already heard figures of sort of seven to ten million pounds sterling in policing alone and looking traders have been getting together and complaining. and demanding a real reduction in and local taxation because that last tree certainly over the christmas period the streets of belfast a little bit went to exactly empty they were just bustling is that as it should have been and all there in any way opportunist to people who perhaps could be disenfranchised obviously the economic situation isn't great in belfast many people and of course some people vent their anger by joining in riots and protests. yes i think that's always the case though the economic aspect can be overstated certainly northern ireland has experienced a recession like everywhere else and in depressed working class areas it's doubly so but the idea that protestants are in northern ireland are particularly disenfranchised doesn't doesn't hold water the only one figures are still higher in

nationalist areas very slightly so if there is. sort of an economic military as it sits across the board it's not affecting one community more than the other. or i was very interested to hear what your thoughts are of the current crisis that in belfast thanks very much indeed jason walsh journalist for the christian science monitor joining me live there in dublin thank you you thank. e.u. leaders seeking to concentrate more power in brussels may face a setback from the union's most reliable member germany there are thousands signed a petition against the european stability mechanism which would allow the block to use members' funds to help other states in trouble and the germans are exactly happy about letting someone else decide where their money goes as artie's peter all of us found out there's a rising feeling here in germany that it's not the germans who were really in charge of their country. the government is taking the sovereign rights of.