france's military is guarding one of the biggest iranian mines in while its owners say they want a better mining deal with paris and could be looking for other partner countries. no calls from recently liberated parts of mali claim de france led offensive against islamic militants has come at a high cost to civilian lives. as america's new top diplomat meets his team we hear of revelations that many in the foreign service for more than just time to the country. and also reporting to the opposition in kuwait to keep protesting against the country's unelected rulers after another activist is thrown behind bars for criticizing the modoc.

life from the new center here in moscow this is r.t. with the twenty four hours a day the president has confirmed that french troops have been guarding one of his country's biggest uranium mines that's in a bid to avoid a repetition of last month's hostage crisis in neighboring algeria. thomas spoke to my colleague. the mine in question is the olive facility a location in which the french company a raven has a large stake now it's important to know that this is the second mission in africa completely separate from france's mission in mali which has been going on for nearly a month as neighbors mali and the situation very continues to remain unstable the french government is making it clear that they are ready and willing to protect their assets in the region and on the african continent as a whole protecting assets in the region many know that france gets most of its energy from nuclear power hence the uranium is very very important indeed so

massive economic concerns are indeed but as you also mentioned we've called the french led multinational intervention going to go in mali now boots on the ground in nigeria where it's certainly getting a lot of reaction from critics around the world of them or certainly has and if you ask france they've pointed to the incident that happened last month in eastern algeria when islam ists took over a gas plant there eventually leading to forty eight people being killed thirty seven of those foreign workers france's predicting that more islamist retaliation to french presence in africa is likely and they say they want to prevent a tragic situation like this from happening again but then again is the world's fifth largest producer of uranium a product that is vital to the french economy in fact it's estimated that nearly all or at least seventy five percent of france's electric infrastructure is dependent on nuclear power given this it makes sense that france would want to protect that resource at all cost the president has welcomed the french presence in the country and recognizes the need for the added security but has also stated that

they want to better deal when it comes to uranium exports meijers economy is also largely dependent on your radio as well critics have already been wary of french involvement in mali claiming that the real motivation is a return to imperialism economic policy and a stronger control of a region that used to be french territory now with france's expansion into neighboring countries compiled with president expressing his concerns those critics now have a bit more that they can chew on. john laughlin who's the director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation in paris believe securing natural resources is not only the only goal france has in the region main factors in this are france's own desire to strengthen the whole role on the international stage in particular piece of you know european partners and also the american strict future plans for africa it's important to know that america which strongly supports france

in this mali and intervention has plans for establishing a military presence and a military control over the whole of the african continent some people speculated that used the phrase that this was america leading from behind that america decided to put forward its european allies to do as it were it starts to work in a continent where as i'm sure many of your you viewers know china has been establishing an economic presence now very successfully for a large number of years so there is a scramble for africa isn't there or is it just to grab the resources yes it's obvious that the securing of energy resources is one of the key factors behind many if not most you get a little bit better mix today and that's why i say that the of course the issue of hydrocarbons and uranium and other energy sources is a key and may be the decisive factor in amman in northeastern money french

jets have carried out a series of airstrikes on the bases and fuel depos of islamic terrorists with the intervention now heading towards the desert and away from the cities or to reports on what's left on the ground after the liberating troops move on. francoise hollande victorious trip to timbuktu marked the declaration that three major cities in northern mali have been declared liberated from rebels although the sharia law and islamic extremism the rebels enforced will not soon be forgotten nevertheless this victory is a partial one the militants have merely retreated and fled and the suffering in this war has seemed disproportionate to the gains made we're learning what happened in battle day by day in the town of qana we heard stories from the fog of war this is small settlement in the mopti region was seized by the more yo tribe they fled to the north when french troops showed up it's reported that the cost of that

victory was high while french planes killed only two rebels the number of civilian casualties was an estimated fourteen i wasn't home when the bombing began i started praying when i learned my house was under attack they ruined everything i had my family and my livelihood my wife's name was i mean not her she was forty my son ali was eleven adam was ten and so you know who was six they all died as. people such as this farmer idris ask themselves if the victory was worth it. we also met the campo family who had suffered badly when the bombing began everyone's gathered the campo lost two of their sons unable to swim they drowned in the river while fleeing the fighting we also heard the story of a young mother who died from shell splinters leaving three children behind one a newborn baby. the village was a complete mess it's impossible to describe how many discuss things i know for sure

and i can say that all we had is gone though. some kids came running up to us and said their mum had died i brought them to our house their mother died after an hour of clinging to life. the children have nobody else but us. disaster visited every house in the town people reject anything the military claims about victory and say war crimes must be prosecuted under the geneva convention towns like qana want more than just compassion people who suffered at the hands of terrorist groups and drug traffickers are now facing the misery inflicted by warfare. gonzalo want mali for r.t. and while president francois hollande may be hailing the on going french military campaign in west africa as a success that's more than can be said about his politics back home ortiz where if a national reports now from paris. well president on land is welcomed as

a liberator in mali after france's military operation against the islamists occupation back at home crowds are also gathered but with a starkly different mood where people are fired up over the continued decline of europe's second largest economy despite the president's promises to create at least one hundred thousand new jobs the nation is shedding them at an alarming rate last november about a thousand every day the worst figures in years the country's unemployment is approaching a shocking eleven percent with more than three million jobless the french daily lives and claims that the exact situation could be even worse if official statistics included youngsters never registered for the unemployment program or those who left it and those stuck with part time work the paper says the rate would then triple but there are certain. people expected to have

a strong president and they understand that alon doesn't have enough experience or competence to improve things the last two weeks as we see from the fans who are slowly no believes the strategic mistake was to ratify the e.u. so-called three percent treaty force in france to reduce its budget deficit down from four point five percent by hiking taxes and cutting spending. but while harsh criticism expected from the opposition disapprovals also been growing from like minded left wingers or complain but i think the president especially of a country like france one of six e.u. founders should be strong enough to say stop to others and say hey i have my nation behind me and they elected me to make changes instead he surrendered because he's more worried about the country's debt and the ratings agencies make. in a short video french communists put together some of our lawns major presidential campaign vows none of which they say came true. but what that's all that if you know the value added tax increase. i think it's an appropriate and unjustified

and unreasonable and too hasty. what happened to well that's to reminded present was do you remember you promised to review the european treaty you didn't do that here in germany set a three percent deficit isn't real but now only say it's possible etc etc you can't not do what you promised meanwhile recent polls show a little rise in the fringe the disapproval rating forty four percent january to december forty percent and the lawyer says he wants to office in may. every week that is a new subject to discuss in the french media and to draw people's attention from the real problems like gay monitor deprived you are now molly this strategy may work but not for long. after all land won the french election last year some analysts described his victory as a victory against his predecessor side because he brought the first round now of

the scene of the past to the team that actions in the. months of a long presidency have been anything but sunny happenings and even his one staunch supporters predict even harder times lie ahead for the leader of the country's municipal elections in two thousand and fourteen have historically held great significance and will show whether the voters can forget and forgive. me for national team from paris. with john kerry being sworn in as the new us secretary of state last week the white house may have been hoping for some favorable coverage of its diplomatic efforts the revelations that we have to pay to play a role in the foreign service have brought plods over capitol hill what is going to cut his mall. a recent study by two professors of international relations at pennsylvania state university looked at available information on president obama's donors direct political contributions and the positions that they received and they

concluded that those whose political connections to president obama were measured in dollars rather than administration services had an increased chance of representing the united states in western europe and a small a chance of serving in say central asia or sub-saharan africa donors and advisers involved in the diplomatic selection process say the competition this year has been so tight that those who have raised less than a million dollars are for the most part unlikely to be considered so what is the quote unquote price tag for the highly sought diplomatic posts according to this study friends in monaco topped the list with the level of personal contributions of six point two million dollars the price for a position in the u.k. the authors find appears to be between six hundred fifty thousand dollars and two point three million dollars president obama has appointed friends and donors to

about thirty percent of diplomatic posts while seventy percent of the post go to career diplomats so judging by this research career diplomats go to places like yemen while big donors go to monaco this monday was john kerry's first working day as secretary of state these are challenging times for u.s. foreign service u.s. embassies have come under attack in a number of muslim countries just within the last year the u.s. ambassador to libya was killed in september in benghazi shortly after the u.s. helped carry out regime change there is a sense of denial in washington that this rage against the americans in the muslim world has something to do with washington's policies in those countries that john kerry has a mixed record to and certainly big challenges ahead. well coming up later in the program here on dissolving the mistress. heads to germany for special treatment saying he knows who is behind the violent

acid attack on him two weeks ago that story just ahead after this short break. building. mission to teach me. why you should care only.

mission free. free. free. free. free. free. free. free. these continue. reportedly considering building a buffer with a high tech security fence and on its border with syria it's designed to prevent threats from radicals if the assad regime is overthrown. motivation has nothing to do with security. for nearly two years now. at the time of the surge in c. there were no attacks against israel by the insurgents not by the regime itself so

this is a mere pretext israel wants to take advantage of. weakening regime in syria to improve its strategic position especially in defense of its claim to the golan heights imposing a buffer zone will make israel in the future. negotiate over withdrawing from this buffer of their own zone rather than withdrawing from the golan this is an attempt to annex more territories and it's at the same time and at them to threaten. damascus itself if israel expands its domain by another seventeen kilometers this will make it reach close very close to damascus it's trying to destabilize the regime and it knows very well that the collapse of the regime will lead to a probable division of syria which runs in the interest of israel. in

kuwait an opposition activists has reportedly been sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the country's unelected ruler on twitter it's the third time a person has been convicted on such charges in the country in the last two months speaking out against the emir of kuwait is considered a state security charge amnesty international recently hit out at the market for increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly protests have been raging against the government and its crackdown on dissent since two thousand and eleven tension flared even more off the december's parliamentary poll which was boycotted by the opposition one former m.p. claims the country's democracy has been disfigured. and. we refute claims that the national assembly represents the people of kuwait around seventy percent of the people boycotted the election and the assembly itself was elected thanks to an unconstitutional decree passed by the government which wanted a parliament it could control its lawmakers have failed to address widespread allegations of corruption democracy has taken

a twisted form it is the only democracy which is seeing an increase of corruption we will continue to hold peaceful marches peaceful rallies and we will continue to gather and protest. now to another monarchy that has its own problems with the opposition bahraini regime protesters they can clash with police in various parts of the country has used tear gas against which were hurling fire bombs the gulf kingdom's been cracking down on pro-reform demonstrators for two years arresting thousands including prominent activists the government claims it's taken steps to address the brutality of the security forces but opposition campaigners say daily assaults continue unabated. the number of dead from a suicide bomb attack on a group of al-qaeda fighters has risen to nineteen more than forty others were wounded the incident took place as men gathered to collect their salaries outside an office in the town north of baghdad the blast comes

a day after several suicide attackers targeted a provincial police headquarters in kirkuk killing at least fifteen and wounding dozens. a skeleton found under a car park in the city of leicester in the u.k. has been confirmed as that of king richard the third the monarch was the last english king to be killed in battle back in fourteen eighty five but his grave was lost in the sixteenth century after the demolition of the church he was buried next to the remains will be reinterred in leicester cathedral with the details of the burial ceremony yet to be released. the artistic director of moscow's bolshoi ballet is traveling to germany for specialist treatment after a violent acid attack against him just over two weeks ago doctors there will be trying to help save set again fill ins eyesight what he said in english to reports from the moscow hospital where he was taken immediately after the attack. is doing rather well surprisingly well actually he did thank the doctors for doing

everything in their power to pull him out of a very difficult situation that he found himself in to did suffer third degree burns and those are very severe to his face and neck he said he's full of hope for a full recovery and he is full of willpower and he actually looked very enthusiastic and upbeat about the whole situation of course considering his circumstances actually he did appear to be quite so on his road to recovery did speak about person who is who has been supposedly behind the attack he did say that he knows exactly who it was on this particular day today did not want to talk about the investigation at all so as not to interfere with the investigation he did however mention. he did to receive threats before but he also mentioned and this is important according to city feeling himself he didn't mention that he's continuing to work with everybody who has been left in charge of the bolshoi theater he said

that nothing if the boy say theater is changing and the performances and everything about the theater will be carrying on as before. south korea and the u.s. have kicked off a three day joint naval training exercise it comes off to north korea's recent threat to conduct its third nuclear test well let's now discuss the merits or it could use an international human rights lawyer and co-founder of the national campaign to end the korean war well south korean the u.s. claim the drills are part of regular military training and they were planned before these current tensions but is that all there is to it well there's a lot more to it than that on a lot of different different levels we have this ongoing conflict for nearly sixty years since the end of the green war and we look at factors such as south korea's south korea being one of the largest importers of conventional weapons from the united states so it's often a show of force in that way it's often related to money it's often related to china

showing a little force in the area it helps build up the president's policy of shifting resources to asia in the asia pacific region so really it's not always about the nuclear test and about north korea but we know it's received well it's being received by north korea as provocative as saying this is war mongering are they right interpret it in that way. well they you know the rhetoric flies back and forth on from both sides but sure i mean in that sense it's the worst thing you can do under these circumstances is to inflame the situation what would we expect there are twenty eight thousand five hundred u.s. troops stationed there some would say occupying south korea for all this time with more than eighty posts and bases and now to conduct these military exercises that always inflame that use live ammunition up and down the border with north korea

this is inflammatory on a lot of levels and we need to step back bill clinton at one point suspended the military exercises to try to make progress and we know toward the end of his administrative and we made the most progress toward peace in half a century but the on the on the other hand you can say what north korea is doing is inflammatory indeed they saying future tests could indeed be aimed directly at the u.s. and if it does go ahead with this threatened nuclear test the u.s. and south korea about significant consequences so what exactly might they be i mean we've seen plenty of sanctions in the possibly. you know i mean what is the option really this nuclear test this these naval exercises it's like a race to the bottom if you will when are we going to get more creative in the way that we resolve conflict in this world this conflict gives us such an opportunity with a new secretary of state new leader in the north a new leader in south korea we should be pushing for peace suspend these naval

exercises and go from there yes there should be non proliferation of nuclear weapons on the korean peninsula but we don't even recognize north korea as a nation have a peace treaty or formal relations to deal with these matters what do we expect so it's really necessary to step back from that and come up with the approach that follows the idea that it's always better to talk talk talk than fight fight fight as winston churchill said and that we need to move forward to engagement which all the parties are talking about but there is no action on this so both sides really need to stand down but we need action and not just words yet some say that washington benefits from this instability and probably wants to see this continue is that true in what way would it benefit well you know on both sides there always seems to be something not too bright that happens at the worst time when we're just

getting close to a resolution so yes i think we benefit why would we need to have so many troops in asia if there wasn't this conflict it would bring forward a new era a new way of looking at our relations around the world which some people are very excited about but some people with entrenched interests in the military industrial complex in the way things have always been how are looking to do this quite differently so we really could move forward in a lot of ways if we took the action out of the national campaign to end the korean war but what we're seeing at the moment a lot of rhetoric do you think perhaps this could lead to something more serious in the future. you know i think when you have your finger on a button that can always happen there can be slip ups between these parties great misunderstandings and so really. makes me nervous of course but it's also been there done that before the old talking heads refrain same as it ever was same

as it ever was we need to use this time and opportunity to approach it differently or we're going to have this cycle of threats the edge of war pulling back and really spending billions and billions of tax dollars that could go elsewhere in our our country and their country and around the world and just briefly your impression of the relations this is having between the impact it having between china and the u.s. china how would it be reacting to this military exercise in his backyard. it's it's something that we do often like. it's been mentioned twice a year sometimes and really for china it becomes i think a reminder that they've got to stay in this arms race and unless we do it differently we're going to take one of the what is becoming one of the wealthier nations on earth and we're going to encourage them to start investing in weaponry and we're going to have an asia of the past rather than one of the future eric

great to talk to thanks so much for thoughts on this really interesting to hear what you have to say in international human rights lawyer and co-founder of a national campaign to end the korean war thanks. an investigation by the guardian newspapers revealed britain's largest police force stole the identities of dozens of dead children for use by undercover offices the scheme went ahead without informing or consulting any of the parents of bristol based investigative journalist tony go zooming feels the metropolitan police's methods are completely unacceptable. wondering if i live in a democracy or not we're talking about the identities of eighty dead children stolen by the police i mean you do want to tell you where else these infiltrations have been taking place as well do they have police agents within our political parties where are the lines being drawn because it doesn't seem like there are any lines being drawn are absolutely behind.