almost thirty minutes past the hour you want your business r.t. welcome to the program u.s. credit rating ratings agency standard and poor's is used to slopping companies with scores that have the power to either make that will break them but now it seems like the agency itself is under the spotlight it's being blamed for the worst financial collapse and the great depression yes the two thousand and eight financial crisis the u.s. justice department is accusing it of being solely responsible for the onset of the crisis and i have kidney pull being here to give me all the details so katie what exactly is the essence of the accusations because these are you know pretty major statements but you know responsible for the two thousand and eight financial crisis absolutely and it's the first one of its kind of accusation has been brought to as a credit rating agency because of the crisis that's why it's in the spotlight this week so it's the justice department assuming s. and p.

and they're saying that they knowingly overvalued these mortgage securities and it's knowingly that is the important. not just apologizing for the ratings being wrong which they have apologized for they've said they deeply regret that bought the knowingly while that is something i'm a vegan or a slate of course and as you say it's a big accusation because they're saying that they're to blame for the two thousand i question it's of ratings that were given out prior to that in two thousand and seven and now being investigated in two and we know that credit ratings we've had the agencies have had loads of chit chats about them over the years since two thousand and eight because of the void to them that they carry the power that they have they've not only been downgrading company is but also banks and software in countries as well the likes of greece strained cyprus i can go on the us in august twentieth eleven fronts didn't make an ounce of difference to the board cause but that's another topic for another day one of talk about the out to mortgage securities these that are being called into question if i may c.d.o.

is. halacha rise of debt obligations what they are is their complex financial transactions that are packaged together given out to individual home buyers and it's the rating that a little maze then allow investment banks to sell them on to investors and that's where the billions have been lost me all be true but it's been five years since the onset of the crisis and it just seems very because the timing of this seems bizarre because. we also have to remember that s. and p. was the only ratings agency or was the first ratings agency to say that actually slashed the rating of the u.s. economy through its sovereign ratings so is that just an act of revenge over a few people have said so i think the u.s. authorities would say no absolute nonsense because this has been in process since two thousand that has been ongoing but because of the details because of the complexities of it all but we've only actually seen it come to the light of day and also say they vigorously deny it and they do apologize for having put these

writings on those toxic debt in the first place i want to mention that they've already lost money actually four hundred million dollars in total actually trying to do with the quality trying to bolster the quality of their ratings system so they already forked out one hundred million and now they're facing what more liabilities and damages as a result of the well you know you you've only got to look at the stock market so far to see the losses that have already been made if we look at the parent company grow all hill that actually s. and p. has already lost fourteen percent on the stock market that's the most they've lost in twenty five years it just shows you that confidence is dwindling already and that's not the only credit rating rating agency that's taken a hit we've also got moody's as well down over ten percent right that moody's was the one downgrading the u.s. economy was trouble so it's always a point you know it's been getting a reading by association yeah exactly and also it kind of gives us three and.

question that they are predicting that they too may be in the spotlight for the next investigation we don't know yet keep our eye on. moving on britain's space a threat of being broken up into pieces that's after the country's treasury chief george osborne on tuesday said the bank's high risk investment arms are actually jeopardizing the safety of their retail operations earlier on tuesday i spoke with a geeky he's a strategist at e.t.s. capital in london he said the initiative was a long time coming. buckley's. basically beefing up its funds for misselling people you know so generally at the moment right now there's a big lack of confidence around the banking system that kicked off in two thousand and eight when there were no when the banks were girl group an obvious had to go through a bailout and also the collapse of northern rock and that's gone through for not

only for the u.k. banks system but for the global banking system so. these measures although they seem like a bit of a preemptive strike by the government. in some way instilling a return of confidence in the u.k. banking sector the at least from a consumer perspective how many banks do you think actually fall into that potential breakup category. i mean in the u.k. we've got. in terms of all all the major banks on the list banks in the u.k. have major rito. perhaps the exception would probably be standard chartered which has most of its operations outside of the u.k. in terms of retail. mostly operate within asia and the middle east but the likes of h.s.b.c. rollbacks cotton barclays noids bank all have major divisions especially well back in scotland lloyds and barclays i think those three are going to be the ones in focus h.s.b.c. as a global footprint especially in asia that they may not be under as much pressure

as the other three and i think the big question from people in the market right now is what sort of shape. banking sector we would be in after these these measures come in place exactly at nap exactly my next question do you think it's going to unpack the banks in a negative way as far as making them left competitive on the international market. yeah i think you know i think there's a big concern about that banks have generally been there were at least the u.k. banks and the have been generally d. risking the balance sheets over the last two years that we've seen that would roll back as cotton and barclays. the to do doing it it's a steady job of it and i'm going to continue doing so i did do you leveraging them in better shape than they were a couple years back to have raised a cup it's also on a board perspective we can say is in europe with us they look like a pretty good looks like a priest study several times but at the same time a breakup if they don't comply with these these measures would ultimately mean less

flexibility for these banks it's going to be a bit of i suppose the big key thing for for food for the market right now is this mean. no investor confidence which means that they'll find it harder to raise capital they find it hard to raise capital to fund a very difficult to lend to small businesses small businesses will perhaps then look at all the other you other banks in the world that may have more relaxed measures and rules in order to start getting some money out of them. and it's time now to take a quick look at the markets to see where we stand today in the united states the only place actively trading the sour equities are actually pretty bullish as you can see there a mainly thanks to dell announcing its plans to go private a deal worth more than twenty four billion dollars and of course traders are happy to see quarterly reports that beat estimates over in europe let's roll over there and see what's happening there it's also a pretty bullish picture these stocks they are rebounding after their short losses

on monday in fact we saw the biggest daily gain in about four weeks the main player on the currency markets on tuesday was the japanese yen that's after the bank of japan chief said he plans to step down next month the euro was gaining against the greenback on tuesday here while schoolgirl ruble finished the trading session mixed to the major currencies and when it comes to stocks here in russia here they are they're trading in sympathy with the global bourses and hence the gains you're seeing right here. budget cuts and austerity measures they all seem to make europeans so focused on money they're now scrutinizing the salaries of top e.u. officials in fact the staff of the e.u. council is on strike over how much money some e.u. leaders make were curious to so here it is germany's chancellor angela merkel has a monthly salary of about twenty one thousand euros of which about four thousand

euros as her pay as the member of the german parliament president of the commission jose manuel barroso is earning about twenty five thousand euros a month these figures might not actually seem like anything outrageous but you have to remember that the strike takes place against the backdrop of not just related salary cuts for many. european public servants. russia's billionaire alexander lebedev and his son you gave me how one the license to operate a new london t.v. station it will be it will base its content on the stories from newspapers the evening standard and the independent the team beat four other applicants for the right to a twelve year license to broadcast to an estimated four million homes other contenders include a former mayor candidate stephen norris and a former channel more chairman luke johnson london live as it will be called plans

to operate from early twenty fourteen months are going to be about eighteen hours a day focusing mainly on news current events and the general interest stories about london. and that's all the latest from the business team will be back in two hours time so you know. you know sometimes you see a story so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything is. welcome to the big

picture. good lover tour. was able to build a new most sophisticated. fortunately. mission to teach me the creation of why you should care about humans and. this is why you should care only. there are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives within a year. this is a problem that. substantially was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about there were really good public health campaigns that people

were really focused on this problem you certainly should be able to. pick up with. some of the. treatments that the consensus to. choose to get to. choose the stories get him to to. choose . here in moscow the news continues now u.s. vice president joe biden joined the british prime minister david cameron for a national security meeting earlier today in downing street was attended by british military chiefs intelligence officials and political leaders the american v.p.

arrived in the u.k. on monday following visits to berlin and paris for top level talks wanted to find out more on this with. he is in london right now joe biden said he was delighted to take part in the british meetings since he spends off his life at the u.s. security gatherings but how come a foreign official was allowed to attend such top level talks. well for the vice president he's known for sometimes putting his foot in his mouth could have almost being another gaffe but some a very quick to point out when he said that he talked of being delighted to have been invited to that meeting and of having spent half his life in security meetings in the u.s. but people are quick to point out you don't actually have a spoke for years on the u.s. national security council he compacts be forgiven for that possibly he was referring to other security commitments but during his visit to downing street this is what part of what he took part in he was invited to this national security

council meeting it was chaired by prime minister david cameron and it's thought that what was on the agenda and talks about there were issues such as syria. iran and north africa now it's not unheard of the foreign nationals to attend u.k. national security council meetings oh they certainly it's not common practice now perhaps that's a sign of as jay biden made mention to the special relationship that britain and the u.s. enjoy he spoke of the u.s. and britain as having the most open relationship that they have with any country in the world well that's all well and good but is that a satisfactory relationship that everyone want to talk more about that i'm joined by a member of the u.k. independence party stephen wolf thank you very much joining us sixty seven april relationship let's go into that is it need to be beneficial day for everyone i'm not sure about chile is i mean it should be we are in anglosphere we are two

countries that actually share common values in terms of our legal systems our language the way that we look at business and it should be but over the period of the years that we've had this special relationship since winston churchill first coined the phrase we've seen lots of arguments between ourselves and those of the united states clearly there was a shoe. disagreement from the way that the british public did not want to get involved in afghanistan we also had a disagreement in the way that we did not want to get in vietnam and only recently we've heard president obama suggesting that the british people should not exercise their democratic rights and have a referendum of whether they should be in or outside of the european union so clearly the special relationship is often tested but there's lots of people here don't even believe that relationship is special at all what we think and we talk about a relationship or special relationship they have plenty of name for it but of course

it's a very serious point here isn't there that there are these tightly thing ever increasing between the u.s. and britain i think lisa only thought about that the fact that you had the vice president attending a u.k. national security council meeting yes the many people and there are those who look at this and say this is just another example of the united states controlling the united kingdom's foreign policy and that shouldn't be right we should be an independent nation looking after the interests of our own people on the other hand clearly there are those who say this actually cements the special relationship and by having the united states on our side this was the way that we were able to control so the i'm grown dies mint of the soviet union wanting to him impose itself on europe i am not actually sure that it is really right that we should have the united states imposing itself and its views on the united kingdom we have a democratic elected prime minister a democratic elected government and they should take the interest it's very nice to

have mr biden over here by all means let him visit the queen like obama did by all means let's have some nice dinners with him but actually sharing our special interests and our special security i don't think that's always in our interests and it doesn't play well to the public in great britain are thinking through the senate the white house needs on a conference call ahead of his visit and you know they're talking about. that very close trade relationship that the u.s. has with the referendum wasn't mentioned by the side during his visit big that they didn't have the just an interest in the case well and what the does with its foreign policy think there isn't it's legitimate thing to comment oh absolutely you know let's not go any distance in terms of investment in the united kingdom sixty percent of all the financial services businesses here in the city of london are actually american and we also have lots of interest in terms of google and over businesses that have placed themselves here on although quite frankly they're being attacked for not paying their taxes and quite rightly so but united states does

have interests here and it's quite right that as a trading nation that believes in open markets we should open those markets to them as well but the question should be not whether we have these trading relationships but how we look at ourselves as a nation going forward do we want to have loose ties or do we want to be seen as simply a buffer for the united states in the way that they trade reviewer i think there's a great swell of opinion at the moment that we're only seen not as the buffer in the trading friend but really as the opportunities the daughter opened for trade from america into europe and that's and we'll again talking about the special relationship going back to that because there's a lot of people in the british public at the moment who quite frankly a bit fed up of these three euphemisms for our relationship with the u.s. our relationship we've got the big fate on the extension of official policies going on in the e.u. at the moment that's a really big topic i think the british people want to better clarity able exactly

what these relationships are it's all well and nice having you know this friendly terminology but when it actually comes to these things the fishing policy is not always in the u.k. british nationals best interests no i think this is where the confusion lies and you've raised a very important point if you knock on the door of people's houses and they're asking themselves about united states about europe they're more concerned concerned . jobs more concerned about their businesses collapsing and they want leadership from their government they want them to be able to say that it's perfectly ok to go and invest in these countries that they want to know that they can spend their money in shops and so they're relying on them to say this is how we look and deal with our relationships united states this is how we deal with europe there is a huge amount of confusion because at the moment there is a lot of confusion between where the nation should actually fit in this new global market and i think there's a lot of play between the united states realizing that they've got problems in the european union of got problems of how they fit we're being told from one side to

the other and i suspect that people are saying with fed up with both of you actually a plague on both your houses we just want to be independent to trade globally because it's a huge world out there we can get on a plane we can use the internet we can go to almost see anybody or trade with anybody in the world is all wrong and we shouldn't be restricted to one of the you to the left or you go one final question wasn't totally. five president in the case is this thing of the countries and we heard him a few days ago talking mistaking portugal and poland he got them confused i think there's a lot of criticism that the u.s. sort of use europe as a one entity rather than separate nation states do you feel that's the case but i do believe that that nixon used to complain that who does he call in europe whenever there was a problem and i suspect that that's what they would really like to see and that's why they encourage david cameron to oppose the e.u. referendum not to have it so that there is simply one person in brussels that they can pick up the phone over foreign policy over trade over fishing all the rest of

it and i think that's what they would really like to see and maybe they want to do because actually they don't actually know all the names of the twenty seven countries ok thank you very much as if that the vice president visiting the third and final stop of that european trip and lots of big discussions continuing throughout the year opinion as he said the extension of the fishing policy ongoing as we speak. sarah ferguson stephen move from you can't open his party live from london thanks very much indeed. israel is reportedly intending to create a buffer zone stretching up to seventeen kilometers inside syria the country's military sources insists the area will belong to syria and they're not invading a sovereign state israel also wants to place infantry brigades and a number of tanks there the stated aim of the zone is to prevent mortar and rocket attacks coming from inside the embattled country and so this would also stop radical groups moving close to israeli territory if assad government is toppled

a security fence is now being erected along the frontier with syria in the southern cone and heights press international relations expert dr jamal wakim has told me earlier that he thinks all this is very little to do with security. imposing a buffer zone will make israel in the future. negotiate over withdrawing from this buffer zone rather than withdrawing from the golan heights this is very similar to the attempt of israel in one thousand seventy eight to occupy and impose a buffer zone in south lebanon where it was the same claim that it wanted to defend its northern border the objective is to annex more territories and at the same time and at them to threaten the massacres that so israel expands its domain by another seventeen kilometers this will make it reach close very close to damascus and this is very dangerous to the stability of the regime and with it

will give the insurgents like free zone and free base a secure base to launch attacks against the syrian regime so this is in fact the mint of israel. a recap of our top stories and more news is coming your way in just seven minutes from now this is r.t. live in moscow stay with us we'll be twenty four hours a day. liz

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