many question the sudden resignation of pope benedict the sixteenth as shock waves reverberate throughout the catholic world. french forces reclaim the city of bringing a firsthand account from the city after a surprise attack by militants almost french claims of every campaign. and seventeen coal miners die in an underground of the famed blast in russia's republic with rescuers still looking for one possible survivor. from our new center here in moscow this is r.t. with your line on the screen twenty four hours a day the vatican has announced that pope benedict the sixteenth will step down on

february the twenty eighth citing old age eighty five year old will become the first head of the catholic church to resign from the post and nearly six centuries . of reports now from the birthplace of the pope in germany. was described by one cardinal is a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky it certainly caught some of benedict's most senior advisers on the hope his spokes person said that it had been left frankly flabbergasted by the news that the pope will be stepping down at the end of the month now benedict is eighty five years old obviously not a young man but the cardinals knew that when they elected him and he was supposed to be there for a lot longer than this i think they would have thought it's not unprecedented but it's not really done that often in fact the last time a pope stepped down was six hundred years ago it's certainly not been an easy ride it's not been the longest papacy just under eight years but in that time is

certainly been plenty of drama no nice includes one of the one of the reasons that benedict said that he has to step down as he thought his age and made him physically and in some cases mentally unable to deal with the everyday life of being the pope in the modern world and one of the series of scandals that we've seen involve the so-called vatileaks similar to wiki leaks a series of documents that were distributed online which well apparently showed a c.v. a series of shady dealings done by the vatican this type of thing of course not something your average eighty five year old has to deal with but they included some quite serious allegations including the fact that the vatican colluded with silvio berlusconi's government in italy to try and get pressure taken off the church of rome for paying taxes on properties which it owned there is also a list that was published of well less than savory clients for the vatican bank

which included some people alleged to be sicilian mafia bosses and of course one of the major scandals that is will be remembered for benedict's papacy concerns child abuse now in his previous. this job before he became pope he was essentially regarded as the john paul the seconds papal bulldog he was the defender of the doctrine of fair for faith. in what role he is accused of covering up sexual abuse scandals all around the world but also here in germany in fact in recent times there's been further controversy over this as the church here in germany canceled an investigation into child abuses that ranged back to the 1940's and stop that investigation apparently according to the man who was conducting it because they weren't happy with what would be made public so there's certainly been controversy and it will be something that's picked over for

a long time to come after benedict steps down at the end of this month or is interested in your thoughts on current issues and we're asking you to cost your vote on our website r t v dot com and we can have a look on screen and see what you think so far about what's concerning the developments around pope benedict's resignation well for most of those who took part in the poll it really will make no difference as the vatican will be corrupt on the any leadership we can see about twenty percent of you say that the stepping down will soon be forgotten when a new paper pope takes over and just under ten percent see this as a way for the holy see to move past the scandals and allegations which have played to the vatican and a small portion of the so far four course a successor crisis for the catholic church could hear from him would have to do is log on to r.t. dot com and have your say.

the director of the national secular society keith porter goss' woods says there's more to the official explanation of the pope's resignation. i think the dark triangle side has been an absolute catastrophe for the church it's actually lost. its authority in many parts of the world when you say that you're going to. oppose politicians trying to bring in say same sex marriage laws and you invest or your authority on that and then you lose as if as effectively happened in those important catholic countries like spain portugal brazil. and about to happen indeed in england and scotland in france then you actually lose the your authority it's more than just losing the fight so that's

been a catastrophe for the church and church attendance has declined it's an amazing rate and i think the child abuse scandal has been something that. benedict has never recovered from he's been involved in it personally through the c.d.f. prefecture for twenty five years and in fact he's brought more into the vatican and tried to cover it up more and more and more so i think his his papacy will be seen as a major setback and a very bad papacy for the church and now we can talk to religious commentator dr jenny taylor from the media center for religious affairs joining us there in the u.k. despite it being normal practice the pope's the succeeded on their death this man is eighty five years old which is well past the retirement age of most people are you surprised at the element of shock expressed around the world due to his

resignation. i'm not so there is shock i think there is surprise but i think the element of shock is something that's being whipped up as usual by the media who i'm very pleased to say interested in a very serious religious issue i don't think it is shock i think it's as i say i think it surprises why is it a surprise. because only two pope's in history i gather have actually resigned rather than. either being bumped off or waiting it out until they die and i think he's made an extremely pragmatic and practical and courageous and selfless decision and i think all those things are very characteristic of the man and i think we should welcome it is really more to the official explanation of his resignation there had been earlier reports of course of him intending to resign before this they were strongly denied by the vatican could have been perhaps forestalled by some sort of power behind the scenes no absolutely

not i think that he is a man who is extremely concerned about what he calls the new evangelization of europe and the issues that are now confronting the and i think rather than the t.v. perpetuating images of. a declining human being being read as the decline of the church while he's still vigorous while he's still mentally and all his faculties he wants to be able to hand over to somebody who can really get a grip on the huge issues confronting not just the church but the world of the church influences so profoundly well so i see this. pragmatic maneuver and i'm not a conspiracy theorist and some say he failed to get a grip on all those issues maybe the pressure of the so-called vatileaks the sexual abuse the banking corruption scandals someone i think that's. some will say he

actually tried to resolve those numerous issues but actually failed and the pressure was too much well he's only been pope for seven years and before that he was enormously busy saving up and credible intellectual response to secularize ation don't forget that the church was coping with marxism up until really very recently and now socialism is absolutely a busted flush and it's time to rethink the return of god if you like into the public square and ratzinger as he was has been profoundly important in the recovery of the sense of beauty and also support himself and i think we've got to actually look at the man and see what he was as a christian rather than as a political we've got to start reading religiously rather than politically for a change and looking at his legacy what about his successor what are the challenges facing his successor and who could it be. well my hope is that

it's not another european because i think that a prophet is without honor in his country and i think therefore i would look to china or possibly garner for a new pope and somebody who can really speak prophetically into the european situation and gain a hearing much in the same way that bishop michael mazza rally or archbishop sentiment have gained a hearing from being other from being outside our own very narrow euro centrism i think the principal challenge will be secularism secondly i think that the next challenge will be gender not just sexuality but actually the blurring the distinction between male and female i think this has the profoundest ramifications on the whole world so it will need a various do you think to be able to create these things really good to hear your thoughts we appreciate your time thank you for joining us live here on r.t.

dr journey there live in london thank you thank you. french and malian troops have regained control of the go on after islamist militants launch a surprise attack on what is northern mali is most populous city authorities say three civilians were killed during sunday's fighting this comes after a recent claims by france of the military campaign is almost complete and as local correspondent gonzalo want to report the joint forces are struggling to fully secure the region still occupied by insurgents. the situation in mali is obviously going to gruesome and there are more than enough indications of last friday the country was shaken by the very first terrorist attack in its history with the boarding to the witness report of what was carried out by a fifteen year old suicide bomber in that arab descent the bomber was the only one killed after the detonation a few hours later responsibility for the attack was claimed by the mosher wod

jihadists one thing to remember here is that this is a vast desert territory and therefore it is very difficult to control this attack is just another example confirming that despite the news reports of the french army having taken over gal timbuktu into doubt there is still a long way to go before jihadists are ousted from the country in severe artie's crew was given access to the civil defense camps where volunteers and civilians are preparing to fight against the jihadists the f.l.n. a and gondokoro a local government militia movement that account for a total of two thousand eight hundred operatives but do not support the strategy chosen by the french in mali and joining forces in fighting the terrorists and complete the same goals but what they did was a really bad service to us there was no really about the army itself al qaeda had been operating on mali and territory for a number of years now they have all of this and they keep getting more by kidnapping white people for rounds of insurance pays them to have it citizens

returned and then the terrorists have cash to buy weapons and if we talk about al qaeda there's no way the army can fight it because that she it's terrorism in action going to find out is that those paramilitary who know the terrain well say fighting a war they cannot take part in is meaningless one thing all these paramilitary groups have in common is their patriotism and zeal to protect their country and drive away the narco terrorists but this is a losing fight given the financial resources and ammunition stock they have. put out. but i'm ready to go it's all lengths i raise to give my life right now to save my family out there in the north because we're all here have families i believe france will still be it's a tax for a while when the french troops leave they will start all over again because the criminals are still out there hiding him on the civilians and all of them have been caught really need to be given the mandate to complete this mission our own we're ready for it only we can do it because we grew up in the north we know the train

and the people so we're the only ones who can stop them and find them in the villages and the desert where we know every corner and every paunch of land for the overall well that you had this forces are taking over their land kidnapping people and using suicide bombers to fight for their cause the civilian population remains the country's most vulnerable what route they. still have to the death of a dead financial worries make suicide rates rates sharply in the u.k. a student leaves his final words on the bank statement sort of a worrying trend of the deadly impact of money troubles a report on that for you is just ahead this hour. plus we explain why environmentalists in ukraine are outraged by the authorities decision to go ahead with a multi-billion dollar gas project that story and plenty of all this in a few minutes right.

more news today volumes. these are the images being from the streets of canada. to build a new. mission

to teach me. this is why you should care. this is continues the seventeen people have been killed. in a mine in russia's north republic that's according to the. say one person is still missing the blast happened eight hundred meters below the surface while more than two hundred fifty. at least two hundred forty two people have been evacuated from the mind immediately after the explosion that is the safety that created at one point there were several people who were missing looks like most of them have been recovered unfortunately did i didn't that we also know that immediately already a program has been set up in order to help financially with the result those couple

of lost their relatives say in the blast that's it compensation should be in the amount of about two million illegals and that is roughly sixty six thousand dollars for the recalls of the last scene of the gas explosion and in the mine you have to mention here that there has been no fire immediately following the blast and that could be said to be a fortunate thing because otherwise of course we'd be looking at a death toll would be significantly higher there has been a criminal case launched also into the possible breach of security measures at the mine blast this is this is looking like the biggest in terms of death toll. mine accident over the past year in russia. suicide rates are soaring in the u.k. with money worries pushing many over the edge comes to mental health services and aggressive debt collecting cited by experts as major factors aggravating the situation. one mother who lost her child to despair

for the last year and a half and thorn has been coming to terms with the tragic death of her son aged just twenty three toby took his own life riding his final words on the back of a bank statement after racking up a three thousand pound overdraft and a five thousand pounds student debt it was just a shock this wasn't fun one but had a history of depression or mental illness or even had come across as being down all the press to. you know in the last few weeks months of his life if anything he came across the someone you know didn't have a care in the world following his death and became a trustee for the charity piracy which aims to prevent suicide among young people from a home in cornwall she even runs her own blog giving advice but it's a battle her charity and similar ones around the u.k. are struggling to win suicide is on the increase according to latest figures

accounting for six thousand deaths between twenty ten and twenty eleven a rise of seven percent so why the increase while an inquest ruled that toby's financial problems were written for a factor to his suicide experts now say that an ailing u.k. economy is partly to blame for the recent deaths nationwide areas of high unemployment such as camden here in london are among those worst affected and it's a problem compounded by cutbacks in mental health services the double whammy effect of the recession is that people are becoming more distressed more anxious and therefore more at risk of wanting to take their own lives at the same time whether sterrett and cuts means that we have fewer psychiatric beds that the crisis isn't there and if that isn't enough the growth of same day loan companies and intimidating debt collectors are adding to the pressures people are feeling according to researchers at brighton university we have some very very good

regulations that protect people look at things plastic debt collection however it appears that particularly well it's because these practices do it in response the u.k. government has announced plans to crack down on aggressive bailiff's from next year late night visits will not be allowed and restrictions will be put on what property can be seized they are also spending over a million pounds on research as part of a suicide strategy plan. but that is only one very small step in the right direction for someone like you it's not. i mean one thing i've learned more about than i ever wanted to know but i've done a lot of reading and research and it's strangely complex hopefully in time the trend will go down when we need to be. andrew farmer from london

and just remind you we have more stories and great pictures for you no website r.t. dot com is online all the time here's a quick glimpse so what we've got there for you moments u.s. president barack obama set to restart a key focus of his politics nuclear weapons production possibly tempting russia with a potential big money saving more on a website. that you know for sure what you'll be doing tomorrow if not in the u.s. defense john may be able to help predict your future steps and even behavior just by collecting social network data find out more about that online. with ukraine refused to pay russian gas giant gazprom the recent seven billion dollar gas bill authorities in kiev working on enlisting western companies to explore its shale gas reserves over the controversial method proposed to boost the country's coffers isn't going down well with environmentalists party's election yet a chef skeet has this report. it was described as the day of the cranes and

independence when in november last year he signed a one billion dollar agreement with a spanish utility to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the black sea coast delight quickly turned into dismay when it emerged that the man signing the deal had nothing to do with the company three months later ukraine's leaders were shaking hands again this time with boiled dutch shell having signed a real deal to explore and develop the country's potentially he would shale gas reserves reportedly this third largest in europe for. the expectation is about eight to ten billion cubic meters of gas production per year and the highest is up to about twenty two twenty five once it's operational we will strive to fully meet our domestic energy needs and to even become an exporter. this is definitely sweet music to see for years ukraine has been striving to reduce its

reliance and yes russia especially now when gas. was seven billion dollars for violating gas agreements this project is definitely good we would pay between one hundred fifty to one hundred eight dollars per cubic meter of gas in the four hundred fifty dollars we're now paying to gas profit but if everything is so promising why are people out in force against the shale gas an issue to the north the second sure no worse for years ukraine has often been divided on many different issues from perception of history to the official number of state languages and then you shale gas initiatives are no exception even sworn political enemies hardline nationalists and communists have put their differences aside and spoken out against the plan the opposition even proposed a bill prohibiting the exploration and extraction of shale gas and that's a real question of information on how to get between. printing company.

is still a lot of your problem because the companies don't care you're going to. have to be environment but political battles the size of. the show program. for feet but whenever they speak the pro-government media labels them as agents. usually and different camera angles that extract more gas from the rocks so the underground system which provides fresh drinking water is completely destroyed because water is a strategic ecological resource and when one spoil it the area becomes practically non-viable. but even in the most optimistic scenario ukraine may see its own shale gas killing its pipes only in a decade from now ecologists and their north against shale gas in principle just that the potential environmental impact on with its actions could be researched and

assessed before drilling begins they have already sent a letter to the president the question is whether those at the top will be willing to listen let's see russia. reporting from kiev ukraine. the business use is coming your way very shortly but first let's check out some other stories from around the world in our world update at least ten people have reportedly been killed and dozens injured all for a car bomb exploded at a crossing on the syrian border expose's were reportedly packed into a car carrying humanitarian aid most of those killed are said to be syrian nationals dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the scene there has been a focus of violence in the almost two year long battle between syrian rebels and government forces. the government an opposition and the rain have launched a new round of reconciliation talks the first such meeting in two years a political crisis reform campaign is according on the government to deal with police brutality and perceived discrimination meanwhile the opposition is cast

doubts. intentions of the talk saying they're just a bluff to call me an arrest activists say there's too much power concentrated in the hands of the sunny. well sort of what are they this are two women being killed in a shooting in a courthouse in the u.s. state of delaware the attacker entered the lobby of the building and fired at least five shots before being killed by police one of the victims is thought to be the strange wife of the attacker two police officers were also wounded the identity of this expected shooter remains unclear. and in official resigned the following a deadly stampede at a roll way station that killed thirty six hindu pilgrims incident reportedly occurred after roll away officials announce a last minute change of platform tens of millions gathered on the banks of the ganges river to take it did marking the. religious festival that's held every twelve years. about with a new city with more than about half an hour from now in the meantime as promised

the business program is coming up next with the latest financial headlines stay with us for that if you care. this is is trash to get rid of. but it's also a treasure. worth fighting for. and a trap was no way out. to least be told language. will programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on all t.v. reporting from the we'll talk spots fifty ip interviews intriguing story to tell

you yes. it's been trying. to find out more visit our big dog called. welcome to business china has for all the u.s. to become the world's biggest trading and nation bringing in and the u.s. is post world dominance official figures from both countries a sum of exports and imports of goods show that china is fifty billion dollars ahead now but how does this actually change china's position in terms of not just trade but political influence so for more on the sofa companies to say i'm joined by legendary investor jim rogers so. jim so did i tell me how this is

actually changed things and we know china's economy has been booming for the last three decades but does this mean more power on a global scale or is it does it mean where you go business for a lot of people they want to be partly because that. china's their largest cost one of the very last year because does this mean though that china should perhaps get involved more in global organizations now that has this status it already has getting more involved if you look at europe. now but they are. part of votes in europe because europe is. they have got the money whenever somebody has the money. and so i mean these are the hardness of the world right here and it's far better than. you know who are quite. right so

let's fast forward ten years let's just say for argument's sake china is the biggest economy by then some people are saying that it will be what will that mean that in terms of power. they will be gone before they will be they think. that they will be the very large customer bring everybody i'm about to say. thank you what about competitors to china who all that the moment who's the biggest threat to the nation in terms of trade. probably germany in terms of friday maybe the united states and china if i tried to write it like japan. germany does that make the child what about emerging nations what about countries like thailand indonesia why did i fare in all

of this to say those countries being the new china are in say thirty forty years time. have a lot of that store in store lot of is wrong with. that. going to china somebody might have a child but i doubt if they have many. twenty. five. i can it's just not ready to china's eye on a domestic level what do you think poses the biggest threat to they need to sort out the honey mokoena may all issues in order to move forward and do you see a slow landing coming anytime soon as some are predicting for china. all countries on the rise all companies all families all individual back. to be present in a war very very human rights where you are are never became an extremely

successful country. but if the problem is that you think the worst thing both of us . for the problem of a staggering moral problem that they have you don't solve the problem of time. ok so maybe go into a slightly different topic that china is now ahead in terms of trade like we've been chatting about just now but not something you know about in gold purchased is so just quickly what do you make of the fact that the russia is now the biggest buyer of gold so it's a post china in the last decade with gold purchases what's your opinion on that. story after this call i'm very volatile shower of russia has been started investing in russia surprised me that there are a lot of all. five of us. jim thank you very much indeed i hope he fails a little bit better perhaps later on the ranks of the drinks figure i think thank

you very much indeed if your time today thank you. now as i was just saying russia has become the biggest gold by all of the decade and that's according to the i.m.f. data so we have right now of very own golden go i'm pleased to say. as we get ahead you tell me now i want to die how much has russia bought in russia . the whole world and even though as you just mentioned yes china over the past decade russia added five hundred seventy tons of the yellow metal to be more vivid that march of gold is almost always as much as three five pages of liberty here i really like can you i can but i'll be here so that marshall gold does that make russia some kind of champion there in terms of gold not really are sure if if you add the plays the number one holder of gold is the u.s.

it has eight times more of the yellow metal than russia and then it's followed by germany italy france china and switzerland right ok so a long way to go that isn't really quite a big difference and you know i want to and just thinking so this is pretty clever of us really because every day you know we're in these times of quantity of easing you know stimulus aggressive measures they're doing right now print three hundred this money for me while i bond and sounds of all solid gold is a good but real assets and imagine the amount of the their reserves whole held in gold amount to seventy percent and that's while russia keeps only nine and a half percent of its reserves in bullion the difference very big difference and that's exactly what russia wants to change analysts say that russia now is in the gold rush because it wants to hedge against the results of all this and easing by major economists so experts. it does make sense

because a significant portion of russia's reserves are concentrated in dollars and euros in the world economy in which there is still high volatility and on certainty and occluding with regard to these two currencies there are clearly a lot of risks emanating from both the u.s. and europe i think this is partly meant to diversify risks for the central bank for russia but also to perhaps try and come up with with one of the potential safe havens if you will ok so i'm just thinking not so for a while but wouldn't rush to be better off spending this money domestically i'm thinking in the start i'm thinking rosen thank you so she was the other says no it's a fabulous bargain my personal view but i don't think in united make sense to me i know on fortune's the nokia it's analysts i've spoken to that until russia one

learns to spend money through the economy. until the fav for a to accumulate excess of reserves and throw them in the state coffers right well we'll leave it there touch on a public eye thank you very much in days now right there will move on we're going to talk about rush's gaffe major gas problem it's holding off its stockmen gas project for at least seven years i guess from its talking to find a new partner to explore the arctic region and will now concentrate on other projects for the time being. on a russian ballon u.s. beef pork and turkey imports coming into effect this month is likely to last for a long time as according to russia's consumer safety what's your going away now the head of the watchdog says that the products fell to show that they were free of the grave stimulants rectory per minute which is a gross stimulant used to make me leave and it's believed to cause health problems to humans. or i'm going to stay with russia and we're going to check out the

markets right now let's have a look and see what happens with the x.'s here in moscow it was indeed a red day it's not really a brilliant start to the week as you can see just who are half of the r.t.s. around the quarter but my stocks just so i want to mention there was some gamers though we did have m.t.s. rosner last telecom scuse me and ross net they did rather well so i did better than the market will move honestly look at the russian ruble it see what. they were going to hire against the u.s. dollar and it's lower against the common currency in monday's session the european stocks they had a mixed day of it today as you can see just continue in the previous weeks retreat from multi month pink's and dragged down by a sharp sell off in danish pharma group novo nordisk it's a big story today of its key drugs suffered a regulatory approval setback and that story really dominoes through the european session energy of minus stocks were hit by falling commodity prices while continued

political turbulence in italy and spain weighed on banks and also their national indices as well as get on to see what happened there they continue to edge lower you can see we've got to cold lines this monday and it's the energy the materials that is really leading the declines which have advanced around six percent on average this year though as far as wall street is concerned it's been doing a six week rally so that is indeed the market for today not all from us here are to get an interview with russia's ambassador to the u.n. italy check and don't go away. led mission free cretaceous free. for charges free arrangement free. three stooges free.

cold free blogs flooding video for your media project a free media. story so. you think you understand it and then. you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is. welcome to the big picture. plumes.

it's so. i'm very pleased to introduce russia's envoy to the united nations only choking that's a trick and thank you very much for making yourself available for this interview thank you let me begin with iran russia is about to sit down yet again for talks with five other war powers on iran's nuclear program the negotiations are due at the end of february the u.s. vice president joe biden said that the u.s. was ready for direct negotiations with the with iran do you see it as a breakthrough as a serious push for diplomacy on the part of washington well hopefully of course so we're looking forward to the resumption of the talks of the six. in late february and we have always welcomed the possibility of direct contacts between the united states and iran unfortunately over the years there's been some back and forth some positive statements on the one side were met by negative statements on the other

side this time i understand there's been a strong negative statement from high level from tehran which which was saying that those talks were impossible but the iranians are notoriously difficult to negotiators and of course the subject matter is very complex so on each particular issue there are always very difficult discussions. it is. quite a challenge to make headway but we believe that there has been some third way on the substance of those discussions that we hope that there is a good point from which the negotiators can proceed with making some progress just speaking more generally when when talking about progress in relations with russia i heard many times the administration officials and members of the obama administration say well we've got russia quote unquote on board to put more pressure on iran in what context in what way do you see russia on board with the united states on iran our american colleagues of an interesting way of describing

the situation they very often turn to take a. as you try to call them in terms of their american positions and others coming over to those positions this is not the case at all this is not the way we see it when we enter into some discussions with the united states and other partners in various situations will try to find a common position so sometimes they move towards us sometimes it's a compromise where we have to do to come together midway this is the way we we sort of find a compromise we are prepared to continue working together within the format of the six even though we make no secret of the fact that we think that some of the things which are being done by some members of the six a counter productive because in addition to security council sanctions they piled up all sorts of unilateral sanctions which we believe are not necessary and needed as a mother of principle because once we agree to work together once we develop

a certain system based on security council resolutions to add anything on top of that is sort of the wrong thing to do in our view this is creating some humanitarian problems in iran which should not be there. it's creating some bad blood in the talks with iran which which is not really necessary if they end i mean the u.s. and israel together or separately were about to make that decision strike iran is there anything that could stop them you know i hope common sense and good reason will stop them because this will be the worst thing to do well first of all of the opportunities for for dialogue are there nobody nor member of the six including the united states maintains that the that the iranians have already made the political decision to develop a nuclear weapon they they accept they say that as far as they know the iranians have not yet made that decision since this decision has not yet been made even

according to them certainly there is room for. for diplomatic discussions for diplomacy etc etc a military strike. would certainly make north for the talks with iran possible so every opportunity for political discussions will be lost i agree with those who believe that in fact that would give a great push to those in iran if that strike were to happen who might be advocating a building a nuclear bomb so that would be in a rational then generous step to say nothing of the regional questions of a conflict with iran because now we are facing instability in the region spreading from mali libya in the north west africa and all the way to iraq speaking of mali how do you assess france's military operation there i believe that the extremists in the north made a pretty bad miscalculation they got carried away and they decided to make

a military move to the south heading towards the capital bamako then the government of mali a request of the french to send in the troops on that it and where we understood were not generations because. of international law it was completely clean clear a request of the government because of a clear threat to its security and the like integrity of the country so we supported that in our discussions in the security council and basically everything that which is happening and now the african troops are moved into in support of the french is within the sort of within the context of the resolution of the security council i should say that we do have a little faces but sometimes quite a few more as discussions in the security council this is not one of those situations this is a situation where people understand the dangers and also have a very frank exchange of views about what needs to be done in order to

avoid putting the united nations in. overly precarious or dangerous situation what effect did the arab spring have on the situation that's unfolding in mali right now one question of spring was the dramatic events in libya. we're in the course of the crisis of course lots of weapons were brought into libya and there was a lot of there were lots of weapons of as it is but still many more weapons were brought into libya during the recent hearings which then secretary of state clinton had in the house of representatives one of the congressman said that they had information that qatar with a wink and nod as he put it from the united states brought in twenty thousand tons of weapons into libya and you know twenty thousand tons you can arm is small terrorist army and so on of course this is exactly what has happened in mali definitely we see a spillover from the libyan crisis to to

a neighboring country and most likely the spillover has affected other places as well for instance it may well be there are many indications to that effect that the terrorist attack in the in the in the jury had something to do i mean close to the libyan border also had some sort of libyan connection in terms of people maybe weapons terrorists emanating from libya participating in that attack the u.s. now insists that their support for the syrian opposition is non-lethal could it be that the allies of the united states are supporting are providing more weapons at the wink and nod of the world this is definitely the case i'm in the middle of the united states chose to stay clean of the bad guys at some point of the crisis the did realize it seems that things going very wrong you know that

various terrorist groups were coming in the radical islamists where we were active . there so they were beginning to realize maybe before some of our other western colleagues that things were making a very dangerous turn and that the end original scenario they had in mind that it would take just a couple of months to topple the assad regime and then sort of democracy will triumph was completely unrealistic and had nothing to do with the with the actual situation on the ground but i mean do notice this is an extremely powerful country definitely with a lot of interest influence on for example such a country as qatar which is reportedly the main source of weapons and support for for armed opposition so if the united states were to want to be a logical and really take a stand they certainly. could could make it clear to those who supply weapons to to to syrian opposition groups so the fact they simply say that they

themselves are not doing that does not does not really absolve them completely from responsibility of what is happening there in terms of activity on the position groups you said that at some point u.s. officials started started to realize that i think that that is the sense that a lot of people are getting because the administration the obama administration seems to be a lot more cautious talking about syria now as opposed to a year ago for example they talk about how complex the situation is on the ground have you noticed that change yes yes this is what i'm seeing this this changes is a clear and this change is clear here in our informal discussions in the security council clearly we know one could feel that. their understanding of the situation has become much closer to our understanding of the complexity of. what is going on there so this is what i think makes it important to continue dialogue in

that format but there is one disconcerting thing among other things. there is a lot of talk about chemical weapons in syria which is which is a valid concern and we have also talked very seriously with the syrian government and they have given us all sorts of assurances that the as they put it if there are chemical weapons in syria they do not intend to use those weapons but to our liking there is too much talk about that in sort of in the threatening context that should something happen then you know all sorts of things will get done so sometimes it does give us an impression that somebody is looking for a pretext for military intervention to say nothing of the fact that this kind of narrative we fear might provide incentive for the opposition to do something extremely dangerous with chemical weapons what kind of an interference what kind of an international effort would russia support well no no i think what the news is

more diplomatic support we were the only ones who are trying to work in both with the government and the opposition to bring them to the table to try to form that transitional body which is referred to in the in the geneva document now. our partners keep saying that yes years the geneva document indeed this is the only rational. document point of departure which is there on the table in order to try to arrange a political dialogue between the government on the opposition why were you reluctant than because because you're not there was this document i suppose they still were clinging to their idea of toppling the government and the opposition was was not prepared to go into dialogue with the government our western partners made a mistake and clear all of. the very bad signal when they. sort of recognized this newly formed in the national coalition on the basis of

a platform which rejected any dialogue with the government which go. for the destruction of government structures but on the basis of that but from the they did they did recognize them however recently there has been a very interesting and important development potentially a very important development and this is the statement by the leader of the coalition about which initially were very skeptical and still it has many problems of this coalition it does not have much of a unity within itself it has some contradictions with other opposition groups but still of the air we have to take it as a fact and the leader of that opposition mr gottlieb recently made a statement which attracted a lot of attention saying that he is prepared to enter into dialogue with the government here gave some preconditions for that but it's good was crucially important for the first time from an important member of the opposition. this statement was delivered so we think that what the international community should do

now is to encourage this kind of attitude and of course this statement came after a statement which it was made by president assad early january i think which was criticized by many because it was not going far enough because it was too tough and sort of etc maybe much of a criticism of that criticism was was was accurate but he did talk about dialogue with the opposition as well so in our view the need of the voter all of the international community working from various directions is to try to grab those threads from ball size and to see if they can meet you know if those two thirds can meet thank you.

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. juggling job. do hack work and get caught when lobbyists money and lawmakers are combined together that's where the problem of corruption comes from. the document's. keep up a smart look. there is also. another well behind that which is how to influence the institutions steer clear of provocations don't answer any question. came into the office and found banners hanging around the office and lots of strange faces around someone and said what's what's happening will somebody please tell me what's going

on and they said oh we've come to occupy your building. possibly they want to do a confrontation possibly they wanted me to ring up the police to have the police come in through the mail but it didn't seem to be a good idea to. learn the european way with brussels business. in the uk kristie it's one person one fault in brussels baseness it's one euro one fault.