many question the sudden resignation of pope benedict the sixteenth the shock ways reverberate throughout the catholic world. french forces reclaim the city and we bring your firsthand account from the city after a surprise attack by militants almost spoils french claims of a victorious campaign. and seventeen coal miners die in an underground of methane blast in russia's called me republic the rescue is still looking for one possible survivor. from the new center here in moscow this is with the on line on screen twenty four hours a day the vatican has announced that pope benedict the sixteenth will step down on february twenty eighth citing old age the eighty five year old will become the

first head of the catholic church to resign from the post in nearly six centuries all these people all of the reports now from the pope's home country germany. well it was described by one cardinal as 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 being 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 the certainly being 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 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 but 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 include 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 own and 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 of seconds papal bulldog he was the defender of the doctrine of fair for faith and not 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 nineteen forty since stopped 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. and while

the vatican is mulling replacement of the outgoing pope and to abuse campaign a barber doris's told me that little will change as the catholic church hasn't done anything to bring alleged paedophiles to justice we believe that he uttered words he said there was filth in the priesthood he apologized to the victims but he took no actions he didn't discipline a single church official for hiding enabling children to predators or you know moving them from country to country from diocese to diocese so until he does that nothing has changed and we believe the words were just empty empty promises if the people be protected these predators are promoting it like cardinal law was in boston the scandal was huge and yet cardinal law managed to land in in the vatican on the most powerful committees that exist within the vatican so to the message he we believe he sent was if you were unable shield and protected predators you will

be rewarded and we don't feel that's the right message we feel that he should be taking action we have a bishop in the united states that was convicted of child endangerment and is still being allowed to run a diocese what kind of a message is that to send to the world i would expect more of the same since those that enable and shield and protect continue to be promoted to continue to be given the most powerful positions within the vatican the message is clear if you follow the company line if you keep to secrets if you put the reputation of the church above this if t. of the children then you will be promoted what a terrible message to send many people no longer trust church officials like they did in the past and that's a very sad statement that you can't trust your bishops. we're interested in your thoughts on current issues and we're asking you to vote on our website r.t. dot com and here's what you think about the future of the catholic church after the resignation of pope benedict the sixteenth what we can see on screen almost two

thirds of you believe that the resignation will make virtually no difference as the vatican will be corrupt under any leadership one quarter say that the pope's stepping down will soon be forgotten when his successor takes over and six percent of you see this as a way for the church to move past the scandals and allegations which have played the vatican and we can see there that four percent forecast a six a crisis for the catholic church good to hear from you and the websites r.t. dot com. french and troops have regained control of gal after islam is militants launched 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 recent claims by france that the military campaign is almost complete and as local correspondent gonzalo one chair reports the joint forces are struggling to fully secure the region still occupied by insurgents. the situation in mali is obviously going to

have a gruesome and there are more than enough indications of last friday the country was shaken by the very person terrorist attack in its history according to the witness report it was carried out by a fifteen year old suicide bomber of arab descent the bomber was the only one killed after the dead to me a few hours later responsibility for the attack was claimed by the most 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 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 act. 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 pro-government militia movements that account for a total of two thousand eight hundred operatives but do not support the strategy

chosen by the french in mali and joint forces in fighting the terrorists. we share the same goals but what they did was a really bad service to us all there is not really about the army itself al-qaeda has been operating on mali and territory for a number of years now they have all means and they keep getting more by kidnapping white people for ransom drones pays them to have their citizens returned and then the terrorists have cash to buy weapons if we talk about al-qaeda there's no way the army can fight it because that she it's terrorism in action. 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. i'm ready to go it all lengths i'm raised to give my life right now to save my

family up there in the north because we're all here have families i believe france will still these attacks for a while when the french troops leave they will start all over again because the criminals are still out there hiding them 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 all and we can do it because we grew up in the north we know that your ain 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 parts of land. overall while the jihadists 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 at group. the ongoing morning conflict was among the topics arties going to church can discuss with russia's ambassador to the un vitaly churkin will have the full interview later this hour and it's also available for you anytime on our website r.t. dot com is a quick preview. oh typical spring was the dramatic events in

libya. we're in the course of the crisis of course a lot 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 cut out 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 a believe in 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 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. and that interview coming in coming to you in full in later this hour death of a debt financial woes cause suicide rates to rise sharply in the u.k. a student leaves his final words on a bank statement to son of a worrying trend the deadly impact of money troubles or portal knots is coming up later in the program along with plenty of other reports including we explain why environmentalists in ukraine outraged by the authorities decision to go ahead with a multi-billion dollar gas project the story i'm all right.

will do the. science technology innovation all the least of elements from around russia we've got the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets of canada. the giant corporations are all today. continues now seventeen people have been killed by a methane explosion in a mine in russia's northern komi republic and that's according to the emergency services who also say one person is still missing the blast happened eight hundred meters below the surface while more than two hundred fifty miners were on the ground zero he said in going to show is the story at least two hundred forty two people have been evacuated from the mind immediately after the explosion that is the safety that treated at one point there were several people who were missing looks like most of them have been recovered unfortunately other than that we also know that immediately already a program has been set up in order to help financially the families of those up in

the lost their relatives say in the blast and that's it compensation should be in the amount of about two million mobiles and that is roughly sixty six thousand dollars and really for them to recall as of the last husband seen the gas explosion in the 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 the death toll from. a mine accident over the past year in russia. police in egypt to use water cannons to disperse an anti-government rally from outside the presidential palace the clashes response when several hundred demonstrators marched in cairo to mark two years since the fall of former president hosni mubarak and to increase pressure on the current leadership pro-democracy

protesters are accusing president morsi of betraying the revolution by perpetuating torture kidnapping and political repression several egyptian regions are currently in a state of emergency after deadly clashes erupted across the country during the two year anniversary of the uprising opposition spokesman says that creating a coalition government is the only way to quell the unrest. people are gonna go into the streets they are going on the streets willingly they don't really need any opposition calls for due process because the whole country is in a standstill there's nothing moving forward because there is no real administration at blessing the people's needs and the people demand and the actual anger in the streets so the only solution that i can see and that any sane person can see that the opposition the brotherhood and all the different political factions to be in a court of government that would be the only solution and the only way out because

at that moment this government will take responsibility for any reform that's going to be as one of the happening of the country but the idea of just excluding everybody out of the government post revolution country in a country that's acting that's calling for democracy when there is no real parliament in session that can hold the president or the government accountable to the failures of administering the country and then refusing to have a quality of government that's just a call for chaos suicide rates are soaring in the u.k. with money worries pushing many over the edge can't seem mental health services and aggressive connecting the cited by experts as major factors and preventing the situation of these andrew farmer one mother who lost a child to that dispair. for the last year and a half and thorne has been coming to terms with the tragic death of his son aged just twenty three toby took his own life writing his spinal 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 the shock it wasn't from one that had a history of depression or mental illness or even had come across the thing down or depressed. you know in the last few weeks months of his life if anything he came across as 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 contributing factor to his suicide experts nice a bit enabling u.k. economy is partly to blame for the recent surge in 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 the 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 in 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 a bright and university we have some very very good regulations that protect people against things of plastic debt collection however it appears that it's likely 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. i mean one thing i've learned more about through thought than i ever wanted to know but i've done a lot of reading and rethought and i think strangely complex hopefully. the trend will go down with. andrew farmer from london we have more stories and pictures for you in a website r.t. dot com here's a quick glimpse of what we've lined up there for you at the moment a regular safety drill in a luxury cruise liner went terribly wrong when a lifeboat fell into the sea killing five people we got the details online also.

be sure what you'll be doing tomorrow if not then a u.s. defense giant may be able to help you can now predict your future steps and even behavior just by collecting social network data the full story right now on our website r.t. dot com. with ukraine refusing to pay russian gas giant gazprom the recent seven billion dollar gas bill authorities in kiev are 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. reports. described as the day of ukraine's energy independence when in november last year a key have 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 the third largest in europe. 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 keep for years ukraine has been striving to reduce its relies on imports from 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 eighty dollars per cubic meter of gas instead of the four hundred fifty dollars we're now paying to gasp but if everything is so promising why are people out in force against the shale gas initiative will be the

second sure know if not 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 opposition even proposed a bill prohibiting the exploration and extraction of shale gas with. information on how the gas split between shell chevron and ukrainian companies is class it is still look we are just going to be profitable plus the companies don't care about harmful it will be to the environment but political battles of ecologists are the most concerned with a potential threat from the shale gas programme. it could lead to a full blown catastrophe but whenever they speak out the pro-government media

labels them as agents of gas. usually and different camels to extract more gas from the rocks and so the underground system which provides fresh drinking water is completely destroyed this water is a strategic ecological resource and when one spoil it the area becomes practically non-viable. even in the most optimistic scenario ukraine may see its own shale gas filling its pipes only in a decade from now ecologists insists they're not against shale gas in principle just that the potential environmental impact from its extraction needs to 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. reporting from kiev in ukraine. americans are prepared to tune into the president's big speech with barack obama set to make his state of the union address on tuesday for the first time after his reelection

a bomb that will speak before congress and the nation to share his plan of restoring prosperity for the middle class well let's get some live analysis now from new york based economy max for wolf max the u.s. is about to hear some promises of economic growth is that realistic is there a sort of base for that now in the u.s. well there's certainly a large base of people who have been waiting to hear this record be kind of stronger on that suit so i think there's a large base of people who want to hear that story but a much larger more important group that want to see that promise delivered on and we've been doing a better job our politicians over the last few years talking about the importance of the economy and delivering real improvements in the economy that's what makes this important but also makes the public a little bit skeptical about the disconnect between some of the sort of soaring rhetoric and some of the kind of more sorely unappreciated realities of our economy today and that knowledge is created talking about of course is the middle class it's been described as the thriving middle class but really could it be described is that the moment. i think it's

a bit pessimistic but largely accurate to call it the way i like to call it now which is the artist formerly known as the middle class so what's actually happened is a lot of what it's meant to be middle class in america has been access to affordable higher education college and university ability to retire with some security ability to own a home an ability to have health care and really all four of those pillars of the mass middle class experience that defined post world war two america are either nubile being nibbled away by economic change or and some can't take cases those legs have collapsed for tens of millions of american families and above the really will be stressing his interest in this for the middle class to flourish that's the top of his agenda why is that because they are his voters his supporters as it were all who he deems to be supporters i mean i think there's going to be three reasons we're going to see this focused on one the state of union this time tomorrow night comes right after the inaugural speech the second inauguration which was very light

on the economy and came in for some significant criticism both from allies and usually as well as from foes of the president's he needs to address that to the economy is still the biggest issue in the united states and three the president has a very good track record in many areas and the weakest area and unfortunately for him one of the most important is in terms of delivering the goods as it were economically we are already seeing a weak economy here so it will probably be revised up but it was actually technically negative g.d.p. in the fourth quarter of two thousand and twelve and there's a kind of feeling that at some point promises and good efforts by the president won't get him all that much with his base of supporters unless he can put. in real delivery of improved economic circumstances behind the rhetoric the promises and the successes that the obama administration has had in lots of areas other than the economy and when you say will it be a challenging time perhaps to a speech fighting message to his opponents. you know i think we're going to see the

president try to do something that has been the hallmark of his more successful campaigns which is to go around a congress that fundamentally does not generally want to work with him and try to appeal directly to the american public and get them excited get them bought in on a notion of raising taxes particularly for high income earners government services and making selective cuts particularly to programs that are less likely to be caught and if they are cut to undermine the american middle class where that's defense spending the nuclear arsenal and we may also see some pressure on a minimum wage story here in the united states that has not kept up with as create a situation where the floor keeps falling and that's a real concern for tens of millions of american families ok max great to hear your thoughts thanks very much indeed for joining us live next fraud wolf live in new york an auntie thank you always my pleasure and. americans are preparing what we just talked about the americans going to listen to what obama has to say sorry about that let's look at some other news now in brief from around the world in

a world update at least ten people have reportedly been killed and dozens injured after a car bomb exploded at a crossing on the turkey syrian border explosives were reportedly packed into a car carrying humanitarian aid which of those killed are said to be syrian nationals dozens of ambulances were dispatched to the scene the area has been a focus of the almost two year long battle between syrian rebels and government forces. government opposition in bahrain of launch a new round of reconciliation talks the first such meeting in two years a political crisis profile campaigners according on the government to deal with police brutality and perceived discrimination the more your position is cast doubts on the intentions of the talks saying they are just a bluff to calm the unrest activists say there's too much power concentrated in the hands of the sunni political. also the world update the two women are being killed at a shooting inside a courthouse in the u.s. state of delaware it back into the lobby of the building in far at least five shots

before being killed by police one of the victims is thought to be the estranged wife of the attack and two police officers were also wounded the identity of the suspected shooter remains unknown. also in the world of davis an indian official has resigned following a deadly stampede at a railway station that killed thirty six hindu pilgrims incident reportedly occurred after railway officials announced a last minute change of platform for train departure comes as tens of millions gather on the banks of the ganges river to take a dip marking the religious festival that's held every twelve years. whether to bring up david might not be but with the news team with more news for in about half an hour from now in the meantime katie will be here with the latest business news of the day so stay with us for that if you can.

some countries want oil but that's kid stuff who needs oil when you could secure the world's largest supply of truck sort are located exclusively in sweden and reading sweden for absolutely no logical reason as a possible you say well supreme commander of the swedish armed forces general sphere. and must have watched red dawn too many times because he thinks the russians are a common general durance and declared that if invaded by russia sweden wouldn't be able to last a week against the onslaught therefore sweden must immediately join nato he said that currently it is not quite possible to invade sweden but due to the two thousand and eight war with georgia it is possible for russia to somehow push through established european borders bring their forces up to sweden's gates putting the generals country in danger but guess what according to your own council of the european union georgia started the war so by that logic if the two thousand

and one with georgia is the example of the future then don't kill russian peacekeeping troops and you'll have nothing to worry about but general goran so also made the point the present putin is rearming the russian army hinting at a threat of being heavily armed to defend yourself is a bad scary thing then joining up with nato seems to be pretty hypocritical if the people of sweden want to join nato well that is their choice but they shouldn't be tricked into having their taxpayers pay for their sons to die in afghanistan based on totally bogus arguments that make no sense but that's just my opinion.

i laid out a welcome to business not china has leapfrogged the us to become the world's biggest trading nation bring an end to the us is post war dominance now official figures from both come to some of name poles of could say that china is fifty billion dollars the have now but how does this change china's positions in terms of not trade but political influence as well. document coolmax it's just just fell mcquery security is on this topic. there's a clear correlation between a country's economic strength and its political influence and china's political influence is undoubtedly on the rise particularly in the asia pacific region and it's really trying to assert itself in the south china sea and in the stars set up a little bit of a clash with traditional powers in that space such as america america's had always very big role in terms of security in the asia region so there are just little clashes happening here and there and you think that we could potentially get to

a point in time why china is the biggest economy in the world but yeah on a political scale it's nowhere near as powerful as the u.s. what happens then. i think i mean there's no doubt that china will at some point be the biggest economy in the world it's just a question of when not if but it's political story should draw as we thought economic strain so you know there will always be little gaps but you know i don't see there being a huge huge gap there so you know provided the u.s. allow china to continue to assert its power globally you know it should it should be relatively peaceful rise to china and in terms of growth that it has been phenomenal over these decades but it has slowed down recently do you see a soft patch coming up in the next maybe six months to a year and you think it's the european sovereign debt crisis to blame for that or do you think it's domestic issues that china need to address. i mean in the near

term i the next twelve months or so i think china will grow quite strongly probably around about the eight percent top range you know there's no doubt i think that china's turning growth rate has shifted down from sight what it was you know five or six years ago when it was arguably growing somewhere between ten and fourteen percent is trend growth rate is probably now around about seven to eight so there has been that down shift but you know over the next year or so i think china sea quickly will do quite well on infrastructure spending is picking up the housing market looks like it stabilizing and coming back so you know china should post a pretty healthy growth number in twenty thirty. russia has become the biggest gold by all of the past decade that's according to the i.m.f. data anyway now to speak about why russia is converting its black gold into the traditional gold dust and i've now got to stand up politic

a bit just say i know everybody who goes and lays a say do you tell me i really want to know how much does russia have that it's been going on this spending spree how much is a good rush hour both to the whole world and even china one of the big of buyers of gold over the past decade russia out of five hundred seventy tons of gold to be more vivid for you that march of gold is weighs almost as much as three speeches off live births hidden we. know. we've got it today or yeah now we are put into perspective doesn't that. ok so you know what i'm looking at that but looks like i remembered it looks like rush through some kind of champion or gold. rush is still at the eighth place the number one holder of gold is the u.s. that has eight times more of the yellow metal than russia and then the contras

followed by germany italy france china and switzerland ok so it's a long way off really isn't and it isn't you know i'm just thinking at the moment so can someone early about quantitative easing vicious well stimulus measures really going for it to you know growth of the stagnating khana may get the economy really a very clever move over you know the final paper money. pretty damn straight crazy behavior logic somebody by any and by not really low and you know want they they keep seventy percent on their reserves in gold was russia keeps only nine in the hof percent and bone and big difference very big difference and that's exactly what russia wants to change analysts i've spoken to say that russia now in this gold rush because it wants to hedge against the risks of this and with quantas if it is the buy major economy is so experts explain right it does make sense because

a significant portion of russia's reserves are concentrated in dollars and euros in the world economy and which there is still high volatility 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 and 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. i think tanya to be honest i think it's all furry well i mean buying up gold is a great commodity it's a safe safe haven but in terms of russia with this money not be better spent investing in the economy infrastructure roads so i got your point but no kids are unfortunately the not experts i've spoken to say that until russia wants

a learns to spend money effectively through the economy on all these infrastructure projects and phil graham it's much safer to store this excess of phones in the coffers all right that would tighten our public eye thank you very much indeed for your time today. ok we're going to move on and staying with russia but russia's gas major gas problem is holding off its shopman gas project for at least seven years gas from is struggling to find a new partner to explore the arctic region will concentrate on other projects for the time being anyway. moving on then a russian ban on u.s. beef pork and turkey imports coming into effect this month is likely to last for a long time with us according to russia's consumer safety watchdog anyway the head of the watch dogs of the products fell to show that they were free on the. rack to which is a is

a gross stimulant used to make me to lead it is believed to cause health problems to humans. all right it's in the archives and see what happened as you can see we are looking at declines the russian market is just there so first day of the week ended up in negative territory not a good start there half of cent down for the r.t.s. around a quarter or so for the my sex let's see what we ruble there we did have some gain as though we had m.t.s. telecom as well as. they did gain when i mention that important as you can see there again today is the u.s. dollar but lost out to the common currency as far as the forex world is concerned we get on to europe and see what happened there because it was indeed a mixed day you can see there the footsie london around two tenths of the dax around the same down want to tell you that we've had a good start to the year though if we talk about the european markets then but they have been dragged down there's a big story today actually i want to mention it was to do with novel nordisk there

is a key drug maker and they they had a regulatory approval set backs that really sent a domino effect through the markets today mining stocks were hit by falling commodity prices as well so that was europe we've also got political turmoil in spain as well of course that too taking its toll as well the u.s. markets. ok you can see that we have indeed got declines of the two tenth's down for both the dow jones and the nies that if we talk in yearly terms we're looking at a six week rally for wall street so it's been pretty good so far but this monday or lots of red tones and colors and scars and all sorts of art is a did it for business i'll be back tomorrow but art is not finished with because we've got an interview with rushes. to the un vitaly churkin on the way so don't go anywhere.

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devices you can watch on t.v. any time anyway. i'm very pleased to introduce russia's envoy to the united nations with 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 world 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 sums positive statements on the one side were met by negative statements on the other side this time i understand there has 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 could weigh on the substance of those discussions but we hope that there is a good point from which the negotiators proceed with making some progress just speaking more generally when when talking about progress in with ations 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 don't to take. as you try to quote them in terms of the 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 matter of principle because once we're going 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 u.s. and israel together or separately were about to make the decision to 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 accept they say that as far as they know the radios 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 but a promise etc etc a military strike. would certainly make more 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 building a nuclear bomb so that would be an irrational dangerous 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 all the way to iran 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 requested 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 space apart sometimes quite 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 effects 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 globe 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 they did realize it seems that things going very wrong you know that various terrorist groups were coming in that the radical islamists are where we are 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 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 the activity of 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 the 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 cd 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 there for doing 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 that 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 and which go. for the destruction of government structures but on the basis of that but on the they did they did recognize them however recently there's been a very interesting and important development potentially very important development and this is a 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 recently made a statement which attracted a lot of attention saying that he is prepared to enter into dialogue with the

government he gave some preconditions for that but it's get 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 cetera et cetera 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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