some countries want oil but that's kid stuff who needs oil when you could secure the world's largest supply of trucker darrow so-to located exclusively in sweden and meeting sweden for absolutely no logical reason is a possible you say well supreme commander of the swedish armed forces general severe guru and son 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 that president putin is rearming the russian army hinting at a threat well 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.

my. welcome to business now china has leapfrogged the u.s. to become the world's biggest trading nation bring an end to the u.s. is post war dominance now official figures from both countries the sum of exports and imports of good show that china is fifty billion dollars ahead now but how does this change china's positions in terms of not just trade but political influence as well as what you've done you might call mike a stretch just for mcquery securities on this topic. there is 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 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 asian region so there are just little clashes happening here and there and to think that we could potentially get to a point in time why china is the biggest economy in the wold 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 the china will at some point be the biggest economy in the world it's just a question of when not if but is political strength 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 i have 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 mid-term are 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 turn growth rate has shifted down from what it was say your five or six years ago when it was arguably growing somewhere between ten and fourteen percent this trend growth rate is probably now around about seven to eight so there has been that downshift but you know over the next year or so i think china sickly will do quite well on our infrastructure spending is picking up the housing market looks like you stabilizing and coming back so you know china should post a pretty healthy growth number in twenty thirty. moving on the 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 such an appalling ok we just don't know really the golden lady said 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 it going to rush hour both 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. they 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 that really made it looks like rush through some kind of champion or gold. rushes feel 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 there you know that 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 the stagnating khana may get the economy really a very clever move over you know the final paper money. pretty good actually ok dave a lot of it simply by money and buying out really well and you know what they they keep seventy percent of their reserves in gold was russia keeps only not 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 as if it

is the buy major economy is so experts explain why 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 and on certainty and including 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 tony to be honest i think furry well i mean buying up gold you know it's 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 unfortunately we're not experts i've spoken to say that until russia wants. to spend money effectively through the economy on all these infrastructure projects here and fill them it's much safer to store this excess of fons in the paid coffers all right there with us in 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 shot when that 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 what's going to weigh the head of the watch dogs of the products fail to show that they were free on the. rack to per minute which is a is a gross stimulant used to make meat lead and is believed to cause health problems to humans. it is an autism see what happened as you can see we are looking at declines of the russian mothers does that say first year that we ended up in negative territory not a good start their hope of sent down to the r.d.s. around a quarter of say for the my sex let's see what we were able to we did have some gain as though we had m.t.'s. as well as. they did again what i mentioned that important as you can see that again today is the u.s. dollar but lost out to the common currency as far as the forex world is concerned we'll get onto europe and see what happened there because. it was indeed a mixed day you can see the footsie london around to transfer the docks 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 that are but they happen dragged down there's a big story today actually i want to mention it was to do with novo nordisk is a key drug maker and they they had a regulatory approval set backs that really set 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 is to taking its toll as well. the u.s. markets. ok you can see that we have indeed got declines about two tenths down for both the dow jones and the nies that if we talk in yearly times we're looking at a six week rally for wall street it's been pretty good so far but this monday and lots of red tones and colors and scars and also as well as a did it for business i'll be back tomorrow but artie's not finished with because

we've got an interview with rushes. to the un vitaly churkin on the wise don't go anywhere i'll see you tomorrow. look.

the mission free critic ation st john's court judge is free to make amends three discrete studio type free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects free media. dot com. wealthy british stock. markets. come to find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines two kinds a report. download the

official publication yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television. set not with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. any time anyway. i'm very pleased to introduce russia's envoy to the united nations that 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 some 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 there we believe that there has been some could weigh on the substance of those discussions and 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 iraq our american colleagues of an interesting way of describing the situation they very often turn to take a. as 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 matter 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 the decision to use 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

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 the discussions for diplomacy 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 in

a rational then generous step to say nothing of the original questions of a conflict with iran because now we are facing instability in the region spreading from mali in 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 and they did 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 but 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 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 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 it 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 well 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 that the radical islamists are 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 then 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 this certainly. could could make it clear to those who supply weapons to to to syrian opposition groups or 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 i wonder. groups you said that at some point u.s. officials started started to realize and 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 change is is

a is 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 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 actually support well no no no i think what the seed in use 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 the transitional body which is there for doing in the in the geneva. document now. our partners keep saying that years 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 recognised this newly formed in the national coalition on the basis of a platform which rejected any dialogue with the government which called for the destruction of the government structures but on the basis of that but from the they did they did recognise them however recently there's been a very interesting and important development potentially 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 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 criticize. by many because it was not going far enough because it was too often 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 role of the international community working from various directions is to try to grab those

roles from both sides and to see if they can meet you know if those do meet. is trash to get. but it's also a treasure. it's worth fighting for. and the trap was no way out. except.

my juggling geog. do hack work and get caught when lobbyists money and lawmakers are combined together that's where the problem of

corruption comes from. i don't know the document's. keep up a smart look. there is also. another way behind that which is how to influence these situations steer clear of provocations don't answer any question. came into the office and found banas around the office and lots of strange faces around so i 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 have the police come and threw them out that didn't seem to be a good idea to learn the european way with brussels business. in the uk risky it's one person one for.