the new u.s. defense chief sponsor raul on capitol hill with some republicans worry chuck hagel foreign policies may be too soft for their liking. forcing that eight year old girl to speed at one hundred kilometers an hour on a snowy road the russian capital of course anger in the online community with the latest viral video showcasing extreme examples of russian driving. it to me reaches an economic and political dead end as the country's crucial general election delivers no clear winner with the population of massively rejecting austerity policies. welcome to all to you live from moscow it's midday in the russian capital. capitol

hill's been shaken by a major bipartisan clash over the need to fend secretary chuck hagel was an hourly approved by the senate after coming under fire from fellow republicans for past criticism of the iraq war on the jewish lobby with some believing he could also be too soft on iran but president obama firmly believes he's the right man for the job is gone she can reports chuck hagel was confirmed by the senate fifty eight votes for forty one vote against a narrow vote as you can see but he can finally leave all that apologizing and repenting behind and he had to do a lot of that to get the job shopping has been working very hard to tailor his views so as to please congress as a senator chuck hagel allowed himself to oppose the surge in iraq to criticize israel's policies to oppose seeing war when they want as an option but as the president's nominee for the defense secretary position he backtracked on much of what he had said before and did it. as as even his supporters noted in

a rather clumsy way but in a way that showed how much he wanted the job and the whole confirmation process including the attack campaign against him including the filibuster ten days ago showed how intolerant the u.s. congress is of alternative thought on foreign policy ten days ago the senators knew quite well that chuck hagel would eventually be confirmed but they chose to block the vote as many say just to make a point president obama certainly knew that chuck hagel confirmation process would not go as smoothly as say john kerry's but he nominated him anyway it looks like president obama too wanted to make a point this is his last term he doesn't have to think about getting reelected and it is a good time for him to make a point by the end of his first term the degree of war mongering in washington has escalated and we should the point where even the president said there's too much work talking going on now mandating chuck hagel could be his way of bringing it down a notch the president is also quite aware of the general war fatigue in the country

but the u.s. congress doesn't seem to have that same war fatigue as chuck hagel confirmation hearing showed quite to the contrary never too tired for war it seems one more thing it thing important to point out here chuck hagel as defense secretary lew not be in a position to generate policies is there to fulfill the president's policies probably his main job will be managing the budget the biggest military budget in the walls and figuring out where to make cuts but most of the questions senators asked during his confirmation hearing were about policies which is really not going to be in his field of work anyway will foreign policy expert thinks the republican outcry over hayden's nomination has moved to do with the policy. showed was. willing to stick with the goal. judge someone by who's the enemies are then i think this was a step back from just sort of confrontational policies that the u.s. has followed over the past ten twelve years the republicans are trying to do two

things one is they were destroying as many roadblocks as they could against obama and it's quite clear the republican party has made a decision that they're going to. basically put their bodies on the railroad tracks and and jam up the works as much as possible this was an opportunity to do that but i think also it was a way to try to intimidate both. and the administration around the question of iran and around the question of israel so you know it was it was more public theater but a lot of politics the united states is public theater so i think that was the goal now driving on russia's roads can be notoriously difficult and at times a treacherous tossed but it's a much an if there were children behind the wheel. go to at least one hundred your mother is filming here in. an eight year old drive in

a car my friend nice to know what have fainted and she saw that. posted on social networks. now you didn't miss here that's an eight year old girl driving an audi a one hundred kilometers per hour if the reckless decision to let her do that wasn't enough then in the order you heard it there you can hear the father encouraging her to hit the gas pedal to go faster her parents said they posted the video online to show off their daughter's driving skills it quickly got tens of thousands of hits on you tube and a hell storm of criticism from outraged web users the couple then decided to get rid of their accounts on social networks after police got involved and started an investigation into the surprising case. and there is more fed up with rude drivers who refuse to give way a bus driver called alexy has developed a very uncompromising response now if any car gets in his way he immediately punishes the offender by ramming them from behind here are just some of the

examples of the brutal justice from his dashboard camera this by having already racked up more than one hundred traffic accidents the man has amazingly managed to keep his job these are just a couple of strange stories from russia's road for more bizarre incident he kind of calls a visit our website at r.t. got caught. now italy finds itself in a stalemate after an inconclusive general election left the country with no clear political leadership voters overwhelmingly rejected austerity policies with more than fifty percent of the electorate voting for parties opposed to financial measures billionaire tycoon and former prime minister silvio berlusconi gain victory in the senate while the center left leader pier luigi bersani one of most seats in the lower house of parliament with no one earning enough votes to govern professor of economics lot of the says italy's political stalemate will have a dire consequences for the country's battered economy. italy is in the critical

need of they've been reformed to reassure the markets and i don't see it in the program that this inner left gave or that degree law addressed so the problem is that they're addressing some parts corruptions and honesty but they're not addressing the konami key issues the way they should be there's going to be clear worry of over default to a partial default and i would have that's why it's something the might scare the markets because italy has two thousand billion euros in day and it's six times bigger than what greece has and the international economy doesn't have the you know the the salvage farms to take care of the problem of this magnitude. now iran and six of the world's leading powers have failed to solve the impasse over the nation's nuclear program more to go she actions are planned as

tehran says it didn't hear any new proposals from international mediators the west offered an easing of sanctions in return for the closure of one of iran's plants talks in kazakhstan it also wanted iran to stop enriching uranium to twenty percent in exchange for the resumption of goal trade on some international banking while many nations including the u.s. are willing to give diplomacy another go israel is running out of patience saying it will use force against iran to stop it from building a bomb however middle east expert at a risk says the main decision makers weren't even present during the talks if we look at the behavior if you look at the offers which were made i understand that the lifting of sanctions but rather having of sanctions i think that the pro israeli riot and the israeli club if i could say in general still has a significant amount of control and leverage on u.s. policy towards iran and five plus one talks and if this trend continues i don't think we could expect much pick. as iran has made it clear that it will not bow

down to talks or to pressures with a gun pointed at its head well i cannot rule out the possibility that the not on the whole government might actually go ahead with a unilateral strike although although that is extremely risky on all levels including how the american public might react to the scenario of israel dragging america into a confrontation i think the fundamental issue to look at the look at sorry is how bold obama could be in confronting benjamin netanyahu and confronting the pro israeli right in congress and as nucular talks continue its ordinary iranians who are bearing the brunt of western imposed sanctions lack of proper medicine and food shortages are affecting thousands of people on a daily basis marina portnoy reports. in an effort to stop tehran's nuclear program western countries have used an arsenal of crippling economic sanctions over the years in the interim america and its allies may have started

a widespread medical crisis for the iranian people hundreds of thousands of iranians with serious illnesses such as cancer diabetes and all three of us can't reportedly receive lifesaving medicines because of international sanctions due to banking restrictions imposed by u.s. and european governments companies and hospitals in iran say they are on able to purchase pharmaceuticals from abroad now according to reports an estimated twenty three thousand iranians with hiv or aids have had their life saving medication restricted and medicine shortages for split since specific blood disorders have allegedly resulted in many deaths already i spoke with an iranian american who recently visited iran bringing his grandmother meds for her diabetes and all through this alex shams told me that the stock of pain relievers he packed was for a hospital the people who are the most vulnerable the people with the most special

kind of cancer or. illnesses they're the ones who right now are feeling the pinch the hospital that i brought medicine back there was a cancer hospital and they're right now it's a beating that they won't have tylenol in a short in a very short period of time but they're asking people to hoard tylenol and bring it back. unfortunately that's how they're doing with tylenol i can't even begin to imagine how their stockpiles of cancer medicine are looking right now the latest round of u.s. and european sanctions have caused iran's currency to plummet and oil revenue to slash which in turn has pushed up inflation critics say western countries have unleashed catastrophic economic warfare against ordinary iranian citizens so far producing all harm and no good they. must destruction. very very blunt instrument of fuse against nations sanctions the way that they are being propagated by the usa by europe and indeed to

a certain degree by the un against iran really very harmful they don't achieve their objectives that penalizing the old you know the person and i think it is totally unethical and immoral that we have to be very very care about what happens which is why i think a retooling and readjustment of the sanctions in this medical area is is critical within a very short time because as this begins to spiral so too then does the black or the cheering many experts warn that if the u.s. continues leaving a path of sanction destruction against iran the circumstance can manifest into a repeat of iraq in the ninety's marina port ny r.t. new york. still to come this hour both control over race control outrage in israel as african women subjected to potentially damaging contraceptive injections often without their consent.

wealthy british. markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to come as a report on. the mission. accreditation three. four charges three arrangements three. three.

free. three blog morning video for your media projects free media. tom.

i. think. you're watching live from moscow. now as the cost of living increases across britain figures show the country's middle class a shrinking widening the division between the rich and the poor and with all starts the measures set to continue millions of people having to accept that the life they once enjoyed is now out of reach. as the story. for

a large part of her life liz hoggard has been tapping away at building a life for herself as a freelance journalist she's been part of britain's middle class clearing credit cards pay their mortgages on time and they thrived during. but then came the bust and with the decline of opportunities there were for so long a middle class perk i didn't get a contract we knew because budgets were being cut and so all those little things you have in place you always live slightly on credit you know you go into interest in anticipation get paid quite soon that got much to low incomes coupled with high living costs staking fears of a shrinking middle in britain is backed up in a report by the resolution foundation think tank it looked into what the future holds the ten million adults in the low to middle income households forecast

another decade of hardship well unfortunately it's a bit of a grim prospect prices have risen faster than earnings for quite some time now and what that means is that people. simmer about perhaps a little more but they can't buy as much with it a stark example of this is housing a couple of decades ago you've had to save for a couple of years maybe three or four years to get a deposit on a house if you're a low to middle income first time buyer at the moment you're looking at about twenty two years so middle class trimmings like foreign holidays meals out and home improvements are on hold for the time being as lives has found out she's having to sell off possessions to pay for centuries like dental treatment there's a few packing up the quotes. so it's quite emotional at times and you have a rush of memory and then you think of them for ten years and probably if there's something really important i can find online that has revolutionized it but i also

think. these books are. my face meant in a way it's really inching exhibition catalogues that i bought back in for not very much money just just a normal price and then of course they become rare as the years go by so in some ways my stocks and shares been sitting on my shelves which i hadn't known about and when you look online and i miss something that was confronted so there is a sense of well at least i can pay for my newspaper also treating that. you know you have to not be in tough economic times it can be hard to keep up appearances it's why schemes like the one run by this store here in the that's a proving so popular bring along a designer clothes need to fix things at the credit which could be in the store. but it was a bit of a further structure i think where the first person to actually combine the dress exchange element with the charity. and introducing the exchange voucher system

rather than buying stock in. that kind of give and take on them as more and more families look for ways to make their money go further the government's being warned that without shared growth britain risks becoming a country of two halves the rich getting richer and the middle classes increasingly losing out meanwhile lives in a generation like a facing up to the reality that the britain's middle class is the next chapter is looking pretty bleak. r.t. london. russia and the u.s. will work together towards the warring sides in the syrian conflict towards dialogue that's according to foreign minister sergei lavrov our newly appointed secretary of state john kerry the top diplomats met for the first time in berlin lavrov and kerry also discussed bilateral relations they agreed to keep trying to resolve differences over child adoption in the u.s.

missile defense shield in europe while america remains reluctant to openly on the syrian rebels washington has been providing the opposition with keen political and normal legal support on his pledge to keep backing the insurgency. now to other news from around the world a fire at an illegal six story market in the indian city of calcutta has killed nineteen people with at least eleven more being taken to hospital it's all the blaze was caused by a short circuit with toxic gases released hampering rescue efforts a police investigation is underway egypt has suspended all hot air balloon flights in the area near locks or when one thousand people died in a crash on tuesday tourists from britain france japan hungary and china were among those killed the hot air balloon exploded in mid-air before falling three hundred meters the pilot survived but is said to be in a critical condition. a recent health scandal in israel is causing outrage among

human rights groups it was revealed last month that authorizes gay female ethiopian migrants birth control injections often without their knowledge or consent now there are warnings of a serious legal backlash as artie's poulos later found out by jim. when i first arrived at the grand transit camp i got pregnant and i gave birth he told me if you don't take the shot we won't give you a ticket so it's exertion but i didn't know that it would prevent pregnancies i didn't know. but more and more israeli women were becoming suspicious like. who runs a youth center in an ethiopian neighborhood in four years only one child was born here and the alarming statistic in a community where family wealth is countered by the number of children and when the figures show that the birth rate among ethiopian women in israel has dropped by fifty percent and all of those are the camel family are hard of all i believe a few of the organizations who were responsible for bringing in the open immigrants

to israel decided to administer a contraceptive to them we don't know who gave the instruction but we do know from what we were told that this treatment began in a failed here. and a continued in israel where every three months immigrant ethiopian woman received a shot of the controversial depôt provera contraceptive drug but now that we said we wouldn't take the shot they said then you can see me great you all get assistance or medical care and if so we wouldn't be able to leave so we were scared we didn't know how things worked in a different country although legal the american food and drug administration has warned that the side effects of this drug could be irreversible you must understand this was not normal contraception we're talking about contraception that has significant medical and mental effects irregular cycles vaginal bleeding osteoporosis alongside mental side effects like depression mood swings wage and more so this is contraception which is not recommended for most women and in fact

most women in israel do not use it but two thirds of ethiopian women have been taking it without being informed that they don't have to and now for the first time an israeli official has admitted or thora teeth have been administering a to them in january this year the director general of the health ministry ordered all gynecologists working for or with the health maintenance organizations not to add new any depôt prevail or prescriptions for women originating from ethiopia or for any other woman for whom there is. concern but they do not fully understand the implications of the treatment critics say it stinks of racism and think. this is wrong that they are don't want poor black children who can see a lot of from the west through an organization both going to kill another country logout and without any given that they're poor they're. very happy.

very proud of that but the legal backlash is beginning and while nervous about coming forward human rights groups are encouraging ethiopian women to sue for damages so far no one's taken responsibility organizations involved in the immigration of ethiopians to israel are all blaming each other their defense is that they offered several different types of contraceptives to ethiopian women and that all of them participated voluntarily in family planning policy r.t. tel aviv. now just a click away for you on our website supporters of syria's president assad scoring points on the cyber battlefield a group known as the syrian electronic army has a twitter feed of france's top news agency and filled it with what they're calling on the buyers to content find out more online plus off reda squad of stormtroopers assault one of ukraine's ministries and to a website for the motives on the pictures that's r.t. dot com. now coming up next here on our abby martin takes on the mainstream

media in breaking the set. speed to language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on our team reporting from the world's top. six of the c.r.p. interviews intriguing stories for you to. see in troy. visit. to see good love or a jury. to build the most sophisticated robot which fortunately doesn't

give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans. this is why you should care only. if you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food. if you know how fabulous. i mean. i know i've seen a really nice. and very solid personally apologize if that. worst super bowl of. my house took a. radio guy and minutes from a click. close to that you've never seen anything like this i'm told.

i mean martin and this is breaking the set so thanks to the supreme court the government was just reissued a free pass to spy on us anytime anyplace that's right today the top just says seven. a case brought by a group of lawyers journalists and organizations who have contested a provision of the foreign intelligence surveillance act or pfizer that let the n.s.a. silently monitor people's e-mails and phone calls and you want to know what the saddest part of all of this is the court wasn't even considering pfizer's constitutionality they were merely determining whether the lawyers should be able to file a lawsuit to challenge it in the first place and it's.