chuck hagel narrowly wins u.s. senate approval to become the new defense secretary but his policies draw fire from capitol hill especially among his own fellow republicans. italy upsets the austerity apple cart as voters say no to more cuts but leave parliament in turmoil raising fears the country's political crisis will negatively impact the euro. and how's this for a minor traffic of fat the shocking video posted by a russian comp all of their eight year old daughter driving and dangerous speeds. from our studios in moscow you're watching r t with me and he said no way our top

story this hour chuck hagel is now officially the u.s. defense secretary but only after being narrowly approved by the senate he's been under fire from fellow republicans for his past criticism of the iraq war and the israeli lobby with some believing he could also be too soft on iraq it's also just two days before billions of dollars in budget cuts are scheduled to hit the military can now on the clash on capitol hill. 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 find in louisville all that apologizing and repenting behind and he had to do a lot of that to get the job chuck hagel 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 or to criticize israel's policies to oppose seeing war with iran 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 this 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 policy is there to fulfill the president's policies probably his main job will be managing the budget the biggest military budget in the world 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 foreign policy expert con hallinan thinks the republican outcry over hazel's nomination is more p.r. than politics. what it showed was that on the street as willing to stick with bagel on there saying if you can judge someone by who's enemies are then

i think this was a step back from the 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. in the administration around the question of iran and around the question of israel so you know it was it was more public senator but a lot of politics the united states is public theater so i think that was the goal well another new face in american politics make a difference in syria secretary of state john kerry says washington facing aid to

syrian rebels as anti often fighters wait for arms court from their western backers we report later on. but first there's been no sign of progress following nuclear talks between iran and six world powers tehran faces possibly even more sanctions over allegations its building nuclear weapons something it denies and it's the iranian people suffering most from those measures with a lack of medicine and food the details now from archies marina port not. 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 through this 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 splits 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 freitas 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 that 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 what 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 have weapons of mass destruction. very very blunt instrument of fuse against nations sanctions the way that they're being propagated by the usa by the euro and indeed to a certain degree by the us and against iran really very hopeful they don't achieve their objectives that penalizing the only 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. 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 arena port ny r.t. new york. it is looking for a way out of its election limbo after a hung parliament put europe on tenterhooks and raise fears of press financial turmoil world stock markets mostly rose on wednesday offsetting the jitters they initially suffered now no party has won a parliamentary majority the center left group secure and narrow victory in the lower house but felt to win the senate former prime minister silvio berlusconi's center right bloc became the second biggest in the upper chamber the results show

italian voters strongly reject the austerity policies of mario monti's government if the rival parties can't find a way out of their deadlock they'll have to be another election at least stability has ramifications around the world as a columnist not of eco told r.t. . italy is in the critical need of a have been reformed to reassure the markets and i don't see it in the room that the center left gave or the degree addressed so the problem is that. they're addressing some parts corruption and honesty but they're not to address in the economy is the way this should be there's going to be clear. over default to a partial default and i would have to that's why it's something that might this clear the markets because italy has two thousand billion euros in bed and it's six times bigger than what greece has and the international

economy doesn't have the you know bit of the salvage funds to take care of a problem of this magnitude. squeezed in the middle the belt tightening greats whose income is being cut from every direction it's the average earners taking the pain of living cost outstrips workers wages that's coming up in a few minutes. and road aides yes this is an eight year old girl and she's driving at one hundred kilometers an hour in a video that's gone viral and it's gotten russian police worried the details after a break.

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thank you welcome back if you've just joined us you're watching our live from moscow with me and he said now. that reaching sixteen and russia is a big moment for most young stars that's when they can start on the road to getting their driver's license at the age of eighteen some get

a significant head start behind the wheel take a look at this. we're going to go to at least one hundred your mother is filming it . and they can't all drive in a car my friend asked what have fainted and she saw this. contact will posted on social networks. yes you heard correctly that this girl is taking a top and german car and audi up to a hundred kilometers an hour at the ripe old age of eight and in some shockingly bad parental guidance you can actually hear as you heard her father egging her on to put the pedal to the metal on a country road snow surrounding winter roads and encouraging her to go as fast as possible the girl's mom and dad posted this video to the world on social networks a lot of hits thousands of them really but also lots of criticisms they actually ended up deleting this footage and their accounts from networks and police have

started an investigation you do have to be like i said eighteen to drive in russia well this isn't the only video we can share with you today a bus driver whose name is alexei in the moscow region he has taken punishment into his own hands if you get in his way and caught him off the rear end you know he's been in hundreds or so of these minor accidents this driver like probably hundreds of others not very happy about his initiative there he apparently says police are usually on his side and it's a common misconception that a person who runs another car is automatically considered the guilty party in fact he adds that he could cause more serious accidents and lose his license if you were forced to swerve into another lane or oncoming traffic so watch out for the bus driver alexei if you ever make it to the mosque every chick. squeezed middle classes are bearing the brunt of the country struggles to revive the economy a study shows tax hikes are leaving them two hundred eighty pounds

a year worse off and more than half of them have no savings to fall back on it means major lifestyle changes for many as r.t. sarah firth explains. 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 to pay their mortgages on time and they thrived during being 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 go into interest in anticipation get paid quite soon. low incomes coupled with high living costs stoking 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 a middle class trimmings like foreign holidays meals out and home improvements are on hold for the time being as liz has found out she's having to sell off possessions to pay for essential is like dental treatment there's a few packing up the required. so it's quite emotional at

times and you have a rush of memory and then you think for ten years and probably if there's something really important i can find online has revolutionized it but i also think. these books are. my fast meant in a way it's really inching expiration catalogs that i bought back if 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 you see when you look on line and i'm something that was confronted so there is a sense of well at least i can pay for my newspaper and also treating that. you know you have to not be in tough economic times it can be hard to keep up appearances that's why schemes like the one run by the store here in the that's a proving so popular you bring along a designer clothes need to fix things at the credit which could be in the store. but it was a bit of structuring i think where the first person to actually combine the dress

exchange element with the charity element. and introducing the exchange about your 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. on t.v. and online archie's stories covered the world there we have details of america's web weapon it's a computer virus called net and it's aimed at disrupting your wrong nuclear

research but has been waiting in the wings long before tehran was accused of anything find out more at r.t. dot com. plus peeping through the iron curtain as tourists in north korea get to tag their pictures and send tweets from the reclusive country get a glimpse on our web site. news today violence is once again flared up. in these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations rule the day. download to see the creation so choose your life stream quality and enjoy

your favorite. if you're away from your television or it just doesn't sit well with your mobile device so you can watch your t.v. anytime anywhere. near with archie the u.s. could be considering a shift on syria secretary of state john kerry who's on his first european tour has signaled washington's readiness to support the syrian rebels some u.s. officials say washington is now thinking of giving direct assistance to opposition fighters and possibly even training them the syrian national coalition initially rejected attending the international so-called friends of syria meeting in rome on thursday in protest over what it sees as negligible help from western nations the s.n.c. will now attends to see what's on offer the opposition accuses the u.s.

and its allies of a not intervening militarily or by arming the rebels. more world news for you now first to deadly violence in afghanistan were telling about insurgents struck at a police checkpoint in the eastern province of gosney in an area that's seeing heightened militant activity eleven officers were shot dead while they slept six others were also killed hours later a taliban suicide bomber detonated his device after getting underneath a boss carrying army personnel in kabul ten people were injured. a fire at an illegal market in india has claimed at least eighteen lives and left dozens of others wounded it happened in the city. in the eastern city of. most of the victims were porters working in the six or e. building where chemicals and plastics were so i've talked to gases hampered rescue

efforts by hundreds of firefighters who attended the early morning blaze an electrical fault is thought to be to blame. a shooting rampage at a factory in switzerland has reportedly left three people dead including the killer seven others were wounded when the attackers struck during breakfast in a canteen at a wood processing plant near tucson the shooter's identity and motives are not yet know although gun ownership is high in switzerland shooting crimes are very low. immigrants often have to meet acceptance criteria but newsreel it's been revealed some women have been forced to take a dangerous contraceptive so that they don't become pregnant what's more many of the ethiopian migrants who are of jewish descent were being medicated without their knowledge but the drug known for its hazardous side effects archies falsely or has the story but. when i first arrived at the ground 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 i took the shot 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 alarming statistic in a community where family wealth is counted by the number of children and where national figures show that the birth rate among ethiopian women in israel has dropped by fifty percent and then also the chemical family 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 won't 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 a with the health maintenance organizations not to a new any depôt prevail or prescriptions for women originating from ethiopia or for any other woman for whom there is a. concern that they do not fully understand the implications of the treatment critics say it stinks of racism i think. it is wrong that they don't want poor all black children who can see a lot of from the west through an organisation both going to kill all in other countries and without any given that they're poor their. very have. very proud of that but the legal backlash is beginning and while nervous about coming forward human rights groups are encouraging if european 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 they difference 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. after the break a trip to russia's color peninsula to discover the wonders of the legendary northern lights with the old. there are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives within a year of a diagnosis of hiv over sixty two percent of those patients are diagnosed with aids this is a problem that frankly is substantially preventable it was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about there were really good public health campaigns if people really focused on this problem is.