boys in politics the u.s. hinting intervention in syria is possible suspecting assad's regime used chemical weapons but struggling to find firm evidence. iceland there is heading to the polls in their second general election since the financial crash of zero eight when the country let its banks fail but later made a stunning turnaround to growth we take a look at success. americans tuning out a new study shows cable news audiences are dropping as analysts say viewers are getting burned out from too many viewers and not enough news. ten pm in moscow tries a good having you with us here on r.t.

our top story while the u.s. is yet to decide whether a red line has been crossed in syria president barack obama is reiterating that the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer in the crisis in claims there is a growing body of evidence the arsenal was deployed by assad forces with some u.s. lawmakers now pushing for direct action in the country archies marine important as the details. u.s. president barack obama was delivering some fierce words in the aftermath of tables comments he indicated that washington will conduct its own independent investigation into syria's alleged use of chemical weapons and a separate probe will be conducted in conjunction with the united nations america's leaders said the world can't stand by and permit the use of chemical weapons obama has previously stated that the use of chemical weapons by damascus would be a game changer in the u.s. position on military intervention into syria is civil war now according to white house press secretary jay carney he has confirmed that military force is one of many options that president obama is currently considering carney said as

a general principle the united states retains the ability to act unilaterally now these revelations of course come just one day after u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel claimed that the u.s. intel that u.s. intelligence officials believe with some degree of varying confidence that the syrian government has used chemical weapons against members of the opposition specifically sarin gas u.s. officials claim the attacks in question took place last month in new york and in the outskirts of damascus however a letter that the white house has sent to members of congress states that washington cannot confirm the origin of the chemical weapons allegedly used acting in lockstep with the u.s. british prime minister david cameron has come forward insisting that his government has limited but growing evidence of the use of chemical weapons by the syrian military according to reports m i six agents operating in syria smuggled soil out of the country to be analyzed for chemical imbalance contaminants however u.k.

military scientists reportedly said the soil contain treece is of some kind of chemical weapon though it could not positively identify the type of weaponized chemical now in an interview with the b.b.c. cameron said he worries that western leaders might fail to act in syria. as of the experience of foreign intervention into iraq now we all know that britain in fact france have been voicing unconditional support for syrian rebels and reportedly providing the opposition with military and financial aid in the meantime the syrian government is now is blaming the opposition for the march attack near aleppo which killed several people and masochists as organised organizations including al qaida have repeatedly threatened to use chemical arms while fighting with the opposition so here you have a scenario where in syria the opposition groups and the government are pointing fingers at one another and you have the u.s. and its western allies presenting this harsh rhetoric of the use of chemical

weapons by the syrian government but they don't have the full facts in place. and u.s. statements on the use of chemical weapons by the assad regime started out with them saying they have varying levels of confidence about it and then moving on to them saying that they can't allow their systematic use in the country will washington is still verifying these claims and as they're doing so they're trying to find evidence in several key places for them is up in aleppo where there was a battle between assad forces and rebels and they were supposedly chemical weapons deployed there but each side is pointing fingers at the other as being responsible for its use and then again in the suburbs of damascus in the town of darius there was also alleged chemical weapons use there well this as one of the commanders of one of the syrian rebel forces the free syrian army is saying that he has his own people infiltrated into syria's military in order to secure any stockpiles of chemical weapons that they have and u.s.

historian gerald horne says all of this in this situation makes for a very murky picture one with a lot of room for doubt and even a lot of room for provocation. it's deja vu all over again we will remember the disaster as an adventurous u.s. and british invasion of iraq in two thousand and three based on allegations of weapons of mass destruction that proved to be faulty of therefore we must ask some very difficult and searching questions for example what was the chain of custody with regard to the samples taken from the vattel field of syria to leopard stories of london and in washington was there was there the possibility of contamination or play or hanky panky with these samples and how can you show that the regime rather than the rebels actually used these alleged chemical weapons and since we already know the syrian divisions within the military is driving the conflict in both syria

and iraq how do we know that some renegade soldier in the syrian military was actually collaborating with the rebels watch these chemical weapons so as to provide a rationale for intervention by london and washington these are difficult questions that must be answered and i'll lie we're asking you what you think is behind the allegations of syria's use of chemical weapons click on r.t. dot com and cast your vote and see how the figures are stacking up this hour so far sixty eight percent say it's nothing but an attempt by countries to start an invasion on the pretext of chemical weapons use twenty percent believe it's the rebels attempt to push for foreign intervention rest of the votes are divided between those who think it won't change anything in the course of the conflict and those who say the red line that was drawn by president barack obama has already been crossed by the assad regime what do you think lie down to r t dot com and cast your vote.

today. these are the. operations to rule the day. iceland is voting for their next parliament to leave the island economy further along its recovery path that's been steadily following since its spectacular meltdown back in two thousand and eight then it allowed its enormously indebted banks to fail saving home depositors though from a burden of a bailout and since the country has been making an impressive comeback or he's natasha has more on this financial success story. iceland has seen it all its banks crashed its government resigned its currency devaluated and its businesses all sizes have co-ops and that of all can over up to grounding planes all over europe making the island nation the headliner for weeks on end but that was years

ago while today thanks to timely precise policies of the health from the international monetary fund it boasts some of the healthiest growth rates in europe one point six percent and it's no small triumph considering that back in two thousand and eight its banks debt was eight times the annual g.d.p. so the people took it into their own hands and negotiated major debt write offs at times it does seem like it's the only country in europe that's got it right take a look at this war to go greece and spain continue to spiral deeper into their excruciating financial mess their current deficit to g.d.p. ratio is just under three percent they have no money and plenty of debt but they borel more to serve their bond obligations back in two thousand and eight i slung the deficit to g.d.p. ratio was twice that of the pigs yes i sell out its banks under their own debt wait

technically bankrupt the island nation managed to get an impressive job of turning its economy around it's going sector return to profitability its businesses restructured their debt and it kept growing and many of their people were able to keep their homes and five years after the most devastating financial meltdown in the history it boasts the lowest jobless rate in europe less than five percent now the euro zone's strongest economy germany has five point four percent so if some think it's iceland that was humiliated the world over they should definitely think again. but polls show many in the country now turning away from the ruling coalition which have led the economy to its steady growth voters have been lured away by the opposition and its euro skepticism during the two thousand and eight banking crisis when iceland's economy was on the brink of a breakdown the e.u. seemed to be a safe haven for all that the parliament voted in favor of joining the bloc in the

island nation applied for membership since then the eurozone has been bogged down in a great deal of its own trouble and more icelanders are feeling it may be better off without joining especially because they already enjoy free trade agreements and are part of the schengen travel area dr stephen mccabe from birmingham city university things i suppose independence from the e.u. is helping it recover well iceland is the fact that it's in road his hands on the edge of the world i mean it's in this with the it's an isolated nation . and indeed is an island and so it's effectively as we say in this country it's stuck it's fingers up at the rest of the world and so we're not giving you your money back home what can you do short of invading iceland which was never on the agenda. it has been able to look to its own sort of look after itself if you like. the european economies such as you and i had you mention ireland portugal them much more into linked into europe iceland is not and so what he's been able to

do is to sort of concentrates on the invents and sort of things it's good at. industries to do is talk about joining the e.u. but i think that that's out of the question that they realize that this is the best strachan for recovery is to remain isolated to sort of the independent as it were europe does not offer salvation. still to come new twists in the ukrainian thriller may soon be coming to light this is the country's former prime minister yulia timoshenko just had her bid for a pardon rejected and now she could be charged with murder this after a short break stay with us. a mavis that going to be money in. which is both a cultural contemporary i don't take no logic piece for you so join me to almost say on our t.v. on may the second as we bring you the glitz the glamour and the best of the best in

the performing arts at marine. technology innovation developments from around russia we. covered. international landlords in the very heart of moscow.

thanks for staying with us thirteen minutes past the hour t.v. news networks in the u.s. seeing a slump with new research poll saying the audiences are turning out in greater numbers the pew study shows viewers are starting to shy away from cable news networks that devote more air time to opinion and partisan analysis than to hard facts and on the ground reporting. has more. it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that all media or opinionated to a certain extent we all are a study by the pew research center gauges the extent to which the three major us channels are opinionated on m.s.m. b. c opinion fills a full eighty five percent of the channel's air time according to this study fox forty five percent c.n.n. about the same the study says since two thousand and seven they have all cut back sharply on the amount of actual reporting on their airwaves what filled the void

was relatively cheap provocative debate the studies suggest that by becoming more and more opinionated the channels have been losing their viewers this annual state of media report says nearly longford of consumers that they surveyed said they have abandoned a news outlet because it no longer gave them what they had counted on either with fewer or less complete stories professor chris chambres is here to talk about this thank you so much for joining me like you what is your personal appeal and why is the viewership down do you agree with that but i agree totally i mean you have people who are not getting full news right now they're getting slower and sensationalism of the news packages that they are getting in the hard news that they're getting the time is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. a lot of media outlets including the large ones like c.n.n. are cutting back and laying off reporters researchers producers closing foreign bureaus around around the world so the supply of hard news is shrinking it's being

replaced with opinion and not any opinion about a lot of nonsense and i don't want to ask you about the percentage of actual reporting that they do three weeks for several weeks in a row c.n.n. and other news channels have been covering this story you know with jodi areas there with the girl who killed her boyfriend i'm going to be and that day out live coverage every day and then there was this rape case of two young men and raped a sixteen year old awful thing right. again follow ups live coverage day and day out why do they pick the stories to follow up on well with the arias case it's obvious you have a beautiful young woman a dead boyfriend who had kind of a shady past i mean it's taylor it's almost a hollywood movie script the other one is the steubenville rape it touches a nerve around the country of two teenage boys and a young girl raped and so this this this sets off a lot of emotional forces but to cover this day in day out without giving

a depth to it i mean it does both stories an injustice and it masquerades as hard news because it really isn't hard news when you're rehashing and turning a lot of a lot of things a lot of opinions basically back that that was a lot of depth in that story i was actually more worried about what was left out but for sandra what i was wondering about why wouldn't they pay for example the guantanamo hunger strike to follow up on it was it because they the story didn't have the words sex and rape in act two it was made on t.v. that spirit of it i mean it it does it doesn't have the word sex in it or something . or a hawk that a whole can people emotionally and it's a very difficult issue politically legally and culturally for the american people to handle went on and was always been that kind of an issue so that is it because there is also it has two strikes against it already i mean and the third strike is that there's no breaking news none of the none of the people at the hunger strikes

have died or maybe rioted and taken some guards hostage so the breaking news is strike three so it's out i mean there's no coverage of it in the mainstream media outlets so it's just not anything they want to touch unfortunately thank you thank you to cameras thank you very much well the step to conclude what comes first here financial considerations editors personal preferences or in the sense among executives of what viewers want but if you build. this study and their statistics whatever they're doing has to change because they're losing viewers in washington. abby martin and comedian lee camp have their own examples of how the us media covers stories and search for better ratings that's coming your way in about ten minutes and available anytime on our website at r t dot com let's take a live look now at some other stories making headlines across the globe and the plane crash in southern afghanistan killing four servicemen and initial reports by the blog didn't stay where it came down but indicated there was no enemy activity detected in the region at the time but the deputy governor of the province claimed

a foreign aircraft crashed in shock joy and there was immediately surrounded by international troops italy's finally named its government after two months of political turmoil following inconclusive election results the coalition cabinet will be formed and led by center left politician enrico letta is composition also including members of silvio berlusconi's party italy's ex pm has confirmed he won't be in the mix but is pushing for senior party members to get top posts. u.s. military says another three detainees have joined the hunger strike in the us one time m o b detention center bringing the total number of inmates protesting to one hundred out of one hundred sixty six held their strike starting eighty one days ago over growing abuse allegations and indefinite detention without charge also coinciding with the obama administration's recent decision to keep the facility open despite election campaign pledges to close the controversial site. russian

officials recently blacklisted by the u.s. have spoken out for the first time since the ban went into force rejecting allegations against them washington accuses people on the list of being linked to the death of lawyer sergey magnitsky in police custody more than three years ago or he's medina coaching of a has more. they say that the publication of this list was a politically motivated decision and that the u.s. side was not objective and making its decisions as it couldn't be possibly aware of all those documents that surround this case as the documents are still in court and never became public and that the magnitsky law was to drop to the beast on political motives and that the law has no legal force and no legal consequences and the country and only represents an additional political pressure on russia now the u.s. magnitsky list was published on the twelfth april and includes eighteen russian officials who are banned from answering the united states and their asses and now according

to the washington's version of the events sixteen of these officials are directly responsible for the death of. the game of new ski worked as an auditor and an accountant at hermitage capital management and was the main suspect in a major tax evasion case and he died in a pretrial detention facility back in two thousand and nine the russian officials opened a legal case over his death however in more in two thousand and thirteen russia's investigative committee dropped to the investigation into the data. as it had determined that no crime had taken place before the. u.s. magnitsky list was published russia warned that the response would be similar and really in accordance with the rules of parity and indeed in the last ten twenty four hours russia we spawn that with the same list with the same number off officials also eighteen american officials there are banned from entering the russian federation however the russian list consists of two parts now the first one

includes those people who are involved in human rights violations and legalising torture at guantanamo detention facility and the second part of this list involves of those people who are responsible for numerous human rights violations. of those russian citizens abroad however they are we poor sad said these lists are only you sure it were not the list and that there are extended versions off the list so that both countries presides and reportedly a us extended first an up the list even includes some gritty high level top russian government officials it's the ukrainian political thriller far from reaching its final chapter this is jailed ex prime minister yulia timoshenko as part of request has been turned down on top of the seven years she's already serving for abuse of power she may now be prosecuted for murder her defense team branded the charges nonsense artie's aleck's airships he has more from here from being allegedly

by prison guards to seeing her supporters stormed the hospital where she's on the growing treatment ukraine's former prime minister yulia timoshenko has been in a lot of trouble lately she has no served eighteen months of a seven year prison term for abuse of power when she signed gas deals with russia in two thousand and nine but this could get a lot worse because of her allegedly to an assassination almost two decades ago in one thousand nine hundred ninety six ukrainian member of parliament. was shot dead in eastern ukraine back then a confession by one of his killers shocked the country. the man who painted for the job mentioned that shared by killing was ordered by a man nicknamed pasha it was obvious to us that under pasha he meant by the laws the rank of ukraine's prime minister. was that him could never face charges for those allegations he spent twelve years behind bars in the united states for tax

evasion and fraud and is now seeking political asylum across the atlantic but in the typical ukrainian rollercoaster style twist he's name has recently surfaced again together with tymoshenko. there should be a thought this that we have ample proof that lives are in kopi the first five hundred thousand dollars to the gang which killed sure. then another two point three million dollars were transferred to the assassins by yulia timoshenko. tymoshenko is currently on a second trial for alleged attacks evasion and money laundering in the one nine hundred ninety s. when she led the united energy systems of ukraine company that could seriously increase her prison term but if any connection to sharon's murder is proved she would remain behind bars for life her lawyers were quick to describe the accusations as nonsense but. the testimonies of the so-called witnesses had nothing concrete they all refer to what they were told by other people who died or were

killed ten to fifteen years ago this is all i've seen that they have against this case was made up by the ruling elite when they understood that the gas case against him is falling apart. but political analysts say that in the case of ukraine's politicians you just can't rule anything out as most of them do have skeletons in their clothes but. almost every politician in ukraine can go on trial some didn't pay tax and some were involved in corrupt schemes but but as long as they obey the rules of the political game they're not prosecuted which is like calling the president and the government illegitimate after the change of power or went beyond the boundaries of a democratic political game and hence the rules of the game were changed which they will use. this third case against a machine code is now in a preliminary stage it is still unclear what kind of evidence investigators have against but they seem confident there is a nice charges before summer the thriller which is the case has been rocking

ukraine for almost two years now and all this time supporters of the former prime minister have been think you think the whole street all the recent developments in this saga are clearly suggesting they will not be leaving any time so. let's see russia reporting from kiev in ukraine. and the protests and media in capital with thousands taking to the streets amid fears that a cyprus or a greek style bailout could be looming. pictures and details on our team. bus. but to some us kids carry to school books pens and even armor this in the wake of increasing reports of gun violence which is seeing more and more students in the u.s. are stocking up on bulletproof uniforms and trying out backpacks lined with bullets take material war on our website. as surely as we promise breaking the set with abby martin stay with us here on r.t. .

the movie world war z z being first zombie which stars brad pitt as one hundred seventy five million dollar budget has been recalled by paramount executives not because this is probably yet another stupid violent zombie movie but because the chinese might get offended according to the wrap dot com china was supposed to take the blame for starting the evil zombie apocalypse this time but china becoming the largest foreign market for american movies made artistic integrity fly out the window to protect the bottom dollar as is tradition in hollywood this is not the first time that there has been pro-choice censorship in hollywood the remake of red dawn which was originally a cold war era a minstrel show against russians was supposed to show a chinese invasion of america this time however they have changed it to north

koreans who can't even defeat the u.s. military in south korea let alone at an away game in the usa the thing that is interesting is not the censorship is the fact that they will censor movies for whoever's got a lot of cash is the big markets won't be offended but countries with small markets will this is a complete prostitute mentality show that love to any guy who's got bills in his palm you know i was always pretty sure there were a lot of prostitutes working in hollywood. you know they actually started making the movies but that's just my opinion. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images go and

seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations are on the day. you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month so food i should try it because you know how fabulous i look i don't. i mean. i know that i'm. really messed up. and we're all really so actually. the worst we're going to know what the. real. what. we're about to do doesn't work until.

i'm abby martin welcome to breaking the set so today i had the rare opportunity to share good news for once to start the show samara saw we listen in political prisoner will and his eight month hunger strike in exchange for an early release from israeli jails esol was first arrested for taking part in military activities against i.d.f. vehicles back in two thousand and two and was sent to twenty six years in prison he was then released as part of a prisoner exchange but was rearrested last july and since august of two thousand and twelve sawa has been protesting his the tension by refusing food and only taking water vitamins and sugars for two hundred and sixty six days.