poisonous politics the u.s. claims damascus has used chemical weapons that an intervention is possible but it mitts the proof is far from solid. polls close in iceland's parliamentary elections that euro skeptics are expected it to win at the ballot box prompting the island of state to distance itself from the blighted euro zone. and too many views not enough news a recent study shows u.s. cable channels are suffering a ratings slump as the audience is repelled by opinion and dominated reporting.

and broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r t i'm john thomas glad to have you with us. now the u.s. has claimed there's growing evidence of poison gas was used by and saw its forces in syria and while washington admits the proof is not strong enough to provoke an immediate response president obama did reiterate the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer or. brings us more from new york 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 serious 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 hardly 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 say many 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 and biological contam. minutes however u.k. military scientists reportedly said the soil contained 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 because of the experience of foreign intervention into iraq now we all know that britain france 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 damascus says organists 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 opposition groups in the government are pointing fingers

at one another and you have the u.s. and its western allies of presenting this harsh rhetoric of the use of chemical weapons by the syrian government but they don't have all the full facts in place. historian joe horn says that speculation from a london and washington about weapons of mass destructions is all too familiar and should be taken with a pinch of salt it's deja vu all over again we all 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 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 laboratories of london and in washington was there or was there the possibility of contamination or foul play or hanky panky with these samples and how can you show that the regime

rather than the rebels actually use these alleged chemical weapons and since we already know 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 who is actually collaborating with the rebels want these chemical weapons so as to provide a rationale for intervention by london and washington these are difficult questions that must be answered on our website we've asked you for your thoughts on the latest developments concerning syria let's have a look at how your opinions have stacked up a so far right now the vast majority of you see the chemical weapons allegations as part of a western. in black ops a program preparing the public for in eventual in vision now a fifth are of the opinion that rebels orchestrated the whole situation to provoke a foreign intervention in the country now as little as seven percent this little

blue sliver there actually believe assad's forces behind the alleged poison gas attack and the red line has been crossed just five per cent of you dismiss the development as having no bearing on the course of the conflict whatsoever course you can head to our to dot com to make your voice heard alternatively you can comment on any part of our coverage of the syrian crisis there. used today. again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. operations throughout the day. in iceland ballots are being counted in the general election as voters hope the next government will sustain the country's economic revival following the crisis of

two thousand and eight the island state quickly got back on its feet as reykjavik allowed banks to fail in order to safeguard the public from the burden of a bailout ever since iceland has been making an impressive comeback maintaining growth natasha shiny at sky has more on the financial success story iceland has seen it all its banks crashed its government resigned its currency devaluated and its businesses all sizes have collapsed and then a volcano erupted grounding planes all over europe and making the island nation a headliner for weeks on end but that was years ago while today thanks to timely precise policies of the help 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 bank's 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 the borel war 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 iceland allowed its banks to collapse under their own weight technically bankrupt the island nation managed to get an impressive job of turning its economy around its banking 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 that's history it boasts of the lowest jobless

rate in europe less than five percent now the euro zone's the 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. now despite the rapid recovery after the economic meltdown people are turning their backs on the ruling coalition polls indicate that they are likely to cast their vote for the more euro skeptic opposition now during the two thousand and eight and king crisis when iceland's economy was on the brink of collapse the e.u. deemed seemed like a safe haven the parliament voted in favor of joining the e.u. and the island nation applied for membership but since then the eurozone has been down in a great deal of trouble itself and now i feel that they're better off outside the bloc that is especially so since they already enjoyed free trade agreements and are part of the travel area dr stephen a k firming in the university of birmingham city

university believes independence from the e.u. is only helping iceland to recover. iceland does have is the fact that it's in relative terms on the edge of the world it's in the it's an isolated nation. and indeed is an island so it's effectively. country it's just fingers up but the rest the world and so we're not giving your your money back what can you do short of invading iceland which was never on the agenda it has been up to sort of to look to its own sort of look after itself if you like for other european economies i don't know such as you i mean i heard you mention ireland portugal they're much more interlinked into europe iceland is not and so what he's been able to do is to sort of concentrate on reinventing the sort of things it's good at which it's as i say it's indigenous industries there was talk about joining the e.u. but i think that that's out of the question that they realize that this is their best strachan for recovery is remain isolated or to sort of to be independent as it

were europe does not offer salvation. and the later in the program we'll be reporting on the saga of ukraine's jailed former prime minister. the news is not good for you who has just been denied a pardon and on top of that she is now facing life in jail as a suspect in a murder case that's after a break. my ski theatre i made a second to be over the money in stevia to which is a cultural contemporary i want to logically serve the auditorium so joining me to almost on i would see i made the second as we bring you the glitz the glamour and the best of the best in the performing arts trying to get at marines to.

the international and in the very heart of moscow. and back from live in moscow this is r.t. good to have you with us now cable news networks in the u.s.

are seeing a startling drop in their ratings and that's according to a new study by the pew research center which says some of america's biggest outlets are becoming increasingly opinionated and of the reporting of hard facts with more analysis and commentary is causing viewers to switch off. you can have commentary. shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that all media are 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 the media report says nearly one third 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 is here to talk about this thank you so much for joining me q what is your personal the teen and why is the viewership down do you agree with that. totally i mean you have people who are not getting full news right now they're doing 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 and 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 just any opinion but opinion about a lot of nonsense and i don't want to ask. about the percentage of actual reporting

that they do for 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 and then that day out live coverage every day and then there was this rape case the two young men sixteen year old awful thing right again follow ups live coverage day and day out why did they pick these stories to follow up on with the arias case it's obvious because you have four young woman dead boyfriend who had kind of a shady past i mean it's 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 young girl raped and so this sets off a lot of emotional forces but to. cover this day in day out without giving any 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 powers a lot of depth in that story i was actually more worried about what was left out but for example what i was wondering about why wouldn't they pick for example the guantanamo hunger strike to follow up on it was it because the story didn't have the words sex and rape an act. 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 always been that kind of an issue so this difficult 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 in taking guards hostage so the breaking news is strike three so it's now i mean there's no coverage in the mainstream media outlets so it's just not

anything they want to touch unfortunately thank you thank you that's a camper sank you thank you very much well it's difficult to conclude what comes first here financial considerations editors personal preferences or the sense among executives of what viewers want but if you believe this study and their statistics whatever they're doing has to change because they're losing viewers in washington i'm going to check out. from paris where the law despite tough economic times the former french president still managed to shower the u.s. leader with extravagant to gifts although he couldn't actually accept them the president obama received more than forty thousand dollars worth of presents in the two thousand and eleven from nicolas sarkozy including a designer golf bag and a high end crystal table lamps the full list of lavish gifts is on our website plus . fearing they will also suffer the same fate as cyprus or greet the thousands of slovenians gather in the capital for

a massive anti austerity protest more details and pictures online at r.t. dot com. two weeks after the us blacklisted a group of russians the officials in question have spoken publicly for the first time to deny the allegations against them washington accuses the eighteen people on the list of being responsible for the death of lawyer sergey magnitsky in police custody more than three years ago r t s at medina question of what has the story. they say that the probably creation 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 a drop to the beast 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 off 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 of ants sixteen of these officials are directly responsible for the death of. the game of new ski worked as an order to an accountant at hermitage capital management and was the main suspect in a major tax evasion. keast 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 morse 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. u.s. magnitsky list was published russia award 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 responded with the same list with the same number offer 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 there are reports these lists are only you're sure it's version of the list and that there are extended versions off the list so that both countries presides and reportedly a u.s. extended version of the list even includes some greedy high level top russian government officials. u.s. officials claim it that russia's security services wiretapped one of the boston bombing suspects as early as two thousand and eleven conversations reportedly involved one of the sudden they have brothers talking about jihad with his mother

critics say that this information should have been released earlier however new york university professor stephen cohen says it wasn't a lack of intelligence that prevented the f.b.i. from taking action before tragedy struck but if you warnings were received from the russian intelligence services and not only about. one of the brothers of the older brother who died in boston but about the mother and there seemed to have been at least three or four messages from the f.s.b. back a russian intelligence services not only to the f.b.i. as initially reported but to the cia one possibility is of course that it was a bureaucratic failure another possibility is that poor relations between moscow and washington devalued the russian record and when i say poor relations i mean particularly the very end putin and crew and atmosphere because once that starts at the highest level in the media in the white house during the congress it spreads to

all american bureaucratic agencies. and you know there's some other world news in brief for you this hour the u.s. military says another three detainees have joined the hunger strike at the notorious want on a mobile a detention center this brings the total number of protesting inmates to one hundred out of the one hundred sixty six held there the strike started eighty two days ago over allegations of abuse and in criminate detention without charge it also coincides with the obama administration's recent decision to keep the facility open despite campaign promises to close the side. and you suspect has been arrested in the case of the poisoned letters that were sent to president obama and to two other u.s. officials last week martial arts trainer everett dutschke was taken into custody following a search of his home in mississippi earlier this week all charges were dropped against another man kevin curtis who had been detained in connection with the case

it's been suggested that curtis was framed by dutch guy due to an ongoing feud between the two men. and it looks alike of incarcerated former ukrainian prime minister will not be leaving prison and time soon that's after yulia timoshenko was denied a pardon by a presidential commission and on top of her current seven year term for abuse of power she is facing a life in prison earlier team a shango was charged in connection with a murder case dating back to the one nine hundred ninety s. artie's. reports from calf. from being allegedly beaten up by prison guards to seeing her supporters stormed the hospital where she's undergoing treatment ukraine's former prime minister yulia timoshenko has been in a lot of trouble lately she has now 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 you gave a shit about 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 bonds killing was ordered by a man nicknamed pasha it was obvious to us that under pasha he meant by the law as a rank of ukraine's prime minister was that in can 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 a typical ukrainian rollercoaster style twist he's name has recently surfaced again together with tymoshenko. we have proof that lives are in kopi at the first five hundred thousand dollars to the gang which. then another two

point three million dollars were transferred to the assassins by yulia timoshenko commission who is currently on a second trial for alleged attacks evasion and money laundering in the one thousand 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 non-sense. the testimonies of the so-called witnesses and 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 her 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 some were involved in corrupt schemes but as long as they obey the rules of the political game they're not prosecuted by calling the president and the government illegitimate after the change of power or went beyond the boundaries of a democratic political gain and hence the rules of the game were changed this third case against the 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 enough to press charges before summer the thriller which is the tymoshenko case has been rocking ukraine for almost two years now and all this time supporters of the former prime minister have been thinking thinking of central street all the recent developments in the saga are clearly suggesting they will not be leaving any time so. reporting from here in ukraine. i'll be back with more news in just under thirty minutes time after the

break though we have a more cutting edge in. technology don't go away. the movie world war z z being first. 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 to stick integrity fly out the window to protect the bottom dollar as is tradition and 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 us 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 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 i didn't know they actually started making the movies but that's just my opinion.

hello and welcome to technology update living in our computerized world everything is driven by the push to be both smaller and faster at the same time nowhere is this more evident than with the crim or supercomputers if you like the world's fastest from just a decade ago when even cracked the top five hundred today super computers are actually a part of our everyday lives even if we aren't aware of it for example at places like russia's main media or logical center these powerful machines are put to the test every day to crunch unthinkable amounts of data in order to give us a better glimpse of what weather awaits us they can be used for planning flights more efficiently and for.