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

three o'clock in the morning here in moscow this is our team from russia i'm sean thomas quite have you with us now the u.s. has clear is growing evidence poison gas was used by a soft forces in syria and while washington admits the proof is not strong enough to provoke an immediate response president obama did it reiterate the use of chemical weapons would be a game changer. 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 yes confirm 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 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 and biological contaminants 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 opt into. 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 as a mascot says 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 point

fingers at one another and you have the u.s. and its allies 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 speculation from london and washington about weapons of mass destruction is all too familiar and people should be skeptical it's deja vu all over again we will remember the disastrous and adventurous so you want us 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 assume very difficult in searching questions for example what was the chain of custody with regard to the samples taken from the battlefield of syria to leopard stories of london and in washington was there 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 that security 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 want these chemical weapons so as to provide a rationale for intervention by london and washington these are difficult questions that must be answered. and on our website we have asked for your thoughts on the latest developments concerning syria let's take a look at how your opinions have stacked up so far right now sixty seven percent of you the vast majority of you believe the western black ops are gearing up for a war inside syria then twenty percent of that next group down believe that this is a rebel plot to spark western intervention in the country then just six percent believe that president assad has crossed that red line and then if you look at this

seven percent of this little green sliver right here they say that it's an important and it will actually change nothing in the course of the conflict of 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 as well. more news today. these are the images from the world from the streets of canada. operations throughout the day i. in iceland a 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 the 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. has more on the financial success story. iceland has seen it all its banks crashed its government resigned its currency devaluated and its businesses of all sizes have co-ops and that of all can over up to the grounding planes all over europe are 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 has got it right take

a look at this or to go greece and spain continue to spiral deeper into their 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 more to serve their bond obligations back in two thousand and eight i slid the deficit to g.d.p. ratio was twice that of the pigs yes iceland allowed its banks to collapse under their own debt wait 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 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 something gets iceland that was from elite of the world over they should definitely think again. well despite of rapid recovery after the economic meltdown people are turning their backs on the ruling coalition polls indicated that they are likely to cast their vote for the more euro skeptic opposition now during the two thousand and eight banking crisis when iceland's economy was on the brink of a collapse the e.u. seemed like a safe haven then parliament voted in favor of it joining a v e u and the island nation applying for membership since then the eurozone has been bogged down in a great deal of trouble itself and now icelanders feel that they're better off outside the bloc this is especially so since they already enjoy free trade agreements and are part of the travel area dr stephen mccabe from birmingham city university believes independence from the e.u. is only helping iceland to cover. but iceland is the fact that it's.

on the edge of the world i mean it's in the it's an isolated nation. and indeed is an island so it's effectively as we say in this country it's stuck it's fingers up but the rest of the world and so we're not giving your your money back home 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. other european economies i don't know such as i mean i heard you mention ireland portugal they're much more into linked 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. industries talk about joining the e.u. but i think that that's out of the question that they realize that they're sort of their best strachan for recovery is to remain isolated or to sort of to be independent as it were europe does not offer salvation. and later in the program

we'll be reporting on the saga of ukraine's that jailed former prime minister the news is not good for yulia timoshenko who has just been denied a pardon and on top of that she is now facing a life in jail after being charged in connection to a murder case after the break on r t. m a the second. which is a cultural contemporary i mean take your logic to the auditorium so joining me tonight on i would see i made the second as we bring you the glitz the glamour and that's the best in the performing arts right here.

international and in the very heart of moscow. back cable news networks in the us are seeing a startling drop in the ratings that's according to a pew study a new study by the pew research center which has 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. has commentary. 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 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 present chris chambers 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 paul i agree i agree totally i mean you have people who are not getting full news right now they're getting flow 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 you 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 every day and 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 again follow ups live coverage day and day out why do they pick these stories to follow up on with the. case it's obvious because of 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 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 churning a lot of

a lot of things a lot of opinions basically but that was 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 because there 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 hawk that a whole can people emotionally and it's a very difficult issue politically legally and culturally for the american people. the handle went on and was always been that kind of an issue so that is it because there is turing also 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 some guards hostage so the breaking news is strike three so it's now 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 converse thinking 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 with love despite tough economic times the former french president still managed to shower the u.s. leader with extravagant gifts in two thousand and eleven nicolas sarkozy sent over forty thousand dollars worth of presents to president barack obama including a designer golf bag and a high end crystal table lamps the full list of lavish gifts is on our website plus . fearing that they will also suffer the same fate as cyprus or greece of thousands of civilians that gather in the capital for a massive anti austerity protest more details and pictures online of r.t. dot com. two weeks after the u.s.

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 because you know it has a story. they say that the publication of this list was a politically motivated decision and that the u.s. side was not objective in making its decisions as it couldn't be possibly aware of fall those documents that surround this case as the documents are still in court and never became public and that the mug musical law was a 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 hour washington's version avi of these officials are directly responsible for the death of need ski so gimmicky 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 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 us us magness kill list was published russia warned that the response would be similar and really in accordance with the rules of parity and indeed in less than twenty four hours russia responded 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 legalizing torture at guantanamo detention facility and the second part of this list involves those people who are responsible for numerous human rights violations of those russian. citizens abroad however there we poor sad said these lists are only you're sure it's worse or not the list and that there are extended versions off the list so that both countries presides and reportedly a u.s. extended first not the list even includes some pretty high level top russian government officials u.s. officials callender that russian security services wiretapped one of the boston bombing suspects as early as two thousand and eleven the conversations reportedly involved one of the top and they have brothers talking about jihad with his mother critics say that information should have been released earlier however new york university professor steven cohen says it was not

a lack of integrity vented of 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. that you 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 report and when i say poor relations i mean particularly we are very anti putin and he crooned atmosphere because once that starts at the highest level in the media in the white house during a congress it spreads to your credit gauges. and now to some other

news in brief taking headlines around the world a new suspect has been arrested in the case of the poison the letters that were sent to president obama and 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 month he pleaded not guilty to child molestation charges in a separate case this week police released kevin curtis another suspect in the poison letters investigation it's been suggested that curtis was framed by dutch guy due to an ongoing feud between the two men. in the u.k. hundreds of protesters have marched outside a royal air force of beit after it started operating unmanned aerial vehicles in afghanistan activists are demanding an immediate end to the program because of the high civilian death toll linked to u.s. drone attacks the ministry of defense has confirmed reports that the first overseas flight of a drone was recently directed from britain the missions are said to be mostly for surveillance although operators have an option of using vehicles weapons.

it looks like in the incarcerated former ukrainian prime minister will not be leaving prison any 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 life in prison earlier to michigan was charged in connection to a murder case dating back to the ninety's artie's alexy are just the reports from kiev. from being allegedly beaten up 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 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 me

shit a brain 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 share buttons killing was ordered by a man nicknamed pasha it was obvious to us that under pasha he meant by the laws 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. yes we have proof that the first five hundred thousand dollars to the dying which. then another two point three million dollars were transferred to the assassins by yulia tymoshenko to moscow 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 because. 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 that. 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 to go went beyond the boundaries of a democratic political gain and the rules of the game were changed. this third case against a machine who 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 case has been working ukraine for almost two years now and all this time supporters of the former prime minister have been thinking thing the essential street all the recent developments in the saga are clearly suggesting they will not believing anytime soon. reporting from kiev in ukraine and after the break. kaiser tells us why some hospitals in the united states could be interested in making mistakes which can cost patients their lives stay with us.

i am no this is not a fifty's beside fi movie slogan it is trying to find out what they investigated how alina finally texture produced this type of quote beef has become very widespread throughout fast food restaurants and supermarkets in the usa and has led to its south dakota based manufacturer posting profits in the hundreds of millions of dollars but so what's wrong with processed before you might ask well the reporting showed that ammonia and other rough chemicals were doused on to the meat to kill bacteria and make it safe. although this product is for some reason legal the film's about to create public backlash and many companies gave up ordering and

then mysteriously and finally took should be. ok well the mainstream media for once actually did something valuable for society and what did they get in return. yeah the pick slime crew decided to sue a.b.c. news and forced them not to divulge their company secrets as well as punish them for defamation against their product which led to profit losses and guess what they won the lawsuit well the framing products that on mass could destroy the health of millions of americans is no blasphemy in my book but that's just my opinion. you in. the. skies are welcome to report never go to the hospital for a simple call and ask if. you could be a capitalist super hero about whom iran would write trashy novels but the fact is

that accidental hysterectomy isn't unexpected heart transplants are the stuff of the new industrial revolution. and tag where is daddy's pig because they took my kidney when they meant to take my colon i asked. so tell me marc the artist taxi driver has been on a rampage pushing the pig across london all the way to the trough at ten downing street and this is in protest of the privatisation of the n.h.s. here's mark with his own reasons for doing this. stuff in my were finished.