ukraine scraps preparations for a trade agreement with the e.u. after its parliament rejects a bill which was one of europe's main conditions for the deal. raiding afghan homes and immunity from local laws the controversial demands for u.s. soldiers to remain in afghanistan are wrangled over at a key gathering of tribal elders. plans to launch its own drone program trigger major concerns with activists warning they'll be no guarantee they'll be used for peaceful purposes. live from our studio center in moscow this is r.t. with the twenty four hours a day ukraine has decided to hold preparations for

a trade agreement with the e.u. it comes off of the country's parliament rejected a bill which would have allowed the jailed former prime minister yulia timoshenko to receive medical treatment abroad. ski has more on the tricky relations between kiev and brussels. it is a sharp turn around for ukraine's aspirations to sign the e.u.'s association deal next week in vilnius now the korean government says that it has suspended all preparations for signing this document during the eastern partnership summit mostly as the statement from the government says to nullify any potential economic threats to ukrainian economy if this association deal is to be signed basically this means that ukrainian government believes that the economy is simply not ready for signing this association deal the first vice prime minister of the government to boycott the former energy minister specified that the government is looking to create a three way commission consisting of ukraine russia and the european union to

understand the mechanism of how the craney of the current economy should work should it eventually sign the association deal this turnaround comes after numerous warnings by experts that ukrainian economy would simply not handle going into the european association at the moment because most of its machinery and heavy industry would have simply collapsed simply for the fact that the korean factories are employing different standards than to the european union and they had to be more denies completely which could have cost more than one hundred billion dollars so the ukraine now takes a break just to get over it to think how it could eventually nullify the threats and risks to its economy. crane's opposition has booed parliament's decision to reject an agreement allowing comix to get medical treatment abroad a key requirement for a potential trade deal and the opposition turned even more angry when the government said the talks on that deal was scrapped to u.k.

journalist neil clark believes the idea that joining the e.u. means prosperity for ukraine is nothing but a myth. all the countries that have signed up to e.u. deals their economies have suffered badly and it's the economies that haven't belarus for example that look at it that have done much better so there's a great myth that you know for countries of the x. oceans bloc countries that you've got to join the e.u. or sign trade deals or the e.u. to have prosperity is actual opposite if you want your country to be ruined then join the e.u. or sign a trade deal e.u. is a sinking ship it's the titanic of twenty thirteen and no one in their right sense of the right state of mind what to join a sinking ship or buy a ticket to join a sinking ship so the ukraine's future must lie i think with russia with belarus and kazakhstan in a customs union this is the way ahead for ukraine it would suit the ukrainian economy well ukrainian president viktor eunuch overage said the country will still continue to be on the euro integration path but is it possible for him to have

a foot in both russian and european camps well earlier i discussed this with ati's across. i think on the one hand he's playing political political hardball needs looking at a very cruel political reality he's looking for clarity on compensation for losses that ukraine will encourage that ukraine industry will incur upon entering into some kind of free market relationship with the european union this in particular in relation to gas prices on the one hand and the impact of products and how competitive or competitive ukraine will be. if we're to enter into a relationship with the european union like that that's on the one hand or the other hand which is as a legacy we all know that young was moscow's guy and is much closer to moscow than he is to brussels and i think that they've made it very clearly out of coverage that he wouldn't be allowed to have a foot in both camps and you know russia would would take certain positions and adopt certain positions towards ukraine were they to get into bed with get into bed

with brussels what about the i.m.f. he's in effect told them where to go to the i.m.f. has made demands on coverage that he sees as politically untenable they've asked him to raise utility prices light gas electricity water by forty percent in ukraine on the other hand the i.m.f. approached the new coach with low conditions for the next tranche of cash that they would like to offer ukraine and he's looked at the deal said absolutely no way not under those can not on the conditions that your bring to me it's the ukrainian people themselves what do they make of being part of the e.u. is it really what they want is it perhaps that mythical city where the streets are paved with gold sure sure but i think again we need to remember that ukraine has. two distinct cultural elements to it on the east in the west and i think people on the west and western ukraine will look more closely to the european union and in east ukraine to look towards moscow but having said that i think if you do what's you're not seeing reported in the western press quite a bit is that the millions of ukrainians who emigrated legally and illegally to the european union and wash dishes and work there for years in all sorts of jobs are

now finding it more difficult than ever to get work to keep. work and to send cash back home and i think what you're seeing in ukraine is a realisation that in fact in europe the streets aren't really paved with gold. the draft security deal which would have given u.s. troops immunity to afghan laws might not get signed into law after next year's presidential elections afghan leader hamid karzai said that the local council should also approve that agreement in the parliament now this delay could be problematic for the us who are trying to outline operations in the country after twenty fourteen sixteen thousand american troops will be allowed to stay in afghanistan for at least a decade under this draft deal they'll be supporting the local military and will still be allowed to carry out anti al-qaeda missions the most sensitive issue for the afghan people is the fact that u.s. troops could be allowed to raid local homes under exceptional circumstances the main point is that no afghan court will have authority over america's soldiers

who'd sultanzoy as a candidate in that april afghan presidential election he thinks a deal would have gone against the will of the people i think the afghan president was trying to use this as a personal game the people of afghanistan. are others who are involved in this country that we're tired of or we're tired of bickering and we're also tired of. being playing politics with the lives of people of afghanistan on one hand the president wants to portray himself as a patriot on the other hand he's not able to even take care of corruption a rule of bringing rule of law and good governance that's what the people are suffering from he's trying to distract the people of afghanistan from what he hasn't been able to do to for this country. i mean one has claimed washington has paid one hundred fifty million dollars to middle eastern companies which have funding to regroup in afghanistan and support an internal u.s.

government report has revealed he's going to investigate. the u.s. special inspector general for ganesan reconstruction found out that the pentagon has hired forty three companies with suspected ties to terrorist networks the data comes from the pentagon's own classified investigative reports and commerce department list of terror connected companies now the list of these forty three companies included a road construction firm presumably owned by a leader of the whole colony network the network was blamed for an attack on the u.s. embassy in kabul that killed sixteen people two years ago the u.s. army has carried out a classified investigation and said there was evidence of a direct role of both the company and its owners in the facilitation and operation of the hakani network and that approximately. from one to two million dollars per month flows to the network to finance its activities the inspector general said i've seen the information and it made my hair stand on and he said well not

just his united states government subsidizing. the taliban al qaeda the haqqani network those groups that are trying to shoot and kill our soldiers from these specter general members of congress have heard about billions of dollars simply wasted in of ghana's that now they have evidence suggesting that u.s. taxpayer money goes to finance terrorists or suspected terrorists the same networks that the u.s. is fighting despite these findings the pentagon has resisted permanently blocking the companies from getting more u.s. contracts because his lawyers say they cannot use the evidence against these companies because the evidence is classified especially specter general for afghanistan reconstruction pointed out what he called the absurdity of it he said we can probably attack them via drone on monday and will issue them a contract on tuesday in washington i'm going to check out our team. we spoke to

retired u.s. air force lieutenant colonel karen could tell she says there's one key part of the deal the loya jirga council will never agree to i think that they won't approve it as written number one and i also don't think the parliament which also must approve the deal will approve it as written and of course remember from iraq that was the sticking point in iraq was jurisdiction over abuses in criminal acts conducted by american soldiers in the country itself so that's a huge problem it's a it's a sovereignty it's a clear sovereignty issue and it does galvanize people so i don't believe that the loya jirga or the parliament later will approve that aspect. live here in moscow with the twenty four hours a day still to come this hour our first steps to freedom some of the bailed greenfields activists are reunited with their loved ones on the destiny for the rest of the optic thirty gangs still hangs in the balance our special report on the

oil platform storm in cases just ahead for me. but first the states are on their way to launching their own drone program that's after leading members of the bloc signed an agreement to invest in new unmanned aircraft technology plans are alarming activists who say it's difficult to determine whether the drones would be used only for peaceful purposes. but has this report. well that group has been dubbed drone club and their intention is to develop a new generation of unmanned aircraft over the next ten years now the reason that they're doing it this is that they believe they're being left behind when it comes to drone technology by countries like the united states and israel currently both britain and france do operate drones they use the american built report drone interesting lee enough though germany has said that they are opposed to the use of any kind of weaponized drones and the european defense agency has being quick to

point out the non weaponized uses for drone technology however the use of drones particularly by the united states in countries like pakistan and yemen and the widespread civilian casualties that are being caused well that's left drone technology as a very emotive issue and here in germany the war activists on topic about the decision to develop them here are very very concerned i think that the very nice phrasing that they've tried to say that says for to control human trafficking over that mediterranean airspace and so forth for surveillance purposes i don't see them necessarily helping migrants coming from africa from lampedusa didn't help just to save any of those people so there is no control about these things they can say is being used for humanitarian purposes but actually they could be used for lethal purposes well this comes after a recent u.n. report that was somewhat damning of drone technology in fact referred to them as

being a danger to global security and that by using these type of weapons it encouraged more nations to try and acquire them. spoke to an activist from the german drone campaign is just attended the drone summit conference in washington also rushed back explain to me what is fueling the fears of drone campaign. german drone campaign is against the use of drones for war surveillance and oppression defining what that is needs to be addressed by the international community certainly very many surveillance drones can be weaponized and. using them lethally is integrated very closely with the surveillance capabilities we fear that it will be used to prevent peaceful demonstrations even in europe and certainly in border control could be very lethal it's on the borderline of the war situation if they are ever armed. a mass exodus is bringing christianity in the middle east

to the verge of extinction the continued bloodshed in countries like syria and iraq is causing christians to flee their homes or face. the details on this story coming up in just a few minutes. down in the final. and the rest of it will be. one of.

the pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. christians in the middle east facing increasing sectarian violence for the civil war in syria and instability in egypt and iraq forcing them to flee their homes u.k.'s minister for faith has called on western governments this week to protect christianity from becoming extinct in the countries where mass exodus is taking place reports for many christians in the middle east the arab spring has. wouldn't

treat at best the international society for human life says that for now to if week five acts of religious discrimination in the world today a perpetrated and carried out against christians nowhere is this more acutely felt than in the middle east and north africa if you look at syria for example we tend to say of the total population is christian a third of them have already fled from the civil war that started two years ago and that number continues to grow off to the murder of father best in years nasa last june two thousand and twelve the freights and the persecution of christians escalated so much so that meeting today say the night me facing the questions of syria is the same night me that the questions everyone has been living under since the invasion in two thousand and three. the way oh. i believe it is all systematic and planned foreseen christians to leave in iraq for instance less than two hundred thousand christians remain we do have concerns we do

hope we can stick to our land syria which is the cradle of christianity we also hope that the pope and heads of christian denominations shall call for denouncing violence and adopting dialogue in all this to the see the christian town outside of damascus was attacked by rebels tens of soldiers were killed and many residents fled it's still not clear how many of them have not returned to the village and where in syria they have been displaced earlier i visited the town of homes where syrian soldiers took me to the frontline and showed me the damage the rebels had carried out against a local church one hundred this is the church unfortunately it was not like that before look at this destruction in mass from here the explosions were coming down on people praying and of course people started crying out for help from us because the priest was right here and they were captured here in the church. elsewhere in

egypt to be muslim brotherhood supporters have blamed christians for the armies also of their president mohamed morsy more than eight hundred christian sites were attacked and some thirty two churches razed to the ground while in iraq after the american invasion back in two thousand and three half of the iraqi christian population lived for other middle eastern countries and americans think tank the pew forum says that christian based overestimate and oppression in one hundred and fifty nine countries this is nearly three quarters of all the countries on the face of be a policy on teen television. where we spoke to an international lawyer consultant to the catholic church in the middle east harry gopi and thinks the christians there often fall victims of western policies in the region one of the phenomenon or one of the characteristics one of the symptoms of what is happening today is that by sheer ignorance a lot of the people who are targeting those christian communities across the middle

east north africa think that they are associated to western mission groups or churches and therefore by definition are colonialist in nature hence they bear the brunt of the attacks but of course anybody who knows those communities knows that they are communities with their own identity their own rights and their own indigenous ethnic belonging to the land that has seen the bible on for over two millenia. mind you we have plenty of stories for you on our website including the extraordinary sight of a brand new island off the coast of japan an undersea volcanic eruption has created . us as well as tales of smoke billowing into the air a bird's eye view video is just a click away on r.t. dot com. one of the world's leading all produces is under fire and it's not drilling activity that sparked public outrage this time into

a web site and find out what the british oil giant will have to pay for. pulling those posting critical messages on the company's facebook page. and several more greenpeace activists have just been granted bail by courts in some petersburg bringing the total number to twenty six eleven have already walked free ahead of their trial for hooliganism the others will too once their bail money is posted on reports now from the city. the saga over the greenpeace activists detained for their protest against arctic oil drilling does continue new developments thursday as russia's president vladimir putin weighed in again on the issue reiterating his position now he actually praised the greenpeace group's goals which he called noble but he condemned the environmental group for its tactics on the use of when the platform was being created an emergency situation this could have led to one mistake by operators that. they should not have been distracted

from that work. can be accomplished by any means but at the same time the state should be leading the u.n. secretary general meanwhile ban ki-moon also spoke out on thursday he urged russia for more leniency towards the activist saying that environmentalists also have a key role to play in society now all of this comes as the courts here in st petersburg continue to grant bail to activists as you have. received a bail were released on bail thursday just to bring our viewers up to date thirty of course had been arrested back in september when we in peace activists stormed the gazprom oil rig out in the arctic the russian security forces later stormed their ship the arctic sunrise arresting all thirty those continue to be released a toll now on bail at twenty six people and of course on friday the court here in st petersburg will continue to hear the bail hearing so the story does still

continue there. so more news from across the globe now this around the world update at least four people have been killed and dozens injured after a roof collapse of the construction site of a grocery store in libya's capital riga one firefighter was among the dead as the roof. was searching through the day before so the reports of up to fifty people could still be trapped under the rubble police are investigating what caused the building to collapse and some with this is. they heard explosions. hundreds of protesters in italy through smoke bombs at police who responded with tear gas and brute force scuffles broke out in a square in central rome where people had gathered to protest against a high speed rail link france opponents of the project argue it's a waste of money and would harm the environment the rally was timed to coincide with a meeting between the italian prime minister and french president who's in rome to discuss the plans. for e.u. is considering a generalized guidance to fracking the controversial technology which has been

raising major concerns among environmental experts and activists across the globe let's take a closer look at the practice and its risks well the method involves breaking up rock at least one kilometer below ground opponents say could be grave environmental consequences warning the use of explosives in chemicals contaminated water supplies and pollutes both the ground and the air but advocates of the technique say it will help solve the energy crisis and create more jobs the members are deeply divided on the issue while energy giants are pushing for widespread exploration ortiz boy has been following the resistance of europeans to fracking in their countries. a number of european countries have had large scale anti fracking protests take place recently as sort of the prospect of more drilling has been rolled out across europe but one of the largest anti fracking stories to take place over recent months

happened in other mania where locals actually formed a human chain around an area where u.s. oil giant chevron was given the green light by the remaining in government to begin exploratory drilling now i travelled there to cover the story and i spoke to a lot of the locals there and they are all most of them farmers they live off the fat of the land and for them they were genuinely frightened by the prospect of their groundwater being contaminated their food not being safe to eat they were talking to me about having to safeguard the health for their children as they see it as governments siding with large corporations and not protecting the interests of their citizens who are talking about genuine risks that they see from this technology fracking has been associated with air pollution water contamination water depletion earthquakes and of course climate change oil and gas companies have

spent billions of dollars really selling a story about how fracking is safe and the reality is quite different and i think that's something that anti fracking campaign is an protesters in the u.s. and in europe on no doubt reassured by is that large scale protests and citizens of position to this technology really does work for example france has just held a ban against fracking because of the environmental risks involved. the e.u. is now considering a generalized guidance to shale gas drilling and get to call the policy officer from the watch dog food or more to europe says if a complete ban is impossible it should be as transparent as possible what we expect from european policymakers i mean remember they are going to push ahead with shale gas regardless we would want at least from data gathering to happen about what

exactly are the impact of shale gas through that we have a clearer picture unlike in the u.s. where we still lack a clear picture about the environmental impacts of large scale got the direction that we would really want them high degree of transparency and accountability for the companies that want to use these invasive technologies in a densely populated continent the reason why i wondered you companies want to do this is because they anticipate higher gas prices in the future that could fund that kind of extraction not because they anticipate lower gas prices it's going to be expensive it's going to be risky and we should just turn away from it. i think that with a news team with more news when just over half an hour from now on the mean time the sky rocketing sky rocketing success a big coin is explained by an insider to accent a book about software which will break.

in my research i randomly came across a sad statistic according to the center for the constitution only twenty eight percent of americans have actually read the constitution although the overwhelming majority claimed that they understood some of it and now we see why the constitution especially the bill of rights are getting whittled away the average person doesn't really know what their secret covenant with the government actually says which means the government can get away with reinterpreting the agreement to suit their needs and not yours because no one is the wiser but if you think i'm going to see where average american how dare you then you are wrong the problem is that any kind of philosophy or ideology or just even asking why seems to be getting out of favor in educational systems all over the western world and beyond i mean shouldn't the average american be taught in school about you know america and like the constitution and capitalism how can the society advocate praise or defend

values they don't have any idea about please let's get the stuff back into the educational system but i shift my opinion. of welcome to all the party it's been treated as both the worlds based fave guard against corrupt bankers. and potentially the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of humanity why is bitcoin soil both in the fluctuations of its value and in the opinions it draws well to discuss that i'm now joined by patrick murphy general counsel of the bitcoin fallen mr market really appreciate your time here thanks for having me now we're recording this program just days after the landmark hearing in

this saturday on the future of digital currencies and one outcome of that hearing was that the value of bitcoin soared past nine hundred dollars and then drop just as sharply do you see that as a positive development that market's reaction. think it's a positive indicator of sentiment in the queen community. i don't know that i would consider it positive the there are the wild fluctuations in price but you know that these volatility of bitcoin is what makes some people extremely excited about this new digital currency and other people extremely wary of bitcoin and i think that it is also something that droll speculators in them may keep some of the mainstream consumers that debate have you thought of any sort of trash hold value beyond which the steep increases will start impeding the growth of the market for for for the

actual consumers rather than speculators sure well i don't think it has to be either or there are speculators and mass consumer adoption of the u.s. dollar both play a role speculators help with price discovery and of course consumers use it as a currency so i think that's likely to be the trend with big point as well the difference is that the it's supply and demand right now in the demand is far outstripping supply and that drives the price up in the parabolic curves but eventually will will settle in value. that is fair or for mass consumer adoption when i get to that absolutely but i'm sure you heard the bitcoins kept comparing this new currency it to a ponzi scheme or warning of a possible bubble. you know that. like in the case of housing bubble or high tech bubble the problem was not in the actual.