historic milestone or historic mistake president obama struggles to find the right words to appease both israel and capitol hill hawks while admitting iran's right to peaceful energy. police and protesters fired tear gas at each other in the ukrainian capital during a second day of unrest over the government pulling back from an e.u. deal. between oil industry propaganda and environmental panic it's hard to get a grip on fracking decide for yourself later when we hear from a former oil executive and those forced to abandon their homes because of the controversial fuel extraction.

i welcome you watching r.t. this afternoon with me andrey farm. most of the world is getting behind the agreement which will bring iran's atomic program under control but opinions differ on whether it's down to diplomacy finally doing its job or if the breakthrough is down to the anti iran's sanctions. as this report. it's a deal that's alluded diplomats for a decade. and as the crucial make or break iran letelier talks continued into the night details of how they were going were leading the journalists camped out in geneva so we waited and waited and waited while diplomats from six world powers and iran inched their way closer to an historic breakthrough than after sixteen hours a tweet from the e.u.'s top diplomat

a deal had been done. just that the six negotiating powers agreed to recognize iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy including its right to enrichment under the condition that this program is placed under strict control by the i.a.e.a. the issue. as we received word of the agreement we got details to iran had agreed to reduce its uranium enrichment from twenty to a maximum of five percent use fewer centrifuges while halting construction of a new reactor near the town of iraq. throughout this long list of concessions iran's foreign minister still had a smile on his face in return he won for his country a partial easing of sanctions allowing tarantula regain control of billions of dollars worth of much needed funds in foreign banks we believe that it is the sanctions that have brought us to this negotiation and ultimately to the more

significant negotiation to follow for a car branch of agreement others have stressed that it wasn't the stress of more punitive measures but diplomacy that won the day over the night in the case of these talks the fact that that the iranians have shown time after time that there is no evidence that iran's nuclear program is anything but peaceful is something that has been ignored by the western media and western governments but this despite all that iran's real civilians has forced these countries to take south. and. trent and again the russians and the chinese have played a very constructive role the geneva accord was the result of the goodwill shown by the six nations iran and the european union and the hard work of the negotiation teams demands new president hassan rouhani is also seen as having played a crucial role in making the deal possible he came to power less than three months ago pledging to improve iran's relations with the west and i don't think that

sanctions played as much of a role as a recognition by the united states and britain and other countries that we need to engage iran because iran is becoming increasingly influential this is a leader and the interim agreement in six months time well its powers and do iran are set to return to the negotiating table but after ten years of failed. the deal signed here in the middle of the night is a game changer what people here can see to me. what it looks like the deal has made life more difficult for president obama while defending the administration's yes to the concessions he now has to calm down israel as well as hawkish lawmakers who didn't miss their chance to criticize the motion here's our washington correspondent. today that diplomacy opened up a new path toward a world that is more secure and flying in the face of president obama what was

needed in the geneva. last night is not his sort of agreement. it's a story and state. does not need a safe place in an environment where israel as well as many u.s. lawmakers don't think that iran should develop nuclear technology at all the obama administration had to engage in diplomatic acrobatics to both acknowledge iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy and not acknowledge it at the same time we approach these negotiations with a basic understanding of iran like any nation should be able to access peaceful nuclear energy but because of its record of violating its obligations iran must accept strict limitations on its nuclear program that make it impossible to develop a nuclear weapon the scope and role of iran's enrichment as is set forth in the language within this document says that iran's peaceful nuclear program is subject

to a negotiation. and to mutual agreement despite the official's attempts to appease the hawks punches are flying it looks like we've tacitly agreed that they will be enriching for commercial purposes down the road so i think you're going to see on capitol hill again a bipartisan effort to try to make sure that this is not the final agreement another senator marco rubio called the deal quote a blow to our allies in the region who are already concerned about america's commitment to their security and of quote i think a lot of people both in the middle east and on capitol hill are very concerned that this interim deal becomes the new norm opponents of the deal in washington and abroad are already working not to let its survive the six month trial the obama administration is walking on egg shells before congress israel and its allies in

the coffers it's trying to convey a carefully worded message which is you cannot threaten war all the time in washington i'm going to check out. now iran is expected to reap up to seven billion dollars from the easing of economic sanctions is the prediction that's helped global stocks jump to their best level since two thousand and eight so well to her own gain more than it sacrifices as a result of the geneva accord katie pilbeam from venture capital goes through the numbers. the country can now get a hold of around seven billion dollars worth of commodities and financial assets we know that sanctions have crippled the country since their introduction so let's break down some of these figures as they were a large proportion of these numbers are going to be coming from so the country can resume trade in gold petro chemicals and auto exports and of course this will equate to around one and

a half billion dollars although the countries earnings will still be greatly improved to rand's earnings will still be thirty billion dollars less than before the embargoes were originally introduced regarding the financial sector just over four billion dollars worth of offshore funds will be frozen now this is still a tiny fraction of the one hundred billion dollars that will still be inaccessible to iran but it does mean that the country can finally relented the global banking system once again long term or the hope is that the country can drag itself out of recession seventy five million people the iranians are struggling on a daily basis because products are so expensive there we know inflation is at forty percent long term twenty thirty years it's all about investment investment into the country has been pretty much nonexistent we know in anticipation of this deal there's already been conversations going on with the global energy companies the

european u.s. ones orning to get back into the country where they've been out of it for around thirty years now and really make use of those oil assets. meanwhile the latest in america's relations with iran hasn't stopped the magazine from putting the us president in the list of the world's twenty five least influential people that ate his edition of crosstalk discusses barack obama shaking popularity on this program we ask is obama serving bush's fourth term victory is not going to judge the presidency of barack obama and george bush in the same light whatsoever i think obama is way worse than bush and i am not a big fan of george w. bush there is no compare and contrast between either president whatsoever besides having a spending problem politico just ran a poll showing forty six percent approval for president bush or you have thirty seven percent for president obama it's quite an irony at this point.

that's cross talk a little later on the un's confirm that a new round of syrian peace talks will take place in late january the aim is to hammer out a long elisi of peace deal between rebels and the government is also something that will be discussed in the vatican today where the pope is preparing to host russia's president vladimir putin can offer is in right russian leaders have visited the vatican before but the heads of the vatican have never visited moscow since frankly relations have been frosty and perhaps one of the reasons behind all this commotion here there's a lot of speculation that the vatican wants to change that not meaning for the pope to go sightseeing to the russian capital but for the two countries to move closer to one another recently pope francis rolled over to personally thanking president putin for his efforts to try to restore peace in syria russia and the vatican have been calling to protect the rights of christians in the middle east and northern

africa following the arab spring so pope francis and president putin are on the same losses issues they are set to meet later on monday and of course i'll be keeping you updated. well the pope and vladimir putin also share an unusual bond their distaste for shale gas fracking his holiness recently posed with environmental activist reportedly expressing strong concern about us all giant chevron exploiting shale gas in south america more now with in crane next oil field executive turned campaigner who is against fracking thank you very much for coming on to the program the saffron in now you did give up a career over this why are you against fracking so much. well if we were looking at conventional oil and gas exploration i wouldn't be sitting here talking with you but this is the first attempt really in the u.k. to exploit unconventional gas resources from shale and the track record in the u.k. is pretty dire out of the four wells drilled and two of them resulted

in seismic events in the file peninsula and although moratorium was put on two and a half years ago that moratorium was lifted one year ago by a lot john brown who advises david cameron on the british cabinet but lord john browne is also chairman of course driller one of the companies that has a very heavy interest in this operation but our real concern is that this is a technology that basically has been proven not to work as the oil industry claims and it has resulted in contamination irrefutable evidence of contamination of water soil and the air and also significant negative health impacts on the population that live above the gas fields. just picking up on that i mean the pope has reportedly said that he believes that fracking exploited the poor on their land but there is a very strong economic argument is that i mean after all these people will be

compensated. i don't think it really matters what the economic argument is if the water supply is put at risk what are people going to prefer to have cheap gas which i don't think is going to happen anyway or fresh water because the reality is that if people do not have access to fresh water then effectively the life as we know it is over and of course this unfortunately goes right along with the philosophy of peter bray back the chief executive of nestlé who eight years ago recorded an interview in which he stated that in his opinion should not be regarded as a human right for people to have access to fresh water and this is potentially creating a situation where basically people would have to effectively buy their fresh water from the corporations so this industry has never before been unleashed be beneath a densely populated island such as the u.k.

and you know we've seen the effects in places like colorado and pennsylvania and southern queensland in australia where the population density of the u.k. is twenty times that of colorado one hundred times that of southern queensland and i would simply implore that people do a bit of research for themselves and they look at the damage and the contamination that has been wreaked in these locations around the world and basically we are doing everything we possibly can to ensure that this does not happen in the u.k. . but why can't i expect the government to do that research for me why won't they protect my own healthy thing. well that's a very very good question and in fact last thursday evening i attended a public meeting with i guess energy which is the company that has the license to exploit the resources in manchester which is where i'm speaking to you from right now and their direct response to that question was that it is not their

responsibility to investigate the environmental damage or the negative health impacts that this industry has caused elsewhere now you know this is totally irresponsible and tragically what it reflects is the fact that we are dealing with a cowboy industry that is driven by greed and little else and in fact that takes the mantra directly from lord john brown the former chairman and chief executive of b.p. who basically said you know this is profit above all else and he will do whatever it takes to get britain at the heart of the shale gas industry and basically there are an increasing number of people around the u.k. many converging on boston mass in manchester as we speak to ensure that this doesn't happen the british government and the shale gas industry the embryonic shale gas industry in the u.k. does not have the social license to proceed with this ok we do have to leave it there thank you very much though for your thoughts as saying crane annex oil field

executive in our campaign against fracking thank you. thank you for encouraging figures from the u.k. raise hopes of an economic turnaround but it is safe or willing living standards and widening inequality mean there's more trouble down the road. band of former afghan m.p. explains to r.t. the math is rolling keeping president karzai strong through his final months in office. unrest is into its second day in ukraine with occasional scuffles breaking out between protesters and police violence first broke out on sunday but people in kiev have been rallying nonstop since thursday over the government suspending a deal which could give it closer ties with the. skis in the ukrainian capital for r.t. . protesters appear to have set up down camps at european square suggesting that

they may stay here for some more time and it's not always as miserable as it is here right now we see clashes between them and the police are up to it from time to time with both sides of the police and the protesters using tear gas against each other the people here they are strongly opposing the decision by the government to not sign the trade agreement with europe at the moment there are others of course that believe this was a rather pretty magic just isn't it rather well known of just as looking at potential damages which are great that have suffered in you since signing this agreement it's easy to see why first of all modernizing the factories in the country would have cost the boat a lot more than a hundred billion dollars something the country cannot afford at the moment and play to the modernize it would have led to these factories being closed and tens of thousands finding themselves in the streets not certainly a good outcome for the country as well as raising the risk for electricity heating and gas something the government had to do because to comply with european standards also a very big problem for ukraine at the moment not taking all that into consideration and the fact that the euro would not offer any kind of financial compensation but

what the actual damage is the government decided not to sign especially after the i.m.f. said it would not provide ukraine with another stabilisation loan which would have helped the prime minister of the country in fact said that the country doesn't need help like that one its economy is in danger of being completely of completely collapsing now the protests continue its hard to say how long that will continue but another interesting twist here is the blackmail like there's a sense in the week some politicians in europe have said that russia blackmailed ukraine out of signing this deal russian president hit back saying that it is in fact europe which blackmailed ukraine in the course of negotiations standoff continues very interesting to see where it goes and we have to follow all the details and all the developments. well ages of the european commission and the european council have released a joint statement saying the proposal to you crying still stands but i think any keys russia a pressuring. he have of signing to see for yourself why he had used to freeze the

deal you can go to r.t. dot com and then we distill the financial hurdles standing in the way of the agreement. when used up ahead including the case hopes the economic upturn on school friends drive for independence. if you're thinking about an alcoholic drink associated with russia it's probably not going to be one that springs into your head but they've been making it here on the black sea coast for more than two thousand kids and there's an industry which really can compete with the best the rest of the world has to offer i've come to meet some of the people growing the greats and to see if i can find out the secret to the perfect.

was again welcome back now there's hope in britain that the country's turned a corner and is getting over one of its worst ever financial dramas it's too early to start popping the champagne in some quarters there where critics say endemic decline has set in and will leave some struggling for generations or smith expects

. so the bank of england's forecasts for economic growth is on the up unemployment is down it sounds great but beyond those immediate fake is a darker picture that pretty much all the measures by which we track economic progress are in decline people's real incomes falling more and more of it spent on basic essentials uniquely this generation of young people is worse educated than their parents and obesity female life expectancy and child mortality among the worst in europe so leading economics commentator jeremy warner says growth is good but warns it's unsustainable there's not enough exports is not enough business investment in this economy now provided the economy continues to grow the hope is that these things will eventually come true but at the moment there's no very little sign of them and you say that these key indicators say living standards

education health these are all on the decline talking about that ever since the crisis began living standards have been under a lot of pressure a real wages have been declining we've probably see. a ten to fifteen percent erosion in living standards since the crisis because part of six years ago on nance big it's never happened before. in modern history really for the first time again in modern history we are seeing a situation where people leaving the workforce and retiring are better educated than the people joining the workforce and that's that is a very worrying phenomenon for the future because any modern economy depends on continued growth and learning new skills if your standards of education are declining than all relative income in future relative to the rest of the world is going to decline with it so it's a very worrying phenomenon what does it all add add up to then the underlying. mc

into cases i mean where are we going when i think. an extreme wakeup call i mean britain has a lot of things going for it. it's reckoned to be one of the most open economies in the world it has the biggest global financial center in the world so there are a lot of things going for you. but these underlying trends are very worrying and something needs to be done about them very very urgent warner says the government's doing some of the right things but too gingerly and ultimately unless radical action is taken in those key areas britain's economy is living on borrowed time meanwhile westminster is turning the screws on the scottish independence movement as the date for a new breakaway scotland is in i'm should scots vote to say goodbye to the three hundred year old united kingdom this story coming up in a couple of minutes. a planned security pact between the united states and

afghanistan looks set to fail with president hamid karzai saying he refuses to sign until after elections next year and this despite afghan tribal elders recommending he ratified the green meant as soon as possible while the deal would allow up to fifteen thousand u.s. soldiers to stay in the country for ten more years they would be authorized to carry out anti terrorist operations and have the right to raid afghan homes and exceptional circumstances plus american forces would be immune to afghan law critics say that despite being challenged on all sides armored cars i will stand firm until his last day in office halfway through next year. contrary to the popular belief that prevails in the west that they call a president in his last year or last few months as a lame duck president those principles don't apply in a poor country like afghanistan where everything is in the hands of the government

the people of this country are completely hostage in the hands of a government that has the warlords the guns the mafia the drug cartel and the corruption so i think governments in poor countries would tyrannical old are never going to experience the same winning the last days are normally in the west the scottish government has for the first time named the date it will become independent if citizens vote to leave the u.k. next year it's chosen the twenty fourth of march twenty sixth to make the prospective speech official but the idea is strongly opposed by london which is warning it won't make it easy for scotland to break away testers syria has moved. should scotland be an independent country it's a six word question that requires a simple yes or no but breaking a three hundred year old doing it could hardly be simple and the scots are not

taking it lightly as it stands only about thirty percent of scots say they will vote for independence a figure those in the yes camp hope to increase by presenting that much anticipated white paper which a scottish national party says has the answers to all the questions about independence the prime minister david cameron and those of the wall into the know cabin says that in the car this is laden with risks and problems with warnings on just about everything taxes and debt the no camp suggests deeper stary and higher taxes e.u. membership london says scotland could forget about it the trident nuclear program david cameron claims getting rid of it is a bad idea in case of a north korean nuclear attack and there might even be roaming charges of mobile phones if the split happens at the list goes on it's dubbed project fear by the yes camp and they accuse the government of scare mongering scots into voting no and they'd sist the white paper will prove that independence would bring about a jobs and

a thriving economy concerns that resonate with voters cameron argued that an independent scotland will have to negotiate in the future for the things that house right now along with the signalling that it won't be making it easy for the crux of the matter goes back to economics a recent poll found out that if independents made the five hundred pounds richer more than half the spots were growth rate reporting from london i'm tests are cilia some international news in brief clashes between libyan government troops militia men in the eastern city of benghazi have left fourteen people dead and dozens more wounded witnesses say the explosions could be. from where the fighting took place the army has declared a state of emergency in the city last week another group opened fire on a crowd in the capital tripoli. killing forty protesters as. being scuffles between anti-government protesters and police in thailand during a second day of rallies calling for the prime minister to quit demonstrate his

tried to force their way past police and parliament building but were pushed back they say controlled by her brother tanks and he went into a walk and led to government more than one hundred thousand people marched against the ruling party on sunday. coming up a look at wine in southern russia in red white and brown. one member of st petersburg's legislative assembly is trying to get child beauty pageants banned in russia starting with his hometown you know i couldn't agree more with this gent on this issue these kids beauty pageants not only put a ton of pressure on children to achieve something absolutely pointless but they're also a pedophile's dream come true and are well very very creepy but why are they creepy

that's because whether you like it or not human beauty is related to sex so when you try to make children beautiful and wear bathing suits let's just say active poses yet that's called sexualizing children and it's disgusting although adult beauty pageants are also sort of stupid at least the participants are all adults so see it because beauty pageants are obviously related to sexuality should be able to participate in them until you reach the age of consent in your country otherwise it is just a pedophile buffet but that's just my opinion. black sea coast is one of russia's top tourist destinations sun sea and the best wine the

country has to offer but if those weren't good enough reasons on their own to come here there's also a little mystery that i want to get to the bottom of. my heard. that there was a man named brown who come to russia's black sea coast to grow grapes and. he might not have been my ancestor the namesake in the. past excuse for a visit. one bottle of the family wine if there was another one i was going to find it and if i had to have a few. that was a sacrifice i was willing to make. this is a venerable institution industry. has been running almost.