and frayed my pulse was. president putin says his ready to sign a pardon for russian tycoon it may have. spend more than a decade behind bars for investment on tax evasion announcement came after he faced more than four hours of questions from journalists on russia's domestic and foreign policy. and amnesty international says hardline see when rebels have a stoppage to a new form of tyranny enforcing a reign of terror with secret prisons but children as young as eight allegedly tortured.

this is international coming to live from moscow my name is you know main news now and this is breaking news actually this hour president advisor putin says he will sign a motion to pardon jailed tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky the business and who spend more than ten years behind bars for basil mint has reportedly already filed a petition to be pardoned and joining me now live for more is this going all they were so from your point of view why putin has decided to pardon the businessman well the president was hosting a media conference which lasted over four hours with the biggest news came after it finished he was surrounded by journalists and someone asked the question about that of course again suddenly the president said that the former had asked him to be released and he says the man has already spent over ten years behind bars and he is ready to sign papers to let him free. that you don't know who the coastie

recently wrote a petition asking me to pardon him. he spent more than ten years in prison this is a serious punishment he cites humanitarian reasons saying his mother is sick i believe taking jew account of all the circumstances it's possible to take a respective decision and in the near future i will sign a decree to pardon him. because of course the used to be among the wealthiest people in the world and i'm all the most influential in russia until he was arrested back in two thousand and three charged and found guilty of fraud and then in a second case of money laundering and that this latest announcement from the president was applause by human rights groups would be poorly came as a complete surprise to us and even his family members. live from moscow thank you very much indeed for that and the mother of. mary.

joins me now live by phone mrs haller cosco welcome to r.t. havea spoken to your son recently what was his reaction to the latest news. i took to him. in august when he was in prison actually i came to see him when he was in jail so we don't know about his response. they are allowed to make phone calls once a week. with them and that is on saturdays. so i can't learn about his response before saturday actually. did the president decision come as a surprise to you. can't say that came totally as a big surprise for me. totally out of the blue because i don't know anything about

this nothing no no details. why do you think it's only now that decided to seek a presidential pardon and to do what you can you. ok let me so we have some technical and problems i believe why do you think it's only now that me why you decided to seek a presidential candidate over and admit his guilt but you wonder if this is just you know presumably i don't you know if he asked for the pardon this is the first time a learnt about it. do you buy putin's claim that his decision to pardon your son is partly because of the state of your health

your heart you. had like to believe it. has some human emotions inside team that's what i would like to believe. live on the phone mrs holder cosco thank you very much indeed for that and here is a financial analyst joins me now live to discuss a period of decision mr ira thank you for being with us here on our do you think someone who took money from the government to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars should be pardoned. it's confusing in so much as you can see this strictly in the terms of lawrence so much as when put into cause he made a pragmatic deal with the other gods and told them to stop stealing and it was the rules of the game what was in force then as it happened most of the other gods said yes the issues never been whether how to go to jail the issues being why didn't all

of the other gods procedure and given that there was a fairly arbitrary decisions about how to proceed because they clashed politically . the decision to release him is so equally arbitrary it's not necessarily a question of rule of law or some rights everybody was stating in the ninety's that it was holocaust he's decision to go up against hussein that landed him in jail and then in the final in the final. analysis. this ominous state of the latest amnesty here in russia has come into play see riots and greenpeace activists say at times to a russian trading platform and now we're talking about me here how the calls came here what message is pushing trying to send. i think there's two messages ones to the international community and one is a domestic audience internationally their relations with the rest of the world have been deteriorating rapidly and getting worse and worse and perhaps poussin with this is trying to put a stop to that or

a mocker and to slow down that process and says hold out an olive branch the rest of the world secondly domestically you know the corporate governance rule of law have been increasing issue here in russia and we've seen street protests and given the events in kiev in particular i think the kremlin is acutely aware that they need to meet the opposition halfway or at least make some moves towards meeting the demands of like more responsible government and i think how to custody has been a cause celeb in all of this out of jail is perhaps again an olive branch to those people to say that the president is actually listening a bit closer to what the people want to see happen. do you think at peyton's decision has anything to do with international pressure and what reaction do you expect from from what some accidents and governments have been highly critical of the russia already at present and. i think the international reaction will be muted because everybody is going to be pleased congratulate the government for doing this

because it's something they'd like to see i think this is in the context of such the experience as a they spent a lot of money and effort in trying to present themselves to the world and to their hosting of the eurovision song contest was a complete disaster because a lot of the press that came out of it was about human rights i think looked at the lesson and think he's trying to sort of clear the air or present himself in a better light at the end in pics when the world's attention will turn to sochi in just a few months time. but you know what aras financial and economic analyst thank you very much indeed for your time and now asset manager erich krauss joins me now live from venice to talk about the international reaction on this latest announcement mr kraus welcome so do you think decisions like like this one. could make a russia more attractive for foreign investment invest i don't know i think i'm going to take a slightly different viewpoint on that and then i don't think it's our investors

care very much i think foreign journalists care but the people who are actually investing in russia have learned to discount very deeply what they read in the press and quite frankly there has been orchestrated campaign in the western press against russia if mr putin step down was replaced by the other to rest russia wouldn't get very much better press in the mainstream so i don't think it's going to make a lot of difference can both be downplayed as a p.r. stunt or seen as a step forward in the eyes of the west. i don't think that that is really what counts at this point. so i don't understand what motivated it and my personal view is it's a mistake i think by freeing her coast they created another barrier is a scheme a multi-billionaire who is going to be made conducting

a campaign of denigration of russia internationally and since this is what the west wants to hear certainly hear it but. i really don't understand what the motivation is unheard of of his lawyers are saying that he didn't ask for a pardon so the question is not understood with the mind you're probably bear some signs that this could be a part of a change of direction. i think it's very unlikely i think listening to mr putin's press conference direction is very clear and i don't see it being particularly change in the direction that the west wants i mean russia has had a very good year in international politics rather made fools of the west on several occasions the most recent one being in ukraine before that there was syria so i don't see inflection in the general direction of russian politics at this point quite the opposite do you see any point for what it cost to say upon to now

especially now when his sentence has almost been said i see no purpose. well the man has certainly he believes very deeply and. he seems to have forgotten the murderous seeding activities of the united states and sees himself as a seat he was not he's not going to confess to guilt i don't see him asking for a pardon and you're correct his sentence is almost run out so i would rather it is talk of the. criminal investigation against the. part with notes were stored so it doesn't make a great deal of sense to the quitter and. to eric. thank you very much indeed for sharing your insight with us we appreciate it. and just to remind you how me how her confiscate ended up where he is now let's now have

a look at the background in february nineteen ninety seven he became chairman and c.e.o. of the oil company one of the world's largest non-state oil companies producing a fifth of all russia's oil by september two thousand and three cos he was the wealthiest russian and one of the richest people in the wild it was a bad time he was arrested on charges of fraud and links to the promise of formally state owned mining and a fertilizer producer he was found guilty in maine two thousand and five and sentenced to nine years behind bars later that chair an appeal shaved one year old to sentence a second case against a costly began in december two thousand and six on charges of abandoning three hundred and fifty million tonnes of oil through you cause he was found guilty in december two thousand to ten and sentenced to fourteen years in prison but the court ruled the years he had already spent behind bars should be included. the

surprising announcement comes after allegedly putin faced a tough q. and a session last in well over four hours the subjects journalists pushed him on included developments in ukraine the new adopted on the sea for prisoners in russia as well as this strained ties between moscow and washington and you were prescreened off told us about the president's responses. well the media conference itself was attended by over thirteen hundred journalists and of course they discussed a huge variety of topics and edward snowden was. the former n.s.a. contractor who leaked scores of controversial documents on u.s. surveillance programs across the world he received temporary asylum in russian his exact whereabouts are still unknown due to security reasons pointing to the president they never met personally but he does admired him as a character who definitely made an impact on the world the president's also commented on his relations with barack obama and on the tactics used by u.s.

security services and couldn't resist using some of that famous humor he's known to have mastered machine uses to teach you we are now after snowden's leaks and america was shocked to learn her telephone had been wiretapped. she's absolutely fine so don't worry. what i russia's relations with the u.s. after two weeks. you want to know how my feel about mr obama after snowden's leaks i feel jealous i feel jealous because he can do these things and get off scot free still there is nothing to be happy about but on the other hand there's no reason to be frustrated however tough the criticism against the us may be all these measures have always been aimed at tackling terrorism but there must be some clear rules and certain agreements including those of ethics ukraine was another issue discussed the country's been going through rough times in the past few weeks with the protests taking place both for and against moving closer with

the e.u. moscow is giving a fifteen billion dollars loan and according to the president that is being done primarily to help the country cope with the severe economic problems it's also experiencing and what's going to put an added he doesn't think that integration with the e.u. is the core of the current wave of protests. those. pushing forward the idea of signing an association agreement with the european union these people were governing ukraine not so long ago it's a new quiz the foreign minister also headed the parliament to machine is a former prime minister who was ukraine's president why didn't they sign these papers when they were in power no one was standing in their way so they could have gone ahead and sign them and there'd be no problem today i have legitimate downs that the current protests are about moving closer to the e.u. it's an internal political struggle and signing or not signing this document is

just a pretext. now another reason why news about that of course is a such a surprise is because the amnesty that they are currently are working on and that should affect up to twenty five thousand people that was discussed and for the first time during all these years no one actually asked a question about that or steve during the actual conference in itself but they did talk about. should benefit from the upcoming amnesty and the so-called arctic thirty we in peace activists who were arrested in the russian water and are being charged with war going isn't at least should expect seeing these charges all of these charges lifted against them and the president did comment on the organization itself saying that he admires everyone who fights for the safety of the environment but he doesn't agree with the methods that greenpeace uses. their ship it entered our exclusive economic zone was not responding and they tried to scale the platform

after an attempt to stop them the second boat started ramming our border guards is that a civil discussion about protecting the environment. it's just self p.r. or an attempt at blackmail racketeering or someone's order to disturb our work on developing resources what happened should serve as a lesson and unite us along with greenpeace into an effort to minimize environmental risks instead of just making a fuss. of course these are only a few subjects which were talked about during the media conference the president also spoke about recent diplomatic breakthroughs like the one with the syrian chemical weapons on his deal and the breakthrough or would be iranian nuclear program and also spoke about the need to protect traditional values saying that conserve being conservative isn't about keeping society from moving forward but it's more about preventing it from rolling back. more news here on our team to

national after have very short break. what defines a country's success. faceless figures of economic growth. or a factual standard of living. e.g. . a longer covert team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents about how the united states is drawing. local media

more broadly they encounter fear ignorance and pressure. country blocks the way to information freedom. you're watching all seem to national it's good to have you with us let's move on now children as young as eighteen years old are being held and tortured across and that's why a secret is the most prisons in syria according to shocking new reports of bad jails are operated by the one of the fiercest rebel groups the islamic state in iraq and the levant its practices and laws are so harsh that amnesty international has equated it to a reign of terror smoking or behavior deemed make can lead to lengthy sentences of

these attention centers and even was selena nasser amnesty international research or told us what people face in these trails. there is widespread torture torture of adults including and also children the most common form of torture is a flood against flogging against detainees take place on a daily. on a daily every day basically it includes flogging against children we have witnesses former detainees who told us that they have seen the children as young as thirteen to fourteen being flogged scores of times the detainees are sentenced to death at a trial that does not exceed three minutes which is. outrageous really one former detainee told us that he once counted the number of

lashes falling on a child he counted until ninety four and he stopped counting any more. although on paper forces are united in their goal to topple president assad in proxies there's precious little unity fighting between rebel groups for tabish and power is now calling plays and it's the motorists taking a beating just last week for example the secretary can londo the free syrian army was executed by radicals but i. can now report washington's commitment to the rebels in syria means it's willing to talk to even the most online groups washington says it's willing to negotiate with the so-called islamic front in syria just days after the front kicked the western backed supreme military council out of their headquarters and seized their warehouses we can't engage these on the front of course because they're not designated and you haven't yet the islamic front

includes groups that are demanding a hard line shari'a state it would be a strategic mistake if the us administration or europe or their allies would be engaging in a partnership and a partnership meaning they would be collaborating with organizations that are the hardest and have not committed to become moderates or recognize the fact that if they come to power or part of power they will recognize human rights that did not happen while washington is we valuating whom to support in the fight against assad all qaeda linked groups have made significant gains in the north of syria where they've pushed out other rebel forces in the name of allah the gracious and merciful. when you're firing rockets it's allah who fires them with your hands these strikes are only a drop in the ocean the lines of the islamic state are fulfilling their oaths from iraq to lebannon these islamist forces are better trained and better armed some of them got their training fighting against the u.s.

in afghanistan in the one nine hundred eighty s. when the u.s. was arming the anti soviet mujahideen in those days some got their experience and their arms fighting against the u.s. in iraq much more recently washington said. the islamic front that it is willing to negotiate with does not include designated terrorist groups like job at all and the so-called islamic state of iraq and live ont but on the ground in syria there are so many different groups that the labels could be relevant residents of the town of audra near damascus can't name the exact rebel group that executed over eighty civilians there including children earlier this week. the u.s. has supported the syrian opposition on the premise that washington would be able to discern different shades of extremists they would figure out which ones are less extreme but even the report that there was no battle over the warehouses between the islamic front and the western backed supreme military council is one indicator of how blurred those lines are and how flawed is the assumption that one can

distinguish with certainty between those groups in washington i'm going to shut down our team. so when our these radicals coming from they answer is from almost everywhere and even the most secular european states have and day identified their citizens fighting in syria often on behalf of radical rebels and us really started two wars. that does is the most will come back one day. of our looks not the concerns. the number of europeans heading to syria to fight in the country's going civil war is currently topping the e.u. counter terrorism agenda speaking at a meeting security officials in brussels the belgian interior minister said as many as fifty thousand the physicians may be involved in the conflict his french counterpart saying well those numbers are on the increase statement reiterate findings by the international center for the study of radicalization there

a group based out of king's college in london they suggest that since april of this year the number of europeans going to syria to fight increased three fold their other findings suggest that up to eleven thousand foreign is from as many as seventy different countries may have taken part in the conflict at some point eighteen percent of those coming from western europe the majority of that eighty percent from britain and from france also a contingent from right here in germany in fact in the german state of the interior minister has been proposing a nationwide campaign to try and tackle radical i say shit this is after a study that found that jihadist recruiters were using universities to try and recruit potential fight says this is all adding to the reason why why the issue of europeans heading to syria to fight is talking to the counterterrorism agenda

because well the leaders of european countries don't know what will happen when these people return home will they return home radicalized as potential homegrown terrorists. one pirate. will be spending another early christmas and a sound this year as his case sees him transfer here to sweden to jam on to his law and learn what she had to say on our website. and another after the twenty ten b.p. oil spill in the gulf of mexico dolphins called how the epicenter of the disaster are still dying that he sells hours. and he's being accused of preaching ideology before common sense that's off to london turn down the easy to find food banks despite having more than half a million mobs that are godly hungry laura smith looks now at why. just

a stone's throw from the seat of government in westminster is something that's becoming a more and more common sight in the u.k. this building's used as a food bank handing out emergency supplies to families so poor they can't afford to eat as the cost of living rises the number of people turning to food banks increases with its funding tighter all the time but nevertheless the government has turned down a potential twenty two million pounds in funding for food aid why because the money comes from the european union britain we've caught a government with a very anti european ideology appears to be more keen to. warn europe to get credit for something than to get money which can how fate hungry people are if you are starving you need some food and you pray to die and this government's refusal to cry in the carriage is literally taking food out of the

merits of how great the european aid for the most deprived fund amounts to two and a half billion pounds but the position britain's taken means the country will receive just two point nine million and instead of using that for food aid as intended it's expected the government will spend it on helping unemployed people find work all well and good to say critics but there are people who need survival basics now and this money is meant for them. and. look us won't sponsor. state. the parliament of yemen has put forward a motion to ban drone attacks in the country the motion is now awaiting approval by

the president and it's probably impossible to enforce unless they could build a really big net or something isn't it strange that now after years of drone strikes in their country the parliament just wakes up to the fact their systems are getting blown up from the sky to be fair yemen doesn't have a ton of cash and i could see how having the well equipped and funded u.s. military to take care of the al qaeda problem for them for free could be really entices i mean it must be scary to be a politician with lots of power hungry terrorists about this would be the first time in history that a stronger foreign power fought a weaker states battles for them but the problem is that according to the huffington post a former u.s. state department official in yemen says that every year drone attacks create eight from forty to sixty new terrorists why they create terrorists because according to the human rights watch seventy percent of the people killed by drones in yemen are civilians you know if the yemeni government is really free from washington's grasp and really wants to deal with their al qaeda problem they'll have better luck doing it themselves with a good all right tools and bayonets pointed at the right targets but that's just my

opinion. right to see. first street. and i would think that your. own army corps. can still. be in the. on mom. home.