breaking news this hour on r.t. international reports say x. tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky may have already walked free after the russian president vladimir putin signed his pa. stripped of its full mocks the european union loses its top credit rating. and tense budget negotiations inside the block. for syria so it is community pressing for a seat at the negotiating table for the upcoming geneva peace talks hoping to grab the opportunity to secure their independence and their rights.

this hour's top headlines from around the world it's r.t. international with me rule resewn a very warm welcome to you today reports are now saying that mikhail khodorkovsky may have already left the prison where he was serving the sentence for embezzle mint and fraud it comes less than one hour off the president putin signed a pardon for the former tycoon who had fallen amnesty plea let's get more on this now go to chris going off now joining us live here on the program what do we know yet god has he already walked out. well first of all i'd like to apologize for the sound problems that you may be hearing because we've just lended here at the airport and she said you can see behind. me here that maybe creating that distortion we really want to bring you the latest news a live as soon as possible now we're getting conflicting reports that we may have already left the detention facility this information has not been yet confirmed by

the prison's authorities although they did say that the. is being released from jail in accordance with the president's order and i would comes less than twenty four hours after oblige you to put in broke the news that you call for the post you did ask him for pardoning and he announced that he was indeed going to sign all the necessary documents to do we've got to free him as soon as possible one of the main reasons behind his him asking that is problems health problems with posing with his mother r.t. did manage to speak with her let's listen to what she had to sales. that i haven't accepted what has happened yet has been too much since yesterday for me i'm still kind of lost and confused i guess i still can't believe it.

because of the boesky did spent over ten years behind bars after he was found guilty of fraud and. money laundering and embezzle meant and one of the main sort of. reasons and opportunities for him to be released so we had to be him actually officially asking the president to do so which happened as far as we understand we also know that he's a lawyer apparently is on his way also here to the republic of korea where the detention center is located where around two hundred kilometers away from it and we're going to go there as soon as possible to check that information is for that cause he's still inside or has he already left different premises on the latest on this operation and use r.t. if you go to live in petros of all the northwest and russia with mikhail khodorkovsky was serving his time thank you for that. now let's talk more about the release with geo political analyst a f william engdahl now joining us live here on

the program very good to see today thanks for coming on so quickly for this breaking news. it's believed has already walked free of the whole the whole process appearing very simple after all those years. yes indeed i think there's a number of levels to the decision by routing to release protocol ski or number one he's trying to strike a little more humane image with the with the western media but the deeper you dig on the thing i think there may be a very very interesting geo political element to this which has to do with the warming of relations between gas prom and the various it's really energy conglomerates that are trying to develop the entire eastern mediterranean basin and all across kenya of course has dual israeli and russian passports so it might be that there was a an implicit discussion between netanyahu and putin and one of the recent medians about this is

a gesture of goodwill that's the take on everything in the geo political of possibilities here possible business dealings as well but putin has said that he granted the pardon after he got an amnesty plea from him why why do you think that the court ski didn't oscar for a pardon earlier. well that's probably because he realized he would've gotten it but i don't that's why i think this is not about holocaust care say this is about a much larger geopolitical game play if you will and the whole development of the the leviathan and tom r.v. thousands offshore israel in the last year and a half for natural gas and now the mass of shale oil signs and in the south of jerusalem. are changing the entire energy your politics of the middle east and i think russia and putin in particular are very concerned the russia be a major stakeholder major player in that development because it's going to change

the geo political map of the entire middle east is thinking it's very interesting you bring in these i j a political aspects to the whole idea here but international reaction so far i mean that the pardon of quote a cult here in russia was suddenly came as a bombshell twenty four hours ago that the international reaction has been fairly subdued so far well it's what i would expect because. the western media has has a certain line that says that by washington or london and that line is russia's the bogeyman hooten is the new star and whatever will end any facts that tend to go against that are not going to be recognized as such they'll be simply ignored and forgotten and the new crimes will be dug up or new issues like the gay rights the question of what for you bring you bring in the whole issue of gay rights because we've already seen some media outlets saying that perhaps putin's pardon decision has something to do with the upcoming lympics now what do you make of that i really

doubt it very seriously i don't know if it's a miscalculation by hoons advisors as to what and what the plus points is might get for him in the west if so will their relative i.e. which i don't think is case but. i think it's a. adjuster that has a dimension to it that's that's far different from what's being said. and on the humanitarian grounds of. our bestselling international author and geo political analyst william and garth thank you very much for that. well in europe are those being reserved reaction as are saying to the news of quarter coffee's pardon chancellor angela merkel said well she's been discussing his release and she's glad it's finally happening and the head of the european parliament as well that mr martin scholtz he called it president putin's decision quote unquote progress while across the atlantic it's all quiet on capitol hill as guy nature can reports. it

would be fair to say there is no reaction other than perhaps a written statement from senator mccain who has been bashing president putting for years since he wrote this russian president vladimir putin's announcement today that he may pardon me the surprising and welcome news well first of all send a mccain misinterpreted the president's announcement a little bit it did not say he may pardon he said part of the u.s. media said that the decision had to do with the olympics this late for example ran an article saying that it's because of pressure from the u.s. that president putin his pardoning of the cost but again no official comment here in washington. or let's take a deeper let's talk to political analyst john laughlin dr joy joining us here live for the breaking news on r.t. international thanks for coming on so quickly john first the amnesty from the russian president regarding pussy riot and the greenpeace activists this being announced yesterday in the past twenty four hour i suppose twenty four hours or so now now we have called the course of his pardoning after a decade in jail is it possible the russian president is trying to send

a message. if he is i hope the message is for internal consumption i'm concerned that a lot of reports in our own western media have concentrated on the international aspects of this and have interpreted the amnesty as a signal to the world community in advance of the saatchi games i don't rule that out but i hope that that's not the motive because i think it would be a totally few child gesture i don't think that the hostility which russia has been subjected to over these issues from the west will in any way abate as a result of the release of these people i think this hostility has other reasons and i don't think that it will make it the slightest bit of difference on the other hand if the message as it were is directed internally to russia and to russia to the russian people and if that message is to say that you know let's let

bygones. the guy bygones let's try to come together let's you know try to have a spirit of national unity and so on then i as i say it could be and i would that would certainly be my hope that that is the intention in other words that it's for internal consumption dr external joy do you think you think in any way that the russian president vladimir putin has pardoned khodorkovsky in any way due to international pressure. well i've course the pressure has been there and of course he is keen to show case russia next february when the games start but once again i would be disappointed if i thought that was the reason because i think it's futile we know that the west has cranked up now hostility against russia on other issues which he's certainly not going to abandon on the on the homosexual propaganda law for example. i hope that it's a message not directed outside but instead for internal consumption because

ultimately the hostility against russia on these issues is purely because it will and is driven by geopolitical matters it's not driven by concern for the people concerned john what about reaction you're expecting any type of pretty particular reaction from europe or from the united states we had of the german chancellor angela merkel saying she's glad that khodorkovsky is on his way out of prison another gentleman saying well this is what you call progress or any other reac see can forecast well yes there has been a lot of positive foreign reaction. it's impossible for me to forecast whether there will be other reactions of the same kind but i think of course the issue you know will generally be welcomed i think though that the what i certainly take away from this and having watched as i'm sure you did the press conference yesterday is a message of from putin of a man who really is now in control of the situation you know he is as it were strong enough to let bygones be bygones to the extent that these things depend on

him he's also of course in a win win situation because as we know khodorkovsky jail term was due to come to an end in august next year anyway so the early release is only a few months so by releasing him a few months early putin gets a certain amount of q. dos both within and outside of russia and as i say in fact against that cued us for very little cost because the cost would have come out in the summer anyway are from the incident of the mako see in paris and geopolitical international analyst john locke and thanks very much for that. now let's go back here a bit was a bit of a timeline for you it was february one thousand nine hundred ninety seven when he became chairman and c.e.o. of the private corporation you costs which produced a fifth of russia's oil. became the country's richest man about six and a half years later he was arrested on fraud charges around the same time linked to the privatization of state assets he was eventually found guilty in may two

thousand and five getting nine years in prison for the cost he appealed and had one year taken off of that sentence in december two thousand and six there was a second case against the former tycoon he was charged with embezzling three hundred fifty million tonnes of oil now those proceedings also ended with a guilty verdict and a fourteen year sentence but the court counted time already served towards that new prison time. now we are getting reports here on r.t. international just to say thank you for joining us here for this breaking news here we're now going to get deeper into the story all of mikhail khodorkovsky with artie's and he said no. he may well be one of the most well known prisoners in the world but the idea of a pardon for former russian tycoon mikhail khodorkovsky was unexpected to say the least a four hour q. and a and not one question about for the record ski and then this if you don't know who the kospi recently wrote

a petition asking me to pardon him because he spent more than ten years in prison this is a serious punishment he saw as humanitarian reasons saying his mother is sick and i believe taking jus 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 the former c.e.o. and founder of the oil company yukos built a fortune that made him russia's richest man after the collapse of the soviet union snapping up state assets at a bargain price in often dubious circumstances other kosky fall from grace began in october two thousand and three when he was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion he and his business partner plateau never dead were found guilty in two thousand and five and handed eight year sentences four years later fresh charges were brought against the two men and twenty ten both were convicted of money laundering and embezzling two hundred eighteen million tonnes of oil worth twenty seven billion u.s.

dollars. holder called skis here by sentenced to fourteen years in prison. word of his pardon and imminent freedom came as something of a surprise for all sides including apparently his lawyers debates are raging over whether this is a pay our start a smart move but most intriguingly about what's next for mikhail khodorkovsky and he's now a r.t. moscow. or we can talk to a correspondent for the russian vesti twenty four hour news channel all that good or not he's just outside the prison has been serving his term leg high it's a rory sushi here at r.t. international in moscow we're getting reports quite a cough he has already left the prison can you confirm this for us. this information is coming from several unofficial sources thirty minutes ago we received the information that's because of course q.

was taken by car from the prison in unknown direction but the fish we have no official confirmation the head of the. penitentiary institutions will not comment on it. the regional. the regional sources do not reply all right so we are having a tough time getting confirmation has called out of the left the prison yet that was a ski from the vesti twenty four news channel joining us here live on r.t. international all right back with more news here on the program if you can stick around. and i have all argued basically for the abolition of these kinds of agencies to interfere in the internal affairs of foreign nations i think it's counterproductive i think we create more enemies than we do friends when we involve ourselves in

these so-called color coded revolutions many of them have been overturned since the united states was some bros engaged in them i would say if the common turn has been shut down then they ought to shut down some of these agencies in the united states .

it's also international law from moscow i'm real research and thank you for joining us to give you a recap now of our breaking news here on the program. in prison for the past decade pod and by the russian president vladimir putin in the past twenty four hours has now possibly left the prison where he's been for the past ten plus years we are working to get confirmation on that we just spoke to a correspondent. from the vesti twenty four hour news channel here in moscow cannot confirm it over on the edge of do. do stay with us here for the breaking news continuation on r.t. international for the meantime though to other news we go and the european union's credit rating has been dealt a blow standard and poor's downgraded it from aaa to double a plus the agency said the blocks financial profile has deteriorated

a short while ago i chatted about it from berlin with artie's peter on a standard imposed the financial services agency have decided that the european union's credit rating of aaa was too good for it so they've downgraded it one point to double a plus now the reasons that they've given for this is they said that the financial profile of the e.u. deteriorated also that there was a lack of cohesion within the european union and if you look across the individual economies that make up the e.u. well it's it's quite clear that there's winners and there's losers economically just this last week the you agreed that they would they agreed in principle how they could put together a banking union perhaps this was an attempt to to assure their creditors that they were trying to get some cohesion the fact they put that kind of plan in place doesn't seem to have swayed them one bit in the slightest one of the countries within the e.u. that has seen the green shoots of resurgence is ireland they were able to leave bailout conditions just recently however as my colleague tess are still reports

it's still not stopping the irish from looking abroad for better options despite painful a steady three years and counting the irish capital of dublin is relatively bustling but the same can't be said for all other parts of the country carlo wants him to be are you sure the company at the forefront of industry now stands empty this sound is only one hour away from dublin but miles apart in terms of the economy even if you just scratch the surface a look around you'll see a lot of these boarded up houses or shop fronts or for sale signs a shadow of what this south used to be this is the center of. we found forty three hundred year old. history here and. while the government heralded arlen's exit from its international bailout as a success many find little to celebrate with others having long moved on in search

of greener pastures people with skills people with jobs and i live in the country we thought that we put behind us the black plague effect of immigration in the country and now it is back growing sectors of this economy which are importing workers from outside of violence on high wages with high skills and so forth completely deservedly but that is starting to draw these and little bit of attention within the population as well the european commission statistics office figures show thirty five thousand more people left ireland then arrived last year making arlen go from having had the highest net immigration levels in europe to the highest net emigration in just six years if we see what the families did leave. since we want. you. here and when young emigrants do come back it won't come as a surprise if they're just back for the holidays like feel one who had just arrived from perth he left two years ago after completing

a science degree and went on to become a videographer in australia there wasn't anything sort of keeping me here besides my immediate family really all my friends it's london or canada they're just completely. the world so i made it very easy for me and while the holidays draw back the irish to their native land it will take more than a bailout exit to keep them home does are still your r.t. . on screen. plenty of stories for you to check out for this clue to. the u.s. air force feeling left a bit red faced and furious. a top commander skips a nuclear exercise to get drunk in russia and spend his mission in the arms of to find foreign women and head to our web site get all the details about what the misconduct is going to cost him. on a lighter note have a look at this right here lighting up sydney skyline a spectacular show is done by stained glass mosaics being projected onto

a cathedral it's all to celebrate christmas holidays you can check out at the in motion section of. the canal in the program a syrian kurds want their own delegation for next month's peace conference on syria known as geneva two last month the group declared an autonomous a government in the country now kurds are a large ethnic group in the middle east and the majority of them live in the region known as kurdistan. it's the area well it's right here it borders four areas where turkey syria iraq and iran over here the population of the kurds of this entire region is forty million and they are one of the world's largest ethnic groups without their own state paulus leader now reports history could soon be in the making. discriminated repressed and divided for years the kurds were the scapegoats of the middle east but now the fortunes have turned resilient and hopeful history

is on their side for four thousand years kurds lived in iraq now they're enjoying defect autonomy and many believe independence is not far away but is now practical is not run by a powerful state in baghdad and a strongly believe that we are moving towards. a full independent kurdish state in the north of here across the border in turkey as much as twenty percent of the population is kurdish they fight for independence has long been a thorn in ankara side but. always called for a kurd fighters they have more weapons and they'll never give them up easily but it's in syria where the kurds faced a toughest fight they were caught up in the middle of a bloody civil war their territories are being claimed by al qaeda their villages raided their people killed residents of this kurdish village of pursuit fina forty five kilometers from aleppo say all it does is make them tougher fighters they are

prepared to die to protect their land and their people. now every night they want to restart the clashes but now we're well prepared because we made new bunkers so we have more ability to them before if they attack us we are ready to defend ourselves but if they don't we want to attack anybody. with such a strong fighting spirit and even stronger desire for sovereignty the kurdish influence in this part of the world is growing and arguably it might be only a matter of time until a new state appears on the map of the middle east policy or r.t. . i'll just give you a quick recap now of our breaking news here on the international it is thought that one of russia's highest profile prisoners mikhail khodorkovsky has already been released from jail as some reports say he left the penal colony and was perhaps taken away in a president putin of course signed his pod and after receiving an amnesty plea for

more oil tycoon ten years in prison for types old and embezzlement put in said quote a call for sort of clemency because his mother is ill we'll bring you more on the developing story as we get it here on the internet. or thanks so much for joining us here today you do a ship of out of here in half an hour's time but for now i'm stepping aside for sophie shevardnadze. the parliament of yemen has put forward a motion to ban drone attacks in the country the motion is now waiting approval by the president and it's probably impossible to enforce unless they could build a really big net or something is a bit 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 us military to take care of the al qaeda problem for them for free could be really entice and 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 do 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 problem they'll have better luck doing it themselves or the good old rifles and bayonets pointed at the right targets but that's just my opinion.

hello welcome to sofia and co i'm so shevardnadze the picture in ukraine is murky where calls for europe compete with the leaning towards question the us has already said it's ready to support those protesting the government's rejection of integration with you is this a norm or a systemic error in american foreign policy. rights. for decades america has been the leader of the world. after years of complacency crises and expensive wars is it struggling to maintain its position with so much broken at home is it worth the effort of trying to fix things abroad is the privilege of being the world's sole superpower slowed becoming

a dangerous burden. that our guest today is legendary politician pat buchanan a center advisor to three american presidents who was once a candidate for the top job himself mr mcadam it's such a pleasure to have you on our show tonight welcome delighted to be here so if so what is the start with the latest news john mccain promised to support ukrainians in their political stand against a government is that helpful for ukraine. well my feeling is that senator mccain whom i respect had no business in the ukraine this is a decision by the ukrainian people and ukrainian government as to whether they want to orient toward the russian customs union or toward the european economic union and i don't think that's an issue in which the united states has any right to be involved it's a decision for the ukrainians as i've said and senator mccain being there would be a little bit like president putin being in canada during the nafta debate and

telling the canadians not to sign so i think the ukrainian should make this decision themselves you know there are talks about sanctions the u.s. could use against ukraine and government what are they is that action warranted i don't take any action against ukraine is warranted no matter what decision it may and this is a decision again for the ukrainian government and the ukrainian people it has nothing to do with the vital interests of the united states and i would be opposed to my own government my own country imposing sanctions on the ukrainian government and people for a decision which is their sovereign right so and i don't think the congress of the united states would would go along with sanctions i find that hard to believe you know like you said at this is a choice that ukrainian people should make themselves and there is no one opinion on what path ukraine should choose.