breaking news here on r t x tycoon of me who. is expected to free later today prison officials say after president putin earlier signed his pardon. stripped of its full marks the european union loses its top credit rating due to a lot of cohesion and turns from budget negotiations within the block. this year in kurdish community presses for a seat at the negotiating table at the upcoming three neither peace talks hoping to grab the opportunity to secure all data right.

international news live from moscow you're watching international with me. and a bergman welcome to the program one of russia's most high profile prisoners. could walk free by the end of the day present pretend has signed a pardon for the former oil tycoon filed an amnesty plea and get more from. north he joins us now live from a better as i've also heard that you grow so of course very conflicting reports we're getting here so well do we know so far. we are getting mixed information right now with the authorities of that prison where because of the course he was serving the sentence here in korea they did confirm that he's been freed from his sentence they say that he should leave the premises of the prison at some point today but we have contacted the reporter of the rest twenty four channel who is there near that prison and he claims that that of course

he has already walked out of it stage or he got in a car and drove away similar reports are being made by other media we are standing currently here at the airport input as i was around two hundred kilometers away from that prison this is the only airport the nearest airport to that prison and we hope possibly to see the former take here at some point later today if of course that's possible if that's going to happen now all this is happening less than twenty four hours after. i broke the news that. he did ask him to be released from his sentence and while the president said that he was ready to sign all the necessary documents to do it as soon as possible apparently what we're seeing now this is pretty soon less than twenty four hours one of the reasons that according to the president of course he did ask is due to serious health problems

of his mother and we did manage to contact her as well here's what she said but. i haven't accepted what has happened yet and it's been too much since yesterday for me i'm still sort of lost and confused i guess i still can't believe it. surely this news took everyone by surprise including because of the cost is the lawyers who didn't know as they claimed last night about the pardon requests now we are just going to be standing here for some time hopefully waiting for the former altar coon and of course i'll be reporting all the latest developments from here career. thank you very much for that looking forward to hearing more from you he's a group is kind of reporting that live from the travels in the republic of korea. right now but

a cold case is expected to leave prison within the coming hours let's not talk more about his pilot and with british political journalist neil clark mr neil clark welcome to our see very nice to see the always. after a decade in jail i mean how critical is about to be freed just while in a matter of hours hopefully how big is this news for russia domestically and internationally the more when it is very big news isn't it because this was one of those highest prestigious most famous prisoners in the world really he was russia's richest man back in the ninety's in a court and according to fourteen of the sixteen richest men in the world for him going to jail is a very big story but i think that they're going to be a distinction which is what all the people from the russian around the world what certain elites in the west feel because western elites will be very pleased that the. only people who won't be because of the sect of the last it's from the russian people these oligarchs like what it was committed in the ninety's was in my opinion

one of the great financial crimes of the century so i think that there will be an elite view about this in western capitals this is good news quite of course people come to the west to be lionized on british television on b.b.c. questions are no doubt on fox news telling us how awful putin is and how terrible russia are is but i think ordinary people in russia and around the world have a very different this man he was a criminal he was an investment he was a force and i think that all the people have no time for people like him in jail because i stifle. not that hard of course he's leaving prison is that chance he'll opt for political career and it will he be able to succeed to think i think you would you have a look at his website actually yesterday and i don't know who's putting this stuff up there but they are going to gross recent comment was a. representative from moldova were quoting the sochi olympics and gloating about it's like your shows your khodorkovsky i don't think he's just going to go away

quietly and get back to those who are so normal and he's going to be getting involved in politics i think and i think he'll. be lionized by west vo cons by the russian herbs and i think he will try to north korea but of course the problems he's got is that western leaks don't vote in russian elections if the voting in russia elections just neo-con the people in the west that he would win a fight landslide but the russian people quite right the people i think with total contempt for the crimes that they committed during the one nine hundred ninety s. and so i think his chances of winning in russia or getting any kind of credible political force a very very remote people all the russian people don't support oligarchy they don't want people like politics and they want to vote for the and so this is the problem but he's got he'll get a copy of the very popular the west you'll get glowing editorials and glowing articles in the western media and the russian people won't vote for him. and how well putin's decision affects russia's image well i think we've got to understand

that whatever putin does these the hardcore russian firms in the west will criticize him if he releases quite a horse early believe norrie ford and make some sarcastic comments about well he should have been in prison anyway and he doesn't really similarly he'll be condemned for being heartless and nor of this humanitarian appeal because of course his mother was ill so whatever putin does will be attacked western neo-cons of russia goes wrong not rest until they got caught by some of the holocaust someone like gary kasparov in the kremlin. and while they championing these oligarchy and people are going to cost you because quote of course his crimes if they've been committed in britain. no they're championing him because the oligarchs are going to make russia weak base that's what they're that's where drug wars they were making russia weak in the ninety ninth you know of course the western leaders want to that they want a weak russia western elites around because there's been a resurgence under putin russia's become stronger. over syria where russia and

public opinion the west has dropped the warmongers plans to attack syria so the western elites i think the question then will mock whatever putin does. they will criticize because they want a different kind of russian president someone like yeltsin who will do what they want who will take ronald bullets from the west and look neil over to them now. american security to be reasserted that's what the west elite want so president putin does he began to be governed and it's called journalist neil clark mr clark thank you very much indeed for sharing your insight with us weapons shaders thanks very much earlier by i and president putin's decision to release me came as a big surprise at home but among the european leaders there's been quite a reserved reaction to the needs let's now get more from laura smith had a lorissa mccomas case pardon is

a major breaking news story here russia but that's not quite the case in europe as it. no reaction admittedly has been pretty muted over here i've been looking at the newspapers this morning and of course they are all covering it. and this has as you say come as a complete bolt out of the blue for everybody the guardian newspaper is pretty news itself it calls the development unexpected but the telegraph newspaper used the word to use the word bombshell not once but twice in the article what it's writing about the pardon of had of course so it has come as a big surprise here we've had a little bit of reaction particularly out of germany the foreign minister says that he hopes for a quick release which we understand it will be the case and calls the pardoning a good decision and chancellor says that she's glad that it's finally happening she said maintains that she's been pushing for it in various meetings with president

putin over the years and the head of the european parliament martin shultz also says that it's a step in the right direction and then speaking more generally i've been reading some. economics and political analysis of the situation and generally speaking they call it a good signal and they're not expecting any sort of improvement to happen straight away but they think that it could be seen in the future as having been a watershed moment for the investment climate the business climate in russia and investor relations of course in the west are saying that it's an attempt to boost russia's image ahead of the winter olympics in sochi but of course in the light of the amnesty for perceived riots and the greenpeace crew some say that even a display of clemency by putin is also a display of power and some of course are saying that it was just time to let her of course go he's ten years in jail he was due to be released next year anyway his

mother sick and he he has asked for a pardon something which he had never done before. a line from london laura thank you very much. and let's now look at the economic implications of all this and talk to barry's editor of business news here up thank you very much indeed for your time sir said the russian stock market is already welcoming the new year's day a thing the decision will benefit the business climate in russia on a larger scale. yes absolutely i mean how to cause has been a cause celeb here some eyes and personified a lot of the concerns that investors have particularly portfolio investors into doing business and investing into russian shares you have to remember and you can just heyday and it's run up between two thousand two thousand and three it became virtually a tourist stock although russia still had a very bad image in those days everybody piled into you because this is sort of bright boy the poster boy of change and the stock ran from twenty cents up to

fifteen dollars in the space of three years so to let him out is not to say it's going to fix the problems with russia's perception but certainly it's a step in the right direction and i think at the end of the day the investors stock investors actually quite pragmatic if not even cynical and to see how to cause to be released for them will be a positive signal and so much is a step in the right direction for investing into russia do you think decisions like this could make russia more attractive to foreign investors or maybe talk about that. it's sort of a mixed message i think one of the things you can take out of it is that putin so showed himself to be more sophisticated maybe than some of his peers in the region i mean the other leaders are very intransient egocentric he is idiosyncratic and here's putin saying that he's feeling so very confident in that he's willing to lead one of his political adversaries. and he doesn't expect there to be any time

mission this i mean and so for the wider scale of things the foreign investors he means a period. russia is open for business and that there are negotiated solutions to some of these very nasty problems. ben-ari said to business news europe thank you very much indeed for the time we appreciate it. now back in february ninety nine to seven autoconf ski became the chairman and c.e.o. of the private corporation cos which produced a fifth of russia's oil he became the country's richest man about six and a half years later he was arrested on four charges around at the same time links to the privatization of state assets he was eventually found guilty in may two thousand and five and was given nine years in prison where of course he appealed and that sentence reduced by a year in december two thousand and six there was a second case against the former tycoon he was charged with embezzling three

hundred and fifty million tons of oil those proceedings also ended with a guilty verdict and an additional fourteen years sentence but the court counted time already served towards that new prison term parties and he said now it looks at the rise and fall for. 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 bit of four hour q. and a and not one question about fred of course ski and then this if you don't know who the kospi recently wrote a petition asking me to pardon him pressuring him he spent more than ten years in prison this is a serious punishment he saw as humanitarian reasons saying his mother is secure in the 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 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 another costly 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 tons of oil worth twenty seven billion u.s. dollars. behind a 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 and all the back with more news for you in a few moments. it's. not a bargain. for the abolition of these kinds of agencies that 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 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.

and it was. a pleasure to have you with us here today. international live from moscow welcome back and we're going back to our top story this hour we're getting reports me hail holder koskie has actually already left his penal colony and that's despite the prison officials say he could walk free by the end of the day let's get more from. what we can now talk to him on the phone right

now but unfortunately been told that actually we lost connection with igor right now but of course will return to him as soon as possible. they european union's credit rating has been dealt a blow standard and poor's has downgraded it from triple a to double a plus the agency is sad that blocks financial profile has deteriorated on of are reports now from. standard imposed 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 plan a 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 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 flop fronts or for sale signs a shadow of what this used to be this is the center of. the four

hundred year old brief. history here. absolutely nothing 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 ireland on high wages with high skills and so forth completely deservedly but that is starting to draw these a little bit of a tension within the population as well the european commission statistics office figures show thirty five thousand more people left ireland that 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 i believe if. we want. you. to sleep over 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 on the friends it's a londoner area canada ever just completely crossed 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. are learned. and now back to our main story now i guess a report and held her coffee has actually already left his penal colony that the

spies prison officials say he could walk free by the end of this day after getting no phone calls he's eager piskun off we can talk to him on the phone right now igor and where is that me how what are called key right now what information do you have that. we're currently at the airport in because of what's. around two hundred geometers away from the prison where he was serving his sentence and the officials here at this board have just told us that they'd received reports in and through the technical communication from helicopter base. in figures is the town where that prison is located that the former tycoon got into a helicopter and flew off or just apparently just a few moments ago this does go well with the reports by the media that earlier he left the prisons for as premises got into a car and drove off doesn't really go well with information given by the jails

facials who say that he could leave the premises at some point during the day because the information we've been getting is quite different but i guess we should believe the staff of this airport they are in constant contact with the nearby air strips and this is the information that they that they received from the one from the town where the prison a lot get it now so all this is happening less than twenty four hours after the president broke the news that he was going to release from jail that the formal who asked him to do it and you are thank you very much for keeping us up to date will be talking tonight he's eager face kind of that life on patrols level. see were incurred so own delegation for next month's peace conference on syria known as geneva two last month the group declared an anonymous autonomy's government in the country kurds are one of the world's largest ethnic groups

without the state but us policy of 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 another one by. powerful state in baghdad. 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 and her side but us of a larger long. 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 face the toughest fight they are 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 pursue fina forty five kilometers from aleppo so 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 are well prepared because we made new bunkers so we have more abilities than 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. . and right now it's one of the media found maybe on the risks and challenges faced

by whistleblower. 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 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 the good old rifles and bayonets pointed at the right targets but that's just my opinion.

does use it bump this focus on this to quote i think i would have to define from a. movement view to see if it won't get the food. that you make people in china temple. good luck a good long time emma and. mitch is not one of more than with what you looked. at me going up with just one it was not me trying to go to the dealer city needed it it's a pretty thing but the best kind. becomes a cost to the spirit. it would have to disagree with that if it's anything but rather than do that it's about reasons for transfer to be able. to provide information on the public to provide information on the degree of these residing in

the understand what will they get one hundred ten g.b. and some of the time. proceeded to pick up put it with. the person that does it. to provide information on a market of stocks and it's doubled like you'll need to do better. the mover then picks then and if would it still routine. what makes it in the input that a minute she's the third most of the steam one. but. that just you visions of bumping you find your room. knows the knowing is there actually got there. really don't want. to move a little come together in this look at us. but what i bet that became aware. of them is the same that has them used to believe those near let not them vision cbus means merely vocal or stuck to system but business people see.

what it up as whatever the little bit that it must will be will be others who you are going to be in which in the series you know all the better the go with a couple times and it's because they do know the look was made then you know there's a crisis definitely do that and i see that you have the right to them and you go to the c.d.c. and you say yes you know you have established you to be dead and it is about where you wrote those years a still. look at this poor bastard partner. to find out a. couple fucking jews and just. it's not justice detainee because we're.