b.p. wins the right to drill in greenland for pristine ice after promising it will be careful but activists are unconvinced pointing to its checkered past and the gulf of mexico disaster as warnings of what's to come. the security collapse in iraq worsens a wave of bombing killing twenty people in the capital as al qaeda offshoot exploits the dire situation to gain control over the city pollution. and britain's pm threatens to take on the e.u. over cutting welfare to immigrants by critics say it's a cynical move toward the lure voters back from the right.

hello and welcome you're watching r t international live from moscow with me and he said no way our top story greenland has decided to open up one of the world's most pristine environments to oil drilling and b.p. is already rubbing its hands the company responsible for turning the gulf of mexico into an ecological catastrophe nearly four years ago has been given exploration rights in eastern greenland greenpeace says it beggars belief that a firm with such a patchy history could be allowed to work in such a fragile region alexi or ships he reports now on why the country shifted its environment first down. british petroleum has been denied any drilling licenses in the united states for more than a year now the deepwater horizon spill taking its toll on the company's reputation but this mattered little to the new government in greenland drilling and or lack split aeration off the western coast of the country particularly from bay has already been under. for some time by the likes of shell chevron and exxon mobil but

b.p. and its partners will now explore the m.r.o. concession in the north east which amounts to thousands of square kilometers some believe there may be a huge reserves of oil there up to one hundred ten billion barrels potentially the largest in the whole of the arctic the decision of greenland leadership is a complete u. turn from what it said only nine months ago when a moratorium on any further drilling was imposed due to environmental concerns the latest move is understood to be tightly connected with greenland strive for independence from denmark for now it's been relying solely on its faltering fish industry and grants from copenhagen but it's also known to have vast reserves of diamonds gold rare metals as well as having the world's second largest reserves of fresh water but clearly it's the black gold which could make greenland both economically and politically independent and the government is happy to have more international oil giants on board to boost these ambitions however not everyone is a thrill to colleges have already blasted the move pointing at b.p.'s checkered record describing the arctic environment as very fragile they say that even

a minor oil spill in the crystal clear waters of greenland could cause a major disaster b.p. officials say they will take several years to carefully prepare for the challenging exploration work given the intensity of environmentalists criticism it's almost guarantee that this period will be marked by the protests of those opposed to any drilling in the arctic. well for b.p. these past three few years have not been kind when it comes to a track record in two thousand and five fifteen people died and almost two hundred were injured in an explosion at a b.p. texas refinery the company admitted it ignored safety procedures a year later only out in the alaskan oil field spilled almost a million tons of crude into the landscape there in two thousand and ten the deepwater horizon rig exploded sparking the worst offshore oil spill in u.s. history and doing in kalak of all damage to livelihoods and the environment there finally two years ago i guess compressor station in colorado belonging to b.p.

exploded killing one worker and injuring coup this track record was of special concern to greenpeace's arctic campaigner who we spoke to he told us that greenland should think twice it's very important that the green and the government and the green and the population is aware that the risks that taken would have been moments of consequences but also have is a spill happens when a spill happens have massive consequences for for example the fish resurfacing greenland it is just too big a wrist so you get the conditions on extremely harsh. light on a collision course almost on a daily basis when we can schedule company the exploration drilling spot in two thousand and eleven they have to chose what we around two hundred icebergs over a period of just a couple of months because they're on a collision course with the oil rig if one of these all these bearings on sort of way and actually hits it hits the oil rig there will of course be environmental

consequences and at the same time the use new technology to clean up the spill last whether that's because the cold means that you will have to remove all the all the oil manually there will be no natural degrade asian and you won't be able to use technologies in mind it's like the greenlandic ones. it looks like hard up italian fashion nice those are turning from designer to discount there just isn't the counter flash on high end homegrown control or later we tell you why a made in china label is in this season. we take you to a big cat sanctuary in sochi as we continue our tour of the winter olympics host city. but first a new wave of bombings has ripped through the commercial districts of the iraqi capital killing at least twenty people it's after the government lost control of the city of pollution which fell to an al-qaeda linked militia which then declared

it a breakaway islam next day when the u.s. led war the city with a major pocket of resistance to american forces suffered a third of their total faith tallaght if they're out of cash to fund their thinks the dire security situation right now what about. a long way since my time an illusion two thousand four there's been able to step back you know i've been involved you know a lot of various efforts here in the united states to help veterans out with p.t.s.d. and things like that so i think it's it's is it is incredible to see you know a lot of the rejections that those of us who understood what the war was about at least figured out and we got home coming true now because when you understand the nature of war as a racket you want to stand the true motivations behind the united states in a very general occupation when you want to stand what kind of puppet government was installed in iraq your stand it was really only a matter of time before this happened. well iraqi lawyers a buck

a look tara says the country's prime minister and his cabinet have completely failed to save the country from ruin the hasn't been able to stop terrorist acts which has been taking the lives of the civilians in battle that he is now accusing the tiger which is someone else that being the one who is causing it he is the government is totally incapable of controlling she didn't buy that did south except that the people that are being put and very tight slot because the government is allowing people to go out on a beating anybody who comes out in the street even raising their voices this is really a tragedy but the problem is not there the problem is that the governments of the world and the international media seems to swallow this idea that somehow what is happening is that this is a fight against al qaida when in fact it isn't. well on our website we're running a project dedicated to keeping tally of the violence in iraq especially the human

cost also there read up on a former u.s. commanders dire predictions for afghanistan's future he tells the mind how the early contests of helmand province could fall to the taliban this year where they could challenge the authority of kabul. google glass already needs to look sharp another u.s. companies unveiled contact lenses powered by now i don't know which would recognize from where i'm going to revolutionize i should say the wearable computer market. and mirrors rumors abound that the governor of new york is about to allow marijuana in the medical system to on our website. and. we're right back in a few moments to tell you why britain's freaking out over foreigners and how the chinese dragon is breathing down the neck of a tell you a tour. crosstalk

rules in effect that you can jump in anytime you want.

welcome back you with r t international live from moscow britain's prime minister wants the contrie to stand up to the e.u. and demand the right to stop paying welfare to new arrivals from abroad his critics say he's grounding for popular support as voters increasingly look further and further right wing when it comes to immigration the u.k. independence party says david cameron is completely misjudging the public mood we've had mass open door immigration in the united kingdom over the past decade it's had problems on schools hospitals infrastructure and pushing down wages in the country that is why he is struggling and he can't find a solution politicians are not listening to people in the streets of all into places around the country go to lincolnshire for example they are telling us that

they have difficulties in the community because it's changed now that's not being racist is actually being realistic and listening to those people all that we suggesting you could be is that anyone who comes to this country has to be able to afford to work a pay taxes and contribute to this country but we have to have a sensible immigration policy which brings the best in and ensures that they stay here and pay for the future of this country in the same way that indigenous people do well might not be the first thing to spring to mind when you think of winter olympics but these big caps are a symbol for sochi two thousand and fourteen for a reason the area is home to the endangered creatures who are fighting tooth and claw to survive three months a is in sochi and finding out what's being done to help. stealthy hunters resorts will scavengers persian leopards the smallest local wildcats once told these mountains in the caucasus. now the soldiery elusive and skillful

predators are being green introduced to their natural habited after fifty years thanks to the caucuses nature reserve leopard sent to its part of a program link to the sochi twenty fourteen winter games that aims to preserve and improve the region's wildlife and environment. though the animal has been spotted on the russian caucasus a few times there is no viable leopard population there our program is designed to start a new population of the personal labyrinth of the caucasus mountains and to restore the species in its natural habitat there has been success here two cups born at the national park in july with the first ever born in captivity. their parents have been brought in from lisbon zoo in portugal to two yes for them to get used to

their new home and each other who the connection wasn't to mediate but it didn't come and it froze kids was captured on camera the health of the family will be wanted today using g.p.s. chips for the next twenty years all in all the center now has ten leopards it's hope to this group can lead to a resurgence for the species the leopards live in a temporary open eight cages in the reserve which i quipped with cameras there observed closely while the adept before being released into the wild their food is pig releasing the cages to shop in out their hunting skills. one cub that wasn't shy about cameras was groom his mother neglected him after he was born now the keepers act as fools to parents taking them for walks feeding him and giving him extra love and attention. now graeme he is only six

months old he's pretty happy and he will be here making sure that there's more of him out of this nature park to bomb with say in so she's a nature park forty that such was the county fourteen olympics was this place lying on the law is so special as the russian resort prepares to welcome the world power the game shaping the city's present and future a lot more sochi will bring it this is a moment everybody from a very cold and snowy windy mountainous tough yet beyond the olympics but the bombing looks a. change. compared to any other nationwide. i would say. most free from all those

mistakes. significant number of mistakes happen and we try to rectify it we put in the system. detect any fault any problem in the system. so that you can check. what's going on in the villages and that it will. all. program so we have. a half million voters. that are all connected to the system.

crosstalk rules in effect you can jump in anytime you want. italy may be the world's fashion capital but its designers need to look over their

padded shoulders at what's coming in from the east chinese fakes are slipping into the country and they're convincing enough to win over cash strapped shoppers going all sizes up the competition. well john laws on the site for generations of this family have made their living from the textile business italian kashmir silk garden you name it these people have quality clothing in their d.n.a. a high end quality which fewer and fewer customers are able to afford now with this the people what they they are interested there in the nice thing sir but that they have no money to buy and they go to buy a cheap pair of boots and this is ladies and also why is the pride that i call rubbish brad the junk food the drunken clothes or as the economy struggles to go on in this recession in half a century demand for

a luxury goods among italians is going down but for some the crisis has provided great opportunities just like many other cities across the world rome has its own chinatown as well whole district in the center of the city filled with chinese businesses which go way beyond sticks to take out and include shops or even boutiques and chinese walls which have been spreading all around formal casual sporty every size and styles clothes and footwear are presented here and with a price tag sometimes as much as ten times lower than the competition it's flying off the shelves there is nothing to think about here i'm not going to spend my last cash under such i buy chinese stuff yes they make good cotton clothes sometimes but i was check the label first and here's the punchline the chinese schools are not made in china anymore the materials are imported yes but sister assembled here just lieschen allows the made it will be stamped on every item something italian

companies want changed if you need. some blood off that as a product but there we are working extensively on quality and not on that on quantity with large quantity and lope. proved the perfect tactic for the trainees who were going to the bank of italy germany at least one half million dollars out of italy to china. good is going to fourteen. look now at some more of this hour's world headlines the opposition syrian national council has folded in turkey that it won't take part in talks with president also the government other members of the key western backed coalition are expected to decide on monday whether they will take part in the geneva two meeting the talks are scheduled for later this month with the aim of getting the many warring factions in syria to agree to stop fighting after almost three years of violence. there's been a mass protest in the israeli capital by fountains of african migrants angry at

a new law that allows the government to send them to desert jails legislation's been slammed by the un's refugee agency which says it called our chips and suffering three hundred people have reportedly been arrested since the law was brought in three weeks ago it's thought there are about sixty thousand african migrants micheel mostly from every tree up and down. by authorities are planning to move are truly into the capital ahead of mass opposition rallies planned for this week and it's a huge huge numbers of activists marched in the capital keeping up their calls for the prime minister to quit in luck shinawatra has already yielded to pressure from the streets imply a new elections for february protesters say that's not an elf they want to set up a citizens council to carry out reforms for any elections or help. them paid at a muslim ceremony in northern china has left at least fourteen people dead and many other others injured four critically ill it happened when traditional religious

food was handed out to people attending the event. record low temperatures are set to hit parts of the u.s. as winter storms continue across the country forecasters say the freeze could hit minus fifty degrees celsius in the midwest and are warning people to stay at home the extreme weather has claimed the lives of sixteen people this weekend grounded thousands of flights. coming out across talk argue over whether time magazine got it right or not with its latest choice of person of the year. there are many internal battles in society liberals and conservatives will never agree on gun rights or abortion but there is one battle that is often more

generational than anything the battle for school uniforms teachers argue that uniforms eliminate a big distraction in the classroom and break up the caste systems that can evolve at school between the cool fashionable kids and the ones who can barely afford lunch like me in my younger years but teenagers will scream uniforms crush their freedom of expression and that they have a right to express who they are their individuality who has the right to dictate to them what to wear the thing they don't realize is that if the school doesn't tell them what to wear that big corporations and m.t.v. will all the cool individuals who dress alike and blindly follow all the trends are just obeying corporate marketing instead of their parents yeah for some reason it is bad if the school punishes you for dressing improperly but if the cool kids make your life a living hell for not wearing the right brand of shoes well that's all well and good for some reason hey look at it this way school uniforms are cheap which leaves more money for parents to buy you video games being individual in your actions and not a fake individual in trendy clothes but that's just my opinion. it's

a. very hard to take a. look. at that with the big hair. the but.

i know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth than the might think. of. goods because one whole attention and the mainstream media work side by side the joke is actually on here. to be coming back . at our teen years we have to print for. the show because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not. ok. i've. got to stick to the jokes that will handle the stuff that i've got to.

hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i am peter lavelle time magazine's person of the year francis the catholic pontiff according to the managing editor the pope change the tone and perceptions of the roman catholic church this may be so but francis also is showing himself to be critical of the global economic order and capitalism is there hope for the church or is francis merely a p.r. product. to cross-talk pope francis i'm joined by my guest jamila bey in washington she's a journalist and public speaker also in washington we have one hundred chef when he

is the president of the at was economic research foundation and in madison we cross to scott rickard he is an expert on catholicism as well as the executive editor of chronicles a magazine of american culture all right crosstalk rules and in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage encourage it one hundred in washington per person of the year well deserved yes for sure few people have such respect as the pope. the catholic church still has so much prestigious so much influence around and around the globe so i'm a middle aged ok jamila are you elated that pope francis is time magazine's person of the year. it is despairing despairing to me that i've got to support miley cyrus pope francis is a choice for person of the year was absolutely wrong in every measure from time

magazine this pope as you put it in your intro so aptly earlier is a product of p.r. he's not this major reformer who's coming in making sweeping changes to benefit the lives of the faithful he has more of the same and unfortunately that's a problem he should not have been picked ok scott i would you differentiate the two because it's very interesting what we've heard already in this program is that i mean it may be very possible that francis is a p.r. product and you know he's very appealing to a lot of people i mean even i look at the pictures of him embracing a man with severe disfigurement i mean any person who has compassion can say that's a good person doing that as opposed to kind of where is the catholic church because it looks like you can easily separate the two go ahead scott. right it's certainly he certainly is appealing the the the idea though that that he was ever going to come in change the catholic church in the way that that i think. or some of the

editors of time might want. was was wrong from the from the beginning what what he has brought to the catholic church is a change in tone a change in emphasis the time article does pick up on that but it also expresses a sort of hope an expectation that there's going to be some sort of more fundamental change doctrinal changes moral changes these aren't going to come about the catholic church. is a two thousand year old institution that that understands. what the what it is supposed to be teaching and and the pope would not have been elected if if he were going to teach something other than what he should be teaching one hundred it's very interesting point because you can have a new pope but you still have the old church. yes among the catholics in the united

states at least in the poll that was released yesterday it is the conservative catholics that have more doubt because they fear that there might be coming to change the fundamental truth and doctrines of the church but i agree with scott that that will happen you know this pope is very well trained is not a product of. said he didn't live through the horrors of soviet communism. and john paul the second did he did not live through the madness of hitler benedict ratzinger in houston years but he lived through a very conflicted period in argentina the killings of the seventy both by the left and from the right he's only capitalism firsthand he remained in that culture of full of corruption completely clean and impeccable learning to live to to listen.