another day for egyptians to say yes or no to a new military backed constitution after tam's by islamist opponents to seven taj the voting result of bloodshed. u.k.'s criticised for refusing to let in syrian war refugees who are struggling to survive one of the world's worst humanitarian crises in decades. and say hello to a new version of cyberspace where internet providers get to decide which website you see based on their commercial interests we explain shortly.

it is right here in moscow are you watching us here national with me marina josh polling stations have opened across egypt for a second day voting on a new constitution a yes vote would cement the authority of the transitional government and partial military and pave the way for presidential elections and matter of months our correspondent all to reports from cairo. dictions it once again in the polling stations for a second day on this referendum on the constitution the people behind it so are this interim government and also the military and then the people who stands and gain the most if this is a yes vote and if there's a high ten outs in particular the military is key articles within this constitution which would cement military power over the civilian states' military trials of civilians will be allowed the minute she budget will be kept secrets and crucially the appointment of a defense minister will have to be approved by egypt as you print counts of the armed forces which basically means the minutes to be able to veto the decisions by

the presidents now this is worry quite as if you rights groups and also activists you said that this was centrally calls a military state within a state but really the biggest opponents the constitution arguments the brotherhood and supporters of ousted president mohamed morsi they say the whole process is intimates that has been a very tentative no vote campaign which hasn't really been allowed to express itself over the course of the last week six members of the strong egypt parts were actually initially backed the military two with jailed after they tried to put up posters calling for the country to vote no in the constitution and this is something that people are saying is causing you know causing a real problem here in the referendum as it's really only a yes votes allowed in egypt and of course it is that yes vote that affirmation of the government and the military and looking for high turnout and a yes vote would be a stamp of approval from the states on that military altered political map which they put in place into light and we'll see parliamentary and presidential elections of course this could also pave the way for egypt's the factory leader and forces

chief general sisi to run for president he's already expressed interest in doing that we had a similar situation under the former president mohamed morsi when he pressed through his constitutional two thousand and twelve constitution which basically any all his decrees from traditional people gave themselves you can get thirty and keep actually immunize the body that was drafting his constitution from being dissolved . any judicial body the missing brotherhood and his supporters do not recognize the current constitution as they still believe the two thousand and twelve constitution should be in place so they are boycotting at the moment and we spoke to a spokesperson in the midst of brotherhoods to ask them what their positions. make egypt a military state these consumption make it a bullycide state otherwise you can consider that. in a state that egypt has an army you can say that gives an army has and state this is the reality of the sky and of course with fusion however there is people want the

country to move forward after six very difficult and bloody months so we'll have to see what the variance is and also how the nation decides on this constitution but the current circumstances surrounding it doesn't leave much hope for a stable democratic future think egypt well coming your way in a sour national heritage or a vanity spending. just one politician who initially agreed to have her portrayed painted later pulled out off to press inquiries regarding the cost she said she considered the big picture. i'll leave the house of commons has commissioned portraits of its most illustrious members at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds we asked taxpayers how they feel about it . in spain there is no shortage of rage over government spending we reported soon on why grounds of demonstrators have descended on the city of beauregard's over a pricey reconstruction scheme. and the united nations is

urging you members to take in syrian refugees who fled the war zone but are now struggling to survive in a neighboring countries several european nations have answered the call and are granting asylum to syrians but one of the largest member state is being criticized for shutting its doors just are still you know reports. increasingly extreme humanitarian suffering there is a humanitarian crisis britain is leading the way with humanitarian support but some might wonder whether it actually is the u.k. has committed five hundred million pounds in aid that to a cyst syria's neighbors like jordan turkey and iraq cope with the sheer number of refugees but that as far as it's willing to go the u.k. has been criticized for. appeal to syrians fleeing the conflict despite calls to open its doors for now why answer is no the latest count more than

two million syrian refugees are at the borders of neighboring countries this is. just. on the war. concerned shared by seventeen other nations who've said yes it's hard to understand why they're taking this position given that this is something that we have done in the past problems the conflict in the balkans with thousands of kosovo. i fear that there may be may be domestic emigration considerations that is influencing this come slap in the middle of a political climate at a national mood that's increasingly wary of anyone coming through the door we already have except. we have except i think about one thousand five hundred asylum seekers that is a fact we've already shaky said it is a fact that we have accepted hundreds of individual asylum seekers from syria but

factually speaking the un's most recent request is that countries all for resettlement places for people who were still stuck in the region which does not include the fifteen hundred nick clegg says of apply for asylum in britain what the un has asked for is over and above. a commitment in international david camm. and has caused a serious friend called this a refugee refugee crisis of our time in recognition of. the u.k. would respond does or sylvia r.t. london some now say the refugee crisis is being used by foreign powers as an excuse to push their own agendas over syria if everyone gave them to the refugees or there would be no more emergency it gives the whole syrian issue of moral from memphis is when you have refugees suffering us being ignored when it's convenient and and it's been quoted where no when it's when they're playing along with the game also france

the u.k. and the united states are playing good cop bad cop where the united states claimed that they are for peace and then contradict you know that john kerry's own spokespersons have contradicted him on several occasions no. u.s. appeals court has struck down measures and forcing nap neutrality or equal access to all online content as a result broadband providers will soon be able to steer users traffic towards or away from certain websites the ruling followed a lawsuit brought by one of the country's largest mobile phone operators arises against the federal communications commission and the company challenge the f.c.c. is ban on providing extra bandwidth to certain web sites giving them an edge in reaching consumers so advocacy campaigner toddled boyle says this preferential treatment for major commercial sites jeopardizes the future of the web. i think the biggest implication potentially is for content providers and for innovation we know

that the innovations flourished online because while players have had equal access to consumers as of this ruling a big company like rising can strike a deal with a video service make a partner deal with them so that their content would always be delivered more quickly that makes it difficult for the next startup to get started if the decision is left unchallenged then there's nothing really stopping from that service provider from blocking access to specific content and if you block access to the most important online social organizing tools it may impact what they're able even to say and how they can connect to communicate so absolutely there are startling free speech concerns here. the sale of secrecy slightly lifted on the life of the fugitive n.s.a. whistleblower edward snowden you now has a new job. former cia louie joins the journalist glenn greenwald and his fellow

whistleblowers on the board of the freedom of the press foundation read a full story on our web site r t v dot com. and a fishing net company is tasked with developing a remedy for space junk more of the revolutionary plans for a clean up in orbit at our team dot com. right from the scene. first for you and i think that you're. on our reporters twitter. and instagram. to be in the know what. now u.k. finance chief george osborne has issued a stark warning to the e.u.

saying it needs urgent reforms to regain its competitiveness and britain could leave the bloc if it fails to do so let's get some details from march's laura smith who is in london for us so long as we can see is some very strong words from chancellor what has prompted this well i think the why it's pretty easily summed up by an analogy that george osborne used to the beginning of his speech on wednesday where he said europe's like a burning building with no exits basically he sees the political bloc as the falling behind india and china overspending on welfare becoming less and less competitive essentially an economic and political bloc in decline domestically of course here in the u.k. the e.u. is losing popularity people see it's very expensive increasingly power hungry and also the originator of an awful lot of red tape but also one central message today was that the u.k. is not pushing for reform for its own sake oh no it's pushing for reform for everybody else the stakes for europe sake as

a whole so he was talking about the tabling of legal challenges a year pen course of justice he said it's no time to european but in fact it's a way of preserving values that traditionally seem to be european such as known discrimination he talked about the calling for rejection of the financial services reform which of course includes a cap on bankers' bonuses which is quite controversial here in the u.k. because london competes with new york and hong kong it's not competing inside europe and anything that damages the city of london also damages london also damages europe as a whole haiti is george osborne summing up for his central message was on wednesday . now some on the continent like to assume this is just the u.k. pursuing its own self interest of the expense of the collective good. but it's the opposite if we cannot protect the collective interests of normal euro zone member states then they will have to choose between joining the euro which the u.k.

will not do or leaving the european union. and these rifts between london and brussels keep on opening up the latest is over introducing more human rights since the u.k. in fact brussels has talked about imposing the charter of human rights on all its member countries which would possibly mean legal challenges to businesses and to government the u.k. already opted out of that in one thousand nine hundred eight so the government is sort of like going back into the past and doing something again and that's the latest in a in a long line of proposals as brussels tries to ramp up the political union inside the political integration george osborne's message on the message of the conservative party here in the u.k. as a whole is reform or die. all right laura thank you so much for bringing us the details from london on this laura smith reporting there for us. and elsewhere in the e.u.

this soaring unemployment means fear is competition for work places. that's the prettiest faces who are winning out job seekers in france say they're being discriminated against on the basis of their looks and we hear from one of them after the break. their real sharon has died and been given a state funeral is called controversial and even a peacemaker by mainstream media and political clubs and so many others strongly reject these descriptions on this edition of crossfire with a simple question who was ariel sharon. speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world talks about six of p.r.p. interviews intriguing stories for you. in troy

arabic to find out more visit our big don't go t.v. dog called. i think. i'm. welcome back you're watching r.t. international at a time of economic unease and the deep welfare cuts british politicians haven't been holding back when it comes to immortalizing their colleagues on canvas leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab. has the details. they say a picture is worth

a thousand words but in the case of the u.k. parliament it's more like a quarter of a million pounds it's been revealed that since ninety ninety five m.p.'s have splurged two hundred and fifty thousand pounds on commissioning portraits of fellow parliamentarians to adorn the walls of the houses of parliament behind me take for example work and pensions secretary ian duncan smith has portrayed cost ten thousand pounds a painting of foreign secretary william hague that cost four thousand pounds and a relatively small portrays have left wing m.p. diane abbott well that set back the taxpayer eleven thousand and seven hundred and fifty pounds the same amount that it cost to commission a life size bronze statue of baron s. that chair it turns out i think people would expect the parliament jewels or it is to have portrayed of prime ministers or former speaker of the house of commons but

looking at the list of people who have been immortalized on canvas or in broad so over the last decade or two they're costing them a very wide and i think questions need to be asked as to exactly who is getting this privilege and whether it's worth taxpayers' money being spent on mark well the fact is you go in and obviously paintings of politicians however talk of austerity possibly don't the best idea there are some things that cultural in artistic things that are worth paying the money for of the public purse because they. can be seen by everyone. but i have no interest in seeing in seeing paintings of politicians and surely that i could have found the money some other way whether it be via charities you know donation private donations but it does seem. to come from you know you come from us as an art lover i think it's quite good because we saw a document of part of history and they can talk about it in the future. they you know they commission to these things and it was really risky at the time because they

were in a lot of debt in response to criticism over the paintings a common spokesman said that the annual op budget has been reduced in light of the economic downturn but despite this just one politician who initially agreed to have her portrait painted later pulled out off to press inquiries regarding the cost she said she'd considered the big picture and no longer felt it was appropriate to splash all that public cash in times of austerity party boy artsy. protesters in northern spain are marching against a major construction plan of the city of borg os i was. just what is going to uganda boulevard at a cost of up to thirteen million euros local say it's a waste of resources that will affect the city's poorest during a time of severe recession riots have broken out over the past few days with

protesters torching trash cans and clashing with police we talked to one political analyst who says these events reflect the situation in the country as a whole. the demonstrators say that they will continue. protesting against this project because they they still don't believe that he's going to be withdrawing the reason why people are so angry specifically because it doesn't fit with the current situation of austerity of cutbacks seen in services this is an area which has suffered from those cutbacks in public services recently so people they say they prefer to have schools and hospitals rather than parking lots this is a very conservative c.t.s. this is the other small city in space never happens something like that in a city like google or so this is probably. one of the symptoms of of how problematic is being the situation on the whole in the whole of space. tribal leaders in iraq the city of fallujah are in negotiations with al qaeda linked

militants armed groups have controlled the city for over a week now in today's breaking the set abby martin looks at who is responsible for the alarming turn of events. week al qaeda militants took control of the iraqi cities of ramadi and fallujah after days of nonstop violence according to independent iraqi news agency house while the brock three hundred seventy people have died in just the last ten days all about numbers hard to verify considering how bodies are not being taken to the morgue and instead excluded from official death counts now you may remember fallujah as one of the primary deadly battlegrounds during the height of the u.s. occupation so what is the fall of the city signify for not only the progress of iraq but the region as a whole joining me now to discuss is eugene career ordinator for the answer coalition thank you so much for coming on metal thank you so much for having me so you jeanne what the main factors that are contributing to your failed state of iraq today well i think the key factor that we have to mention is that the occupation of

iraq by the united states fundamentally destabilize the country the united states just completely disassembled the iraqi state as it existed and not only didn't really put anything in place but actually set up a structure which made it sort of bit official for forces to become more at the cereal to divide along sectarian and other sorts of lines of what we're seeing now is the real fruits of all of these time bombs land mines that were set by the u.s. occupation. of the that. was the standoff in fallujah continues it's been a day of bloodshed in other parts of iraq prompting the country's prime minister nuri al maliki to ask for international support to get the situation under control . at least fifty two people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in the capital capital baghdad and villages near the northeastern city of baquba that's where a suicide bomber blew himself up at

a funeral killing eighteen people and wounding sixteen more car bombs claimed more than thirty lives in the mostly shia district of baghdad the u.n. says over seven hundred people were killed last month alone in iraq making a total death toll for two thousand and thirteen the highest in five years. thousands of protesters have marched through thailand's capital keeping up calls for the government to resign demonstrators have occupied key road junctions and blockaded state ministry buildings gunshots were fired at a crowd overnight injuring at least two people the government as cold snap elections to calm the situation the people though are vowing to stay on the streets until their rulers that they accuse of large scale corruption are forced from power . israeli defense minister has apologized for his remarks on the u.s. secretary of state's middle east peace efforts and israeli newspaper quote of mushing alon a saying that john kerry's attempts at israeli palestinian peace were messianic and

obsessive the white house cold comments inappropriate kerry has been on the diplomatic push recently to outline a deal between the sides but progress has so far been holding. with the french media swamped with coverage of the president's colorful private life francois hollande has vowed to ease the tax burden on businesses and cut public spending by fifty billion euros a lot also says he wants to streamline state bureaucracy while keeping france of social welfare model intact previous convertable tax hikes and the so-called millionaire's tax have seen some of france's wealthy of citizens have abroad and change citizenship. another challenge facing europe's second biggest economy in twenty fourteen is soaring unemployment while of the country's young people are seeking work elsewhere those who remain say they're feeling increasingly discriminated against our national looks into what's behind those claims.

human beauties glorified by poets syngas and artists like it or not we are drawn to beautiful people but we can't all be old paintings trousers known as the world's fashion and beauty trendsetter but the gleaming smiles and slim waist line said grace billboards and shop windows are also sets that trend with some deeply undesirable consequences and sophists penned eight years at university she has two diplomas is a to collate and thoughtful but confines a job she says because of her size ahsoka ignore the people think because i'm carrying some extra weight i don't have the brains or intelligence to take up but they were like issue really capital of doing her job and they didn't even hide it and modal appearances like having an extra diploma we just completely wrong depressing and pure discrimination answer fee describes more than society as being like a carnival mirror if you don't conform to standards it sends you and others

a negative image of yourself sid you are with is it hard of course to the society is far from a gift and with this problem soon becomes even more painful it leads to extra stress and depression it's just not fair. what ansa feast as she has been facing for years appears to be backed up by statistics. yes. we have a blonde here she got much more responses compared to an overweight person. sociologist. carried out an experiment in which he sent the same c.v. with different photos after a change in the color of the skein hair weight age and sex the results were surprising. bridge to defend also there is more difference between a pretty blonde and an overweight or aging woman between someone of french origin

and someone with african roots which means that discrimination by beauty and age is even more pronounced than race or origin based discrimination but no one pays any real attention to it. france and belgium and the only european countries where these type of discrimination is against a more physical appearance is among the nineteen criteria that employers are not allowed to base their decision on since until this is a very dangerous tendency people are pushed away from the market not because of a lack of qualifications but because of their hate weight or color of their eyes the person responsible for this cremations based on physical appearance could face up to four years in prison or pay forty five thousand euro fine but people don't even consider it discrimination it's considered normal and it's worldwide wasn't. a number of associations in france as well as world wide aim to protect the rights of those not considered to be conventionally attractive but there are plenty who have

already suffered thanks to the unofficial and unspoken beauty contest of the job market refashion r.t. from france and right after the break peter lavelle and his guest debate the legacy of the late as railway prime minister ariel sharon across the uk coming up shortly here. playing. the olympic spirit travels with the flame from its place in

greece. joining james brown for an elemental and epic journey around russia and beyond. where am i supposed to go. for the new poster harming a lot of these policies i'm sure you know. the

pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure. hello and welcome to crossfire we're all things considered peter lavelle ariel sharon has died and being given a state funeral he was called controversial and even a peacemaker by mainstream media and political classes many others strongly reject these descriptions for much of the world particular the palestinians sharon's legacy is much more about hate violence intolerance and death on this edition of cross talk we ask a simple question who was ariel sharon.