all. we count the stories that shape that we. alleged russian spy political same good scoring political points. with

mistrust. one of russia's top investigative journalists is severely beaten in moscow his professional activities suspect. this. will cost just one hundred five dollars. in tehran for. neighboring iran the risk of the life. of president obama's defeat. but many say it's ordinary americans who have really lost out big business played a big deciding. today

this week with thank you for joining us in a fresh james bond style scandal between russia and georgia tbilisi this week that it had arrested thirteen people accused of spying for moscow russia says the whole story is a political fight that georgian authorities are simply attention seeking ahead of a key nato summit and as artie's arena reports many georgians fear the government's russian mania could land them in prison for espionage as well. for alina this spy scandal was a horrible deja vu her own husband. was thrown into prison for allegedly spying for russia during the two thousand and eight conflict between georgia and south a city or a third and fourth they said some three thousand three hundred pages of data which my husband supposedly sound to russia that's

a blatant lie we have presented evidence numerous times that on information with which fact and worked was just his analysis if you look at his case you'll see that it's easy to say that anyone's a spine georgia something. feeling as has been was george's envoy to nato he was named in a documentary just shown on one of george's main channels for study too as one of the russian spies who didn't get away in fact the film was just part of what seemed to be a spy novel unraveling in a small caucasus country over the past week thirst the news of the arrests that came suddenly and not from the authorities but through western news source then a week of silence after which the georgian interior ministry made the announcement with much pomp and circumstance aspiring for years a work by the georgian counter-intelligence service i'm all invited into russia's chief intelligence directorate so what is this latest spy scandal all about

a political farce a desperate plea for attention or simply much ado about nothing moscow says it's a combination of all three and many say it won't do georgia any good mosco reacted almost immediately the saakashvili regime suffers from some chronic spine mania fueled by only russian sentiments in recent years the georgian leadership has resorted to fabricating similar scandals more than once cynically hoping to political dissidents inside the country and abroad some analysts believe the whole affair was an attempt to put pressure on georgia's opposition. the regime of circus really does not feel safe and they use any possible to again in the in their struggle against a position which still is not consolidated body is getting in power more and more and in georgia the spy story was met with distrust. everything that concerns any

information coming from the georgian authorities is highly don't fall and with a healthy dose of irony. this whole affair seemed to be fashioned on the american spy scandal only it lacked on the chaplain the sex symbol but apparently the taste of the same time it's an attempt to lead the situation between russia and georgia to another escalation. but wild tbilisi in moscow exchanged verbal blows one woman continues to wait for justice for her and. i'm not afraid but i know that if need be georgian authorities can accuse not only me but any georgian citizen inspiron for any contradiction they donated to right now but when they will they will accuse me of a movie in those court t.v. tbilisi georgia. a question mark appeared this week over the ratification of the strategic arms reduction treaty between moscow and washington and russia's state

duma foreign affairs committee revoked its approval of the deal following a number of changes made by the us senate also with the american elections giving republicans more seats in congress the treaty could now face a more up with the within the u.s. the deal is signed by president. obama in april this year would see the nuclear arsenals of both countries slashed by a third now to come into force it has to be approved by the russian parliament and the u.s. congress despite the latest developments president obama has expressed hope that the treaty could still be approved by the end of the year and he will activists and journalists forced to believe that the democrats have made so many changes to the treaty in an attempt to win the support of the republicans that is lost its original purpose. in order to get the republicans to sign on to the start treaty they basically had to add so many amendments and riders to the thing that it

basically allows for the creation of brand new generations of hydrogen bombs dozens and dozens uncounted new facilities for manufacturing hydrogen bombs more submarines more air power and they've changed accounting methods for the nuclear warheads in such a way that actually united states doesn't really have to reduce their stockpile of nuclear weapons hardly at all so they've turned what ought to be the most important issue in the world the mutual reduction of american russia's nuclear weapons stockpiles and turned it into a farce. a top level police investigation has been launched into a vicious attack on a russian investigative journalist oleg kashin correspondent for the newspaper calm our son who was brutally beaten near his home on friday night he is now in an induced coma with severe injuries investigators say his professional activity was one likely reason behind the assault police obtained c.c.t.v.

footage showing to people that hacking the journalist the case has drawn a wide public response with many rallies in support of caution taking place in moscow and some petersburg russia's president dmitri medvedev says the attackers must be found and punished. former editor in chief of comer song says that only captions bold writing could indeed have provoked anger among some. of course the reason for this attack is conscience professional activity he was a popular blogger and he was more open and outspoken online than in the paper common sense has a certain more reserved style this beating is very similar to the attack on the journalist mechanic itself which took place a couple of years ago this mention of his fingers for example so that the person could not write any more there is a horror show element here. and still ahead for you this hour here on r.t. washington seems to pick a new band boy explore how why china says it's increasingly being demonized in the

us where that middle. class the international space station is celebrating ten years of life in orbit r.t. let's back at the pitfalls on successes of the cosmic project that's in just a few minutes time. to iraq now where the war has a ravaged the economy with estimates suggesting that a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line many resort to illegal means to make and. meat smuggling spirits into neighboring iran where drinking is banned. follows the alcohol trial. in northern iraq kurdish smugglers load their horses with hundreds of boxes of booze they're taking into a vein although alcohol is forbidden in the islamic republic much of tehran's bourgeoisie can't resist a drink and these smugglers provide them with an extraordinary selection we hear in

a smuggler storm in a mountainous area of northern iraq that borders around we have absolute fuck you here teachers risky here mr chavez risky black and white whiskey back here we have johnny walker black label we have johnny walker red label over here and we even have over four different kinds of smear. this box of course a smuggler a hundred and five dollars in iraq he will sell in tehran for over four hundred although the profits appear immense to many who actually take the dangerous journey are paid a mere fifty dollars a night this is not work for those looking to make a fortune it is work for the poor uneducated in desperate need of it i do this because i'm a literate are already doing your thing you know it was so this is the only job i can do out of the rain is brutal in its approach to keep alcohol out a smuggler recently arrested and was sentenced to life by others who have been wounded in police ambushes have been fined up to half a million dollars and then charged the price of the bullets that were shot at them

with a mind they stepped on. we crossed the border and there are explosions shootings arrests or fights it's terrible nothing we can do because we have who are. not only is the job dangerous but the living conditions are bleak on the iraqi side of the small river that makes the border so it's a series of shanty towns full of tattered shacks they serve a small shelters for the smugglers as well as stables for the horses the place is filthy and stinks of course down there and money to this isn't a lie and there's no food. drink during the cold in the well. on the other side said hundreds of a rain in border police some in concrete towers others in canvas tents put all in their pursuit to keep the smugglers out of their country a few days before we arrived they mounted an ambush on one of the smugglers. came from the other side and took three of my mules back across the border and show

everyone. the iranians left the corpses rotting on the riverbank as a warning to the smugglers nine a phone call comes in is clear the smugglers quickly finish packing their horses and then take off towards the border what awaits them on the iranian side is uncertain what is certain is tomorrow the same dangerous job awaits those who are desperate enough to do it sebastian mire r t on the iran iraq border. the mid-term elections in the u.s. dealt a serious blow to president obama's administration the republicans are rode a wave of public frustration with the pace of economic recovery to win a majority in the house of representatives but experts say it's not their regular voters but big businesses money that determined the outcome here this was a special election year in the u. was for the first time corporations were allowed to funnel as much money as they wanted into political campaigns and they definitely did not miss out on the chance

to buy influence on capitol hill we've come to take our government and by big business is pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of the republican party that's now in charge of the house of representatives so what was at stake what they're hoping to do is bend the laws and regulations or prevent new laws and regulations from being approved that will cut in their bottom lines the problem is that a lot of these rules and regulations exist for a purpose they're supposed to protect the public interest to watch corporate influence in action take republican john boehner now a majority leader in the house of representatives wall street invested millions of dollars in his campaign he's also a darling among large health insurers oil firms and drug manufacturers boehner is campaigning against all kinds of government regulations and against a tax increase for the rich and other republican congressman spencer baucus is going to be the chair of the house committee on financial services he has

reportedly taken over four million dollars from wall street and pledged to fight against tougher rules for the financial market and it seems there's no way around it the election system in the u.s. is such that it's virtually impossible to run for office without strong financial backing but the bigger the backing the more candidates over to their benefactors many argue the latest supreme court decision which made it possible for corporations to invest unlimited amounts of money in politics and be able to be credited as. anonymous donors has basically legalized corruption one definition i have of core option is the privatization of public policy two years ago corporations supported obama knowing he was going to bail them out but now that he imposed tougher rules on the financial market and wants to increase taxes for the rich they're betting against his party fear mongering and constant attacks on obama where arguably the corporation's main tools for making things work their way and it

wasn't hard with most americans on happy with the way economy works and with the unemployment rate at its worst in almost thirty years people are frustrated they're deeply frustrated with the pace of our economic recovery some corporate darling channels like fox news were especially good at channeling people's trust ration. but many americans now fear their interests have been left down because of someone's special interests on the outside this democracy is new voice people coming to a polling station fans putting a quasi with the name of the candidate they like but in these elections with the influence of corporations on me first it seems that really has a vote in american mail is money going to shut down on t. washington d.c. . as the republicans are making a comeback in congress one republican former president is also making a comeback with his was later today we look at how people remember george w.

two years of. not be able to get a job after college as well the iraq war a lot of things i remember about george bush i think will be like harry truman it may take twenty years twenty years later i think will be looked upon as maybe a decent president. japan seems ready to mend ties with russia as its ambassador has returned to moscow earlier than expected he was recalled following a row over president if you're there was a visit to the korea all islands to which tokyo also lays claim but as are to use orcs on a boy to reports moscow has not forgotten its remote territory and has big plans for it. it's a leftover from the second world war old soviet tanks rusting on the shore but their barrels pointed toward japan they're about to be scrapped for match when the

visit by the russian president put them at the center of another fiery exchange between russia and japan discovered in the seventeenth century the islands changed hands several times it took the soviet union less than a month to expel the japanese army from the islands in all the stuff nineteen forty five that prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty living a door open for japan to claim the arlen sovereignty. sixty five years after their handover the tussle to define the islands national identity still goes on this crossed a period here if you years ago when the russian orthodox church opened its parish on the island of secret on after decades of seeing its population window they are and is now in the midst of a baby boom. we have the highest birth rate in the entire civilian region there are many kids here and parents bring them to be baptized and living standards are quite decent nowadays just a few hundred metres from the church i did to you my motor is teaching japanese at

a local school and here class seven great or sit alongside their parents and many of them getting a job in japan is their best shot at lifting their families out of poverty are eclipse is a very popular and people keep coming here year after year and hippias sentence it seems they came with my family again. this is precisely why the president came here to tell the locals that russia has not forgotten about them. and while the regional officials tried to paint a pretty picture of who roads and crumbling infrastructure betrayed the island's chronic financial problems. it's an important part of our land we will definitely invest money into the region. and the midst of reach fishing grounds the ons are a prime spot to buy seafood and opportunity that mitchell made that of didn't miss lloyd to the point is it smelt can i get some.

while fish and seafood are affordable here everything else costs almost twice as much as on the mainland the locals complained of unreliable supply but as the president noticed one item was always in stock. apparently you don't have any problems with the supply of i'll call here. the president's visit was a missed on the japanese side talkies foreign minister said the trip heard japanese public sentiment and temporarily recalled its ambassador from moscow. it is extremely regrettable that president made very do visited the korea lions even though japan had earlier notified russia that there could be a negative impact on bilateral relations his russian counterpart was unmoved. because literally japan's reaction isn't acceptable it's our land and russian president was visiting russian territory it was already explained this to our japanese porkers to once again an ambiguous new retreat this position however we're

not going to take any steps that putin drill ations while the russian officials consider last week's rout over the unfortunate they stressed that their first priority is to make sure that the people who actually believe on the islands aren't left feeling according to a two thousand and nine nationwide poll about ninety percent of russians would strongly object to handing the grill audience over to japan but the overwhelming majority of the respondents have never visited this territory and are very likely to do so in the future the audience may be an integrity part of russia on the map but they cannot make clear and logistically they're still very much a foreign land and some of our theme in russia's far east. economists are warning that a new trade war could be looming between two major nations with china's economic clout growing rapidly washington seems to be accusing beijing of every offense from currency manipulation to crooked export policies. it's on our genes and

children's toys made in china three common words quickly becoming bad words as part of smear campaigns made in the usa to be voted to give china's special trade status the chinese are being set up to be the next bogeyman and the only thing that's interfering with that is that the muslims are ineffective bogeyman for right now but that hasn't stopped china and its alleged us supporters from being the bad guys does your records help foreign companies create chinese jobs to make it with in the us china's ascent in the world is becoming the popular perceived threat from washington maybe you ought to run for senate trying to holywood going to get it over to go with their remaking the eighty's flick red dawn. but this time around instead of soviet troops invading the west you guessed it it's the chinese it seems

for longer the us economy stagnates barely growing at all oh. and the more china celebrates the ten percent plus rise and its economic growth the more we see china vilified it's very important to see more progress by the major emerging economies with policymakers accusing the country of manipulating its currency to boost exports at the expense of the u.s. recovery and demanding they do something to change that every just look at the issue from that perspective you may think china is to blame here but the u.s. and china have a very dynamic interconnected relationship and when you look at what the u.s. is doing because a lot less clear who is the bad guy but it takes two to tango there are two sides to that core and the only way to get out of this imbalance is to coordinate a process that is mutually beneficial both. an imbalance that has china the largest creditor nation on the globe. funding the us the largest debtor. nation in the

history of the world asking for the dollar to go down twenty percent against the chinese currency it's the you on essentially ass china who holds two point six trillion us dollars in its reserves to just lose a half trillion dollars china doesn't want that and economists say this is anything but mutually beneficial to us no we want to screw you we want to bankrupt you like we grip to trip him we want to disable you because if we can destroy your canonically then you can never become a military threat and outside of paranoid psychosis but it doesn't stop the us from parading its military might around china's borders china is also held drills in recent months and both sides are duking it out in what's been dubbed a currency war i happen to think china should open its currency up and be freely convertible on the other hand the united states is running up the gigantic debts and printing money oh everybody's making mistakes here and that's where economists

say a larger war is impending looks like we have a trade war developing a losing battle for both sides nobody in history has won a trade war but that may not stop anyone from putting up a fight and recent us history as seen here here and here doesn't seem to even be allowing a fair one floor in mr r.t. new york. and our web site will always keep you posted on the many other stories we're covering including on this day sixty nine years ago nazi forces got closer than ever before but soviet troops destroyed germany's ambition in one of the fiercest wallboard she. was a flash back the landmark event. in russia is a famous bears are indeed a city street forcing people to accept the new company find out why the animals are changing their lifestyle.

this week the international space station mock ten years since its first crew went up into orbit this is the longest unbroken stretch ever spent outside the earth's atmosphere more than one hundred thousand people from sixteen nations across the globe cooperated to make it possible. now takes a closer look at this project. november the second two thousand the first permanent crew reaches the international space station as the world watches its arguably humanity's most them vicious engineering project to date a mixture of science technology and political cooperation between former sworn enemies. in the ten years since the i said has expanded to the size of

a football field and received two hundred visitors what's it about the before the i s s is a breakthrough of corporation before there were separate space agencies now they work together it's a leap forward this station has cost the taxpayer one hundred billion dollars and that's just absurd it's too much but it's their money now admit they're not sure what to expect from the station and that includes the expedition one cosmonauts themselves you to get them going up trains but then i says crew members his own training was more chaotic than we're going to give them and i said when we started training for it the station itself did not exist there were no manuals there were no exercise machines but the first crews job was to fully activate the station much of it had been assembled separately in russia in the united states and the first time these parts came together wasn't space with a militia with because the first two weeks on there were extremely stressful if we failed we'd have to return to earth and abandon the station it would never have

been constructed as planned expedition one was a success despite problems with construction following the columbia shuttle disaster three years later most of the modules were eventually successfully docked the completed space station provides a unique platform for experiments and weightlessness that could develop new materials and medicines starving we'll now and next year we're going to find out if you have researchers tinkering in space we can have breakthroughs if not the whole thing was a waste but others believe that the value of that i assess is not that scientific discoveries it's lifespan has already been extended to twenty twenty and possibly beyond that if we're looking at projects of using that i assess as a docking port for missions to the moon and even mars. and if mankind does venture further afield i search will serve both as a blueprint and an instruction manual of space should do and don'ts whatever its limitations and budget over and. the i assess is important at the tar worth no

longer seemed like everything was possible in space and there were no longer the cold war budgets to fund that all the isis still proves that space research can be right at the edge of human endeavor either of nerve see moscow. while the russian prime minister seems to be looking to become the fastest politician in the world is in need for speed was for field in simpy to worry took to the tracks on four wheels. the world there's more space in my old soviet car so they. have been fast but the permian i still felt it cramped his style but still yellow seems to be his favorite car color earlier this year he took a spin on the new russian highway canary blood a lot of the putins are no novice when speed is concerned he's taken the controls of fighter jets in the past. and i'll be back shortly with a recap of the.