if. you dig.

a recap of the stories that shape the week moscow calls georgia's arrest of thirteen alleged russian spies a political arse aimed at scoring political points back home to police he's moved

was also met with mistrust. one of russia's top investigative journalist severely beaten in moscow for his professional activities suspected to be behind the attack . responsive it will cost the smuggler a hundred five dollars in iraq he will sell into iran over four hundred poverty and despair for so many iraqis to smuggle bad alcohol to neighboring iran of the risk of their freedom and their lives are she follows the dangerous trade route. and president obama's party suffers a defeat in the u.s. midterm elections but many say it's ordinary americans really lost out in big business is played a big role in deciding the outcome. nine pm in moscow très a good to be with you as we give you today's top stories and

a look back at the week's news here on r.t.e. in a freshly james bond style scandal between russia and georgia tbilisi this week confirmed that it had arrested thirteen people accused of spying for moscow russia says the whole story is a political farce and that georgian authorities are simply attention seeking ahead of n.a.t.o.'s summit as artie's arena gluco reports many georgians fear the government's anti russian mania could land them in prison for espionage too. 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 the city are very unfair they said some three thousand three hundred pages of data which my husband supposedly sam to russia that's a blatant lie we have presented evidence numerous times that on formation with witchcraft 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 ga is something. you learn as husband was george's envoy to nato he was named in the documentary just shown on one of george's main channels to 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 a mall invaded 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 simula scandals more than once cynically hoping to turn political dividends 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 him 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 tastes differ at the same time it's an attempt to lead the situation between russia and georgia to have those collation. but wild police in mosco exchange 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 inspired for any contradiction they donated to right now but when they will they will accuse me of a pretty. court to billy see georgia. a question mark appeared this week over the ratification of the strategic arms reduction treaty between moscow and washington 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 american midterm elections

giving republicans more seats in congress the treaty could now face more opposition within the u.s. the deal signed by presidents made better than obama in april this year would see the nuclear arsenals of both countries slashed by a third to come into force though it has to be approved by the russian parliament and the us congress despite the latest developments president obama expressed hope that the treaty could still be approved by the end of the year and tie war activist and journalist scott horst in believe the democrats have made so many changes to the treaty and in an attempt to win republican support it's 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 the 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 the u.s. midterm elections dealt a serious blow to president obama's administration republicans wrote 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 the regular voters but big businesses money that determine the outcome. this was a special election year in the us 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 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 they'll 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 inaction take republican john boehner now a majority leader in the house of representatives wall street invested millions of dollars in his campaign is also a darling among large health insurers oil firms and drug manufacturers baner 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 is 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 of core option is the privatization of public party two years ago corporations supported obama knowing it 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 this party fear mongering and constant attacks on obama where arguably the perforations the 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 interest of being left down because of someone's special interests on the outside this democracy is unusual and it's people coming to a polling station france putting a quasi with the name of a candidate they like but in these elections with the influence of corporations on meat first it seems all really has the vote in american mail is money going to check out on t. washington d.c. . still ahead here on our t.v.'s our washington seems to have picked a new bad boy explore how and why china says it's increasingly being demonized west and where that would be. and russia's prime minister has been thrill seeking again we'll look at vladimir putin's latest extreme. but

first to iraq where the war has ravaged the economy with estimates suggesting a quarter of the populace lives below the poverty line many resort to illegal means to make ends meet smuggling spirits into neighboring iran where drinking is banned or to sebastian meyer follows the booze trail. in northern iraq kurdish smugglers load your horses with hundreds of boxes of booze if you're taking into a brain. although alcohol is forbidden in islam a group public much of to one's bourgeoisie can't refuse to drink and do smugglers provide them with any. extraordinary selections we're here in a smuggler storm in a mountainous area of northern iraq that borders around we have absolute fuck you here teachers 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 not. this box of what will cost the smuggler one hundred five dollars in iraq he will sell it in tehran for over four

hundred while the profits appear amends to men 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 and desperate. i do this because i'm a literate i don't know how to do 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 charge the price of the bullets that were shot at them with a mind they stepped on oh yeah we crossed the border and there are explosions shootings i restore fights it's terrible most nothing we can do because we're poor. but only as 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 to 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 man it is this isn't a life and there's no food or drink it's getting cold and wet now and it will lead you down. on the other side said hundreds of a rainy and border police some in concrete towers others in canvas tents but all ruthless 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. my muse back you could see the building that i'm sure that everyone would see you he remains left the corpses rotting on the riverbank as a warning to the smugglers nine a phone call comes in saying that dilute is clear that the smugglers quickly finish packing their horses and then take off towards the border would awaits them on the iranian side is uncertain what is certain though is tomorrow the same dangerous job away to those who are desperate enough to do it sebastian minor party on the iran

iraq border a top level police investigation has been launched into a vicious attack on a russian investigative journalist all led caution a correspondent for the cause of commerce newspaper was brutally be near his moscow home friday night he's already undergone two surgeries and doctors say his condition is serious but stable investigators name cash and political activity as one likely reason behind the assault police obtained c.c.t.v. footage showing two people attacking the journalist the case has drawn wide public response with many rallies in support of caution happening in moscow and st petersburg russia's president medvedev says the attackers must be found and punished. former editor in chief of commerce and says oleg cautions bold writing could indeed have provoked anger among some. but 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 moral served style this beating is very similar to the attack on the journalist benefits all of which took place a couple of years ago this mention of his fingers for example so that the person could not write anymore there is a horror show element here. japan seems ready to mend ties with russia as a basket or has returned to moscow earlier than expected he was recalled following a spat over president medvedev is a visit to the coral islands to which tokyo also lays claim but his art his arse on a boy who reports moscow has not forgotten its remote territory has big plans for the area. 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 format 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 audience changed

hands several times it took the soviet union less than a month to expel the japanese army from the islands in august of ninety eight forty five that prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty living a door open for japan to claim the arlin 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 town 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 saline region there are many kids here and parents bring them to be baptized and livingston's it's a quite decent nowadays just a few hundred metres from the church i did pay you more to. is teaching japanese at a local school and here class seven great or sit alongside their parents many of them getting a job and japan is that best shot at lifting their families out of poverty are

classes are very popular and people keep coming here year after year i'm hippias sometimes it seems like and 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 quick church roads and crumbling infrastructure betrayed the island's chronic financial problems. it's an important part of our land we would definitely invest some 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 it didn't miss . what 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 don't have any problems with the supply of alcohol here . the president's visit wasn't missed on the japanese side talkies foreign ministers said the trip heard japanese public sentiment and temporarily recalled its ambassador from moscow. it is extremely regrettable that president made very to visited the crew islands even though japan had earlier notified russia that there could be a negative impact on bilateral relations his russian counterpart was unmoved. that only japan's reaction isn't acceptable it's our land and russian president was visiting russian territory was already explain this to our japanese porkers plan to once again an ambiguous the retreat this position however we're not going to take any steps that would hinder relations while the russian officials consider last week's row 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 korea lorenzo over to japan but the overwhelming majority of the respondents have never visited this territory and are very unlikely to do so in the future the audience may be an integral part of russia on big map but they cannot make clear and logistically they're still very much a foreign land some of boyko are. in russia's far east. our website r.t. dot com always keep you posted on these and many other stories including today sixty nine years ago nazi forces got close at a moscow than ever before but soviet troops destroyed germany's ambitions in one of the fiercest world war two bad. dot com offers a flashback to the landmark event. the little. it's beautiful as has been proved by an unusual beauty pageant in russia you can watch

the rodents from across the country strut their stuff and out our team. economists are warning that a new trade war could be looming between two major nations with china's economic clout rapidly growing washington seems to be cues in beijing of every offense from manipulating currency to crooked export policies. it's on our kitchen and children still 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 in the us china is a cent in the world is becoming the popular perceived threat from washington maybe you ought to run for senate trying to hollywood going to get it over to go with their remake 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 in its economic growth the more we see china vilified it's very important to see more progress by the major emerging economies policymakers are 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 and the only way to get out of this imbalance is to. 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 chats to you on essentially as 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 the u.s. has no we want to screw you we want to bankrupt you like we bankrupted trip him we

want to disable you because if we can destroy you it canonically then you can never become a military threat and outside of this paranoid psychosis but it doesn't stop the u.s. from parading its military might around china's borders china's 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 u.s. history as seen here here and here doesn't seem to even be allowing a fair one lorin mr r.t. new york coming up we go deep into the sea to reveal the secrets of what lies

beneath the history of the russian titanic coming up in the next hour on art. the admiral. a passenger liner sailing in the black sea. thirty to. twenty three twenty. kilometers long. crashed into another the settled four hundred twenty three people killed. more than one thousand russian service men have rallied in moscow to demand the resignation of the country's defense minister the protesters are against the minister's radical reforms in the armed forces but as artie's tests are silly reports the changes are being made to counter to modern day threats. now here at

maytree margaret there is a currently a rally going out of protest against the current russian defense minister i've been told he said you called him over yesterday to be a commander of russia as they are more troops an embodiment of another who did call on you not to go ahead with the protests and obviously this protest not to go ahead with it will be happening because there is a series of protests planned against it you call for calling for his resignation and just to give a bit of a background on a surgical was appointed by then president vladimir putin in two thousand and seven as a defense minister basically to implement corruption measures in the armed forces and to make your own forces more efficient and now you know two thousand and eight said to cough and now see a number of reforms that you want to implement in these reforms that involve cutting a lot of the jobs the officers jobs that if morsi visited make a lot of the members of the armed forces very happy to be saying that the military has to adjust to the current grounds and russian is a basic and he's saying that russia is no longer facing the threat of

a full scale war that it once did back in the past and therefore a massive military is not exactly what russia needs what russia needs is an efficient and non-corrupt military and that's was only called wants to do so despite a lot of these oppositions open opposition and calling for his resignation so you cough is going to take a firm stab he says that by twenty sixteen it is still clients down the number of the military to one million people versus five million that we currently have so this is still his plaid and he's going to continue to do it and puddles all the terry oliver retired major general says i don't call a civilian has dared to make changes which many in the army couldn't envisage. macone of immaturity the reforms were able to start things to the effect that until a surgical physicist villain the civilian element in our armed forces helps to implement changes that are not officials who would never have dared to introduce the saying it has to do with the personal interests of one servicemen not with the

fact that these people do not accept the reforms that are brought on. the russian prime minister seems to be looking to become the fastest politician in the world his need for speed was fulfilled in st petersburg where he took to the track on four wheels. the world was visible space in my old soviet. it may have been a little cramped but that didn't keep the premier from doing up to two hundred forty kilometers an hour in this formula one race or yellow seems to be putin's favorite car color earlier this year he took a spin along a new russian highway and a canary yellow lotta putin clearly likes to be in the driver's seat in the past he's been behind the controls of a fighter jet bites and even combine harvesters. look at him go i'll be back shortly with the headline stay with us here on r.t. .

this is just a parliament building in. them. sixty five years ago. it was the final target. me drew from some friends.