a recap of the stories that shape than week moscow calls georgia's arrest of thirteen alleged russian spies a political farce 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 his professional activities suspected to be behind the attack. responsible and it will cost the smuggler one hundred five dollars in iraq he will sell it into iran over four hundred poverty and despair of course many iraqis to smuggle banned alcohol to neighboring are rod at the risk of their freedom and their life follows the dangerous trade route. and in the u.s. president obama's party suffers a defeat in the u.s. midterm elections but many say it's ordinary citizens we've lost out as big business is played a big role in the outcome. good to have you with us it's eleven pm in moscow i met president giving you today's top

stories and a look back at the week that was in our fresh 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 a nato summit as artie's arena glues go 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 a city or. they said some three thousand and 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 from ation with witchcraft and worked it 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 is something. feeling as has been was george's envoy to nato he was named in the documentary just shown on one of george's main channels 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 first 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 amol 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 under russian sentiments in recent years the georgian leadership has resorted to fabricating similar scandals more than once cynically hoping to political divisions 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 and on the chaplin 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. the police in mosco exchange verbal blows one woman continues to wait for justice for her husband well you know 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. to be lisi 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 congressional seats the treaty could now face more

opposition within the us the deal signed by presidents medvedev and obama in april of this year would see nuclear arsenals of both countries cut by a third to come into force though it has to be approved by the russian parliament and the us congress despite latest developments president obama expressed hope that the treaty would still be approved by the end of the year anti-war activist and journalist scott horton believes the democrats have made so many changes to the treaty in an attempt to win republican support it's almost lost interest in 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 usual reduction of american russia's nuclear weapons stockpiles and turned it into a farce. u.s. mid-term elections dealt a serious blow to the obama administration and 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 regular voters what big business is cash that determines the outcome this was a special election here in the u.s. 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 owned 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 and 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 he's also adoring among large health insurers oil firms and drug manufacturers has been or 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 implats 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 legal. corruption one definition of core option is the private truth of public party two years ago corporations supported obama knowing he was going to bail them out but now that he imposed tougher rules on the financial markets and wants to increase taxes for the rich they're betting against his party no fear mongering and constant attacks on obama were arguably the third rationing 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 this past race. but

many americans now fear they're interested been left down because of someone's special interests on the outside this democracy is usually people coming to a polling stations putting a cost before the name of a candidate they like but in these elections with the influence of corporations on first it seems that really has the vote in american mail is money and it's 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 of his own with memoirs and the next hour we'll look at how people look back on george w. bush two years on. not be able to get a job after that as well 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 you'll be looked upon as maybe a decent president.

to iraq now where the war has ravaged the economy with estimates suggesting a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line many resort to illegal means to make ends meet smuggling spirits into neighboring iran where drinking is banned already sebastian meyer follows the booze trail. in northern iraq kurdish smugglers load their horses with hundreds of boxes of booze they're taking into a brain although alcohol is forbidden in the islamic republic much of tehran's boars wasn't 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 you ski here mr chavez whiskey 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 now. this box of what will cost the

smuggler one hundred five dollars in iraq he will sell it in tehran for over four hundred of all the profits appear amends to men who actually take a dangerous journey are paid a mere fifty dollars a night this is not work for those looking to make a fortune he does work for the poor uneducated in 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 to invent 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 iris or fights 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 than when it is this isn't a lion and there's no food or drink it's given the cold and wet now and we leave and it's. on the other side said hundreds of a rainy unboarded. police summon concrete towers bunkers and can't just tents put all of this in their pursuit to keep the smugglers out of their country a few days before we arrived mounted an ambush on one of the smugglers. securing from the other side three of my muse but i'm sure everyone. he remains left the corpses rotting on the riverbank as a warning to the smugglers nine a phone call comes in scene that it is clear that the smugglers quickly finish packing their horses and then take off towards the border would awaits them on the arena inside is uncertain what is certain is tomorrow the same dangerous job awaits

those who are desperate enough to do it sebastian minor party on the iran iraq border. stay with us here on our t.v. still ahead this hour as the national space station is celebrating ten years of life in orbit party looks back at the pitfalls and the successes of a cosmic project coming your way in a few minutes. and russia's prime minister has been a thrill seeking again and we'll look at the vladimir putin's latest extreme hobby . but first our top level police investigations been launched into a vicious attack on a russian investigative journalist all led caution a correspondent for the newspaper calmer saw it was brutally beaten near his moscow home friday night has already undergone two surgeries doctors say his condition is serious but stable investigators name cautions professional activity is one likely motivation for the assault police obtained c.c.t.v.

footage showing two people attacking the journalist the case is drawing a wide public response with many rallies in support of caution happening in moscow and st petersburg russian president dmitry medvedev says the attackers must be found and punished sileo former editor in chief of commerce says oleg cautioned bolder writing could indeed have provoked anger among some good yes. but of course the reason for this attack is conscience professional activity he was a popular blogger and he was more open and outspoken in mind than in the paper common sense has a certain more reserved style this beating is very similar to the attack on the journalist because all of which took place a couple of years ago this mention of his fingers for example so that the person who could not write anymore there is a horror show element here. that japan seems ready to mend ties with russia as that some bastard has returned to last hour earlier than expected he was recalled following a dispute over the president medvedev visit to the coral islands to which tokyo

also lays claim as artie's excited boy cora ports moscow has not forgotten this remote territory and 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 to the soviet union lost in the 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 to parish on

the island of she katon after decades of seeing its population window they are and is now in the midst of a baby boom. we have the husband straight in the entire region there are many kids here and parents bring them to be baptized and living standards acquired decent nowadays just a few hundred metres from the church at a human motor is teaching japanese at a local school and here class seven great or sit alongside their parents many of them getting a job in japan is that that's charge 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 picture of roads and crumbling infrastructure betrayed the island's chronic financial problems so it's an important part of our land we would

definitely invest some money into the region. and the midst of reach fishing grounds on and. a prime spot to buy seafood an opportunity that mitchell nevada didn't miss. what is it smelt can i get. 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 knowing just one item was always in stock. apparently don't have any problems with the supply of alcohol here with the president's visit wasn't 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 medvedev 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 that only japan's reaction is an acceptable it's our land and russian president was visiting russian territory was already explained this to were just a nice porkers to once again an ambiguous new retreat this position however we're not going to take any steps that would change relations while the russian officials consider last week's rout over the korea while an unfortunate they stressed that their first priority is to make sure that the people who actually believe on the islands aren't left feeling more wrong 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 unlikely to do so in the future the audience may be an integral part of russia on the map but they cannot make clear and logistically there are still very much a foreign land that's not

a boycott artists in russia's forests. more than one thousand russian service men have rallied in moscow to demand the resignation of the country's defense minister protestor there are protesters against anatoly radical reforms to the armed forces but authorities tests are still reports that changes are being made are being made to counter modern day threats. now here at maytree margaret there is a currently a rally going on to protest against the current the russian defense minister i've been told he said you called things to give a bit of background on the surgeon was appointed by then president putting it within the seventy as a defense minister basically to implement the corruption measures in the armed forces and to make their own forces more efficient to approve or two thousand and eight said to call. a number of your forms if you want to implement 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 so because he's saying that the

military council adjusts to the current brands and russia is basing what 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 massive military is not exactly what russia needs what russia needs is an efficient and non-corrupt military and that's what is really pumped 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 sixty it is still clients down the number of the military to one million people versus five million that the current we have so this is still his plan and he's going to continue to do and. of a retired major general says i told you a civilian has a dared to make changes which many in the army couldn't envision. and in that you do films who are able to stop things to the effect that until a surgical fiza civilian the civilian element in our forces helps to implement

changes that obama officials would never have dared to introduce the saying gays to do with the personal interests of one so this meant not with that that these people do not accept the reform and use that word on the remember r t dot com as always keeping you posted on these and everything we cover here's what's online right now on this day sixty nine years ago nazi forces got closer to moscow than ever before about soviet troops destroying german ambitions in one of the fiercest world war two battles. looks back. and are rats can be beautiful at least something so as a president proved by an unusual beauty pageant in russia you can watch the rodents from across the country strut their stuff at r.t. dot com.

and this week the international space station mark ten years since it and its crew first crew went up to orbit this is the longest unbroken stretch ever spent outside the earth's atmosphere where the one hundred thousand people from sixteen nations across the globe cooperating to make it all possible artie's eager overboard nav takes a closer look at the project. and eventually the second two thousand the first permanent crew reaches the international space station as the world watches its arguably humanity's most them bushes engineering project to date a mixture of science technology and political cooperation between formal 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 about the before the i s s is a breakthrough corporation of before there were separate space agencies now they work together on whether 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 were 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 a nice when we started training for the station itself did not exist there were no manuals and there were no exercise machines with 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 beast parts came together was and space of the militia would be the first two weeks on there were extremely stressful because 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 starting we all 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 the 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 di 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 assess is important at the top where it's no longer seemed like everything will sponsible in space and though no longer the cold war budgets to fund that all the isis still proves that space research can be right to the edge of human endeavor. all to see moscow finally in this news walk the russian prime minister seems to be looking to becoming the fastest

politician in the world his need for speed was fulfilled in st petersburg where he took to the track on four wheels. google there's no space in my old soviet. well it may have been a little cram but that didn't keep the premier from doing up to two hundred forty kilometers an hour in this f one racer yellow seems to be putin's car color earlier this year he took a spin on a new russian highway in an area with a lot of putin clearly likes to be in the driver's seat in the past behind the controls of a fighter jet flights and combine harvesters. i'll be back with headlines shortly stay with us here on r.t. .

thank. you. i was cellphones would be useless without this mineral. the tiny pieces needed to make them work. but every piece of coltan is extracted at a cost to human life. the

admiral. a passenger liner sailing in the blank seen. alice thirty first 1980's. twenty three twenty out. of kilometers offshore. crashes into another vessel. four hundred and twenty three people don. russian titanic. millions died. and men's forward to be held down say. the pain and suffering will never be forgotten. as well as the joy of not going to. be here.