well look back at the past week's top stories on the latest developments this is on sea life in moscow reports of trace a bullet some explosions over the libyan capital have caused many to believe it's the beginning of the end focus no gadhafi stronghold but dr franklin lamb but the director of americans for middle east peace who's currently in tripoli told us on the phone a short while ago the city is quiet now and then he reports the rebels are making a move on the capital all falls i just got back from a two hour trip wandering all over tripoli most of it there's no heavy fighting now there is a bombing every hour maybe a little fire one explosion but it's clear that the rebels are not nato bombed heavily that seems to be true and there were some. firing at some

pockets of rebellion. but now it's very quiet any claim that the rebels are here is nonsense it's going to make it more nato it's going to greenlight and if obama and other. leaders u.n. is going to really like it will be a question a lot of. political analysts monday november ohio who is also in tripoli says some sporadic attacks may actually be happening but his opinion they are part of psychological warfare. the main point of the attacks in tripoli which are sporadic is to break down the moral here and cause and effect in fact the media here at the rixos hotel where i stay at actually it's called the swiss and now has been part of the information campaign they're talking about earlier the mainstream media would happen to be involved i can tell you right now reuters put out a release that was widely quoted one foreign national was killed here few days ago when nato was intensely bombing civilian infrastructure and it didn't mention the

city we need to structure i want to well they quoted this foreign national was a security guard this was misinformation this was not correct. they have been fueling and feeding this psychological war against this country. and later in the program we'll be looking at another country where the arab spring has dragged its bloody heels almost into the. west has been mounting pressure on president assad for his crackdown against protesters but he's correspondent there found many are happy to see the government stop the demonstrations also this hour. the crowds on the ground this is an exciting spectacle but that's not quite the emotion that's going through my mind at the moment because i'm about to see what happens from inside the cockpit. all the frills of some spectacular airborne stunts on the final day of the international. violence has flared up again in the

middle east with israel and gaza exchanging fire a sense. as it's called off its cease fire with the jewish state the continuing occupation of palestinian lands more than ten people have been killed off the three days of attacks on each side and israeli government is reported to be considering a possible ground offensive inside gaza with one hundred twenty members are already said to have been arrested on the west bank that's as israel's been gripped by massive social protests for a month now and. found out that. protesters believe the escalation of violence with gaza could be used to silence public discontent. thousands of people are not in here in tel aviv holding panels in memory of the victims of violent demonstrations all happening not only here in tel aviv but also in jerusalem and a number of other major cities around israel in stark contrast to the protests we've seen happening of the past month the mood here is very somber people are very serious and affective in terms of what the latest wave of violence is because now

talking to protesters they say that they are not surprised by this recent spate of violence many telling me that they've been expecting at the same time they believe that the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his government will use the latest conflict with dawn's as an excuse to bring people people to look around to people are young many of them are in the reserves and if the war was to happen they would be brought up to go to the front and fight people who have both very strong in the same time they are still going to be demanding issues of social justice they really are protesting for you know that the living they're talking about education they're talking about health services they talking about security people here saying that not only do they want these demands of grace but they also want the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu to step down the on scene television. and of course here at r.t. we value your opinion the events in the middle east go to a website all to dot com where we're asking what would the reasons be behind

israel's possible offensive against gaza well so far the majority believe that would be an attempt to divert attention from domestic problems of further think israel would try to prevent the creation of a palestinian state's twenty percent feel a new offensive would be a designed to punish the mask for the minority believes israel is just protecting its pillars let us know what you think cast your vote at all to the car. four years in jail for a riot status on facebook the british courts are coming down hard on the writers who spread mayhem last week human rights groups are accusing judges of overreacting something and ignored by prime minister david cameron who is determined to mend the country's broken society i have a bennett reports from london. four years behind bars for the riot that didn't even happen jordan black sure and perry sutcliffe kenan were banged up for inciting disorder on facebook no one turned up after their invitation to riot which they

later said was a drunken joke but now they face sentences even tougher than most looters and i worry is that it is an imbalance a four year sentence for example would normally be given to somebody for a previous bodily harm for holding someone up with a knife or even for. some form of sexual assault so it seems to me that that there is a danger that the courts are moving into disproportionate territory and that actually devalues our response to more serious crimes the governments encourage courts to dish out harsh sentences by using the public disturbance as an aggravating factor it's meant this man anderson fernandez could even be sent to jail for theft of just two scoops of ice cream because like this one denying bail to most offenders and ignoring any claims of previous good character of the one thousand two hundred seventy seven people charged so far two thirds have been

remanded in custody that's way up on last year's rate for serious crimes which is just ten percent some offenders even being made homeless is their punishment with local governments taking away their houses but many say this will simply cause more harm than good i think this is very unwise the move to remove people from housing intern move benefits because actually if we are seeing that some of the crime that we saw on the streets was an expression of people not feeling potus a society not feeling part of our communities then these measures are actually going to push people further away from society further away from our communities and far more likely to commit crime the facebook case is the first sign of the government's desire to crack down on social media sites like twitter were applauded by the west for mobilizing the masses in the arab world but they were also instrumental in the u.k. riots so now the prime minister wants it to stop. we are working with the police the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop

people communicating via these websites or services when we know they are plotting violence disorder and criminality when social media fueled revolutions in egypt and tunisia britain called it democracy but now the shoe's on the other foot when troubles closer to home i'm very conscious i've been used you know the. poor or. movements and we would be the force to complete. the authorities in those countries who are trying to walk. the prime minister says this is where britain fights back but it speeds this fighting fire with fire could only fan the flames of civil disorder after bennett's artsy london. and you're right video has been released showing mosman reportedly shooting out on a policeman low on suan single calm to watch its release said the incident took place during the august the ninth riots in the city of birmingham with more than intentional.

this week so another attempt in europe to try and stop the deepening debt crisis as the leaders of the strongest economies met in paris angela merkel and nicolas sarkozy called for the creation of a central economic body which would ensure euro zone members take more financial responsibility they've also pledged to harmonize corporate taxes political analyst and author after williams and sang dolls the leaves the proposed measures just create an illusion of stability species i think the collective economic government that mark on sarkozy are talking about is really a desperate political ploy to try to create the illusion of stability where the underlined stability doesn't yet exist there is no political will not in germany

nor in the rest of the eurozone countries for as surrendering national sovereignty to a collective entity that has any decision powers so it's simply a shimmer that's been thrown out there to try to calm the markets the alternative really is is to get steve will export market relations and i think above all with russia that the central asian republics china and the rest of asia in the middle east and if that is created then you can have a growth vector that leads you out of this debt impasse that the eurozone countries are in without that and so long as as the dollar system dominates international financial relations that moody's standard and poor's do the rating on sovereign debt for european union countries and that there is no independent european credit rating agency and there isn't is no. growth perspective only austerity and there is no up to this crisis. the meeting in paris failed to calm traders

nerves and together with fears about the possibility of another u.s. recession and forced global markets to fall on friday china which is the largest owner of american debt is also feeling the pinch of u.s. vice president joe biden is wrapping up his reassurance mission to the country he said chinese holdings of the treasury debt are secure investment advisor says washington's troubles are too big for its asian partner to relax china's extremely skeptical they must be very worried if i was the biggest holder of u.s. treasuries i do worry to because the us is in a terrible situation their budget deficit is piling out of control it's almost eight percent of g.d.p. the federal debt is now about ninety six percent of g.d.p. and politicians in washington don't have any will to get their house in order all they know is to prolong the problem to push the can down the road and as long as that is the case we are going to see severe pressure on the u.s.

dollar the economies in asia generally speaking are in a lot healthier state than they are in the us or in europe and when mr bernanke it prints money this is the value of the u.s. dollar devalues the dollar and makes commodity prices go up and that causes inflationary headaches in asia ratings agency standard and poor's is facing increasing scrutiny in the u.s. justice department is looking into allegations dozens of mortgage bonds were improperly rated in the lead up to the crisis of two thousand and eight as m.p.'s being questioned after stripping the u.s. of its treasured aaa credit score two weeks ago artie's lauren this the reports on growing doubts over just how credible the credit rating agencies can be. breaking news the united states has just lost its top notch triple a credit rating from it was the downgrade heard round the world in a strong reaction to the rating downgrade and u.s. well it's dead standard and poor's took the u.s.

from straight aaa student to one notch below for the first time ever bad marks were handed down for the nation's debt and politicians inability to agree on reigning it in a two party downgrade in a lot of it has to do with the failure of the present united states i think this is a tea party problem the greater in chief says the u.s. is becoming a bit more unpredictable in terms of. proposed. a stoic response from the downgrade or that helped ratchet up that the yeah tricks of the debt ceiling debate with the help of the other ratings agencies of course stealing the show from bickering politicians with their eyes on the debt deal they may be missing really a larger concern because there is growing evidence today that the u.s. credit score is going to get hit now that the u.s. has gotten hit just how much does s. and p's mark actually count well not much according to some like investor jim rogers but it's not because the country isn't broke america is going down the tubes

where the largest debtor nation in the history of the world it's because of the source these late rating agencies have been wrong about nearly everything for the past ten or fifteen years don't pay any attention to them so just how does the report card stack up for the major ratings agencies themselves they are s.n.p. moody's and fitch let's assess test one the mortgage crisis of two thousand and eight these are the same agencies that rated the toxic sub prime debt aaa so i mean how do we take them with any level of credibility after that. well let's see if they get any from tess to the too big to fail banks and insurers during the financial crisis they missed many of the big bankruptcies they gave high investment . ratings to lehman to bear stearns right to the very end they gave a aaa rating to almost the day it collapsed good grades for firms that collapsed or were bailed out because of bad debt in fact the financial crisis inquiry commission

said the three credit ratings agencies were key enablers of the financial meltdown and this brings us to test three ethics ratings agencies are paid by the investment firms they grade and moody's and s. and p. are publicly traded which means they may be more driven to increase profits for shareholders raising this debate right now you have the companies that are being judged paying the bill and they get like i'm around in a big berkshire the mr buffett also pointed out the market requires it because these ratings agencies has been around forever so they're in shrine by government regulations which oh yeah they have a stake in test for objectivity frank legislation the financial reform has restrictions on rating agencies and the rules that are yet to be written and they carry huge deal about what those rules end up looking like saw it wouldn't surprise me if they were trying to curry favor with certain politicians in fact they've spent a combined total of one point seven six million dollars this year lobbying washington

over the regulations which brings us full circle to the downgrade of u.s. credit the u.s. was downgraded by s. and p. because of government debt burma or the government ran up that debt in part because it bailed out the big banks and a.i.g. back in two thousand and eight remember the one saddled with all of those bad mortgage bonds which the ratings agencies graded triple a when in reality they were a d or an f which makes you wonder if the ratings agencies themselves deserve a downgrade lauren lester r.t. washington d.c. there's a column for the news you want to watch when you want to watch it plus check anything you've missed on line there as well here's a quick look at a couple of stories there for you close to some astronomers are warning of comments . will hit the earth later this year we ask a researcher what is worth preparing for doomsday. and a look back on the how the course of the soviet union took

a major turn twenty years ago after an attempt to overthrow the reforming government was staged on the streets of moscow. the. thing you want to talk about. here. this street still keeps secrets but now it's time to reveal the shades of the soviet files on. this week pressure has been mounting again on the syrian leader bashar al assad the u.s. and european leaders called for him to step down to russia refused to support the

motion saying assad should be given time to implement promised reforms this comes in the wake of the crackdown on anti regime protesters as artie's many of the national reports from the front line while the west sees the government's action as oppression some in syria see it as liberation. job is done the city liberated there is or in lease of the country has become the last syrian city in left have to clear an extremist structure have been terrorizing his citizens for weeks the military claimed that he bandits blocked their rights put up barricades it became a case of hiding we were just like hostages. soldiers of the syrian army out living in the city of their near the iraqi border. officials are saying operation is now over there the city has been freed from armed groups as you can see people are welcome in the soldiers as the waiters patois tanks have been trying to make

their way through jubilant crowds thousands of kilometers away in the white house a decision has already matured president bashar al assad is the one who's terrorizing the syrian people and that should and the transition to democracy in syria has begun and it's time for assad to get out of the way not everybody has agreed that moscow has insisted that assad should be given time to implement promised changes his recent decisions to release political prisoners repeal emergency law and allow peaceful demonstrations have indicated the right direction but external pressure goods to bury fragile transitional. reforms will give forces to syria it will make the country stronger but syria's enemies don't want syria's we strong america for instance sick and tired of a strong syria and they want to weaken it they don't want reforms they need instability and chaos across the country is not only supposable and their pressure

work stories with contradictory reports about policemen and security officers killed across the country and the army's continued crackdown on protesters despite president assad's pledges to the u.n. to stop military operations the syrian people no longer know who. trust and want to believe. with a country at the crossroad again the on themselves with patience. syria . learn this new clock says the west is not really interested in peace in syria he thinks all it wants is to gain influence in the region what the u.s. and its allies really want is regime change in syria and they're not really genuinely interested in ending the terrible situation of. having dialogue between both sides and that's the reason it's happening today because we had present sad said that he was going to introduce a multi-party system in syria he said operations against your position. and what do

we get instead of the usa that's good that's a good move we get these calls for him to step down and the great crime of the assad regime in those countries or is really is it's foreign policy it's friendly with iran has good links with russia and the aim of the game is to try to remove assad from power and install another kind of regime in. syria would have a more protest line and while syrian celebrate the ousting of rebels from some parts of the country quite a different scenario is developing in egypt say with r.t. in the next hour to see how those who fought for democracy and being treated in a post like egypt. a spectacular show of death defying aerobatics performed by some the world's finest aircraft and pilots that's what for the final day of the max international air show under way. the weather hasn't been performing very well though it's raining there just now but as artie's cilia reports it hasn't put off spectators. where here at the last day of

the max two thousand and eleven air show the rain is still pouring but so are the crowds you can see there are still here coming to see all the military aircraft. massive a massive helicopter just running through. very very close to the people who. see the lot of their interesting being last year we saw the fifty first offense generation stealth fighter by the russians now this is the first of its kind of hard hit so we saw it fly the sky see what it can do that was very interesting one of the test pilots actually talked to our team and he said that it's when you heard bill it is great it would be crazy that old chest couldn't do and also he said it's so safe so much so that it's safe what flies tails first i'm standing here at the u.s. air force display and right behind me this is the f. fifteen this is the same type of plane that the aerobatics uses in there are a display show here at the max and thousand and eleven we've seen some of them and

you were pretty amazing indeed and this is the closest i could personally get see me touching this plane that's a close as i can get my call. to get closer he went inside one of the military planes with the russian air about sixty one let's have a look. engine. instrument. runway. and then take a russian to display team. then first class pilots of two hundred times in the past nineteen years. andre is training to join the team he thinks he's nearly good enough now but still remembers his first flight as a solo pilot going to the piers there without any warning they told me i was going to do the next flight on my own for i had no time to be scared there was no longer

an instructor who wanted back it was unforgettable or of a takeoff you on your own controlling the plane then when you land you've done it. yes moves are always trying to hold them i knew this they practiced most weekends thinking of new tricks and practicing old ones not the form of the stanford or whatever don't let me come up next on and then research them but it often turns out the pins on before nested over a russian came up with the loop and all the other stunts are based on the loop. however it always comes down to timing we even with years of flying and training experience between them it never becomes easy because difficult lists one look at the when you leave the cockpit you can squeeze a gallon of sweat from your suit with your knees are shaking because it's extremely different in the stress and any will want to go through it so with that gut wrenching fair ringing in the mine is i was told it was mine for the crowds on the

ground this is an exciting spectacle but that's not quite the emotion that's going through my mind at the moment because i'm about to see what happens from inside the cockpit. we did the loop the loop all the planes just meet us apart. but when it came to the fountain i nearly blacked out. white faced but not to see to it i returned to. the. thing. ok ok ok ok ok ok. ok cool but i could also see some of the streams that go for.

good there's no ticket but just you know he might speak for the crowds but serial acrobatics aren't social to the pilots it's always a difficult job that a terrorist. so next time you look up a speeding plane's spare a thought i looked and saw. somebody on t.v. . and there will be more from the max asho fraud today here on r.t. i'll be back shortly with a summary from a news stories that. if

. they want to order. this story still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal the shooting to the soviet files on the ati.

we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've got the future covered. last time the close up team was reached where the gold rush still gets people hiked up. this time margi goes to cure old region. where the local government is giving power back to the people. where every orphan will be adopted. where locals turn their land into a tourist paradox well come to. such a close up on our team.

there with all to see a recap of the stories that shape this week heavy gunfire and explosions are in the libyan capital wise rebels claim they've been the watched an attack on tripoli with colonel gadhafi. his fost approaching but some reports suggest the loud bangs worst celebrate tory fireworks government forces repelled the offensive. soldier violence in the middle east with fears of a deadly exchange of fire between israel and gaza might lead to the jewish state launching a new ground attack meanwhile israelis protesting against social injustice say the government could use the conflict to divert attention from problems at home. and britain fights back against recent riots with harsh sentences handed to those who only thought about taking profits but there are concerns the government's excessive response will simply.