monarchy top job intrigue president but better than prime minister putin could swap jobs after the twenty twelve presidential election pledging that tandem will continue to work for russia. emotions running high as palestinians bid for statehood at the u.n. with standing ovations in new york but clashes at the border in the west bank. the finnish priest speaking out against the chechen terrorists website found himself defrocked in disgraced with his plight ignored by the mainstream media. and a greek default is inevitable even top officials know it leaked reports reveal the recession could go even deeper than first feel.

welcome it's why i'm here in moscow my name is kevin owen you're watching our review of the main news stories of the week here on r.t. and the big one on saturday the biggest secret indeed in russian politics was finally exposed is no certain that prime minister vladimir putin will run for the presidency in twenty twelve speaking of the ruling united russia party convention current president dmitri medvedev made the announcement while agreeing to head the party in parliamentary elections he also said he's ready to lead the government if they win he's innocent i witness the historic speeches first time. the wait is over. i believe it would be right for the convention to support the candidacy of life in europe it soon and the presidential election i.

know that. this applause means i don't have to explain what kind of experience under thirty it's in the hands. of issuing a scuffle i'm going to say something else as spiteful emerged that there's been a split within our town and i can see that this is a well thought through what decision. putin is running for president was. the pleasure i'd like to express my gratitude to you for supporting my candidacy to run for president it's a great honor of the ages. that you are but if that gets to the numbers and with the parliamentary elections coming in december i'd like to ask all russian citizens to support the united russia party with me. now that i would like here. i'm not really sure if you. like it but maybe just what i'm convinced to

become prime minister continue to thoroughly modernize our society. the tandem now running on a platform of taking russia to the next decade promising more growth and stability but their party united russia in december of parliamentary elections and next year's presidential run both putin and medvedev have their work cut out united russia's popularity has been falling in recent years by making such a move they do. condemn as you say they send a political message to the russians as well talk as to the world that. is not outdated it is not absolute this is our. construction which. can work for years you see it is quite effective and so was the announcement even the delegates there were seriously taken aback when the only confirm of course everybody expected it it must count as one of the best kept secrets really in

recent political history the west has already started emphasizing how much the movie lacks surprise sure that some of the opposition political commentators emotions are you proud to say is of course the risk of political stagnation and also all these country members very well the euro of the seventy's in the eighty's especially one the communist party leadership didn't really change there and they all stayed there until the age of five years old now i would rather disagree with those who predict stagnation in russian politics for one simple fact. and this is a healthy. meaning a so-called western style democracy might not be the way for russia something we are seeing the u.s. especially push for across one of the world's most unstable regions i think it's really disgusting how the u.s. has used the arab spring and try to use it to put in their new dictators their new friends and their fictitious democracies to be able to control the oil we control

the populations. countries like russia just want stability and stability is something russia knows this dynamic duo can deliver at least so far russian g.d.p. has almost doubled the level of life in russia alone russia not only the capitals has improved but putin and medvedev want to take it to the next step with a reshuffle in united russia already under way new faces transparency less corruption and more growth are all part of the platform the intrigue is dead and now the real work begins united russia has to convince the country they are a party. to move past stability towards further development and so the russia has a right to its own style democracy and he's now artsy moscow. to get a bit more perspective on it i spoke to a carter young nice political analyst in the voice of russia radio station in washington he told me putin is a figure that russia needs right now during these uneasy times lattimer putin will

have his hands full once again soon as the office of the presidency simply because he's got to start creating jobs just like other presidents other prime ministers have to do across the globe the east got a start the russian economic engine. going again reset the economy there i don't think he needs a change of style at this point he has been very consistent as showing himself as a very strong decisive leader and he certainly has the same with his protege obviously president. and this is the kind of political intelligence this is the kind of smarts that i think people respect whether they're in russia or the u.s. he's shown to be very decisive very strong and has a vision for russia and i think that whether it's the u.s. or russia or any other country that you have a leader who has a vision and a strength that people can see that's the that's the individual they want an office . biggest story of the week certainly for us syria russia what do you think about what are your views r.t.

dot com as a place to let us know we're asking there what do you think will happen if president mr putin do switch jobs at the end of the day this is what telling this part of the it's been quite constant actually for the last few hours that say the reshuffle tandem will be a success because it'll give people what they want just over a quarter of you think the swap with anger voters and strength of the opposition again split again obviously from the twenty five percent saying it'll attract foreign investment to russia but not much will change otherwise thanks but it's no if it was still time. to change that scores well. history was made this week at the u.n. as president mahmoud abbas deliver the palestinian bid for statehood and received a standing ovation as he addressed the general assembly cheering crowds gathered in ramallah to give him a hero's welcome as the arrived back from new york addressing the rally he declared the beginning of the palestinian spring when he spoke to the un assembly on friday jewel and seems played out across the palestinian territories put words quickly

turned to violence on the west bank border culminating in clashes between police and palestinians army these correspondent paul sleepier has got the story. and historic movement after decades of struggle tens of thousands who preach his plans going after president mahmoud abbas to bequeath to the united nations to make his state but as feared it wasn't all cheers and nonscientists. violent clashes have erupted across the west bank as fears grow of a third intifada we are here in ramallah with is a scandal between the israeli army and palestinian poach it is just a short distance down the road they are tired burning everywhere the army is likely using a new round of mike known as the screamer which i'm bearable found now be a choice and here is a very very chain of great thank you. one palestinian has been killed now what we understand happened is that country one hundred israeli settlers started burning

the trees belonging to palestinians in the village the army was called in and the result was one palestinian shot and killed in the nick. two months the israeli army has been preparing for these exact scenes and palestinians were retail of it will now use these clashes as an excuse to beef up its army presence in the west bank and possibly even punish palestinians by withholding tax money it collects a neighbor half for weeks the army has been pointing land mines on israel's northern borders to prevent the conundrum checkpoint scenes from unfolding here the mines are not this is a really very to deal with people who have peaceful intentions but mines are a legitimate form of the sense any countries have mines on their borders for that reason but locals are outraged well they are going to would. bring them at the heart of the clashes are israeli settlers and palestinians both

lame claim to the same piece of land jacob taylor has been farming deep in the hebron heels for more than twenty years he says this land is his and he has the papers to prove it we are the only people in the low that have put a roof a document a document that these in national and international know it every. go go you go but not so why should i make the same claim he insists the land has been in his family for some eight hundred years but now this is the closest he can get to it and it's eating him up watching jacob farm it is a very hard feeling. nothing in the resistance forces and after the surplus as we said some of the army will come immediately and arrest us this feigns cuts through farm meaning that white now i am standing inside palestine. and as i walk through here. i'm now in israel it's one thing to declare a state and another to determine where its borders will be politically r.t.

ramallah political activists who are told that r t the despite the impending veto palestinians regard this as a major breakthrough. as palestinians we have a very heightened sense of national pride at this moment and even though we know that the two is most likely coming out very much the other really makes no difference but there is a very high sense of national and she's meant at this point because for one softer those are very disappointing years of the so-called peace process the political leadership and the popular popular public opinion are in line they're in an on one side of the political debate if you will going back to negotiations is not something palestinians are closed on principle that if we go back to negotiations with our occupiers and that's what israel is without any terms of reference without israel clearly committing to international law clearly committing to its

obligations according to international law and relevant u.n. resolutions then it's purely pointless. coming up who will be the first to face charges over crimes against humanity. or president sarkozy who now faces possible legal action over the military intervention in libya without it. having drug industry destroys afghan lives and few terrorism but little was being done to stop it the report coming out from kabul. a finnish priest being temporarily defrocked and for speaking out against one of the world's most wanted terrorist or kumar of. mahler denounced the cover center website which he believes is a mouthpiece for tomorrow's deadly campaign finish human rights activist your black woman says the authorities the sheltering militants by protecting websites activity . actually you have more is only repeating what is said about the activities of all

of this terrorist organization by united nations by the usa by russia by the international media so actually you are morally cannot repeat the same information in finland which is said in the international media about these terrorist organizations the person who is responsible of the work. he has organized some migration off militants from turkey to finland and now he's facing charges he's prosecuted in finland over the same time and he has a very strong support on the highest level of the finish. and also in the finnish government for example the minister of development of finland had hoped always very close partners. so the situation is really strange film of the east actually protecting these militants and they are all going i think their

activities on the territory of finland a lot more in a website as well r.t. dot com about batting three you are more laurie's blog on the controversial website an exact devotee was falling for a while with him he claimed to have health centers already written some two hundred insulting articles about even if you will a background you want to get more acquainted with that story of. libya's transitional government forces have stepped up an offensive on one of these last strongholds of sirte that's after saturday's attack failed to defeat the colonel's loyalists meantime some western leaders are facing accusations at home over the galaxy of their military intervention bushell explained and examined the reasons behind the claims there are some upsetting pictures coming up in his report as well . for ejects foreign minister roland two more says he's ready to defend their feet in the international criminal court which is issued a warrant for his arrest but later will have to point the colonel first libya's

deposed leader is it hiding for good reason. if they find him they'll kill him. some states are now claiming the right to kill against all international law. images like these are moving frige lawyers to turn against the government because the faces lawsuits over the birth of ordinary people in libya lawyers here in france accuse the presence of committing crimes against humanity this lawyer calls the libyan war renew vietnam with the u.s. sprayed tens of millions of liters of toxins on crops in the sixty's and seventy's causing brain disorders miscarriages and birth defects to this day. they using missiles with depleted uranium which causes cancer in tripoli i saw people crippled by nato attacks office workers who have nothing to do with the fighting that's why we're soon president sarkozy for crimes against humanity. first

denied this residence where thirteen civilians including four children died then called the place a military command center this journalist went to see what it really housed. videos by the bad choices and cultural and everything is nothing nothing military in another attack these wife or child or grandchildren were reportedly killed in their home was accused of deliberately waging a campaign of terror. bombings targeted libya's electricity water and food supply after five months of deadly need of ones and thousands of deaths people will stop supporting the regime because they simply cannot take it anymore. western leaders a poised for their first big legal challenge of libya if they stop the cases coming to halt altogether as chicle day it will prove once and for all that western

justice really used brought by politicians not the rule of law the new bush shorty paris. looking at just bit later in the program a barking way of fighting pollution from caffeine. is very good. i feel pulling their weight. if not only more environmentally friendly but i thought it was always the rely on we think we'll win because while god will never let me down. but to come back before the talks of a possible greek default grew louder this last week league report suggested that some of the eurozone finance ministers already regard the country's economy as a lost cause the are there for reportedly given e.u. countries six weeks to build up a financial fire wall to protect themselves from the shock wave of the greek default it comes amid rising fears of a double dip recession now after the world markets all the worst week since two thousand and eight james midway's a senior economist at the new economic foundation think tank he told me believes

we're seeing the beginning of the euro's. the cat is out of the bag and to be quite honest the statement is quite close to simple statements of the facts greece cannot repay its debt under under current circumstances the growth isn't there the debt is far too big in the simply no earthly way it's going to be able to repay this debt on any plausible timescale certainly not by twenty twelve which was the original kind of hope of the other european nations the divisions in place right the way across europe now with countries completely unable really to agree in any kind of way forward out of this mess other than the essentially tried and tested and tried and failed methods the heart which essentially is give a bit of a bailout to certain countries and then impose austerity measures we are certainly i think in the early stages of disintegration of europe the deep rooted structural problems inside the euro system the imbalances that built up for the last ten years so i'll be surprised to see the euro continuing in its present form given the

situation we're in at the moment the greek debt crisis of about it might turn those unlikely to affect russia's economy that's the view of the russian finance minister alexey could we've got an exclusive interview with him next hour. jack prices do spread loose it does not affect us too much please directly because our banks do not hold any of the great. french and german banks on your heart will suffer greatly because they will not want on their hands that would not be periods where this will cause problems with him these banks problems with these credits and overall problems on these markets because banks are after all the leading players will go. another high profile killing shook afghanistan this week the country's former president an advocate of peace talks with the taliban was assassinated on choose day in a suicide attack who had no dinner but he was killed by militants who hid an explosive device in this turban claiming to be a taliban envoy about an evil led the country in the one nine hundred ninety s.

was a key figure in current peace talks with the militants thousands of mourners gathered in the afghan capital kabul on friday for his funeral the bowing followed a string of high profile targeted killings including the murder of the current president's half brother in july but the taliban stepping up its attacks right now in afghanistan one of the main sources of income is in full bloom but nato isn't doing anything about that is that if they get pissed enough that. the penalty for drinking beer in kabul is sixty whips on the back publicly it is a very traditional muslim society or is it there are dozens of people if not more for doing drugs right there but it is a bridge in the center of the sea with all this coming and staring at them all these insane conditions we still rubbish being thrown weight here where we're standing right now this is just incredible to see it here we'll all be in

it so cooked mixed injected or small to wait on more on these piles of rubbish a not one policeman anywhere near. but that not all over it all these people don't just come here to do drugs i mean of them call the score pakistan and you can hear we don't have any job we don't have any editing to do if you can pay for the war on the head of the head of a study commissioned by the us state department chills each family has at least one drug user all found in breast milk and all kids even newborns have morphine on their blood there's no doubt the period of plantation song with narcotic crops has increased since military hostilities started. i believe but the war was the root cause that forced afghan people to turn to poppy growing around ninety percent of all the opiates in the world are produced in of year to step into cleans the markets global trade turnover has long surpassed the five hundred billion dollar

mark a russia is one of the worst affected states where around eighty tons of heroin a new settle in the country like those because it's tragic that despite the enormous resources nato has put into afghanistan including military force drug production is just phenomenal moreover the head of nato military committee personally told me fighting drug production is not their goal there is no such directive. many experts find this a bit strange given the fact that a large quarter of revenues from drug money is used to sponsor the taliban needles key enemy in the region meanwhile the international community and spends billions of dollars to fight drug traffic but since nato has no legal way to coordinate the funds are spent with very little by the results while official say that multi-billion dollar afghan drug network has the whole world and is a group. of forty kabul afghanistan. small world news in brief now four

explosions are brought the city of kabul in southern iraq at least nine of being killed about one hundred injured. two the explosions happened here a government office that was issuing i.d. cards to iraqi citizens no one's claimed responsibility for the attack so far. ninety two died in a plane crash in nepal that was carrying to reste mt everest when it went down killing all but one passenger instantly and that surviving victim then later died in hospital i wouldn't says report the aircraft clipped one of the houses in a local village before crashing no casualties reported on the ground. the huskies in one remote arctic town the work doesn't stop once the snow has melted in a bid to reduce the number of cars on the road there and the pollution of course they cause the other the spitzbergen to introduce new original concept artie's traveled north to find out a bit more for us. that's what it really means to put the shoulder to the will contrary to popular opinion huskies don't go on vacation once the snow melts. or

two and a half cars to the. car. in fact in the world snowden will cd being doctor is a year round phenomenon. where the only means of transportation around are. and while by now cars and no one will have replaced them in many parts of the north koreans were good confidence cooling the way looking for a if not only more environment for a problem but also safer you can always rely on we deal with the cold while dogs will never live. like most of the residents of norway's longer beyond robert wasn't born here. he moved in his mid twenties fleeing big city congestion in hopes of reconnecting with nature he says who king his jeep behind his barking

female peter mares is the need to change his life plus it gives the dogs. they know. the exercise every day so. when it improves with. training. some two thousand residents along here and beyond is little more than a white place in the road they may not be any traffic police but the rules of the road are no less street below call authorities have already closed some of the archipelagos routes to militarize traffic with more restrictions to come. the loping force behind a partial car ban is very poor think also and every dog lover should like his driving to smoking invasive and damaging to the environment if there are no smoking areas where should there be. the driving areas here are small both. in norway and many other places also here in the north. and i think today we are living in big

cones we need the silent where we can leave all around us in our normal days we need to rest our brain as the archipelago tries to attract more tourists some suggest that big career restrictions may have a commercial appeal with people around the world reporting increasing traffic critique many may be in need of a car free refuge like this russian traveler could cost of and muscovite dearest hours long commutes to work which says the absence of honking horns leads he instantly fall in love with it wait the most amazing moment i experience is of course the traffic the lack of traffic even early on january first in moscow you cannot find that few cross like you see here to ban cars in the favor of dogs it's an absolutely crazy great idea and this would probably attract more and more tourists down here going to the dogs is obviously not an option for every cd but he

has definitely don't feel like a real sad we got our three year long good b. and. well what's all the motivation in a few minutes time special report for you about the death of america's car building as they try to walk states away ritually life from. the road.

this is a city. of about one hundred ninety thousand people and we had he found that people working for general borders. were drug dependent and general. general motors says if it's not relationship you it might be your neighbor or somebody you knew it was kind of a family run business you know myself i'm third generation my father was working there and you have a lot of two three and four generation families are there first let's understand that. this is a man doesn't know where. he should not be. it is gone who want

a man to work with. i think for a long time this notion in america that bigger was better was simply an undisputed fact in the twenty first century smarter better general motors simply became too large for their own good and so many brands that they couldn't even keep up with they just basically became a dinosaur. he .