more welcome to the weekly here on r t this sunday on the news so now with today's top stories and a look back at the top stories from throughout the week we begin on wall to wall street where empty protests that kicked off in new york three weeks ago have now grown into a nationwide rally engulfing a growing number of u.s. cities every day demonstrators inspired by the arab spring demand an end to social inequality and corporate greed and as their calls for revolution get louder the authorities and media are finding them harder to ignore our. reports. the collective voices of american dissent has manifested into a movement impossible to ignore occupy wall street began in the world's financial capital but this week protests have blease to dozens of cities nationwide.

in the big apple up to fifteen thousand americans flooded lower manhattan labor unions transport workers teachers nurses and u.s. veterans standing shoulder to shoulder with young activists spearheading a fight against us wealth inequality and corporate greed young people right now have no hope in our society i just want to see a fairer more just society for the young people coming up and all of the american people right now are suffering through these hard economic times this seems pretty revolutionary to me and. the spirit of revolution is here and so i need to be a part of it once you are not afraid to be arrested anymore the whole entire control of the police state disappears when that happens there are times credible possibilities that are open to us and suddenly you can imagine a different world and you believe you can be an agent of change the occupy movement has gained such momentum even the president who promised change was forced to address the issue i think people are frustrated and. you know that the protesters

are. giving voice to a more broad based frustration about our financial system works the american people understand that not everybody has been following the rules. that wall street is an example of that these days a lot of folks who are doing the right thing are awarded a lot of folks who are doing the right thing are rewarded while the u.s. has encouraged and supported democratic uprisings in the arab world the same events playing out at home have been met with baton pepper spray and the arrests of nearly eight hundred peaceful protesters on the brooklyn bridge a scene that reminded some of egypt's to fear square we can follow the lead of our brothers and sisters all over the world the hairspring in greece and spain and we can see that it did send

a powerful message ordinary people are not going to stand for corporate greed anymore and that we're giving up we're doing something about it three weeks into the anti wall street demonstrations the new york city police department has pumped two million dollars into overtime pay fines some critics say are being used to repress freedom two miles from the chaos of the united nations even financier and billionaire george soros who weighed in on the populist uprising that surely i can understand the sentiment the decision not to inject capital into the banks but to effectively relieve them of bad. gave the banks. profits as they see i can sympathize with even says grievances spearheaded so loud and large that mainstream media outlets have been left with no other choice but to cover the protests in

a matter of weeks occupy wall street that's the only mobilized international expansion many believe this ongoing of that would become earning points in the u.s. we're about oh it's a very good politician thing to work for the majority of the people in the collective demanding democracy from the very leader this that from o.t. three up or die out party for your. well former wall street executive richard ask out says protester support is being driven by their bid to restore basic democratic values. this is actually for a political protest movement that's so young it's grown and gathered a surprising amount of support from surprising quarters in a very very short time for example you have several very major unions joining up with this group that's primarily young people and saying that we're on the same side we support them they support us i think what they're doing is reasserting

a set of values you know everybody who wants a job should get a job but business people and their customers should deal with one another fairly and honestly crimes including corporate crime should be punished and so on so if you think of it as the early stage of a movement where it's the clarion it's fundamental values and principles then i think it's actually although it's probably intuitive or accidental it's actually pretty smart of them not to get pinned down in saying we want a financial transactions tax or we want a blue ribbon investigation of wall street crime there really and this is why they've been able i think to start to get some attention. well our correspondents in the u.s. are in the heart of events in lower manhattan keeping you updated on how the protests grow lou think often of is talking to demonstrators police orders and is posting the latest pictures probably the campaign online for you you can follow the

action on our twitter feed at our team underscore com. and later in the program we'll look at how financial distress is also driving people on to the streets of the greek capital and our ticker with the police violence in our homes as hunger anger i should say among off dirty hit greeks reaches boiling point. but history fall victim to political correctness in france with fears the younger generation might lose a sense of national identity we work out what pages are being removed from textbooks and why. but first a fresh wave of violence has swept across syria this weekend with at least fourteen people killed in clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters some of the most severe scenes came at the funeral of a kurdish opposition leader in the north east of the country syrian authorities insist they are targeting armed terrorist groups and not peaceful protesters they also claim the kurdish opposition leader was killed by militants because he was

against foreign intervention in the country syria has been in a state of chaos since mid march following protests demanding president asad step down meanwhile the media are great outer regime forces many into a surprising turn this week as ivor bennett reports. she was hailed as the flower of syria the symbol of the suffering under president bush. regime at least that's what much of the western media said after the apparent butchering of zeinab hosni we have you pictures of what was done to xena corpse and they are simply too gruesome to air several western media outlets were quick to report cell holes in these gruesome deaths. apparently the first woman killed in government custody but now it appears she's miraculously back from the dead even being interviewed on syrian t.v. . i came to the police station to see the truth this what i see to those line

channels i'm now still alive not dead human rights groups like amnesty international jumped on the bandwagon to reporting out hosni was tortured murdered and mutilated it even claimed a mother found the body in a morgue last month all assertions is now being forced to backtrack on this we will endeavor to be more cautious and phrase things a little bit more nuanced the state broadcaster says the interviews to dispel what it labels fabrications by foreign media to serve western interests in stories like this that have been used to prop up calls from the u.s. britain and france for un sanctions to be slapped on syria but their foundations are now looking shaky or the never has footage religiously shows unarmed civilians being targeted by gun toting rebels so perhaps not the peaceful opposition they're often made out to be by the west that only seems to look one way. this notion that the u.n. has is now part of this pro-democracy russi regime is ridiculous they are jumping

on that bandwagon is an opportunity to get out front of it and create this deceptive appearance while at the same time there's a porting the dictatorships that are aligned with them in the united nations and it's part of their empire russia and china vetoed a u.n. resolution for syria seeing through it as a potential cover for another libyan style intervention so they may not be any oil this time but there's always an ulterior motive our partners in the u.n. security council do not rule out a replay of the libyan scenario you although they said more than once that they clearly understood syria is very different to libya russia will continue resisting attempts to legitimize unilateral sanctions through the u.n. security council that aim to overthrow political regimes the u.s. was not created for that it was opposed to vetoes of followed by security council walkout from america over remarks during the syrian envoy speech but the u.s. promised to be back with another resolution and undoubtedly more dramatic evidence

to drive the point home either bennett r.t. . a key adviser to syria's president assad told r.t. the country's authorities fully embrace russia and china's call to end bloodshed through dialogue. with. the majority of laws that should have been passed are now adopted work to amend the constitution is underway the problem is that some states fund and armed terrorist groups operating in our towns and villages this makes ordinary people's lives very difficult and puts them in real danger the position of the western countries encourages these terrorist groups we share russia and china's view that it's impossible to move forward without dialogue the alternative is blood spilling civil war into religious crashers. the full interview with dr siobhan is coming your way later this hour plus in just ten minutes we report on how the ongoing fighting in libya is affecting the lives of civilians there as

revolutionary forces intensify their assault on get back home town of syria we asked our experts why the human cost of the so-called liberation is often going unnoticed in the media. this week struggling european economies were dealt another blow by rating agencies which downgraded italy and spain fears over the debt crisis were also intensified by the junk rate of several british and portuguese breaks greece remains in the center in the center with international creditors still not sure the country is doing enough to get another cash injection and boy to the country has delivered an ultimatum ramp up the costs or face total collapse that's after athens admitted failing to reduce its deficit to the agreed double despite the robot list austerity drive that's left the nation's economy in tatters and authorities are first reports the needs of the people are taking second place to big bank demands. syntagma square once

again bearing witness to clashes between riot police furious protest is that it was going to take that back about a week. and the tensions really been rising as the police moved in to clear the crowds some shocking scenes one point the police seem chasing protests as into the station many others hit kicks by they supposed to be keeping control of the message being sent by the government is going to repression and fear. scenes like this are very serious questions about the level of fools being used. to pry as is a forty three year old journalist who's reported from many conflicts but it was in his own country where he sustained his was then jewry. but the next i just remember thinking is this really happening produce i took shelter in an enclosure just off syntagma and one policeman who i think was a commander asked in a very rude why i was taking pictures i told him i was

a journalist but he gave an order and i had one of the flash bangs thrown at me these are some of the last pictures i took you know the place he'd taken shelter amplified the sound of the flash bang causing always takes all deafness and injury which has cost me less his job. after the attack i won't call it an accident it was an attack my life's been like a small hell. an investigation was launched into the incident but progress has been slow a finalist tells us the countless cases against heavy handed police tactics and need to have any kind of results we witness for ourselves the lack of discrimination when the police lash out when journalists flung with his camera to the ground the rise in the level of aggression seen by the police and the more extreme groups of protesters is causing serious concern with the government continuing to implement severe austerity measures in a bid to receive that cash tensions looks set to keep escalating i think we are

forced. to explain in. the first the reaction. from europe. has been expressed in july. the impact of the financial crisis is being played out played by blown syntagma square there are now fears that the financial crisis turn into an economic recession could bring the entire usa not just the greek people to their knees surf city. well great people are suffering because of mistakes made by politicians and athens only escape wise outside the eurozone so says member of the european parliament paul. basically the money is going to pay off debt but the problem is they're not reducing the debt and it's it's interesting a little we should never have been allowed to get into the auto in the first place

they broke so many rules their own room to get grease in because this was all about politics it wasn't about economics and i feel very very sore for the greek people the only way that the greek people who get back on their feet again is to come out of the order all together and look it will be the end of the world for greece argentina was the last major countries to falter in two thousand and one between two thousand and one and two thousand and six argentina's economy grew by sixty percent that is the answer to greece if you poll a poll that these people are being made to suffer because of ideological decisions that were taken many miles away in brussels ten years ago coming out later today crushing the crisis robert foster explores the plunging global economy in an unprecedented way you can join us to listen in to his recession wrap in a brand new show here on r t here's a preview of what's in store for you at sixteen hundred g.m.t. . well seems to come to us global off financial day of reckoning it's an interesting quote everything we've invested so much in this enterprise would meet

this might maybe demise of real economy is something much more to its g.d.p. measured not by our ability to hoard but our capacity to read learn to no no place in nature is the ultimate nuts for being on this planet pandora. this week the u.s. led war in afghanistan passed its ten year mark with nato troops still no closer to victory over the taliban the chorus of criticism over the occupation get out are with the latest failure stamp coming from a former german general who planned his nation's role in the operation a decade ago nato plans on a full withdrawal from the country by the end of twenty fourteen but as jason malek reports the evidence on the ground shows there's no rush to leave. if the united states is drawing its troops from afghanistan why is its largest base getting bigger with u.s. led forces over in the taliban in late two thousand and one bug amir field is

little more than a flight to the correct runway since then the former soviet base in the plains north of the afghan capital has grown into a small city that sold over twenty five thousand full time personal fleets of military cargo aircraft enough equals to cause traffic jams in the expansion is no way aided by scores of contractors u.s. military engineers are constructing new housing and storage facilities to make room for even more maybe more hard work after sending an extra thirty thousand troops to afghanistan last year president obama started bringing them home this summer but with afghan forces struggling to stand alone it's likely that less will leave than planned and bases like this one aren't going to shrink anytime soon. at least there are plenty of home comforts for soldiers staying on for tell a few more deployments you can shop for everything from one screen t.v.'s to fine jewelry enjoy a cappuccino. the grab some take on the new pizza hut for insurance industry tired

of working out in the gym they're free to go to the salon for a haircut and. although some officials have tried to limit such amenities calling them a distraction from the war the troops are happy to have them and these are streamlined where you see that the latter and have it take the right. local afghan merchants are also glad to have the extra business both inside and outside the wire without agreement a soldier's my business would be nothing we like having them here but not everyone agrees diddly taliban rocket attacks are on the rise it is the base becomes more and more crowded the threat to those living inside multiplies no matter how high its walls become everyone gets a close call when you this can just get this much equipment personnel it's all into one tight spot close it's going to destroy something or someone easy as it may be to forget at times this is still a war zone jason must look for a team. a white house official has suggested the cia and special forces could stay

in afghanistan long after the troops have left and according to brian backer of the pro peace answer coalition there's no way the u.s. what abandon a region that so strategically important. if the u.s. military were to leave afghanistan altogether or if it were to leave iraq all together those governments would become independent determining governments free of foreign interference or foreign occupation that's what would happen they would form their own natural alliances with their neighbors the united states does not want that this is the great prize this is a geo strategic way and resource rich part of the world united states is there for the long term and i think that's the real goal is to put firmly afghanistan and the surrounding countries into an american spirit within it think the karzai government really is an extension of american power which has a masquerade the fiction of a nato cover but really it's an american power. or it's probably cannot survive

without outside support after all the outsiders the occupiers put him into power i don't think he has any real legitimacy or credibility for his people. the anti-war sentiment is growing in britain which has the second largest number of troops in afghanistan in london's trafalgar square big crowds marked a decade of war with a defiant get out now message correspond it was there and you can watch his reports at r.t. dot com. fierce fighting for gadhafi as hometown of syria continues in libya where revolutionary forces claim they've seized the convention center that's the main base of the colonel's loyalists for over two days now libya's interim rulers have been waging

one of the biggest assaults yet on the most important remaining stronghold of the ousted leader revolutionary forces claim they control most of the town that's been under siege for three weeks now libya's interim leaders say failure to take theory is the only thing keeping them from formally declaring liberation and scheduling elections but another journalists i should say for author and charge of us absent a fallacy that pursuing that aim cannot justify atrocities often ignored by mainstream media. this is what nato are involved in an action which is obviously contrary to the u.n. resolution which is supposedly mandated to go in and overthrow the government of gadhafi we're getting reports of electric torture electric shock torture being used by these revolutionaries who exactly are the people that are fighting nato because they may not like get off me they may not like the nature of troops it's very interesting that the most advanced arsenal in the world of nato is six months on and they still haven't won the country this is all about the idea that these great

powers as of old can divide up the resources and the future of the libyan people why they're quiet about it the media kind of got bored after the initial explosions and the so-called attack the don't even reporting the bombing of hospitals in certain. we've got more stories available for you on our website dot com here's a quick look at what's available for you there right now and on the street x. steals the show at euro two thousand and twelve opening ceremony in the ukrainian capital after a controversial feminist group crashes the event if you can call it that r t v dot com. and a coffin of creativity looking at this it is easy to join the people of ghana and their belief that death is just a step into another life for the works of an african craftsman will be on display in moscow later this month. no to napoleon school

textbooks are being revised in france to avoid insulting minority pupils opponents of the move war and political correctness is running amok through french society threatening to purge the country of its past and not only through its classrooms daniel bushell explains. twenty pages on the history of black slavery and just six on the time of napoleon shown here sitting on a toilet france's new history school books are inbreeding parents and teachers who cool it's political correctness gone mad this author's bestseller on the figures of front of boylan's ahead on their journey they don't know if we doing teach are a minority is the history of their adopted country they don't feel french we are already seeing riots in our streets the crusades the called insulting to muslims the sun king louis the fourteenth to imperial and the pony and smoked as the colonel gadhafi of his day focus is now on the previously little known king came

kumu thought of thirteenth century west africa. the purge even extends to reuters studied rumbled world including les miserables all to victor hugo france is already breaking up things professor casale because it's young people have no sense of identity parents are concerned we have to study even the worth pages of our history because you can't understand what happened or politics now in france if you don't understand the history. they want to understand and to avoid properly legal action seen as the only way to stop the removal of national history of all of our schools now give ten percent of their share you will to the medieval african moline point of studied it and what exactly is it contribution to world development. thousands of signed a petition of the french revolution lessons were replaced by the african kingdom of

more than multiple which many say they've never heard of the ministry of education refused to be interviewed but gave us this statement. we're changing the school curriculum to reflect globalization monumental past being taught because it's important to have a view on other world cultures such as egypt joining and india the new european parliament reports back to compulsory school lessons on the benefits of the e.u. from quote a very young age critics want kids are learning less and less about their own country states which stop teaching their poles they say consigned themselves to history. the new push to altie paris. a recap of our top stories is coming up after this short break stay with us.

if. russia would be soo much brighter if you knew about someone from feinstein christians. who threw stones on t.v.

dot com. it was created to serve public interests to inform and to entertain. these days there's nothing easier than opening a new media outlet but there is nothing harder than revoking its license in case of corruption on. one just the. san antonio ways in trouble. the problem is that if you can involve in a community where you have one large corporation controlling the daily newspaper radio stations television stations the cable. well you told me that that's what democracy's the public opinion versus f.c.c. broadcast lose more to.

lose lose.

the week's top stories here on our team the american spring spreads across the country with demonstrators demanding an end to social inequality and corporations abuse of power however the u.s. government is up in arms against the protesters to spite washington's support of revolutions over seems. this week the u.s. led war in afghanistan passed its ten year mark with victory over the taliban and the pull out of foreign troops still a long way from reality. police and demonstrators clashed on the streets of athens after the i.m.f. ultimatum to the country to make cuts or face that's after greece admitted failing to reduce its deficit to the agreed level despite the relentless austerity drive. and the woman promoted by western media as a.