syria gripped by deadlock activists sound the alarm over a new crackdowns despite loyalists crowds in the capital all the while president assad battling global pressure on his role. in the us protesters determined to stamp out corporate greed and take their grievances to the doors of the wealthy they accuse big business of trying to buy elections. and ukraine's former prime minister faces a new challenges just two days after she got seven years behind bars for abusing power signing gas contracts with moscow. and in business russian rockets close lower as well drop that for the international energy agency reduce its global

demand forecast for two thousand and twelve look at the figures this is posing a threat to. world wide news twenty four seven this is on the line from moscow rove research showing signs of discontent still evident in unstable syria even after thousands of regime supporters crowded the streets of the capital activists say fresh clashes between government troops and ahmed a man in the north of the country have left at least three people tied i mean time president assad has promised to establish a special committee so a draw for a new constitution all of this while international pressure builds on him to step down. as the latest from damascus. but the voices of support. and continuing dissent some ending in deadly

clashes polar opposites in their demands but in some way united by a newfound zeal to take a stand for years of their encounter was gathered their support for the government that is the hard part of it and it has been seeing in other cities that a country where there have been reporting was with me because the force of that is a permit for transition however what i think it was about where in this country was all the forces have rights was cut out for the family for everybody but the. her husband and young children were one of many families who braved the heat and joy the crowds in downtown damascus for god it's true that we knew nothing about politics before but now we take a stand even if i'm a sunni muslim i'm pro this president. ever since most people started revealing their political stance openly some people

would mock me and say since when do you know about politics what do you know very divisions among family members some are pro a side some are anti but that's how it is. it appears that apathy is becoming less of an option for citizens of the nation now under intense international scrutiny i never watch news i never cared you know i never never had any interest in politics . i think most of us read it books we watch the news media articles you know based on i know a lot of people and then you have the right back around the issues about your thinking you've got the. you know there are those like you who are you missing who are no strangers to picking a side and making it known he's long been voicing his discontent of what he calls a repressive regime and today facebook is one of his main tools in coordinating dissent. colas activism has evolved in syria for me i feel that my voice goes further down back then it started with stating an opinion i was going to jail get

him to get there and then one would even know about it that has changed now that people are more politically aware and seem has been thrown in jail says he was tortured and finds himself constantly looking over his shoulder. i was detained for spreading the word on the violent crackdown in daraa but i feel like a coward if i didn't risk my life while those on the streets are doing so asking for the regime to fall color staunchly opposed by those on the other side. of the peace we've. got to make. you think. what political curiosity and activism among syrians are growing whatever side of the divide they're on people here see the future of their country is at stake but all are adamant that future is firmly in their own hands. r.t. the masses. not forget to watch artie's twitter page to get the latest news and

updates from out seem of correspondent so you can easily follow test australia who is in syria and just hours ago enter the central town about us than that so we're five days of clashes between protesters and security forces took place here she tweets that evidence of fighting is clear on buildings other the mood is tense stay online for the very latest there. they have been beaten pepper sprayed and arrested but the determination of the occupy wall street protesters is growing along with the numbers what started with a small group of activists camping outside the new york stock exchange in which september quickly spread nationwide thousands of americans are fed up with breaking their backs while wall street corporations growth long profits however the call to end of the big bank mentality see. to be falling on deaf ears in the white house guy image that explains washington isn't quite ready to turn its back on it for us

. investing in politics has proved to be good business in america just a few million dollars in contributions and some lobbying can bring a company billions in bailout loan guarantees tax refunds another stimulus all of the expense of the average american taxpayer exposed in the election system it's in the ongoing lobbying in service to influence industry these are powerful powerful businesses their whole business model is around using influence to break the rules of the game in their favor so far u.s. corporations have been successful in ensuring that the laws introduced to regulate wall street after the financial meltdown of two thousand and eight don't function those measures were effectively scuppered by u.s. lawmakers the corporations were also successful in keeping their tax cuts intact and finding loopholes for getting billions of dollars in refunds the us government over one percent for the one percent by the one percent perpetuates itself the

passions rules that allows the brains to get be regulated and restrict our democracy three years after washington gave almost a trillion dollars of taxpayers' money to bail out corporate giants unemployment in the countries over nine percent the national debt is well past the tipping point and the congress is looking to cut as central social programs by her thousands of americans took to the streets to ask where is their bailout and how come our immigrant country there were so hundred nonviolent people and doesn't arrest a single one of these bankers or the people who was this who are just models not marching in the meantime goldman sachs one of the main architects of the current crisis is richer than ever it is announced seventeen billion dollars in bonuses alone for its staff when asked about the impunity enjoyed by the corporations president obama said a lot of that stuff. wasn't necessarily illegal it was just immoral

and many agree it pretty much stays that way but not only do the alarm a curse come under fire for accepting generous contributions from corporations and then acting to return the favor but the president himself was accused of bias and cronyism on a number of occasions one of the most recent scandals involves a solar energy company some lingering which went bankrupt and cost taxpayers almost six hundred million dollars that's the amount that the government approved in loan guarantees despite receiving persistent warnings about the company's financial stability the deal was pushed through by a foundation which in turn was a major donor to president obama's election campaign since last year corporations have been allowed to funnel as much money as they want into political campaigns now they don't even have to disclose the amounts they spend their time trying their guy elections is very serious the new law effectively gives the corporations even more influence in washington leaving many americans in fear that their voice might no

longer count for drew all these people onto the streets of washington and other cities in bigger why is the understanding that their government and their legislators represent the interests of the top one percent as they call them the very wealthy corporations that can afford influence in washington to skew the system in their favor. r. t. washington d.c. . just talk a little more about the situation here and we're joined now by right now retired u.s. army colonel also activists of occupy d.c. . thank you for joining us on the program today so do you agree washington and big business are in bed together or is it possible that his position has been over. i don't think it's been overplayed at all i think that what we're placing now in the united states is a critical. situation a dangerous situation where corporations are truly running the country they're buying off very blatantly our politicians and

that's why we're out on the streets all over america to say no to this this. corruption and graft within the business community that it's over into the political situation ok so as you say because there's so many influencing initiatives and policies on capitol hill but what action do you expect to come from washington and possibly from wall street in response to the ongoing protests i understand now is a fairly politically sensitive time with the two thousand and twelve presidential election just around the corner. well indeed in these protests are being seen by politicians as. what the people really are concerned about and what they demand from politicians which is honesty which is not being bought off by corporations however i'm not too optimistic about this i think we are facing a very very. difficult situation where politicians don't really care much about the average person. they we hope we can make compared to the election one who will get

millions hundreds of millions of people to vote him out of office if they keep doing this graft and corruption if they keep spending money on wars that they keep getting sweetheart deals through all their buddies but right now it's a tough situation we face even though we have groups all over the country and city squares we need millions of people more to be out there actively protesting what's going on so what would you say to the protests in the united states at this point have been fairly small scaled in compared to what we've seen for example in parts of the euro zone over two thousand and eleven we've seen tens of thousands and in various european capitals. absolutely in fact i was in greece out of the summer and resins and codman square with hundreds of thousands of greeks that turn out there about every other weekend and tens of thousands every single rider must wear the main square in athens so we have the united states haven't yet developed that volume although raul to wall street the new york one is very large the washington

warren is growing boston is growing i think as this keeps moving day by day week by week we will see a lot more people coming out on the streets and as the media finally switch reports all of the sweetheart deals that are being given to these corporations it really is important what the media tells us about what's going on is so so important so we thank you for that that excellent excellent report right before i came on that really raise it out tragically of what's going on here now as you're saying that there's a need a desire for a greater volume of protesters to hit the streets and major u.s. capitals puts up one of the problems with that is we're already seeing that police have been getting tough with some demonstrators in boston and in new york what's been the attitude to that on capitol hill. well every time the police beat up somebody that is brings out hundreds thousands more people i don't i don't want it

to happen that way that the police just keep beating people up but the people are responding to it by coming out saying you can't do this anymore here in d.c. we encountered a different situation where even the d.c. city council has said the occupiers should be here it's a right of protest the police said not at this offer an area that october two thousand and eleven that's had called freedom plaza in fact earlier we may be able to stay there another four months another group called occupy d.c. this town i think there's some square doesn't even have a permit and they've got tents set up on it we've been working with the police in order to make sure that things are peaceful nonviolent and when we take to the streets we are respectful of emergency vehicles that have to get through there but we are occupying a lot of washington. so far there's the city council has been very good now the capitol hill people have arrested typical day before yesterday we did banner drops

inside one of the senate office buildings six people arrested there disruptions in the senate but i have to say as the numbers comparatively speaking the numbers here are very very small now we've spoken to some of the protesters taking part in the occupy wall street movement of many of them saying that the u.s. government is in bed with for example the defense industries the mineral extraction or energy agency telecommunication telecommunication industries here we are having fairly small protests in a major american cities what else can be done apart from sending people out onto the streets to get ultimately detained by police is there another way to go about getting your voices heard. well certainly we've tried everything i mean we have we have had telling readings with our leopard representatives we will belhadj them with e-mails with telephone cards. these are the traditional ways that we do it closing down places closing down streets closing down businesses going into the houses of congress physically with her you know kind of the next step in this and

until we get a response from our our elected officials that they're listening to us and that they will clean up the mess that they have created which is corporate greed being sanctioned being located by the u.s. government and i and our officials and special laws being written for them until we get them to change that we will have to continue just to keep increasing increasing the levels of pressure and and who knows what we're going to do next it's a it's a creative time it's a time for people to really look closely at what the pressure points are on these politicians and on the corporation says as obama said you know he said some of the things they're doing is not illegal but they're immoral and that's really the the crux of when you have these greedy pigs that are taking billions for their personal wealth and don't care when we have homeless all over the world that we have kids that don't have good education and that we have roads that are beat him out and yet

the greedy pigs at the trough just keep sucking up more and more billions of dollars just for their pockets that's in raging and we are enraged we understand right activists to be occupy wall street movement in d.c. thank you very much thank you. and you criminal case has been launched against ukraine's former prime minister yulia timoshenko she's been charged with laying the burden of deaths from an energy corporation she headed on to the ukrainian budget now this comes just two days after a team of shanklin was sentenced to seven years behind bars over her gas contracts with russia is our correspondent artie's. from here. this story is very complicated and pretty dark because this case in fact refers to fifteen years ago when you had to shanghai was a was the head of the united energy systems of ukraine company she signed several contracts with the russian defense ministry and according to prosecutors and key of she owes four hundred million u.s.

dollars to the russian defense ministry and the essence of this new criminal case is that she tried to put this debt on to the cranium but didn't this violates the ukrainian law this is of course a very interesting new twist in this saga with the trial of you too much and both indeed two days ago she was sentenced to seven years in prison who are abusing that power during the signing of contracts of gas deals with russia back in two thousand and nine this new case may only add fuel to the fire off a very tense and very furious accurate very furious reactions from all over the world we've heard reactions from the united states which condemns at the prison in of unix machine call we shall we heard reactions from the european union which said that a possible agreement on association between the european union and ukraine could be canceled and even an invitation for mystery on a coach to visit a meeting in brussels in a short future may also be cancelled we also heard very harsh reactions from moscow which claimed that all those gas deal signed in two thousand were completely legitimate we've already heard very interesting statements from president unocal

which was said that in fact this particular law under which it's machine code was present could be a bullish in ukraine decriminalised by the korean parliament and thus you to machine could be set free you know which also said that the criminal system in ukraine is outdated and it's to be reformed so these three four can in fact set you free but according to many experts she will still be unable to run for president or run for parliament and will still have to repay almost two hundred million u.s. dollars in damages which she inflicted to the korean budget. artie's alexia's that's the reporting right there were plenty more stories for you at r.t. dot com and i could taste of what's waiting for you on line right now merican could soon see their speech rhythms blinking rates and breathing patterns under the scrutiny of the cia as the latest scheme to track terrorists comes under fire. and one of saddam hussein's bronze bugs is going under the hammer and. it's only

part of his famous statue of course find out what happened after it was torn down the what's he thought call. time for the world update here on r.t. some other world news for you in brief this hour french officials have dropped their inquiry into sexual assault claims against former i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn the prosecutor's office says though strauss kahn admitted to sexual advances towards roger tristan but no there isn't sufficient evidence to support allegations through or value this year the french politician who resigned as head of the international monetary fund not a facing similar charges which were later dropped in new york. libya's troops claiming they're in control of most of the good after stronghold city of sirte making their final push but there are still pockets of heavy resistance from the colonel loyalists libyan leaders have denied earlier reports that one of the sons of a senior army officer and security advisor has been captured in the perceived city

meanwhile human rights group amnesty international has accused the country's interim leadership of torturing thousands of detainees and called for the abuse to stop. a plane carrying a thirty two people has crashed near the north coast of papua new guinea a spokesman for the country's accident investigation commission said there are casualties but their figures are still unclear australia has meantime scrambled helicopters to help with search and rescue efforts at the scene of the crash. the u.s. and south korean leaders have pledged to close the trade and security ties in washington d.c. this after their two countries struck a long sought free trade deal president lee myung bak says visit comes as opposition continues in his home country against south korea's plans to build a naval base which many believe will be politically and environmentally harmful the u.s. warships will be able to use the facility on jade jew island although seoul denies it is being built to strengthen america's presence in the region.

but a cosmonauts and during a long stay of all the international space station food is one of the few distractions from their day to day routine but carrying a meal is no easy task for scientific chefs at home and muster up a stay safe menu that's both nutritional and tasty so we dispatched artie's peter oliver for a lunch that's out of this world. after traveling at phenomenal speed for two days cramped in the small space that he so use rockets cosmonauts arriving at the international space station known to be package but how do you eat in zero gravity. well you have to be a bit more careful than down here on earth every little piece of food he gets out of your group will float away and you will not be able to keep track of it to make sure cosmonauts enjoy their lunch without worrying that the rogue morsel will disappear into the inner workings of some potentially lifesaving computer equipment

the russian space agency designed the special table. that's what the deal is you know there are two heating compartments here and this area in between is a trap for crumbs it works like a regular vacuum cleaner this is important because choking on a crumb is very risky in zero gravity you can have grieve consequences. all the food eaten in space has to be specially prepared here on earth that preparation doesn't come cheap cosmonauts need three thousand calories a day the same as an olympic sprinter and providing cost over six hundred dollars a day with the most emissions lasting for six months each cosmonauts grocery bill comes in at a hefty one hundred ten thousand dollars per mission and at those prices it's no wonder that the people behind cosmic catering a proud of their product. as the chief designer. twenty three years of experience

in the space food industry i can probably simply that russia's place food provide health used saline first and the most nutrition rich diet. even the most simple food requires special character tension this tree in moscow juices space spirit and the work which goes into making you ready for all that is almost as high tech as the i assess itself. there is no mold in this bread no mold spores we've developed a recipe which starts small growth the bread doesn't go bad for fifteen months thanks for the special recipe and technologies we use when baking it. even when it comes to something simple like bread there's still plenty of choice for your hungry cosmonaut. all in all we make five types of bread gingerbread white bread that's what i have here on the table now right bread with caraway bread moscow's style and little bread those currently around one hundred sixty calling every option for

cosmonauts on the international space station including all of the taste from home from soups to main courses and desserts and even the basics from salt and pepper the bread. pretty good. after a hard day's work on board the six nice to see that some of humanity's finest minds still have time to play with their food. ok i've got a yellow one for you good bright you really ready. yummy here one more example this make it three people coming all. these are all of the party. all right i'm just a little bit later in the program here and i think it is the kaiser report but artie's economics and finance show were always on a mission to expose the fat cat greed first of the business with coverage. and welcome. your fears because banks there must raise billions of dollars in

capital to withstand financial turmoil are the markets by the e.u. commission to contain the escalating debt contagion the growing fears banks may take losses on bonds from countries with shaky finances like greece if any governing comes from troika dollars so that even the worst scenario won't have any serious effect on russia welcome lottie's us trouble. the issue has been if it through exposure or. any of those toxic for us which are such as sure there are brick walls so russia may have or potentially limper some precious few for more diverse as schools don't look for you know we will keep exporting real the research for those of because of course the orders for that skew in the case of some small there will be in europe for the. books or major first century prices and there was just a case from. the reason for the persons to go the route of the spirit when she got

there. because you can really things being injected injected there was injected. or it's also remarkable that despite all those fears in the two months it will get below from the door was put beryl. let's have a look at the markets not all is trading in the red after the american petroleum institute reported that us gasoline's around fell the most in more than five years in china last non-tax climbed the least since february as imports slowed light sweet is dropping two dollars or forty cents and is on it is trading under eighty four dollars a barrel while brant is a one hundred nine dollars a barrel stocks in the u.s. open lower or treating after a three day rise in negative sentiment is mainly supported by disappointing earnings from j.p. morgan and chinese economic data stocks of banks stocks of j.p. morgan are down over four percent and european stocks dropping in choppy trading on thursday led by losses for the banks as well mortgage banking group and more bank

of scotland are also shocked cause after fitch ratings downgraded both companies took a from a couple a minus b.n.p. perry bombing the biggest decline is dropping six point seven percent mining companies are also down following reports of slowing export growth in china for its holdings rallied on the foot sea after it announced a new joint venture with united technologies. and in russia markets finished a trading day lower weight by. energy stocks that's as well dropped after the international energy agency would use its global demand forecast for two thousand and twelve let's have a look at some individual channels otherwise x. the decline on the indexes like high gas product its two percent lower outlook or as down as well the company says it's going to spend more than ten billion dollars a year over the next decade to develop huge new projects and point out though it raised earlier gains the company has reported a forty percent increase in revenues for the first nine months of the year michael stein from a creature website with a straight. lead the markets

a consolidation phase tolling be huge ten percent rally in the r.t.s. since late wednesday of last week investor sentiment has economy improved to some extent a given the europeans are taking a more constructive approach to solving their debt problems and given the market improvement in prices from one hundred dollars a barrel last week to close to one hundred ten dollars a barrel this week. for minority shareholders of thank you b.p. have increased their claims against british partner b.p. they now wants thirteen billion dollars compensation following a collapse of b.p.'s tie up with ross snapped the initial request was a quarter of that at the beginning of a year ross nafta and b.p. agreed to jointly develop the rich arctic fields but b.p.'s russian partners. block the deal saying it violated their rights and the man that part of the tie up the minority shareholders now wants compensation for the revenues they could have made

if the deal had help. well that's all i have for you this hour stay with us for headlines before me coming up next. the. damage the official tea allocation joyful noise.