international news and comment live from moscow this is r.t. the signs of discontent are 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 armed men in the north of the country left thirteen dead president assad promised to establish a special committee to drop a new constitution while international pressure builds on him to step down. as the latest from damascus. but voices of support that continue in dissent some and in deadly clashes polar opposites in their demands but in some way united by a newfound zeal to take a stand for here the fact that the fear and kept it was have gathered show their

support for the government that is a far cry from the images we've been seeing in other cities around the country where there have been reported clashes with if the kurdish north have ever had a government protagonist however one thing it's more are about where in this country with all the forces have time and time that was very basic you know that everybody was. her husband and young children 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 there are divisions among family members some are pro assad some are anti but that's how it is. it appears that apathy is becoming less of an option for citizens of this

nation now under intense international scrutiny i never watched news i never cared you know i never never had any interest in politics but. i think most of us books we watch the news media articles you know based on the no one pick up and then you have the right background and all the issues about your country you can think of them are. you there are those like the new i was saying we're 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 including meeting dissent. activism has evolved in syria for me i feel that my voice goes further now back then it started with stating an opinion going to jail that hit again and no one would even know about it that has changed now that people are more politically aware hussein 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 a call staunchly opposed by those on the other side yet. the street. while 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. that's our cilia r.t. damascus. also. on our website don't call my president assad is still in power. the majority of you believe that it's because china and russia have opposed outside military action against syria less than

a quarter say has more popularity and national support and i think you can see that on screen at the moment that eighty percent of you think that the syrian opposition movement is clueless while the rest believe that. his reputation you will say. that to him from the. they have been pepper sprayed under 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 mid september quickly spread nationwide thousands of americans are fed up with breaking their backs well one. street corporations grow fast on the profits and one of the cool to end the big bank mentality seems to be for long in the white house. and explains that washington isn't ready to turn its back on old friends. 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 and other stimulus all of the expense of the every american taxpayer exposed in the election system and it's in the ongoing lobbying and service 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 loss 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 government of the one percent for the one percent by the one percent perpetuates itself it passes rules that allows the banks to get deregulated it restricts our democracy three years after washington gave almost

a trillion dollars of taxpayers' money to bail out corporate giants unemployment in the country is over nine percent the national debt is well past the tipping point and the congress is looking to cut essential social programs i am thousands of americans took to the streets to ask where is their bailout how can i moderate a country that arrests a hundred nonviolent people and doesn't arrest a single one of these bankers or the people would cause those who are just models not mine 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 lawmakers 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 prone is munna number of occasions one of the most recent scandals involves a solar energy company cylindrica 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 to value 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 or drop all these people onto the streets of washington and. 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. our team washington d.c. . and right to vist of the occupy wall street movement in washington d.c. and she believes the protests of funding. corporations leeching off the american people. what we're facing now in the united states is a critical situation a dangerous situation where corporations are truly running the times very. very blatantly out politicians and that's why we're out on the streets all over america to say no to this corruption and graft within the business community that ronald's over into the political situation 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 it when you have these immoral 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 heard that we have roads. and yet the greedy pigs at the top just keep sucking up more and more billions of dollars just for their pockets. and still ahead here in digging deep the eurozone rescue fund gets the green light for more money but cash strapped greece sees no light to be the austerity tony. and the ultimate light snack check out what's being served up in space as we unveil the process of cosmic catering that's coming your way very soon here. but first a new criminal case is being launched against ukraine's former prime minister yulia

timoshenko she has been charged with laying the burden of debts from an energy corporation she headed to the ukrainian budget this comes just two days after to michelle who was sentenced to seven years behind bars over her gas contracts with russia is our correspondent in kiev and. this story is very complicated and pretty dark because this case in fact refers to fifteen years ago when he 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 in kiev 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 ukrainians 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. indeed two days ago she was sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing the 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 axis of very furious reactions from all over the world we've heard reactions from the united states which condemned the prison interview to much ankle wish 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 me to visit a meeting in brussels in a short future may also be canceled we also heard very harsh reactions from moscow which claimed that all those gas deal signed in two thousand and nine were completely legitimate we've already heard very interesting statements from president bush who said that in fact this particular law under which he was present could be a bullish in ukraine decriminalised by the ukrainian parliament and thus. could be set free you know which also said that the criminal system in ukraine is outdated and need 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. the expanded eurozone bailout fund has been given the final go ahead back here that's after tuesday's vote against it saw the country's ruling coalition collapse increased cash would go to struggling nations such as greece which has ground to a halt in a forty eight hour strike against the government cuts well let's now talk to james senior economist at an independent u.k. based think tank the new economics foundation joining us live there in london well the eurozone bailout fund has now been approved by all seventeen members of the currency union the green to increase that lending capacity to four hundred forty billion euros will it make any difference. will do for a bit so if you start promising anyone four hundred forty billion euros it will cheer them up for a while now expects that we'll see over the next few days or

a certain amount of probably fairly short lived before you're over this but it doesn't address any of the fundamentals the f.s.f. itself is quite a flimsy mechanism you've got to bear in mind that most of this money isn't cold hard cash it's promises to pay and the promises to pay as you can make the promise but then when somebody actually expects the money to turn out you can see the promise of operate very rapidly so i don't think it addresses the fundamental problem about short term optimism josie emanuel brought so it's actually calling on banks to shield themselves against the fallout from greece is this a case of fed accompli it is actually implied that greece is definitely going to default. well yes it does i mean essentially since the start of twenty ten is that long ago it's been pretty clear to all and sundry apart from it turns out most of the leadership greece's debt is unsustainable you're talking about country now that has one hundred eighty nine percent of its national income owed is dead so there is forecast to be sending fifteen percent of that national income on interest payments

next year this is unsustainable greece at some point has to default the real question here is whether when that default happens it will be big enough to break the very bad cycle that greece has now an opportunity of high debt. unfolding growth but what else would be the consequences on the eurozone if greece defaulted . this is this is where things start to become serious because that greek debt is held by banks inside the eurozone there is a potential for those banks to suddenly find themselves essentially insolvent now the most likely candidate for this is the greek banking system greek banks hold a very great deal of greek national debt about fifty five billion euros if a default happens on any real scale that banking system is is likely to be wiped out it might also hit quite dramatically french and german banks we've already seen belgian bank french belgium buying debts last week so for him as a result of just a potential default so yes the consequences could be quite severe for a greek default but

a greek default is at the same time pretty much inevitable well those french and german banks have just spoken out against those calls to increase their reserves there pointing out that tough standards will actually make them less stable but isn't the essence of all of this is to make tougher banking regulation now. well that's part certainly part of it i mean one way to describe the crisis that we're in which is a continuation the financial crisis of two thousand and eight. is that this is a crisis of regulation this is a failure to clamp down on what banks are doing it failure to clamp down on the ways that they were trying to pass risk amongst themselves the way that they thought they could carry on simply printing credits and making loans to each other forever more with no real consequences we're seeing the end of that process of thing and the banks themselves aren't very happy about it they don't want to suffer the losses from the gambles that they took some time ago let's talk about the banking situation there in the u.k. you're there in london james of course the u.k. isn't part of the eurozone but its banks have also been downgraded by fitch today and of course earlier by moody's just how worrying development is that in the u.k.

. it's a reflection of of why does circumstances as much as anything else the downgrade by itself was heavily trailed by fish and by moody's following on from a recent report into the banking. commission into the banks of the government commission so the downgrade itself isn't necessarily something to worry about or seizing dick it is that these banks are themselves tied into a deeply dysfunctional european banking system although british banks don't hold very much so the european sovereign debt they do have very large exposures to french and german banks so any trouble and he defaults that might happen that saying greece this affects french and german banks start to they're not going to give k. based banks over here it's pretty much like dominoes rattling out across the continent james thanks very much indeed for your thoughts on this it's all we've got time for thanks for joining us there in london james economist at an independent think tank the new economics foundation thanks for telling thank you. for plenty more stories we had our t. dot com you can see that interview once again and also you can see plenty of other

stories online here's a taste of what we got there for you the moment the consequences of the so-called war on terror human rights groups called on the canadian government to arrest former u.s. president george w. bush when he visits the country later this month. also there on the web site one of saddam hussein's brawls baltics is going under the hammer that's part of his famous statue of course and you can find out what happened after it was torn down and r t v dot com. time now to update you on other world news in brief for you the world update french officials have dropped their inquiry into sexual assault claims against the former i.m.f. chief dominique strauss kahn the prosecutor's office says he did admit to sexual advances towards trysting but there isn't sufficient evidence to support the patients and you can see the french politician resigned as head of the international monetary fund after facing similar charges which were later dropped in new york. troops claiming to be control of most of your daffy stronghold city of

sirte and still facing pockets of heavy resistance from the colonel's loyalists the libyan leaders of the night earlier reports that one of gadhafi sons. a senior army officer. security advisor has been captured in the siege city human rights group amnesty international has accused the country's interim leadership of torturing files of detainees and called for the abuse to stop. the u.s. and south korean leaders are pledged closer trade and security ties in washington d.c. after their two countries struck a long sought free trade deal president lee myung bak said 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 u.s. warships will be able to use the facility on jeju island or the seoul denies it is being built to strengthen america's presence in the region. of the cosmonauts enjoying a long stay aboard the international space station food is one of the few distractions

from their day to day routine but preparing a meal is no easy task for scientific chefs at home in the stir up a space safe menu that's both nutritional and tasty r.t. for lunch that's out of this world. after traveling at phenomenal speed for two days cramped in the small space of a soyuz rocket cosmonauts arriving at the international space station going to be packing how do you eat in zero gravity. but it well you have to be a bit more careful than down here on earth every little piece of food that 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 a rogue morsel will disappear into the inner workings of some potentially life saving computer equipment the russian space agency designed this special table so it is a threat to the others you know there are two heating compartments here in 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 it can have grieved 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 of the same as an olympic sprinter and providing that cost over six hundred dollars a day with most missions lasting for six months each cosmonauts grocery bill comes in at a hefty one hundred ten thousand dollars but mission and at those prices it's no wonder that the people behind cosmic catering a proud of their product got the best known as the cheap designer spice food with twenty three years of experience in the space food industry and i can proudly say that russia's place food provides the healthiest safest most nutritional rich diet and more because america. even the most simple food requires special care and

attention this factory in moscow produces space bridge and the work which goes into making it ready for all that is almost as high tech as the i.x.'s itself my booth knew that soon. there is no mold in this bread no mold spores we've developed a recipe which stops small growth the bread doesn't go bad for fifteen months thanks to 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 honey cosmonaut. all in all we make five types of brownies ginger red white red that's what i have here on the table now ripe bread with caraway right bread must go style and are great. currently around one hundred sixty three options because i'm not on board 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. taste pretty good after a hard day's work on board the i assess it's 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 color nice and bright you ready ready good job yummy here a couple is make it three keep em coming. these are all over artsy. now well let's have a quick look at what's going on in the world business corrino will be with us after a short break stay with us live here in moscow.

in some petersburg only she's available in hotels a story and a little ambassador in a small speech you could tell the truth palace hotel the true story hotel gold new gold you know tilson to elvis you still dostoevsky. in the sea if. you visit. welcome to business but make contacts for joining us biggest banks must raise billions of dollars in capital to withstand financial turmoil on the markets that's the plan by the e.u. commission to contain the escalating debt contagion they go in here as banks may take losses on balls from countries with shaky finances like greece if you need. a

dialogue says that even the worst scenario won't have any serious effect on russia while commodities are strong. russia has limited her exposure to rid. of those toxic assets such as the greek bonds for russian ahead of her potentially impact through prices if for commodity prices goes down look for that we will keep exporting relatively the same for those of gas of crude oil products even in the case of some slowdown in europe for a. major effect comes from prices but old age is the case i see no reason for the price of gold to seriously consider that because liquidity being injected will be injected and was injected. it's also remarkable that despite all those fears in the past two months well it didn't go below one hundred dollars per barrel. and

taking a look at oil now it's trading in the red after the american petroleum institute reported u.s. gasoline demand fell the most as more than five years and china last month exports climbed the least since february as imports slowed light sweet is now trading at forty at eighty four point four nine dollars per barrel while brant is at one hundred eleven dollars a barrel us dogs bounce off their lows off session led by tech shares up to slovakia was reported to have approved you explain about fund taking some pressure off a year old bank stocks are dragging the market down though after j.p. morgan chase reported that a slowdown in investment banking hurt its income bank of america is also down both banks losing over four percent and european stocks fell on thursday led by banks and while the banking group of world bank of scotland dropped after fitch ratings downgraded both to a from double a minus b.n.p. pari bol is among the biggest decliners in europe dropping six point seven percent

mining companies also down following the report of slowing export growth in china while rolls royce holdings rally ten percent of the footsie after it we now a new joint venture with united technologies and here in russia markets finished a trading day lower weighed by energy stocks that says oil dropped after the international energy agency produced its global demand forecast for two thousand and twelve let's take a look at some individual shambles on the minus six let the decline on the index losing two percent look oil added lower 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 plenty metally raised early gains the company has reported a forty percent increase in revenues for the first nine months of the year. michael stein from one prettier wraps up the day's trade for us. today in the markets saw the consolidation phase tolling the. huge ten percent rally in the r.t.s.

since late wednesday of last week investor sentiment has clearly improved to some extent given that the europeans are taking a more constructive approach to solving their debt problems and given the market improvement in crude prices from about one hundred dollars a barrel last week to close to one hundred ten dollars a barrel this week. i will keep you up to date for this hour back in twenty five minutes with more. coming.

to eat. the limited. to just simply. say.

pasta in the hay in the evening in the russian capital top stories now in this hour naughty syrian. new crackdowns despite the capital president. pressure on his rule. in the u.s. but just as determined to. take their grievances to the doors of the wealthy big business of trying to buy elections. and ukraine's former prime minister faces new charges two days after she got seven years. contracts with. about fifteen minutes from now in the meantime giant corporations getting richer and the expensive american taxpayer.