the biggest threat yet to the euro the entire euro zone faces a ratings downgrade one of its leaders prepared to make a last ditch attempt to save the troubled currency it is meeting in brussels. waste all the votes counted and seems determined in russia's parliamentary election while thousands of people are happy with the outcome of the poll protests in central moscow. meanwhile online blogs are flooded with reports that tanks have been deployed to central moscow following the parliamentary elections joining me in a few moments to what's behind the hysteria. because she before all out tons

of radioactive water leaked from the japanese nuclear plant that was his five year quake in march with fears toxic liquid may have reached the pacific ocean. welcome to you this is a lie from moscow no one is immune to having their credit rating downgraded the stark message from the needing a standard and poor's agency which has issued a warning to almost all euro zone members the reasons are not new the block's failure to stem its debts when it comes a day after french and german leaders pushed for more decisive rescue action and claimed there's complete harmony between them but is also used as an aussie reports that may not be the case. the years of crisis has been good fodder for cartoonists

but it's no laughing matter. for major rescue packages numerous and popular sturdy measures two years and hundreds of billions of euros in bailouts later it's still in need of a shot for that elusive big bazooka solution. hopes are high that december ninth e.u. summit will finally be a decisive day for the future german chancellor angela merkel is pushing for a treaty change with a fiscal union as the end goal she wants brussels to have veto powers over national budget plans that breach e.u. limits automatic sanctions for debt violators a date court for repeat offenders. in a word merkel wants to impose discipline french president nicolas sarkozy is generally on the same page but is resisting giving more powers to brussels whoever pays the piper gets to call the june germany pace we've all of you in the euro zone

want to keep the single currency you must be prepared for that you must be prepared for giving up your fiscal sovereignty but this german m.e.p. begs to differ but what is the sovereignty for germany at the moment paying billions and billions of risk there's no sovereignty we are forced to do this because the euro is with reality so basically regaining sovereignty by sharing it on the european level is what the whole operation is about while germany may be for greater fiscal integration it's dead set against the euro bond idea or euro countries sharing debt and idea pushed by the european commission albeit renaming it stability bonds germany won't let the deficit sinners off the hook by taking on their debt. if sarkozy ever got his way he'd like the european central bank to act as a lender of last resort but again merkel said no and what of other e.u.

members who don't use the euro the idea of a two tier europe or the euro zone and the rest doesn't sit well with a major economy like the u.k. that well actually it's important that the euro is successful because a lot of our trade depends on it but on the other have to us if there's a group a central group which are in the or as another group which is not who makes up the rules which control the single market it appears that any plan agreed upon will have to have germany's backing or merkel dismissed the idea of germany dominating europe as absurd although that's how it's increasingly being perceived for better or for worse that's our cilia r.t. brussels. offer more insight on the debt woes i'm joined now by a lot of a new survey says that a former belgian and pay many thanks for joining us here on yesterday we again saw

a long time partner. pushing for new measures to save the euro and then hours later standard and poor's issues this downgrade warning for all the eurozone members what do you make of the timing. well first of all like you mark before i go into the matter there is something basically wrong when the rating agencies should become players in the game i mean you don't ask a referee destroyed a field almost starts but if things. keep referees that's what he does mean why didn't we hear about these agencies in the seventy's in the fifty's so there is something basically wrong in the system now whether this agency do a good job that's another matter that they need it you need a referee to do those things but what's happening not what is happening now is not going to bring a solution whenever she in the region. you know what they need is financial stability in the euro zone he says well you can have that it has been done before

it was called in britain which agreements are right after the war now there are some very ideological reasons why they don't want this kind of financial stability because that's the kind of finance of civility that bring social welfare and what they want is a system that brings more wealth for the upper layers of society that's an all different model and that is what they are this is not going to bring a solution to the european people and it's a very is if i could just ask you again about the timing of this announcement do you think yes i'm sorry importance of the last yes of course there were well as i said this is a way of influencing went in the e.u. countries are going to try to decide on friday i mean this is an additional a correct way of doing things it is up to governments it is scope to direct him a critically elected government to decide what their policies is going to be not to rating agencies this is a very profound deficiency of the european democracy it is up to democracy decide

to decide what kind of financial stability they want not the financial markets and that's the problem today is likely now that even the year of. the has rather powerhouse germany is its top rating do you think the domino effect as we like to call it really has reached the largest economy well there's also always a risk of when i say things like that and all this dead that it has a kind of her self fulfilling prophecy to it i mean i hope i do hope that they find a solution and i do know about these ratings won't go down but not because i like the policies that they stand for like germany and germany is always profiting from its economic dominance but actually what it is doing is telling other countries you should do as we do i'm very sorry but other countries have other priorities and. should they remain should remain a freedom to decide what they have to do what is best for themselves do you think

that these rating agencies are concerned that their warning could trigger a real roller coaster on the markets do you think that they were aware of that possible effects well that well whether they're aware of it i don't know but apparently not concerned about it because if there would be it would give that information to dish to the central banks to governments and not to the press and i'm very sorry i don't mean to against a radio but this is information that could be used yes but why would that be for when the media is putting pressure to have to decide on bosses in a way that dave think is suitable now the only. organization she should do she did are that have the right to do so our democratic institutions and governments are not rating agency which did if i give it the german or french leaders mass to use this latest downgrade threat to push through their fiscal union plan a meeting with all the e.u. members later this week well yes absolutely that's what they're going to try to do

you know and to have other countries like voting laws are put in the constitution is that there are limits on budget deficits and so on now this is totally unacceptable from a democratic point of view and also it misplaces the problem the problem is not the government's overspending that is a problem yes the problem is that we we the people gave so much money to the banks and now we are applying and going for help to these banks and asked if they would loan to what kind of what kind of a system is that far i have said mr laird any sense ass of yourself and a former beltre m.p. anything with your thoughts. well it may be a financial rollercoaster for many in europe as it struggles to fix its finances but some international investors are making record profits in the chaos the ethics of making money is just one of the subjects discussed by max and stacy in the kaiser report coming up in around two hours time. if the bank breaks the law they

changed the law if the government is failing to do what they were elected to do they change the definition of what it is they're supposed to be doing or they change the statistics that they are reporting to somehow reflect them in a better light because this is how in fact they make money they are the financial orifices and they root out all the detritus that they find there as collateral for five hundred trillion dollars worth of anus collateralized j.p. morgan strength or bonds which are the basis for jamie diamond's christmas bonus. and with almost all variants counted in russia's parliamentary election four parties preparing to take their seats in the state it's clear the biggest force will be united russia suffered a significant plunge in popularity meanwhile thousands of people took to the

streets of the country's biggest cities to voice their reaction to sunday's. joins me live now from central moscow peter first with the ballot count always complete what exactly does the lower house of parliament like. well with just a handful of votes left to be counted we've got a pretty clear picture of what the duma will look like for the coming years united russia picking up the most votes followed by the communists there russia in third place with the liberal democrats for united russia did pick up the most votes but they failed to break through the well psychological barrier of fifty percent of the vote no they didn't get fifty percent of the vote they do have fifty percent of the seats in the duma now this is because of the proportional representation system here in russia those parties that didn't make it not didn't look votes to make the threshold to cut off those. be distributed between the four parties that did united

russia have over fifty percent of the votes meaning they can push through just about any policies they want to without having to form a coalition now on monday night we saw protesters out in force across moscow and st petersburg grabs up to five thousand protesters angry at what they see as election violations the allegations have been flying around of. electoral tampering now these protests were agreed with by the police they were allowed they were official protests but there were arrests now this was after many people many people in one hundred been allowed to take place in these protests turned up they eventually spilled out onto the roads blocking traffic and police say around three hundred arrests were made. happy to have also been reports online is to say that tearing have been deployed in the center of moscow i can tell us what's going on there. well the online blogosphere has been raging with reports that troops and tanks had

been deployed to central moscow i can tell you i'm in central moscow there are no tanks here what actually was deployed i watched he would deploy. the army's a riot police unit so these riot police were deployed into the city because of the and the protests that we have seen going on there's also this is the one year anniversary of the murder of a football fan which sparked must nationalist violent riots on money issue where where i am right near the kremlin a one year ago so the police and the riot squads are out there to try to make sure that there will be no recurrent no repeat of those type of violent displays that we saw that the put who these riot police are into context these are the same guy you see who. are involved in crowd control at football matches so they're certainly not soldiers that had been reported in in some online blogs they. they have been deployed due to the amount of people that are out on the streets to expected to

come out of the streets on tuesday later old to try to make sure that everything is safe is organized and secure. but update our reporting for us from. now with bob it sold out see that social media is having a significant influence on the way the public responds to the political process internet and all these things these are instruments they can not make people better or watch so they just helped organize a radius they're going to be good really bad really such as the one on one years ago we had last year which was prepared by nationalists so i think it's just an instrument and although it is very rude. i would say that this is becoming one of the problems not only that but even more the position radio stations social internet that they are becoming extremely well i just listened to the speeches some

of their speeches were quite decent i would agree with them in general i think these people deserve all respect to the ones who come to protect their vote but. not only speech for example there were some things that i would say that i would not call decent you know he's. like we want to sound united russia message we hate you i'm not quite sure this is you know i would say this is a good taste. coming up later this hour business bulletin explores sport effect in the duma they have on russia's economy. their views are now coming in for a five year term experts told business tsotsi a long time will allow lawmakers to implement economic reforms more effectively including the privatization program which is expected to come back on track more in this him around ten minutes. but also alvin you keep track on developments in

russia's parliamentary election i don't know whether site dot com there you can find all the latest facts and figures and analysis. around forty five tons of radioactive water has reportedly leaked from the focus human nuclear plant in japan that was badly damaged demolished so the earthquake and tsunami some of the toxic water may have found its way into the pacific ocean over the weekend dr robert jacobs research associate professor at the house. but he is tepco is keeping a lid on just how severe the situation is. we're talking about tepco the company that knew that there were three nuclear meltdowns within two or three days of the tsunami and took three months to speak about it publicly and admit it publicly the credibility of chucko is not

a very high level and unfortunately there are only source of information about what's happening at the plants and the secondly there's a crack in the building where the water is being filtered sandbagging the crack in the wall is the kind of remedial step that just indicates the scale of the difficulty of responding to these problems by tempo. later today a toxic threat also special report exposes the plight of unspoiled amazon rain forest and the indigenous people who are dying because of tons of industrial waste dumped by an oil giant.

now russia has downgraded diplomatic relations with cutoff to an assault on moscow's envoy to doha the russian diplomat was attacked by airport security officials just as russia criticized role in the mounting international pressure on syria he's got as you can report there are suspicions that the top uneasy can get away with such actions because of its support from the u.s. . a small country with gigantic ambitions qatar with

a population of less than two million people embarks on an aggressive plan to shape the air war old playing tune with washington's policies in the region could target gain diplomatic weight it never had before they could tyreese feel as if they've got enormous backing and that they've become sort of larger than life as a factor in the politics of the region they're currently the chairman of the arab league and they've used that position to press for the most aggressive kind of action against syria tara became the first gulf nation to close its embassy in syria in july qatar is also reportedly funneling syrian rebels with weapons as it did in libya. the country's cheerleading ruling revolutions in the middle east and north africa has earned qatar cheers and applause in the west coast or is not only

supported diplomatically but is also supportive of military. partnership between our two countries is a model everyone's beginning to notice the u.s. went from once branding the qatar funded al-jazeera a terrorist channel to openly praising al-jazeera al-jazeera has played a key and leading role but qatar has come under increasing criticism from russia for its aggressive involvement in the affairs of other countries in the region last week a door airport the russian ambassador to qatar with two other russian embassy officials were physically assaulted by qatari customs and security officers when they made an attempt to confiscate the russians diplomatic bag because of the incident moscow has downgraded formal relations with qatar but get a sense that anything that they do to really stick a finger. in the eye of russia or any of the other bric countries will be applauded

in certain circles in the west and rewarded so yeah i think it's all of it's all about that sense that you know they're in the front and that russia is not fooling you alone around this syria issue these said and took place on the same day as russia's foreign ministry criticized qatar for supplying weapons to levy and rebels in violation of a un arms embargo the us which has a military base in the country has qataris full backing for its ventures in the region with syria now in play washington is betting high on doha qatar has been put forward as the arab face on this bullying operation tiny qatar empowered by the u.s. is now playing big striving to shape the turbulent region and its favor the incident at the airport with russian diplomats shows what happens when someone gets

in their way i'm going to check out reporting from washington our team. time now for what else is making news around the world that start now in afghanistan where a string of attacks across thousands of as they mark the midst investable of assura more than fifty shiites died in the capital kabul when a suicide bomber blew himself up as hundreds of people doubt their religious try another explosion in northern afghanistan killed four earlier on tuesday and the third bomb destroyed a motorcade in kandahar injuring three. day two of the egyptian runoff elections has revealed tensions between the two islamist parties that dominated the vote the muslim brotherhood's freedom and justice party and the salafist noor party jobs and each other outside several polling stations islam is muslim brotherhood claimed forty percent of the vote after the first poll last week following a huge turnout but far fewer people have cast their votes second time around

results of the elections won't be finalized until after a third round of voting early in january. now with the outcome of egypt's first post mubarak elections all but certain r.t. speaks to a former diplomat in the arab world he tells us what frightens the most about the future of egypt that's coming up next hour so let's get a quick preview now. is very important country it's a huge country with with knowledge and culture and all these things you're going to be speaking of course the you know years of staying in the areas of weakness what is more important now is to be really democratic society. far from the influence. whether this is a military element or religious. and i am afraid that all these elements if. factor in the future politics in egypt.

i remind you that now if i had lines just a few minutes away after the. welcome to the program my new russian parliament has been chosen but many of the challenges remain the same a number of these are long term projects such as building infrastructure or privatization due to changes in the constitution this duma will serve for five years rather than four burn areas from business new europe thinks the extra time will help get things to. all of the problems that russia faces have to do with long term planning and massive amounts of reform rebuilding restructuring investment what have you and this sense it's not like a western democracy. given that what needs to be done is actually pretty obvious i

mean you need to invest in the education system you need to invest into infrastructure to power to roads transport you know all these things it's very obvious what needs to be done and so in that sense having government those in power a little bit longer which can concentrate in the job and this is probably a positive thing. with the new parliament now for many in russia waiting for the privatization program to get back on track for verna capital says the government has done a good job so far as to inject cash into state companies. the government for several years has been making an effort to improve transparency and to improve governance state and companies but now you're actually seeing the fruits of that effort so last last week when gazprom announced its dividends were higher than expected of you know almost two hundred billion rubles that goes from as dividend yield of almost five percent that's higher than exxon and chevron and so that's an opec and petro etc so the government is actually taking you know very dramatic

steps to pay you to be a minority shareholder and then you see increasing transparency in dividend payouts from a host of other state owned companies so you know the general story is that the government's efforts to improve corporate governance among state owned companies are now rewarding you substantially as a minority shareholder so that's you know that what we keep an eye on. has moved to the markets and crude is regaining some of the ground that are lost earlier in the day as the euro retreated versus the dollar light sweet is now over one hundred one dollars per barrel brant is still above one hundred and european markets are flat and mixed this was standing the pressure weighed on them early in the days that and poor's placed fifteen years old economy is on the watch this for a possible downgrade s. and p. says it will lower their ratings unless the e.u. leaders come up with a workable plan to solve the debt crisis and from a summit the footsie is glad suppose it point two percent up the dax is down over

the losses are now and then we saw in the morning trading. unlike in europe markets in russia widening losses with every hour the r.t.s. is now down free of four and a half percent of my six three point six percent this is after a streak of gains that we've seen pretty much all of the previous week when the markets gained more than five percent as far as i can remember and monday also saw some gains but now investors are cashing out fixing the system curing profits but also on the back of these rising political tensions in moscow we are seeing this happen gazprom d.t.b. palu school all down gold is not even a safe haven this hour. brushes my socks and one stock exchange are competing to secure a strategic partnership with the kazakhstan boss my calling to the financial times they're offering to update because a trading system and collaborate on other issues the proposals come as the central asian exchange plans to conduct a people's i.p.o.

to raise up to half a billion dollars a deal would allow moscow or london to get in early on kazakhstan's emergence as a natural resources hot spot. headlines are coming up next on our team with alice to stay with us for.

to.