iran of the us edge closer to a military conflict as a verbal spat over a vital oil maritime route reaches boiling point. after the outgoing year took its toll on a number of euro zone governments many doubt the so-called bureaucrats now in charge will bring relief some of them were behind the euro's failings. it seems that any food you just know it's up to the stores. while the syrian opposition is bursting with an hour of food each showing violence that's claimed to be recent arab league observers have yet to report any atrocities after three days in the country. and business are not the rollercoaster ride for the russian markets for

the twelve months. it is not i am a russian gavrilo here watching r t with me wearing a joshing tension between the u.s. and iran is mounting was the arab nation threatening to block a crucial oil supply route in the hormuz strait the u.s. ascendance own contingent in the region mainly to ensure passage remains free but as our guy aged account explains the situation could ask late into an all out war. responding to iran's warning the u.s. said no such destruction would be tolerated and that the u.s. fifth fleet that's based in the gulf would ensure that doesn't happen the strait of hormuz links the golf and the oil producing states of bahrain kuwait qatar saudi arabia the united arab emirates to the indian ocean about forty percent of the

world's tankers shipped oil passes through that strait it's a major oil artery potential cut off might cause turmoil in the global oil market although a saudi official said that golf nations were ready to offset any loss of uranium crude from the statements here you get a sense that washington things iran is bluffing because there have been there had been such threats before but right now iran's finds itself in a situation where it's a livelihood its main source of livelihood is in danger the u.s. congress passed a bill that would dramatically complicate transactions through iran's central bank european and asian nations import iranian oil and use its central bank food for their transactions president obama has yet to sign that bill that's going to be a severe blow to the reigning economy around eighty percent of its revenues depend on sales e.u. ministers say they will make

a decision on whether or not to boycott the iranian oil in coming weeks and those threats that are coming from iran indicate that it's ready to take action to protect its interests tensions rise the west says all the rana has to do is to give up their nuclear program iran says they're not doing anything wrong by pursuing a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes the rhetoric here in washington against iran is getting very harsh the u.s. spy drone shot down by the uranium before that a washington accusing iran of plotting to kill the saudi ambassador to the u.s. and blow up the israeli and saudi embassy in washington those were just some of the most recent episodes it all adds up and creates a lot of tension now if something happens over the strait of hormuz this could erupt into an all out war. then it should go on reporting there for some the iranians france are warranted and robert naiman from the just foreign policy think tank believes to iran is simply ready itself should the situation escalate.

dinner's context for the iranian government statements. first of all. it's understood in international political discourse and international law that it is an act of war and if it is really the policy pursued by the united states and western europe to try to cut off. exports then that is an air war it would. respond to that. every day you know states i mean washington every day u.s. government officials and people of influence are talking about u.s. and israeli military strikes on iran so this is have been you know the context of constant. against iran you literally threats which of course widely the united united nations which for bids any u.n. members from attacking you know the member state without the authorization of the

u.n. security council and of course none of these voices are talking about getting u.n. security council approval for jacket on because they knew that they could never get it they're always eager to now your take on our stories today were asking what the data lock in the strait of hormuz will lead to. well take a look at the site of that we've god for now about forty percent of our viewers think it will have no serious consequences being just another move and all along again while almost half of you believe america will take advantage of the situation to strike iran the rest are split between two options whether iran will teach the west a lesson of why it's like to be deprived of vital supplies or america will back off where that sanctions so we can let us know what you think on this issue by a loving ontario website r.t. dot com. the debt stricken euro is able to set to twenty twelve in a gloomy mood with italy's borrowing costs remaining near the seven percent danger zone italian premier is pledged more efforts to revive the ailing economy in the us

and of years speech but as are generating reports there are huge doubts the new man in charge of a number of the eurozone states will find a remedy for the struggling bloc. the autumn in europe saw the fall of several european leaders spain greece italy all of these countries are changing leadership across a two week period but who are these new faces at helm of europe's most troubled nations and will they really make things better for the people. probably not greeks pride themselves on essentially inventing democracy back in however long ago that was too bad the man who is now being touted as the man with the plan is an economist who was appointed to the greek people know gordon elections there well the greek prime minister was the greek finance minister at the time but greece joined the euro so he was responsible for cooking the books to get greece in for this ever expanding empire he was rewarded by going to work at the european central

bank and as soon as i would mention the word referendum he was there and even if we skirt the whole issue of current governments being appointed by someone else from another country another question pops up will they be capable of doing anything different than before well the irony is of course that many of these technocrats with. the disastrous euro project in the first place so it really is pretty annoying then out now in charge of all these countries and that doesn't go down well with the economists who saw the eurozone disaster develop from the beginning this project is doomed to failure it was always to them to fail and moreover i would have the rain and i would have a fistful crimes tribunals i would like to see some of these people sent to prison so far cutting the public sector firing tens of thousands of people and telling everyone to brace themselves for tough times ahead in the midst of raging protests unruly unemployment and mind blowing debt numbers these have been the only steps so

far undertaken by european governments both old and new. people who think that maria monti came to help italy out of the crisis or to help spain or to be mistaken . those who keep. the power on represent the interests of goldman sachs and other major corporation in this and there is always the chance that things could get even worse there is a real possibility. in the mediterranean countries that will see governments well but even not even legitimate governments but will see governments overthrown it was also a big worry that we might well see the kind of nationalist political movements springing out of this that we thought we'd said goodbye to back in ninety forty five if the technocrats fail to reach the wreck the economy is in italy greece and spain the nations will end up not only with a bleak future between the very little reason to call themselves democratic it in the coast go party. now stay with us here in our team and still to come for you the

sour. when these winds of police started moving me started moving forward towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameramen with tear gassed i was injured that's when it really changed for me we continued to count down the top ten stories that shape twenty one with a look back out the occupy movement across the us. a russian taxi driver leaves the hollywood limelight and hands back home to sochi as it prepares for the world to live back stage and twenty four team. arab league monitors are heading to three more syrian cities to witness the government's peace plan implementation earlier the visit of the city of homs saying the situation there is reassuring although clashes are said to be continuing with twenty five people reportedly killed on thursday across the country information coming from the

country's hard to verify as it's mostly mobile food and claims by activists clashes began in march with both government forces and protesters being armed. journalists who used to work in the region says. difference between arab league reports and mainstream coverage shows the opposition is winning the battle it's certainly the western media viewpoint that we must believe the we must believe opposition groups it seems that any mobile footage is no excepted as a source certainly what the arab league said about holmes differed very different a great deal from other reports we've been getting on t.v. channels of massacres continually going on what is no doubt is that thousands of syrian soldiers are dying and they did and they haven't died because of peaceful protests but this isn't a libya syria is a linchpin of the middle east and the united states and other countries some of the more intelligent people realize that there will be turmoil right across the middle

east if anything happens to destabilize the government from outside forces but certainly syria the syrian government itself has to step up the pace because it's certainly losing the propaganda battle egyptians forces have been raiding the offices of human rights groups throughout the country reports say soldiers stopped employees leaving and interrogated them while searching their computers foreign policy hours dr idle shammal told us it's the military government making sure it stays in power. this is part of the military the scout the supreme council of armed forces way of making sure that the that who you shoot and basically is molded to that to the type of government they want because that's those are the same generals by the way who worked for mubarak to go so that's really basically is part of the struggle is going to be using going to go forward or is

that who doesn't but i'm being molded and some dude into some missive role to the minute but really the military has to step aside and lead to civilian government come to power once the election are held and the elections should be held as soon as possible they will not give up the power of that reasoning but i think the egyptian people and the arabs in general have lost their fear from corrupt government and they have restored of their dignity and they want to not tolerate another military dictatorship in the country i think all the evidence indicate that despite the sacrifices they have given. egypt is also on the table of the year ending cross talk show where people of allen his guest discuss the transcending moments of twenty eleven it's coming your way later today on our team but here's a sneak peek. we're going to see the fulfillment of a lot of the hopes that you saw occur when mubarak actually fell because like i

said you can take the snakes head off but what about the rest of the body will just rot at the expense of everyone else so it's a lot easier to decapitate the snake the entire actually kill it you know the system is in fact more entrenched and more dangerous and more vicious now than it was even under mubarak in during the time when the protests actually started the system is very good it generated itself regenerating itself and the core issues in egypt which ultimately are not just about democracy it is about bread it is about economics it is about a growing inequality in a country that already suffered from maybe thirty to forty percent of the people living on two dollars a day or less it's about how do you reallocate resources nationally and reorient an economy to provide wealth some level of wealth an opportunity for the mass of people in that sense what's happening need to just a more intense version of what's happened in the united states where you have the same question. as

twenty one draws to its hand are looking back at the stories that shaped the here witnessed by our correspondents this time we'll look at the occupy movement in the u.s. a story covered by and. i remember at the start of the so-called so-called arab spring we saw so many mass movements from europe to the middle east people rising up taking to the streets protesting and the question we kept asking ourselves over and over again is why not here why not in the united states i mean for years we've covered stories that touched upon social inequality economic inequality the overdue undue influence in fact that politics has been the money has in our financial system and i never

thought that this kind of opulent outrage would really come to the united states but it would really hit home. when the occupy wall street movement began my initial impression i have to admit it was utter skepticism you know it sounded like some american protester saw what was going on in the middle east some thought it would be i meet sort of symbolic way to emulate what they've seen for example into where square. one of the biggest things that really sort of woke me up as an individual was that that night in times square in october this was right after the supposed to be announced raid by the mayor where about three thousand if not more protesters had gathered around security park to to defend their space and they succeeded they weren't raided and we saw literally thousands of people marching into times square which you know the

physical contrast of the sort of temple of consumerism which is times square in manhattan the flashing lights these logos these expressions of corporate power and consumer culture in stark contrast to. literally thousands of people who have gotten together to speak to shouts to feel the physical presence of of other americans who are just no longer content to sit back and watch society unfold in the direction that it's taken me. i was just feet away from the area where several police officers mounted on horseback sort of out into the crowd hurting some of the protesters seeing with my own eyes for the first time the excessive level of force. and the old gentleman who looked like he was probably in his sixty's slammed down to the ground his arms and back women of all ages men of all ages carried away for doing what for sitting down on the ground and not moving or

making a point quietly. standing there with my camera man with this line of police officers several hundred of them armed to the teeth. weapons out of sticks out a line of protesters behind me you know i thought i was there as this protected almost impartial observer there to tell the story but when these lines of police started moving at me started moving forward towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameramen was tear gassed i was injured and that's when it really changed for me there are at least a hundred the not two hundred three hundred police officers in full riot gear as you can see advancing behind us right now on the occupy oakland movement one of the other interesting experiences a i think for me was sort of seeing the contrast between occupy wall street in new york and in oakland in oakland where there is such a radical history of active as and where the people there the protesters there were

so much more outraged so much more ready for radical fundamental changes within this country but at the same time. one of the experiences that really stands out to be in my mind was the day of the court shut down on the member second you know there was howls of thousands and tens of thousands of people who were gathered who were marching around the tyranny is not a lot of police presence there really felt that perhaps we had turned a new chapter in this country perhaps this was going to be an opportunity for these kinds of expressions of political discontent with the sort of crackdown that we've that we've seen in the past and what happened that evening really really shook me to the core i have to say the contrast between these peaceful marches and. seeing firsthand the streets of oakland turned into something i might have seen on the news and as you can see these posters are marching up behind me as sticks their

hands but around the hand i don't know if you can get any closer on that shot i think that really galvanized this country and really woke us up to a reality. the reality is that there is a lot wrong and there's a lot that needs to be changed but instead of sitting here and inviting experts to go and talk about it we're seeing people physically participating in what democracy really should be all about. i'm an american citizen i feel that i am here to tell the stories and i have a right to tell the stories and that is part of what this country is fundamentally founded on and sort of experiencing firsthand the the loss of the the inability to do anything the feeling of powerlessness and smallness. that's something that i think i'm not going to forget for quite a long time. all of us

a final vote especially ford's on the personal reflections from our team of international correspondents on the events that dominated twenty one and if you've missed any of them you can watch them any time you walk at r.t. dot com. now also don't forget that on our websites there's also more news comment and analysis let's take a look now at what else is there today submarine secured a fire on board a strategic nuclear vessel in northern russia has been brought under control by emergency workers. christmas miracle more than eighty passengers and crew survived the crash landing in bleak weather and former soviet republics. have revealed now at some other stories from around the world and we start and

north korea working beyond and has been declared the supreme leader for the first time at a massive public memorial for his father to be on the move shows the government and military officials sport of the air in the wake of came from a hard tad just under two weeks ago can be on own is in his late twenty's and has a little political experience raising concern from neighboring countries that the republic could plunge into political infighting. clashes have erupted between hundreds of stone throwing protesters and police in the turkish city of a sample and the country's mainly kurdish southeast it follows a deadly airstrike launched by turkish warplanes against suspect the kurdish militants on the border with iraq however a local official said of the attack killed thirty five smugglers who were mistaken for insurgents isolde marks one of the largest one day civilian death tolls during turkey's twenty seven year drive against the guerrillas. swapping tis the town for

a russian city with an olympic crown and armenian taxi driver has turned his back on the bright lights of hollywood to share in the limelight of sochi. if any of or the next winter olympics i do that as well ask a caught a ride. in this life. this is very good one of them speaks russian english and there me me i'm a man of the world he came back to sochi after a decade in los angeles where he learned that his hometown was being propelled into the world stage still. when the boys said voted no be a winter games in sochi i didn't believe them i said. it's in the very south on the black sea coast but then i found out that it's true and hopefully it's going to happen as planned. the massive olympic construction effort here track to pulte two thousand skilled workers from all over the world poor times the construction staff

of the two thousand and twelve london games as well as those there are also people like what i've done taking support jobs working restaurants taxi firm some stores he says being cabdriver in sochi is nothing like a school improvement job back in los angeles. traffic like the traffic here is too much for a city of this size too many cars there's traffic in downtown los angeles but it dissolves much quicker. even so what i've done hopes the new routes and bridges being built for the olympics will help solve the problem although much of his family are with him and so she would have done misses the relative celeb behind in a way as well as the tinseltown magic where he occasionally brushed shoulders with the stars. and i are some of the. thank you. thanks so much for your job. thank you

so she may have no hollywood walk of fame but our guide says there are some be related. just like that people call that building the titanic and officially of course. it does look a lot like that big ship and since it's built on top of the hill it has to be really tough and pretty to greasy views from them. bringing countries together is what the olympics are about and what a dance homecoming shows how family spread from the hollywood hills to the mountain slopes of the southern russia can be clues despite being a world apart. our team sochi. you are either of our top stories is only a few minutes away after the latest business weather heal you. thanks daryn a very warm welcome to the program twenty eleven has been a testing here for investors as the world economy struggle for growth stock markets

here in russia also suffered yet some sectors technically bucked the trend bushell looks at the rollercoaster ride of the last twelve months and what to expect in the new year. gold has been an exceptional investment it reached all time highs of over a million two hundred dollars per ounce in september or pulmo six hundred percent in a decade but since then the prices slid back and brokers no more going to put a fall further in twenty twelve for the bubble will burst. the dollar jura remain risks switching your roubles into the greenback would have brought a small return but changing into the euro would have meant loss is hard to believe ploy but both in the states the european union mean those currencies continue to be unstable. russian banks have become much more reliable the credit crunch wiped out riskier lenders while the state's brought in guarantees insuring all deposits up to

seven hundred thousand rubles some banks now offer a healthy return of over fourteen percent a year. most weeks merger of russia's stock exchanges has kept a pall twenty eleven the more six slipped eighteen percent as political uncertainty worried investors but i'm missin best cafe expect a strong rebound in twenty twelve as the new government settles predicting a return to previous years when markets were the world's best performing. let's have a look at how the market's up to forming this our oil is high on stronger jobs and housing data from the u.s. whether the gains are limited by reports showing an unexpected increase in the last inventories brand blant is not trading at one hundred. eight dollars a barrel while light sweet whoring at just under one hundred dollars a barrel. now onto equity is on the rise following the gains on wall street weigh in on the sentiment in hong kong is the latest h.s.b.c.

saying chinese manufacturing has cooled further still some property firms and banks are rising this hour in tokyo exporters are leading the game sony is up more than three percent. and it's less than one hour ahead of the opening bell here in moscow the russian indices closed mixed on thursday the r.t.s. lost one at a quarter percent while the mice extended twenty three percent higher. but russia has enjoyed a persistently strong oil price this year it's been good for the budget but it's done little to propel domestic equities home this means there's some catching up to do us to monday from which critics planes are russian equity is which is traded lower by twenty percent in two thousand and eleven from two thousand and ten they have a lot of way to go to catch up with where the oil price adjusts they should be given the fact that because of prices a relatively high russian sovereign risks are very low yields on the russian government dash of contracts that actually and she throws with eleven so again

there's more catch up to do the risk is that the government doesn't do anything and doesn't listen to the issues that have been raised because of these protests in parliament true election if they don't do anything materially soon after the presidential election i think for investors are going to lose faith that there is actually a reform agenda they want to see very material changes being made. and so we have time for no more business stories in less than fifteen minutes time here on r.t. .

the book. the thing. hit. the big.