days in the country. and there are some gavel you watching are key with me arena joshie welcome to the program now tension between the u.s. and iran is mounting with tehran threatening to block a crucial oil supply route in the hormuz strait the u.s. has sent it in its own contingent in the region mainly to ensure passage remains free but as r.t. is going to explains the situation could escalate into an all out war. responding to iran's warning the u.s. said no such disruption 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 tanker shipped oil passes through that strait it's a major oil artery a potential cut off might cause turmoil in the global oil market although a saudi official said that gulf nations were ready to offset any loss of iranian 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 you are in finds itself in a situation where it's a livelihood it's 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. again reporting they're all for sound the iranians rads are warranted robert de mint from the just foreign policy think tank believes to iran is simply reading itself should the situation escalate. dinner's context for the iranian government statements namely first of all. it's understood in

international political discourse and international law that embargo 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 iran's oil exports then that is an act of war. since who are once you respond to that most of us people you know every day you know states i'm in 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 happening in a context of constant threats against iran unilateral threats which of course wily you know united nations charter which for bid any u.n. member state 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 ducking iran because they know that they could never

get it. well rouzier to know your take on our story so today we're asking why the deadlock in the strait of hormuz will lead to and about forty four sands our viewers think it will have no serious consequences being just another in a long game while almost half believe america will take advantage of the situation to strike iran now the rest are split between two options whether iran will teach the west a lesson of what it's like to be deprived of vital supplies or america will back off with sanctions so you can let us know what are you saying by logging on to our website r.t. dot com. the deaths. of two thousand and twelve in a gloomy mood with italy is borrowing costs remaining near the seven percent danger zone and premiers pledged more efforts to revive the ailing economy in the us and

of your speech but as are to reports there are huge doubts the new man in charge of a number of the eurozone states will find a ram it easy for the struggling block. the autumn in europe so the fall of several european leaders spain greece italy all of these countries so a change in leadership across a two week period but who are these new faces that help of europe's most troubled nations and will the 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 rule 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 papen dreyer 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 from. the disastrous euro project in the first place so it really is pretty annoying now in charge of all of 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 tuned to failure 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 deck numbers these have been the only steps so far undertaken by european governments both old and new to this capacity amid the

people who think that maria monti came to help italy out of the crisis or not going to help spain are totally mistaken that those who are in key positions in seats of power one represent the interests of goldman sachs and other major corporations by east and there is always the chance that things could get even worse there is a real possibility. in the mediterranean countries that will see govern. months well not evil and not even legitimate governments but we'll see governments overthrown i think there's also a big worry that we may well see the kind of nationalist political movements springing out of this that we thought we said goodbye to back in ninety forty five if the technocrats fail to reach the wreck the economies in italy greece and spain the nations where end up not only with a bleak future between the very little reason to call themselves democratic it in a goes go party. well stay with us here in our team and still to come for you this

hour. when these lines of police started moving me started moving towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameraman was tear gassed i was injured and that's when it really changed for me when continue to count down the top ten stories that shape twenty one of them with a look back at the occupy movement across the u.s. plus. the taxi driver leaves the hollywood limelight and heads back to his russian as it prepares for the world a limping stage and twenty fourteen. 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 the information coming from

the country is hard to verify as it's mostly food and claims by activists clashes began in march with both government forces and protesters being armed she returns your journalist who used to work in the region says the difference between arab league warrants it means street public shows the opposition is winning the media battle. it's certainly the viewpoint that we must believe the we must believe opposition groups it seems that any is no except as a source so what the arab league said about holmes 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 thousands of syrian soldiers are dying and they haven't died because of peaceful protests but. 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. egyptian 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 analysts dr adil shenmue told us it's the military government making sure it stays in power this is part of the minute the supreme council on forces way making sure the. basically is molded to the to the type of government they want because that's those are the same generals by the way who worked for mubarak you know so that's really

basically is part of the struggle is going to be usually in going to go forward or is that to be molded and some dude into something this is a role to the minute but but really the military has to step aside and let the. government come to power once the election. and the elections should be held as soon as possible they will not give up the ball of that easily but i think the egyptian people and the arabs in general have lost that fear from corrupt government and they have restored of their dignity and they will not tolerate another military dictatorship in the country i think all the evidence indicates despite the sacrifices that have been. hit there's also on the table of the year ending cross-talk shell where people about his gas discuss the transcending moments twenty eleven that's coming your way next hour on r t but here's a sneak peek. are we 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 snake's head off but what about the rest of the body will just rot at the expense of everyone else it's a lot easier to decapitate the snake than to 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 needs of this just a more intense version of what's happened in the united states where you have the

same question i. guess twenty one draws to its and our team is looking back at the stories that shaped the year witnessed by our correspondents at this time a look at the occupy movement in the u.s. the story covered by lucie county. 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 popular outrage would really come to the united states that 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 a temple of consumerism which is times square in manhattan 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 shout 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. i was just feet away from the area where several police officers mountain of 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. an 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 you know what happens 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 hundreds of 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 now one of the other interesting experiences 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 a radical fundamental change of this 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 shutdown on the member second you know there are thousands thousands or tens of thousands of people who are gathered who are marching around seventy to eighty 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 are marching behind as fix their hands but talented and 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. well that's the final of our special reports on the personal reflections from our team of international correspondents on the events that dominated twenty and if you've missed any of them you can watch them anytime right now at our. and also don't forget our website i also got more news comment and analysis let's take a look at what's in submarines think you were the fire on board a strategic nuclear vessel in northern russia has been brought under control by emergency workers. christmas miracle warmer than eighty passengers and crew through vive a gradual adding in bleak weather a former soviet republic.

a brief look now at some other world headlines and we start in north korea working yawn no one has been declared the supreme leader for the first time at a massive public memorial for his father kim yong ale the move shows the government and military officials support of the air in the wake of kim yon ells death from a hard to town just under two weeks ago kim ya known is in his late twenty's and has little political experience raising concern from neighboring countries that the republic could plunge into political infighting. with the. clashes have erupted between hundreds of stone throwing protesters and police in the turkish city obvious stamboul and a country's mainly courage if se a follows a deadly airstrike launched by turkish warplanes against suspected kurdish militants on the border with iran however

a local official said tad killed thirty five smugglers who were mistaken for insurgents itself marks one of the largest one day civilian shows during turkey's twenty seven year draw against the guerrillas. swapping tinsel town for a russian city with an olympic crown an american taxi driver has turned his back on the bright lights of hollywood to share in. the venue for the next winter olympics are. caught a ride. what you know this life los angeles 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 on to the world stage still. when the boys said virgin they'll be a winter games in sochi i didn't believe them i said tom brady is 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 a track to forty 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 you cabdriver in sochi is nothing like his home improvement job back in los angeles. 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 ever saw for the. month.

thank you. thanks so much for your job. i thank you so she may have no hollywood walk of fame but our guide says there are some movie related landmarks. 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 close despite being a world apart. our team sochi for the. well is now take a look at what's happening in the world of business leaders here.

cologne very well welcome to the program good to have your company twenty eleven has been a testing here for investors as the world economy struggled for growth while stock markets here in russia are also suffered yet some set just particularly bucked the trend dell 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 nineteen hundred dollars per ounce in september of two months six hundred percent it was there kate but since then the price has slid back and broke his normal thing to put to fall further in twenty twelve for the bubble will burst. the dollar euro 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 plummet both in the states and the european union for those currencies continue to be

unstable. 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. last week's merger of russia's stock exchanges has kept a poor twenty eleven the my six slipped eighteen percent as political uncertainty worried investors but analysts invest cafe expect a strong rebound in twenty twelve as the new government settles predicting a return to previous years when russian markets where the world's best performing. let's have a look at the markets now oil is high on stronger jobs and housing data from these you ask how were the gains limited by reports showing an unexpected person who has inventories branch is trading at one hundred eight dollars a barrel while the w.t.r.

is that around one hundred dollars per barrel. now on to asia on the rise following the gains in the street waiting on the sentiment in hong kong is the latest h.s.b.c. chinese manufacturing has cooled further still some property some banks are rising this hour in tokyo exporters are leading the gains sony is up almost three percent . and in russia the markets a flight to positive in early trade traders are unlikely to make any big moves ahead of the longer your holiday break in russia and the markets going to be quote . where russia has enjoyed a persistently strong oil price that syria it's been good for the budget but it's done little to propel domestic. let's move some catching up to do to monday for much greater explains. the russian equities which have 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 our prices are relatively high russian sovereign risks are very low yields on russian government debt of contract it actually and she thought was going 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 protest for in part of entry 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. but trips up the business program are we back about fifty five minutes time with another business update here on r t.

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comes. to. welcome back you know where the our team here is over the top stories iran and the us and closer to military conflict as a verbal. battle over a vital oil maritime routes reaches boiling point. after the outgoing veered to get so on a number of euro zone governments many doubt the so-called bureaucrats now in charge will bring relief to some of them were behind the euro's failings. while this year.