hello eleven pm friday night here in moscow you're watching r t with me kevin zero in two u.s. warships have entered an area iran's using for large scale naval war games further escalating tensions between the nations the maneuvers are taking place in neutral waters close to the crucial strait of hormuz oil supply route which iran's threaten to block washington says the vessels on a routine mission artie's going to teach you can report. day after day we see the degree of tension rising iranian and american warships kind of brushed shoulders earlier as u.s. ships passed the area where terror on is holding a ten day military exercise the u.s. fifth fleet said they crossed the strait of hormuz unhindered and that he was a routine passage iran's right in to cut off the strait of hormuz which is the major golf oil artery forty percent of the world's tanker shipped oil passes

through that strait the u.s. said they would not tolerate any disruption of supplies which suggests that if you ran goes through with their threats we might see a full scale military showdown there but now based on the statements that we hear washington seems to think that iran is bluffing but right now you can find itself in a situation where its main source of livelihood namely oil export is in danger because of the looming sanctions and the threats that are coming from iran indicate that it's ready to take action to protect its interests if attacked it's almost sure to retaliate right now is flexing its muscle showing off its capabilities doing their naval military exercises and as part of the exercise on saturday they'll fire long range missiles capable of reaching israel by the way the touching upon some of the latest decisions the u.s. congress passed a bill that would dramatically complicate transactions through rennes central bank european and asian nations iranian oil and use its central bank for the

transactions president obama has yet to sign the bill and that's going to be a severe blow to the uranium economy around eighty percent of its revenues depend on crude sales e.u. ministers a. decision on whether or not to boycott iranian oil will be made in coming weeks the west says all the rand has to do to avoid sanctions is to give up their nuclear program iran says they are not doing anything wrong by pursuing a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes some experts believe cornering iran like that by sanctions creates a powder keg which could blow up at a slightest spark and the potential confrontation over the strait of hormuz can be that spark. can a correspondent in washington put a punching henningsen from him for was still calm he told me iran's acting things well within its rights especially considering the aggressive policy of isolation that the u.s. and u.n. employ to read military exercises are well within its rights as

a sovereign nation. taking place within their territorial waters and also within the international waters bordering iranian territory so this isn't anything that's against international law and certainly with the with the retort that's been coming out of washington is becoming of whitehall in the last six months or even in the last few years iran is well within their rights to shore up their national defense is one thing i can say for sure is if if an incident did take place and a conflagration began or some sort of conflict began the u.s. and the european bloc will obviously blame it on iran but if we look at the long range of this story how it began in where it is now the i.a.e.a. has no evidence that iran is working on a military nuclear program they have yet to produce anything to show that they're involved in weapons of mass destruction so iran is simply playing this game in a defensive position ok but we know who to blame if

a war does kick off you can blame the u.s. and you can blame israel because they are trying to isolate iran and push them into an economic depression situation where they can't export their number one product that developed out of their nation it's absolutely horrendous business said it has been assessing the market's reaction to the whole new standoff he says it's not likely to drive all prices very high for the moment but the situation could benefit russia in the long. certainly in the worst case scenario prices would go ahead in leaps and bounds but at the moment the market is not really factoring that it seems so incremental rises where the risk seems to be getting a bit higher but it really believe this is going to lead to an all out escalation and potentially a minute where there is one silver lining in this for russia because russia. russia schools it is a heavy sour blend and it's very similar to iranian so it has the benefit radiance poised between questions so we've seen that actually

a premium for russian oil at the moment. of the business to ask what do you think about this on our website the very question we're asking is how do you think the strait of hormuz deadlocked is going to evolve now where is it going to go with what you've been telling us just under half of you voted so far think that the u.s. will use the standoff as a pretext to attack iran but a third of you see there just over say one hundred leading a consequence is just the latest move in a long game forty percent of you think iran will teach the west a lesson by cutting off vital supplies. six percent think to rand would achieve its end goal of preventing sanctions with all this cast your vote no doubt don't call. coming up in the program the final countdown. when these winds of police started living started running towards starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameraman was tear gassed i was injured that's

when it really changed for me to bring you the view from inside the occupy movement as we show it from a new up close and personal perspective. witnesses. to history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . egyptian rights groups have accused military rulers of using what they describe as mubarak era tools of repression that's after soldiers and police raided the offices of ten non-governmental organizations including some foreign ones at israel financial news just across the sea in turkey as the latest. thursday gypped carried out unprecedented raids on at least seventeen high profile human rights and pro-democracy organizations all across the country and it's been done in a very brutal and very unpleasant way policemen and soldiers swept into office into a gated people didn't let anybody you know out didn't actually let the people make

calls to their relatives and eventually seized computers and documents from the offices among those targeted organizations were the u.s. government funded national democratic institute the international republican institute whose chairman is now republican senator john mccain and freedom house so as you can see. sponsored from abroad especially for america has been targeted washington whose military aid to egypt amounts at one point three billion dollars has been very quick to react expressing its. disappointment with what happened in egypt on thursday call it highly provocative and only did to try to resolve it as soon as possible and to return the stuff that has been taken from the in jos employees the organizations themselves have also responded they've condemned the raids carried out in egypt saying claiming it reminded them about tough times and egypt's former dictator hosni mubarak of egypt is going through tough times of

course these days clashes between demonstrators and police and soldiers still continued all across the country continuing claim lives just last week it ended in the dust of cleaved at least fifteen people and these days a supreme council of military forces egypt's new authority is often criticized for being too slow and too and determined in promised democratic reforms struggling to cling to power very sensitive about any influence especially from abroad and very sensitive about control and they're trying to keep power and to control everything and of course as part of this for a new military government might even suspect these organizations n.g.o.s sponsored from abroad of support and of sponsoring protesters all across egypt. foreign policy has taught radical schirmer told me he believes the military government's making sure it stays in power but the people are determined for democratic change this is part of the military the supreme council of armed forces way of making

sure. this. 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. but really the military has to step aside they will not give up the power that easily 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 will not tolerate another military dictatorship in the country i think all the evidence indicate that despite the sacrifices they're. letting you know that coming up just a bit later this hour the guests on the latest cross-talk program discuss how the egyptian revolution in february set a trend for civil of movements across the globe. you have the so-called east

or the muslim world teaching us now new ways of protesting wisconsin happened less than a month after tahrir square after the removal of mubarak was certainly very inspired by it i had people calling me from wisconsin asking me to put them in touch with the protesters in tahrir square so they could figure out how they did it all across the world it's about people taking back their countries and whether see the states or any other power there's only so much that foreign troops can do at the end of the day it's up to the people themselves. large scale until regime marches of being held across syria submit fresh reports of violent crackdowns against protesters again activists also suggest over one hundred people have been killed by security forces since when the arab league observers began their fact finding mission in syria's flashpoint however it's hard to verify

the information coming from the country clashes began in march between government forces and protesters with both sides being armed journalist ramzy burrowed used to work in the region told me the conflict being managed he thinks from the outside this is a real worry we do not know what the americans are cooking right now obviously they are they are thinking of a much greater political context than syria the i thinking iran they are thinking the stability of iraq in the american withdrawal and they are also and most importantly they are thinking how will the political vacuum if such a vacuum is created in damascus the fact israel israel's security and the northern border particularly the golan heights front israel cannot afford another security nightmare from their point of view force to be added to that of south lebanon and gaza and this is really the most that would the americans are very

worried about they are worried about. israel's security very little concern about democracy or human rights in syria or anywhere else in the middle east i think that americans are yet to find a formula that will assure them that in the absence of assad there will be a political team that they can trust and i think this is what the americans are trying to ensure right now. more than a website more news more comment more analysis plus these stories to take a look see we've got for you a deadly delicacy releasing next and paid for seized almost two hundred kilos of caviar stored in a rather old place a morgue got latest on that glass ceiling see nothing yet see. part of a mystical creature from russia's wilderness comes to town to shine a light on the less fortunate at this time of year more than a dot com as well. fire crews have managed to put out a blaze on a nuclear submarine at

a shipyard in northwest russia the military says there's no deep clear threat because the reactor on board the been shut down even before the fire started firefighters are continuing though to cool down the submarines hole with water to make sure it doesn't reignite some of the crew remain on board and monitor the vessel systems nine were injured the scaffolding wouldn't scaffolding around the sub caught fire spain's new conservative leaderships given its civil service employees a dismal new year gift by announcing a fresh austerity package worth almost nine billion euros they the now joined the greeks and italians who were hit by enormous cuts and tax hikes imposed by the governments this year and twenty twelve promises more of the same artes a regular reports of the gloomy prospects for the eurozone. 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 that help of europe's most troubled nations and will they really make things better for the people. probably not the

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 pap and 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 for. the disastrous euro project in the first place so it really is pretty annoying then out 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 fiscal 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 to this give us an image that 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 on represent the interests of goldman sachs and other major corporations by ease and there is always the chance that things could get even worse there is a real possibility. in the mediterranean countries that will see gover. it's well.

not even legitimate governments but was the government's overthrow it was 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 right economies in italy greece and spain the nations wind up not only with a bleak future but with a very little reason to call themselves democratic it in because go r.t. elsewhere in the world tonight in southeast turkey thousands of mourners attended the funeral service pay their last respects to the victims of an air strike thirty five kurdish civilians were killed on wednesday after the turkish air force launched an attack on what was thought to be a group of rebels based in iraq against instead of anger among kurds in the region a number of protests held in turkish and iraqi cities ended in clashes. eleven people died after cycling fame smashed into india's southeastern coast it brought

heavy rain and wind speeds up two hundred forty kilometers an hour that uprooted trees and damaged homes the majority of fatalities are thought to have been killed by collapsed walls and electric shocks and severe weather conditions have halted local train services to. twenty twelve creeps close so we continue to look back now at the stories that dominated the past year this time it's the occupy movement that expose social and financial injustice in the most unexpected places. 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 and thought it would be a 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

a towbar 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 these flashing lights these logos these expressions of corporate power and consumer culture in stark contrast to. with 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. 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 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 it started moving forward towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameramen with tear gas to i was injured and that's when it really changed for me there are at least hundred in 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 port shutdown on the member second you know there are thousands thousands or tens of thousands of people who were gathered who were marching around hines effectivity is not a lot of police presence that they 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 corner 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 up behind as sticks their hands baton and you 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. lucy catherine author and that's the final of our reports on the personal reflections of our team of international correspondents who brought you some of the events that shaped twenty eleven on this channel if you missed any of them as well it's been a good series hope you've enjoyed it said r.t. dot com and i hope we can join us tomorrow evening as well will be bringing you our special new year coverage here on r.t. .

that's right what unusual it was just about twenty four hours from now will be in moscow's red square with my colleague in this scenario for a live special to say goodbye to an eventful twenty eleven and to welcome in twenty twelve or the glass or two no doubt as well do if you can join us on new year's eve night here on this channel back to the present though in a few minutes this is fun edition of crosstalk for you but first all the latest business news and one of our last business updates of the year with dmitri. hello and welcome to this year's final edition of business r.t. it may be the holiday season but negotiators in moscow and kiev are still working

hard to secure a deal on gas ukraine estimates is pipeline system to be worth twenty billion dollars and wants an annual nine billion dollar discount on gas supplies if the two countries create a consortium to transit gas moscow is not outright rejecting the idea speaking to gas problems head prime minister putin says talks must go but i'm sure people are going to national i ask you to continue the negotiations as ukraine will remain a strategic partner for treating gas and considering the growing demand from european consumers and also the several countries to wind down nuclear energy ukraine's pipeline system will undoubtedly remain in demand two thousand and eleven has been a testing year for investors as the world economy struggled for growth stock markets here in russia are also suffered yet some sectors spectacularly bucked the trend than a bushel looks at the rollercoaster ride of the last twelve months and what to expect in the coming year. gold has been an exceptional investment

reached all time highs of over nineteen hundred dollars per ounce in september of two months six hundred percent in a decade but since then the price has slipped back and brokers no more buying tippit to fall further in twenty twelve fearing the bubble will burst. the dollar euro remains risks switching your roubles into the greenback would have brought a small return but changing into the euro would have been lost this point that the employment both in the states and the european union mean those currencies continue to be unstable. become much more reliable the credit crunch wiped out riskier lenders while the states brought in guarantees insuring all deposits up to seven hundred thousand rubles some banks now offer healthy return of over fourteen percent a year. most weeks merger of russia's stock exchanges paul

twenty eleven the more six slipped eighteen percent as political uncertainty worried investors but i'm missing best cafe expect a strong rebound in twenty twelve as the new government settles predicting a return to previous years with markets where the world's best performing. and russian stocks finished the final session of the year on a positive note but overall in line with the global travel and this is lost around twenty one percent over the energy and financials were gaining at the close on friday but trade volumes worsen av lot was the outstanding gainer has announced plans to boost passenger numbers twenty five percent next. well that's all from a two thousand levon was indeed a turbulent and difficult year on behalf of the business r.t. team i wish you a successful happy new year do join us in twenty twelve. luu

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internationally from moscow this is r t and these are all top stories the gulf is on edge to u.s. warships close to and radiate naval exercise right next to a crucial room goodson rahm's been threatening to blow. egypt's ruling generals are accused of terror in his raids a staged against the offices of foreign human rights groups that the military says a stirring up trouble. had major opposition marches of being held in syria that the suggest.