hello it's eleven pm here in moscow you're watching r t live with me kevin now in our top story oil prices have jumped in response to the latest heated exchange between iran and the u.s. over the persian gulf the critical trade route in the strait of hormuz washington says its warships will continue their missions in the region despite warning that they should stay away iran's threatened to block oil shipments through the strait of hormuz if the western sanctions hit its exports that came at the same time as a ten day long naval exercise which showcased new aircraft and medium range missiles the u.s. who ships are stationed in the area maintains that it won't tolerate any hindrance of passage iran's already suffering from four rounds of sanctions the latest bill signed by president obama on monday saw its national currency drop by ten percent to a record low earlier it's an expert on mideast affairs told me he thinks diplomacy

is the only way out of the current stalemate they cause sanctions will damage all sides. the whole process now have increased this comes at a time where birth europe and the year we're witnessing a very very dire economic situation economic problems growth in the u.s. and europe and this latest step taken against iran will only of course that the president for increasing economic problems for the west in general escalation won't serve any side whatsoever we've seen the the economic situation in europe they'll be somewhat i believe very soon between the french leader and the german chancellor angela merkel to discuss the economic situation and so it's in nobody's interest to continue with this and i have to head back to the negotiating table the european union has agreed in principle i repeat it in principle for not for an embargo on iranian soil now will that happen in effect will they take this measure in practice june will will see a meeting on january the thirtieth for the european union regarding this matter i

doubt that that will happen i believe in from now until the end of this month until the end of january we might see some kind of a solution with players like turkey coming in trying to bring about a solution the editor of the colbert report current affairs website told us that by trying to slap more sanctions on iran the u.s. and e.u. are only stirring up dangerous tension in the region. i think it's quite remarkable to think that france and the u.s. and other countries would be willing to step up sanctions that have already had such a profound effect on the iranian people on the basis of their hunch that erodes iran is developing nuclear weapons as as france has basically put it is quite remarkable because that really does is tantamount to an act of war the idea that iran would really close off the straits of hormuz or attempt to do so would only be an absolute last measure resort for a country that relies on the importation of refined gasoline and other things through the very streets that they would be sensibly sabotaging and planting mines

in so it's it's quite remarkable to think that that iran would do that in any other situation other than they felt that the entire existence of their country was under threat so adding more seeing sions to to the mix is is really just a recipe for military disaster i think we're inviting you to share your take on this developing story on our web site the question is what do you think of these new sanctions on iran well this is what you've been telling us online let's take a look at our graph so far over half of you fifty four percent this responded say iran he thinks pushed into a corner and will see a new set of sanctions as an act of war seventeen percent of this hour slightly less than last time believe the u.s. measures simply won't work the rest of you pretty evenly split there fourteen fifty between saying the world economy will suffer a sanctions drive prices skyward and those of you think that only hurts the ordinary people in iraq cast your vote at r.t. dot com. the process of finding

a single republican candidate to represent the party in the twenty twelve american presidential election officially got underway in the state of iowa the results that were anything but decisive with big spender mitt romney baiting is strongly conservative rival rick santorum by just a votes trailing the two by a very small margin was ron paul the only candidate who is against a war with iran even hours before the vote many people are still undecided after a republican election run up marred by sex scandals mudslinging and tit for tat. but despite all of that former congressional aide and diplomat joel rubin believes it is ron paul who shined the most. his foreign policy is very distinct from the other candidates in that he has a more isolationist viewpoint he wants the united states to retreat from international conflicts in their national affairs in some areas that can be good he's opposed to military action with the ron he was opposed to the iraq war but the other candidates are all extremely hawkish on foreign policy very neo conservative

and ron paul does stand out among them he makes voters want to support him but insofar as leading the party and getting other republicans on board to really change the agenda no he hasn't done that he's someone who says i am a free american and i can make it on my own and that's what ron paul really embodies but republicans also understand that that kind of positioning will not win the general election against president obama. but as the republican campaign develops there's a growing question over just how much of a challenge you can still post of them having come to power on a wave of hope four years ago his chance is beginning to look with many previously up and supporters now expressing frustration with his broken promises and corporate influence. three years ago one historic campaign turned u.s. politics into a pop culture phenomenon. for the democratic

candidate achieved unprecedented support international fame and a record breaking six hundred fifty million dollars in donations. thousands of new yorkers celebrated the victory clutching an enormous american flag hand sewn by obama supporters but the winds have changed and the very same democratic symbol waved in honor of the president elect in a way each straight from a straight has been donated to the movement that became a phenomenon in two thousand and eleven other about twenty people holding out david mulford organize the flag project after being inspired by obama rhetoric a dream shattered by the subsequent years of politics as usual curly what's inspiring me as up as a lot of us like that that's the thing that's inspiring you know like that's why i brought the fight oh ws and the thing that inspired me about it is the fact that

it's a grassroots movement. that had a like a very clear and transparent process artist shepard fairey seems similarly just and chanted releasing an updated version of his iconic hope poster replacing obama with his now clear support for occupy wall street with an economy still in crisis wall street largely unregulated social programs slashed and over forty five million citizens on food stamps it all starts with you making a decision to get involved obama's familiar prose may not be enough to win back his familiar fan base he didn't produce what people wanted him to produce in two thousand and eight professor and author dr cornel west was one of obama's biggest supporters i think he's got the vision has got the newness he's. diversion is taking part in more than one hundred campaign events but last april the prominent intellectual told r.t. that obama has failed he's the friendly face of the american empire abroad he's in

the process actually of becoming very sadly a pawn of big finance and a puppet of big business and any politician here knows they are in trouble when the hollywood a listers start turning their backs are you happy with the way that obama has been running the country. you know. and i think i really think he misinterpreted his. yes the approval rating show voters are even more turned off with the alternatives leaving obama seemingly the lesser of two evils and there goes president clearly enters the twenty twelve race amid a growing band of disillusioned democrats most will still back barack obama over his republican rivals arguably with heavy hearts in two thousand needs he was the unassailable candidate of choice this time mr obama is likely to stay in my

default. artsy new york come up here this earning their daily bread we bring you the story of two wealthy expert on those who are raking in the dough right now having risen to the very top of russia's breaker resect. euro woes rage on in the new year with friends now threatening to pull out of the euro zone and to clear the fold unless the e.u. agrees to possible cash into the economy the work of. polling stations have closed in egypt after the final day of a three stage vote the country's first democratic election in more than half a century final results of the be announced next week with the muslim brotherhood being the favorite so after clinching the lead in the first two stages of the vote last year earlier rounds were overshadowed by clashes between protesters and the army egypt's ruling military generals have been accused of clinging to power and now face anger over their handling of protests that is worth ninety sorry fifty

nine dead since mid november the raids on western sponsored n.g.o.s of that of even more concerns over the country's stability to a spoke to london based political analyst chris bambery told me victory for the muslim brotherhood was always the most likely outcome of the election so. i think you have to say that if you give people the right to term in their own future it was always going to be the case that is one of his policies would do well in egypt as he did in. this year so i don't think it's a surprise but there are good. the tensions here people have expectations of the muslim brotherhood will deliver and some of the promises it made in the past the i would contain more radical elements in particular among the younger used people who want democracy what will radical change and they will be expecting as well that mubarak should be brought to justice and some of those officers responsible for the torture and the killing of activists in that was recent recent months should be dealt with and any talk of an amnesty for the military i think will inflame the sit

situation. the rise of islamist parties in egypt has prompted western concern for the policies that countries may adopt if the likes of the muslim brotherhood steps into power we caught up with regional politics expert jeremy salt his outlook on the developments in the arab world is coming up next hour in artie's latest interview for you. really look at what's been happening in the middle east and the policies the western governments of followed since the beginning of this year they have always had the noble motive and we're doing this for this very very good reason but we don't have to be terribly skeptical or cynical to understand that actually behind the noble motive is self-interest if we look at what happened in egypt the west backed mubarak right to the very last and there was no longer possible to back him when it was indefensible they dumped him. greece has declared that it could ditch the euro and leave the euro zone in as

little as three months that is unless the e.u. and the i.m.f. fund it with a second one hundred thirty billion euro bailout talks over the cash lifeline of stall for months now with creditors demanding an overhaul of greece's economy which they see is ultimately doomed and belgium business journalist you're in but over veldts believes the numbers say it all the greece's exit is unavoidable. the greek economy is going down like a stone. g.d.p. contracted by four percent in two thousand and ten by six percent in two thousand and eleven and there is probably worse to come in two thousand and twelve and i think we are now at a point where everybody is research realizes that we cannot go on lying list and unrest and even under key in the country is becoming so much of a threat that some drastic things need to be done and my reading of what the greek government is doing is that they are trying to they are looking for an alibi to offer to their public by which they can say well it's not our fault it's the

international community that pushes us towards the exit of the euro zone and i think also here in europe at brussels at quarters of european commission people start to realize they really are at the end of the road there is no other option left for them they're in a deadlock they cannot rewind the greek economy and so they are facing in a big black hole. for all the stories we're covering on our website our dot com online right now in fact that very story is one of the top ten events that shaped twenty eleven of our correspondents firsthand accounts reporting from the world's hot spots in our testimony series if you missed it last week very interesting a first time for what they saw up close it's online from us and good night the planet party picture galleries capture the high spirits from around the world as we all ushered in twenty twelve. next ex-pat entrepreneurs based here in russia tell us their success stories and describe their

path to prosperity and the latest from our path finder series. and today we bring the stories a very hands on bosses ear and go out to colon or e gurus who have baked their way quite literally to a fortune in russia's premium pastry sector for more than four years now they've been running the most successful business of its kind starting from scratch next they give us a taste of what it took. i am twice a week in the production sector and the rest of the time i'm in the restaurant genya. genya but here that's just to make sure everything is ok definitely in the way when you're starting something new everything is more subtle the industry has existed here we had to do everything from scratch. when we started

the business we realized that we had to. really difficult objectives one was that we had to create our own brand and we decided to license at least initially in the nation's national brand for us and the whole point of our project the whole point of the business was that these products high quality bakeries hardly exist in russia today you don't have many customers here you can help you know only to this and that customer should be greeted every time every time you're developing a company culture you know one of the most difficult things in russia a few years ago was to make sure your line staff smile is just smile if it's not the culture at the beginning i would say if i come to the restaurant and if you're smiling i will give you a hundred. if you're not. really have a minus for your resume so it could give me a game but the feel of challenge the first quarter we spent in two thousand and six

we spent nine months developing a very small factory we basically had a thirty square meter room where we were trying to make something like fifty products fresh every day and the biggest challenge was the local ingredients it would be insane to import a flower to russia when russia is one of the biggest flow exporters in the world we were very very lucky that we did this because by the end of two thousand and eight when the recession started the first thing that happened in the recession in russia was a collapse of the ruble exchange rate compared to the euro so suddenly overnight imported prices up. thirty forty percent and that is deadly for any kind of business like ours but for us at least the cost of our products was relatively stable because for the main ingredients like sugar like flour we were using locally made products. it's still a lot of things happens in russia mechanically in the service industry we have a hard time dealing the idea or they followed the rules or did they have

a problem so this is the difficulty in russia united states or in europe it's a little bit easier because they have a used to it. you need to empty the garbage cans you need to clean up that place what is that card from there higher on the other hand if we see that you're rooting hard to take it to heart. in other cultures that may be a little bit more difficult the idea is to build a bakery business in russia was exactly right and the idea that the competition wasn't so high in the sector i would do again but i think i would make sure that we raise a bit more capital upfront than we did i would also make sure i think that we invest at the beginning far more in training of production people than we did we should have outsourced much less than we did four years ago we should have made much many more products ourselves and then we would be even more successful than we are today i think but yes i would absolutely do.

we're set to bring you more features about foreign entrepreneurs doing big business here in russia in our pathfinder series here on r.t. for the rest of the week as well exactly ninety minutes past eleven here in moscow as one of the biggest blights or more britain tackling gang violence there is proving very difficult with the government saying a firm response is the only means of dealing with it but there's growing criticism that attempts to improve the situation and addressing the very roots of the problem that's a story that laura smith followed in the week. twenty six years old. and often lost in. the dark underbelly of life in britain is in a city's gang culture dramatized here for a television series for gavin it was real life he got into a gang to escape

a feeling of powerlessness an abusive home life where money was a constant struggle seen the things also as a young. man disposing to. start. to an extent and. so they. would be angry over the top. name for them that this goes crazy and people started to respect me for it at his lowest ebb gavin admits to having stabbed girl and his story isn't unusual in deprived areas nowhere is the question of how to solve the gang problem in london more relevant than here in new it lies in the shadow of london's two thousand and twelve olympic park but it's also got more gangs than almost anywhere else in london round here young people say you start just by hanging out with your friends on the streets and you end up in a spiral of gang violence and fear. in you are more than half of all kids are

living below the poverty line and they don't feel the government's doing anything to help them how can you hold me if you don't understand you have to have illusion i don't. know in a bar or. in london and the neighbor was going to has gone crazy and the neighbor. in london. i was there to government really knew and understood would be happening when gavin met sheldon thomas an ex gangster himself he turned a corner and they're now working in a team to get young people out of gangs the government claims it wants the same thing and having laid the blame for august's riots firmly at the door of gangs their solution the carrot and stick method are as you found some excellent police work to identify and manage the highest risk on members through

a combination of targeted surveillance enforcement and arrest renny offense however minor and positive offers of training employment and drugs treatment for those who want a different life but for those not prepared to break away from violence they will face harsher and tougher punishments but this isn't going to work according to sheldon thomas who feels the government is supporting him at every turn what they do. the manifestation of against gun violence. gang rape. that's just a manifestation that the causes of it stemmed from family breakdown mauls the window from society as a whole while the government rhetoric sounds encouraging other policies will undermine both carrot and stick economic austerity cuts will mean sixteen thousand fewer police officers on the streets and services that deal directly with gangs now will have their funding cut by between twenty and ninety percent in some areas that

means young people like gavin in the future will have nowhere to go but the street nora smith r.t. london. well as the british government plans further crackdowns on criminal gangs that are already filling the full force of the law two men have been sentenced by a london court to fourteen and fifteen years behind bars for the racist murder of a black teenager almost twenty years ago the judge said the punishment would be much tougher of the method when adults at the time the brutal stabbing of stephen lawrence shocked the country as a stark example of racial division. series of three explosions in the second largest city in afghanistan have killed at least thirteen including a child the first blast happened as a suicide bomber attacked a police checkpoint and two other forms then went off later the violence comes a day after the afghan taliban announced plans to open an international liaison office in qatar something that could be a step towards formal peace negotiations. thousands of people are taking to the

streets in northern peru protesting against the development of a gold mine the demonstrators say waste from the works will taint their water supplies the protests come in one of the country's most heavily mined regions it also has a history of troubled relations with neighboring farmers and ranchers. next incredible story of two girls who were born just minutes apart in the same ward in the russian new rules but they were then accidentally swapped by a fateful mistake it meant they ended up with the wrong parents at his current turn around she reports on how the blunder was a little scuppered more than a decade later. meet anya she's thirteen years old muslim and lives with her father nine months in the chalabi town of kut based on the other side of town also thirteen lives with her russian orthodox mother yulia despite their differences in religion and culture they are recent friends sharing the same birthdays and ties that bind them deeper than what laws on the surface but long and simple in that

moment i was in such a state of shock that i thought it was all a joke sleep in one nine hundred ninety eight anya an arena born only fifteen minutes apart in the same hospital were accidentally switched at birth the discovery happened with us ex-husband who claimed arena his daughter looked nothing like him he refused to pay alimony but yulia insisted upon her innocence had the family take not one but two d.n.a. tests the results show that in fact the ex was not the father and both results showed that yulia was not arenas mother but that a good one was my first thought was that irina doesn't find out and the second was where is my biological child with her lawyer and investigators by her side yulia discovered her biological child anya was living on the other side of town with ny much as. they told me they switch my child with another at the hospital they said your biological child is with another family they gave me a picture of her and i was in shock for about forty minutes my hands and legs were

shaking. two days later nine reluctantly phoned yulia they met and decided to first introduce the girls to each other after they became friends the truth would be revealed to each of them separately of us and we used to be the first time we used the girls to each other we came to visit we took pictures walked around and ate ice cream later she told me that when i went was my biological father in the beginning i didn't believe it but my mother said it's true i'm not flying. irina ananya now close friends decided to remain with the parents who raised them but the inconvenience of living in different suburbs. makes it much harder for the families to meet often so it's a problem it breaks your heart one day back and forth i don't think that's the way to live it isn't adds to the suffering it's the teenage girls that now face social hardships their separate cultures beliefs and habits make understanding each other difficult very different they pray they don't speak when they speak i don't

understand what they're saying what if they're saying something about the wrong regardless of their differences irina and anya are happy to have each other as friends no matter the reasons that brought them together karen tara moscow. and just a few minutes tonight of his cross talk show looks back at the attempted coup in the soviet union just over twenty years ago now an event that many believe led to the u.s.s.r. as eventual collapse but before that though a quick look at the top stories of make heaven know enough to this break.

thank you. feel. a man looming i've.

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that. it. would. be a and. the u.s. says it will stick to the. persian gulf despite. the stay away the standoff continues to drive up oil prices and tension. the republican presidential candidate race gets underway. just to the foot forward to capitalize on. the euro's woes flare up again.