so there you are watching we can easily hear welcome to the program funerals have been held in syria for the victims of friday's bombing in the capital damascus and these twenty six were killed in what the government and he was was a suicide attack thousands joined a funeral ceremony organized by the syrian government yes collation of violence comes as i have league observers prepared to present their initial report on the situation activists claim hundreds have been killed since the monitoring team arrived two weeks ago going criticism both from in syria and. the mission is to broker a peace plan to end ten months of protest with the u.n. says it has left more than five thousand people dead honest patrick henningsen thanks events in syria are being manipulated to promote change. a lot of these so-called human rights reports definitely skewed in favor of whatever the current

western policies coming out of the us or london and paris of what they would like to see happen in syria which is me. people in the u.s. state department in the u.k. foreign office and the u.n. want to frame this argument is that assad is having a crackdown on dissidents these are not dissidents these are in some cases armed insurgent and they're being backed in a material way by the u.s. and by some of these countries who actually are in the league guitar also has an interest in regime change in this country libya has sent al-qaeda fighters under the command of their tripoli governor to go and fight in syria this contravenes all united name and laws ok if the u.s. is actively involved in supporting this then they are culpable in international court. iran has announced it's planning to hold another round of naval drills in

the home straits following its ten day maneuvers in the gulf has been threatening to block the world's most important all of it in response to u.s. and european sanctions britain says it would be illegal and unsuccessful in international waters american warships are also there to ensure the passage remains open but tehran promises it will take action if u.s. warships sailed through the strait last week new washington sanctions began targeting iran's financial and oil sectors to hamper its nuclear program francisco even tougher measures john research on the stop the war coalition in the us it's all just an excuse to weaken loans regional influence. this isn't just about nuclear weapons if it were about nuclear weapons in the middle east then the united states would have a bone to pick with israel which is the only power in the middle east which actually possesses nuclear weapons it's not about that that's the course by life but the reason for this continued conflict is because the american administration

simply can't live with iran which has as much regional power as it has at the moment you see the americans when they look at the iranian regime they see its links with syria they see links with hamas they see links with hezbollah and this is a challenge to american power in an absolutely critical economically critical geopolitically critical area of the globe and it's that which is the sticking point for the american administration in my view there are some people hawks in israel hawks in the united states who want to start all this militarily and it does seem to me that once we begin on the process of implementing sanctions of iran responding to the sanctions that there will be calls further down the road for direct military conflict and that in this case is even more dangerous than it was in the case of iraq but for moscow this is our table still ahead this hour a matter of life and death as prosecutors in egypt corporate house to the president of their of their rank. hear why his execution could kill any peace and harmony.

and europe still nursing a new get money for the warning that some states can already be in recession greece may have to abandon the single currency pull together. in the us republicans are holding key debates this weekend ahead of tuesday's primary in new hampshire so far former massachusetts governor mitt romney is the front runner . rather cool and social conservative rick santorum a distant second primaries and caucuses will take place in every u.s. state in the coming months before finally choosing a candidate of the party convention in august when it then takes on barack obama and then this presidential election former congressional aide and diplomat joe ruben told me that all the pool stands out he's unlikely to secure enough support. in this foreign policy it's 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 and some areas that can be good he's opposed to military action with the ron who are supposed to be iraq war but the other candidates are all extremely hawkish on foreign policy very neo conservative and ron paul does stand out amongst 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 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 kind of positioning will not win the general election against president obama but as the republican campaign ramps up there's a growing question about how much of a challenge president obama can still pose to them four years ago he was the ultimate choice for millions of americans but today he supports

a seems to be thinning and his vow of change seen as an empty promise during a point in our expense. three years ago one historic campaign turned u.s. politics into a pop culture phenomenon. except 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 no way each straight from a chair straight has been donated to them lou find that became a phenomenon in two thousand and eleven other about twenty people holding out david moffatt out 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 a as a lot of us like that that's the thing that's inspiring you know like that's why i brought the fight so ws and the thing that inspired me about it is the fact that it's a grassroots movement that that had a like a very clear and transparent process artist shepard fairey seems similarly just in 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 beers you got the newness he's. the version 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 too friendly face of the american empire abroad he's in the process actually of becoming very sadly on 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. and i think i really think you misinterpreted his. his mandate yet the approval ratings show voters are even more turned off with the alternatives leaving obama seemingly the lesser of two evils america's 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 and eighty was the honest saleable candidate of choice this time mr obama is likely to stay in my default. new york. egyptian prosecutors this week demanded that ousted president hosni mubarak be hanged for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and also seeking the death sentence for former teary minister and six other security chiefs more than eight hundred people died during the switch. since his trial began in august the eighty three year old and on a stretcher. to national nations and says an execution could shatter the entire region. if mubarak.

demonstrations. present keep it straight. in the future one of the restrictions. should be why the rule. wouldn't bar instant. person. finder and straight current shining was no crease. excuse. for not sure in fact i could find. marc rich or you can. just. coming out later this hour battling a gang of violence in the u.k. how can you hold me she don't understand. form a new criminals tell our to the government is not up to the task of curbing

a scarce resources a child elsewhere also. what drives me the ability to influence things it's not making money or you know being a boss or things like that it's you know doing being successful by doing good and making money. foundation course in that building a modern russia expert the texan the bill that tells us why he's reaching for the sky here is our latest pathfinder and if the minutes are to. some countries in debt laden europe may already technically be a new session the warning came from the head of the international monetary fund this week he also said that twenty twelve will be no walk in the prague you know unemployment in the range at a record high at the end of last year and consumer confidence fell us. the public bite of cuts chris is a prime minister in this country faces

a disorderly default in march consequent bailout cash to prop it up spending the next few weeks ahead of an international inspectors visit to determine if greece can stay in the euro economic analysts your belt says that quick action is needed to avoid a public vote in greece. the greek economy is going down like a storm. 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 agrees realizes that we cannot go on like this and that unrest and even an arche 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 brussels that quarters of the 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 with the indebted part the swelling around it you might have thought that the blocks biggest payments to germany would be the most concerned but increasing numbers of people that have other things on their minds they want this kind of explains why they're finding traditional politics longer to their taste. it looks like an ordinary scene at one of the many bars in berlin except there is one thing which makes this party totally different from all the others the parties they must be talking about. the pirate party germany that's right and this is an annual

meeting of a political party and all these people are alone it's eighteen thousand members across germany like me treat was tired of the mainstream and i was really disappointed in. all this the same way. the faces. and the firefighter was really different one of its key differences apart from the style in general is a software system called liquid feedback allowing ordinary germans the opportunity to propose policies online the pirate stand for more transparency and freedom on the internet but when it comes to core issues like the economy and we don't have currently a stand on this this crisis maybe you will have after the. next federal convention but this wasn't a problem of the previous election for the berlin state problem a time when the port party managed to win nearly nine percent of the vote securing fifteen seats most people who i talked to they say are just something something

fresh to me like because many germans believe that politics are cross to this time as the big players struggle with big economic and political issues but part party doesn't even have one official stance on the eurozone crisis or the arab spring nevertheless it continues gathering more supporters i mean a coincidence or an alarming signal stream politicians the free democrats party which is anger miracles federal coalition porter is the first to feel the change of heart from voters and actually lost that berlin along with another four local votes across the country a mainstream politics is also losing attractiveness because. there's often too little distinction or distinctiveness between different parties from different. areas sometimes it's even difficult to tell the difference between conservative and social democrat experts say the point. is the internet is the new driving force

changing politics similar to the way it was influenced by t.v. over half a century ago. change their tactics. before they could find themselves on the margins. or in germany online we have more news analysis from around the world some of what's there right now some other criminals in israel the terrorists the credit card details of almost half a million people and lives online also. dogs believers all over russia and abroad celebrate the birth of jesus he reports on the praising and the parting. britain is still at a loss on how best to deal with this disaffected young generation whose anger

boiled over into riots. opposition politicians think one else has to keep kids in school longer in an attempt to stop them joining gangs but has nora smith has been hearing the underlying causes of youth crime tackling first. the nothing else. the dark underbelly of life in britain is in a city gang culture traumatized 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. disposed. to. be angry

over the top. name for the crazy. people. at his lowest ebb gavin admits to having stabbed a 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 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 the kids are living below the poverty line and they don't feel the government doing anything to help them how can you hold me. you have to have a. i don't know it looks like. you were around now in a bar of the highest in london and the neighboring war was good. and then maybe.

in london. i was there the 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 there solution the carrot and stick method are if you found some excellent police work to identify and manage the highest risk members through a combination of targeted surveillance enforcement and arrest for any 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 forcing him at every turn what they do.

the manifestation of gangs. gang rape drug that's just a manifestation that the causes of it the cause in stem from family breakdown moles gone out 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 st lawrence smith party london were turning to some of the stories making headlines today now and first to the coast of new zealand and a cargo ship which grounded three months ago has been torn in two by storm spilling

debris into the sea cleanup teams are on standby in case the remaining oil on board leaks out hundreds of tons of oil first got into the sea when the ship hit a reef devastating wildlife in the area that's been described as new zealand's worst maritime disaster. and afghan investigative commission is accusing the american military of abusing inmates that the u.s. . and some of the prisoners gave numerous accounts of abuse and torture others of. them on the base behind it over to control the u.s. says it will investigate allegations. a wave of sectarian violence targeting the christian minority and swept through eastern nigeria forcing hundreds from their homes attacks in the state of killed at least thirty but the extremist islamist sect boko haram thought to be behind them the group has carried out multiple bomb attacks during the past month killing dozens

has warned christians to leave the muslim dominated north. so the president is offering to help libya disarm its former rebels president bashir is wanted by the hague for genocide in his own country he's been visiting tripoli to thank libya's new leaders for moving gadhafi he was known to have backed sudanese militants human rights groups there were outraged by the shias off to the bia which is yet to respond. now throughout the week r.t. has been following foreign entrepreneurs who've been making it big in russia time now to meet today's pathfinder. for any business to power ahead you need the right facilities and that's where texan chris run rate comes in he explains now his part in raising a modern moscow skyline on learning

a whole new way of doing things. we have. a vision which is we want to bring global business to the russian marketplace so we're extremely motivated by this and what that means is you know taking away the grand ideas you know we want to help global business to be more effective in achieving their business objectives in russia and we do that by providing them with financial capital in the form of real estate so we build factories distribution centers and production plants for global businesses who are serving in the russian marketplace occurred to me that this is a very rich part of the world with stream lee intelligent people and they just get reorganized in this part of that reorganization they're going to be all sorts of opportunities so it was the idea of really observing and participating in as you can as a foreigner to the extent you can as a foreign rather in there the rebuilding this economy that drew me here i remember specifically coming out of sheet metal into i remember driving the city and seeing the ukraine hotel which was you know it's a beautiful building and you know it's that gothic on

a stick type of architecture and it's strongly imposing is a beautiful day and i realized that i was in a different part of the world and it was intimidating and quite stimulating took me about a year to kind of come to grips with the differences and finally i summarized it for myself as following in the united states when i when i worked on wall street for anything we're working on there's basically a process you went through and that process was twenty six steps and you go e b c d and you're just overcome every step in the process and you achieve a result you're looking for what i realized in russia is that that approach didn't work and it would confuse the heck out of me because i said wait a second that we've got to get organized we all have the same goal how do we achieve that goal and what i realize that actually if you took a american approach to doing business in russia you could not be successful because the rules of the game were information certainly in the ninety's and so there was no be there was an a and there the end result and to get the result you had to kind

of sort of moving to a straight line you had to sort of. an enormous amount of energy just to keep people on a common track towards the ultimate goal and you know sort of managing chaos and pushing it and nudging it to the desired result so once i learn that i realize that in order to be successful here it's stubbornness is extremely important where all the products of our upbringings and i was you know a child in a large family with you know wonderful loving parents and. you know wonderful loving and energetic brothers one was two years older than me the other was four years older than me and for all of my childhood they were physically stronger than mean you know boys will be boys they will wrestle they will punch they will kick and if you get knocked down stand back up and you know maintain your composure and your integrity and things will work out well success has many fathers failure is an orphan and i feel that you know it's very hard for people. you know in this part of the world to accept that your and our mission is to you know continue to build out

our existing projects in the south of moscow which is a globally relevant project in terms of size and then replicate to a smaller extent the same type of concept across the major markets in russia you know currently we have our major customer john deere we designed built inone their major factor in russia republic trucks is also an existing customer of ours we've done work for mcdonald's and we're negotiating relationships partnerships with kind of a who's who of the fortune five hundred or active in russia and looking to get more active so that's really our ambition is how do we help these great businesses to tap into the potential the russian marketplace and how do we save them from experiencing many of the frustrations that i experienced you know as an entrepreneur so our job is to help them see that it's a process to doing business in russia and it's not an unknown you know at the end of the day i do what i do because i enjoy knowing that i'm influencing things for

the positive so when i go look at. our project and i look at the customers we serve and i talk to our customers and i see that they are quite happy with the results we've achieved for me that gives me enormous pleasure and that really is what drives me it's the ability to influence things it's not making money or you know being the boss or things like that it's you know doing being successful by doing good and making money we want to be profitable but we want to really be doing something that develops this country in a positive way. well shortly the storms ahead as we outline the financial forecast for the eurozone before that time update you on the headlines and a couple that was. not

with smug about spilling blood. is the war of barricades from one side and fears blockade from the other. invisible border it has cut people from the land for twelve years.

the conflict that divided serbia into two hostile parts is still not over. the week's top stories and today's news from ati syrians say their final farewells to the victims of friday's boston damascus for at least twenty six died in what the government is calling a suicide attack that says arab league observers prepared to build their national findings on the country's unrest. iran announces plans for a new more games in the persian gulf after repeated threats to block a key all didn't respond to u.s. and european sanctions washington is targeting terror on financial and oil sectors .