you're watching r.t. if you're welcome to the program. funerals have been held in syria for the victims of friday's bombing in the capital damascus at least twenty six were killed in what the government believes was a suicide attack where thousands joined a funeral sermon organized by the syrian authorities the escalation of violence comes as arab league observers prepare to present their initial report on the ongoing conflict activists claim scores have been killed since the morning trying to drive two weeks ago. as anxious to broker a peace plan to end ten months of protest the u.n. says has left more than five thousand people dead a political analyst says there are forces who want interested in a fair account. it is a group of. soldiers and officers who have deserted the syrian army and who are supported by western powers and by the americans and by nato in order to create

chaos in syria and to show that the syrian government is incapable of preserving law and order in syria so they will do everything in their power over them and their supporters to actually make sure that the report offer the out of monitors or . is reported to. the interests of the powers that the western powers that have been calling for regime change in syria if you know the pressure that they put is it's based on that you see if they realize or if they feel that the monitors and the observers. noting the violations by the demonstrators and by those desert then they will call for the withdrawal of the monitors and they would say that these monitors were under pressure from the syrian authorities it was true that there are some legitimate demands on the part of this . people have but it's such

a big shame that some western powers and some foreign an intervention sit in affairs is using these people and using the demands of these people to teach political objectives and that's a very destructive move on the part of the united states and its allies in the region. iran has announced it's planning to hold another round of naval drills in the home straight following its ten day maneuvers in the gulf it's been threatening to block the world's most important oil routes in response to u.s. and european sanctions but britain says the move will be illegal and unsuccessful international waters american warships are also there to ensure the passage remains open but tehran promises it would take action if u.s. warships sail through the strait last week new washington sanctions began targeting iran's financial and oil sectors to hamper its nuclear program france is calling for tougher measures john reese from the stop the wall coalition believes it's

really just an excuse to weaken iran its 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 the 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 stop 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 live from moscow this is our tails to the head this hour battery life or death as prosecutors need to call the ousted president mubarak to hang him while his execution. kill any hope of peace in the entire region. and you're still missing immunity and money but without knowing that some states could already be in recession greece may have to abandon the single currency altogether. the us republicans are holding key debates this weekend ahead of tuesday's primary in new hampshire opinion polls put former massachusetts governor mitt romney as the front runner. for the social conservative santorum a training fall behind primaries and caucuses will take place in every state in the coming months finally choosing the president of the convention. takes on barack

obama in the hands of this presidential election former congressional aide and diplomat joel rubin told r.t. that alone one pool stands out he's unlikely to secure enough support but really. in 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. affairs and some areas that can be good he's opposed to military action with the rod who are supposed to be iraq war but the other candidates are all extremely hawkish on foreign policy very neoconservative and ron paul does stand out among you makes voters want to support him. leading the party and getting other republicans on board to really change the age and 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 in

the general election against president obama. well as the republican campaign ramps up there's a growing question of how much of a challenge president obama can still post to them four years ago he was the ultimate choice comedians of americans but today his supporters seems to be thinning no reports. four 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 straight has been donated to a movement that became a phenomenon in two thousand and eleven other than twenty people holding out david mfundo 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 so 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 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 talk to cornel west was one of obama's biggest supporters i think he's got the beers you've got the newness he's. at the freshness 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. 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 needs he was the unassailable candidate of choice this time mr obama is likely to stay in i default. new york. egyptian prosecutors this week demanded that ousted president hosni mubarak be hanged for eventually ordering the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and also seeking the death sentence from a barracks former interior minister and six other security chiefs more than eight hundred people died during the violence which forced mubarak out in february last

year since his trial began in northwest the eighty three year old has appeared on a stretcher due to health talk show host and author stephen then man believes that the true root is using the barack as a scapegoat to hide their own shortcomings. this is a distraction this is. believing the end of the. earth. trying to absolve themselves in the process seems the worst no one of the military and. no also the people running the country the same ones closely allied with. these same people because all agreements are people who are too i think the protests will go on and the people won't be fooled the violence will continue to struggle there's a long way to go. barracks executional being seen as part of the water battle

egypt's military rulers to. on going public anger on the other front the country's non-governmental organizations suspect the fueling the protests with foreign help. the revolution may have toppled hosni mubarak the manager passions accuse of corruption and suffocating freedom but now it's the ruling supreme council of armed forces which finds itself in hot water with the west following raids on human rights organizations last week i feel this is a very dangerous situation because you have the elections on the one hand producing prose. but the people on the streets pushing for change of secularists who have links with these groups so that the big tension really between washington and kyra . dob cell phones and more than twenty boxes of documents were reportedly seized during raids by the police authorities promised all will be returned yet several questions remain what prompted the raids and what could possibly be so suspicious

about it and your peroration post revolutionary egypt. and the members of the arabic center for an independent judiciary never did get an official explanation for the confiscation of their documents or the eviction from their office that followed. we don't know what they were searching for we told them we could give them anything they wanted but they came in search everything and didn't give a simple answer whether they wanted bank statements or anything else. sitting on a sidewalk by their former office the vix it ngo workers point out a certain irony this never happened when mubarak was in charge of our surprise. the police like the. ticket system just. can't take a position. again is he moderates the activity in the ways we believe they should.

see. this is a new. human rights activists in egypt believe the rays are attempts to punish them for accusing military rulers of failing to carry through democratic reforms but western observers say the authorities are becoming increasingly wary of the ever watchful eye from washington and the true purpose of raids is to prove foreign funding over again is ations which authorities accuse of destabilizing egypt the seems to be a strand of opinion inside the military inside the state machine that. is very disillusioned with the old friendship with the west and may be trying to find evidence to prove that some of the trouble on the street some of the troubling times has been in some way fostered by these and. washington tirelessly repeats the old adagio of the importance of its relations with egypt as a key player in the middle east but blight talk may hide

a very different agenda washington doesn't want stabilization they want to permanent so that they can you know use that as a lever in the entire region egyptian activists aren't too happy with western help which they say can do more harm than good. i mean i don't like the way foreign countries put pressure on egyptian authorities that the pressure has to come from the egyptians and we as a human rights organization should provide it all of the mother my mother knew from us whatever the real reasons for the raids of n.g.o.s offices the increasing internal strife in the country could portend a shipwreck not just for egypt's relations with the west but for the country's revolution in cairo. r.t. . well still to come on the program the sky spy that's igniting it is really worried about. turkey having a satellite technology to get close up pictures which israel doesn't want to know

why. some countries in debt laden. europe may already technically be in recession the warning came from the head of the international monetary fund christina god this week said twenty twelve will be no walk in the park euro zone unemployment remains at a record high at the end of last year and consumer confidence fell as the public felt the bite of cuts greece's prime minister warned his country places of this would alter large concert beta cash to prop it up for the next few weeks will determine if it can stay in the u.s. to make mr wells says quick action is vital to avoid a public vote in greece 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 like this and.

even on our 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 could 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 well with indebted partners swirling around it you might have thought that the books biggest paymaster germany with the most concerned but increasing numbers of people there have other things on their minds they call personal explains why they're finding traditional politics no longer to their

liking. 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 get out and. the pirate part of germany that's right 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 the 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 crisis maybe we'll have after the. next federal convention but this wasn't a problem at 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 an 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 an go in merkel's federal coalition porter is the first to feel the change of heart from voters and actually lost. along with another four local volts across the country mainstream politics is also losing attractiveness because. there's

often too little distinction or distinctiveness between different parties from different fields or areas sometimes it's in difficult to tell the difference between conservative and social democrat experts say the success is the internet and the new driving force changing politics similar to the way it was influenced by t.v. over half a century ago. the mainstream parties adapt and change their tactics. before they could find themselves on the margins. of. germany. online with more news and analysis from around the world some of what's there right now cyber criminals israel now be treated as terrorists so the credit card details of almost half a million people i meet online also. the

. orthodox believe is all over russia and the broad celebrate the birth of jesus he reports on the crazing and the party. so dance president has offered libya his help in disarming former rebels omar al bashir was in play to thank its new leaders for getting rid of moammar gadhafi who was known to back sudanese militants but cher is wanted by the hague for his genocide in his own country he may write scripts condemned his visit and question the parties of libya's new leaders analysts say they're just following the west's example. gordon brown shaking hands with get their feet in two thousand and nine at the g eight summit in italy or for example tony blair shaking hands with gadhafi in two thousand and seven just outside of his hometown where he was killed in certain two thousand and seven so i mean i think yes there are double standards here but at the same time western leaders are very open to doing this and do this themselves as

well bashir did support the libyan rebels who were fighting against gadhafi and had good material reasons to do so for a long time sit down in libya get their fees libya had. a head and you can understand why bashir wanted gadhafi out and why now having supported speech the rebel uprising there would be some attempt to kind of welcome him. into libya not i must say that so many found of the national transitional council most of the time they weren't even in libya at all the people on the council themselves so off cozying up and getting the approval of western governments to lead libya rather than orienting themselves for the libyan people and actually fighting for democracy there i find it very striking that you have no question. criticizing the libyans for engaging with their neighbors and sorting out diplomatic relations i always just i'm staggered by the fact that these human rights groups basically wield

a human right as missionaries in the nineteenth century will did the bible in the ten commandments to basically civilized countries to be inferior and incapable of governing their own countries and people 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 twenty two by storm spinning debris into the sea cleanup teams are on standby in case the main 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. an afghan investigative commission is accusing the american military of abusing inmates held at the u.s. run detention center. is after prisoners gave numerous accounts of abuse and torture for this president karzai demand that the base be hunted day with afghan control the u.s. says to investigate allegations. of

a wave of sectarian violence targeting the christian minority has swept through eastern nigeria forcing hundreds from their homes attacks in the state of killed at least thirty three extremist islamists or coherent thought to be behind them the group has carried out multiple bomb attacks during the past month killing dozens of those want christians to leave the muslim dominated north. iran's president is embarking on his fifth visit to latin america since two thousand and seven of them and in the stripping stops in venezuela nicaragua cuba and ecuador to try and bolster iran's ties with the region and it's being heavily criticized by washington as a sign of desperation after fresh sanctions were imposed on iran for its and their atomic weapons programs around claims it's only seeking peaceful nuclear energy. now these days a quick online search lets anyone get detailed pictures of almost all corners of

the planet with one notable exception israel technology is racing ahead and the intensely camera shy country will be able to hide from the dens much longer as promised reports. israel's leaders are worried and they've good reason to be in just a matter of months still be nothing stopping satellite companies from getting up close and personal. thank you. not to enable me to. lose. until now only the americans had the technology capable of taking images greater than two meters per pixel resolution and american law stopped us companies from distributing the pictures the americans very sensitive security demands or scrutiny that plays along with it which means even with google earth one can zoom into israel but only so far to feature

a look at specific parts of israel many of them will come out blurry than any other place in the world that i've checked but that's about to change turkey is putting the finishing touches to a military satellite it plans to launch within the next two years the gawked took satellite will be capable of taking the very pictures tel aviv doesn't want distributed and there are no american star legal qualms in turkey about upsetting its photosensitive neighbor to keep a soul directly or indirectly some of these injury to him and his office road and that's the fear here especially because tensions between tel of ever denko are at an all time low and aid for to the attempt on gaza two years ago that left nine two and was expulsion of the israeli ambassador has tel aviv nervously weighing its options the irony is that it was not so long ago that the gawked took satellite would have spelled good news for israel the two countries cooperated extensively often sharing military intelligence but where is turkey was once israel's

a closest ally in the muslim world today it is ankara that is asserting itself without a television as a powerful player in the region or his trying to say that he isn't really not to be granted the special. services. that if used to have a saying these are military and is not the playground of. the phone companies everyone should abide by the same laws and have the same standards one satellite is barely enough. to put israel's a picture a shy world in a spin but this is not a country that wants its neighbors knowing its business especially with an arab world in flux and israel fast losing former friends policy r.t. and a veil on israel. shortly the story of an american vigilante waging a one man war legal migrants a us mexico border it's off the headlines stay with us.

this is art. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one that one we breathe we hope. to me the american dream is to live in peace and prosperity and freedom and a government under socialism is not a government a free. man. you

. have very motivated people out ross the country who are activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but the fact is in order for bridge ok. we are counting. properly drowning and i think it's spread by it's cutting off our. it's making the marker see. all but impossible. the official t. application. called touch from the.

video. feed the palm of your. top stories in today's news now from ati syrians say their final farewells to the victims of friday's blast in damascus arab league observers prepared to reveal their initial findings on the countries of. iran announces plans for a new war games in the persian gulf after repeated threats to. response to the u.s. and european sanctions. mudslinging ramps up as republicans campaigned for france to hundred boma so far less.