thanks for being with us five o'clock here in moscow fresh clashes have broken out across syria with at least eleven people reported killed the violence rages on as the arab league gathers to discuss the progress of its observer mission in the country critics say the league's failing to oversee a plan a peace plan under which the syrian regime agreed to and its crackdown on protesters more than one hundred civilians have allegedly been killed by government troops since the first observers arrived last month on friday dozens died in a suicide bombing in the capital damascus which the regime is blaming on terrorists president assad claims his forces are fighting an armed insurgency funded from abroad and some observers agree. the start of the demonstrations were not truly peaceful but there were many incidents of. gas perpetrating crimes against the army against the security forces against the civilians and of

course they are denying the so-called opposition denying that for a long time but now everything has become clear these terrorist acts these shameful terrorist acts on a clear indication that there are gangs and there are terrorists working in syria to disrupt life in syria they're not aiming the aggression only against that is if against the whole syrian people against the whole syrian obviously what we're witnessing in syria is not that evolution but they actually it is a very ugly conflict to dismantle not only the city of the future the whole area has nothing to do with democracy and freedom and that they're also the forces international forces and local forces as well which are actually trying to change the situation in the political reasons. respected the costs that will actually be imposed on. the city of people. around says it's planning new military

exercises near the strategic strait of horribles following its ten day maneuvers in the persian gulf to prod also renewed its threat to close the strait that's one of the world's most important oil routes in response to u.s. and european sanctions last week a new washington sanctions began targeting iran's financial an oil sectors to hamper its nuclear program francis calling for even tougher measures meanwhile according to an iranian newspaper iran has begun an iranian enrichment for peaceful purposes at a well protected underground facility near the city of qom the u.s. and its allies continue to accuse iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons and charge tech crunch denies the editor of the corbett report current affairs website says pressuring iran further will eventually lead to war in the region. i think it's quite remarkable to think that france and the us 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 it's quite remarkable because that really does is tantamount to an act of war and and really the i think the only logical outcome for this is another increase the military tensions between the countries involved in that region that are already on the knife edge of military tension so it is quite an explosive thing to be talking about and i think the escalation in recent weeks with the recent ten day military drill in in the straits of hormuz has to be weighing heavily on the minds of of the u.s. and others but but i think really 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 straits that they would be a 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 the mix is really just a recipe for military disaster i think still ahead this hour the fate of a dictator as prosecutors in egypt call for the death penalty for president mubarak we hear why his execution could result in more violence for the whole region. plus europe is in for a rough ride this year as recession and economic instability creep closer towards the use of heavy weights. and america the race for the presidency is in full swing with six republican hopefuls competing for the chance to challenge barack obama in november so vote front runner mitt romney's taking flak from his co republican rivals who have dismissed him as a mere business manager but romney has a comfortable lead after the iowa caucus this week ahead of the first primary vote in new hampshire in just two days time and voting will take place across the u.s. in the coming months before a single presidential candidate is chosen at the republican party convention in all

this seasoned politician and fierce anti-war advocate ron paul is trailing far behind in a poll former congressional aide usually ruben's thinks that's because paul's agenda is appealing but not to the members of his party he took so much money from the 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 conflicts and the rational fears in some areas that can be good he's opposed to military action with the run 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 amongst them he makes voters want to support him but he inspires and leading the party and getting other republicans on board to really choose the agenda though he hasn't done that someone who says i am a free american and i can make it on my own. that's what ron paul really embodies

but republicans also understand that kind of positioning will not win the general election against president obama as the republicans slug it out for the right to take on obama the president himself is ratcheting up support for his re-election bid but with his approval rating down and the economy still on the ropes some of those who voted for that yes we can man in two thousand and eight say they made a mistake artie's marianna portland has more. 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 show straight has been donated to the movement that became a phenomenon in two thousand and eleven other than twenty people holding out david moffatt 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 an 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 you get the beers you get 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 and eight he was the unassailable candidate of choice this time mr obama is likely to stay in my default arena. new york coming up this hour the new i and last guy turkey is set to launch a military satellite that could give the rest of the world to close up images of israel for the very first time also. reaching for the sky obviously it would have

find are an ex-pat texan builder shares his experience in creating new opportunities for business in modern russia. and gyptian prosecutors this week demanded president hosni mubarak be hanged for allegedly ordering the killing of protesters during last year's uprising there also seeking a death sentence for the country's former interior minister and six other security chiefs moscow has expressed concern over the possible death penalty and calls for a more humane verdict more than eight hundred people died during the violence which forced mubarak out in february of last year since his trial began and all this the eighty three year old has appeared on a stretcher due to poor health international relations professor mark allman says an execution could bring more violence to the region. mubarak use it to. be crystal. demonstrations were partially current already present in street clothes but. what about going straight. to the push here.

and see why the route. gadhafi. would regard instant so high and proceed. either in straight current shining whose memory crease. explaining them for life so in fact the point here. we can break down. just. to russia's republic of chechnya now where five security service officers have been wounded in a shootout with militants one suspect has been confirmed killed in the firefight let's get the latest details from artie's martinez. in the caucasus region why do you know do we know if the operation is still ongoing i mean how many militants are there and what sort of a threat to the polls. well of these constant terror operation is still going on

between russian special forces and the terrorists in the south of the republic off . of the mountains area these anti terror operation is taking place in severe weather conditions basically in a low visibility as it is quite a foggy and misty right now in the a mountains in the caucasus according to the special forces during this is shoot out and finding some russian officers who were injured they were the victims of the explosives that the terrorists have placed earlier when these two terrorists were found they refused to surrender they opened fire and the police fired back the had changed a bit of has already commented on this operation by saying that this operation this anti terror raid has been prepared in advance and during the search of special forces found the place that appeared to be the main hideout of terrorists and it

was also packed with explosives and weapons and the moments of the main aim is really to wipe out this location also according to the latest information there are from five to turn terrorists there are still on the run and at the moment russian special forces are surrounding this area the republic of chechnya was relatively peaceful last year but what's been happening in russia's north caucasus as a whole. well as a whole these air rushes are north caucasus still remains quite volatile and basically remains of the most dangerous place in the country but still change in comparison to other regions that surround this area has seen the number of terror attacks decrease in the last twelve months so really is this operation that we've been seeing today is such a big is a big thing for the whole republic but in other regions in own the contrary the

number off attacks and terror raised increased in the last twelve months and according to russia's ministry over three hundred militants were killed in an tito race and among them was a chief al qaida operative in the north caucasus basically russian authorities have been repeatedly on july the connection often militants there present here in the north caucasus with al qaida but despite a number of a successful anti terror raids and dozens of terror attacks that were prevented by russian special forces still the problem alpha terrorism remains here and search operations continue an artist. from the caucasus region thank you. so more world news in brief for you this hour first nigeria where days of sectarian violence have killed at least forty four people while latest attack occurred when the radical muslim sect boko haram targeted

a church service in the country's north east killing at least fifteen the violence comes after the group promised to kill christians living in nigeria's largely muslim north clashes continue despite the country's president declaring a state of emergency for areas hit by the sect. an afghan investigative commission says the american military abused detainees at the country's largest detention center and made said bob graham prison say they were tortured and held without evidence at the u.s. run facility president hamid karzai has demanded the u.s. hand over control of the prison to afghan authorities within a month the u.s. says it will investigate the claims. a grounded new zealand cargo ship has been split in two after being battered by fierce waves in a storm the craft has released timber and floating containers into the sea and cleanup teams are on standby in case of an oil leak the ship has been stripped stuck off the coast since october when it hit

a reef and spewed hundreds of tons of oil into the ocean in what's been described as the country's worst environmental disaster. we have more news for you online just log on to our web site r t dot com here's what we have for you there right now . north korea's newly declared supreme leader kim jong il is marking his birthday on january eighth but his exact age still remains something of a mystery plus. the. members of the orthodox church all across russia and abroad celebrate the birth of jesus and that and much much more on our t.v. dot com.

it has been a rough start to the year for the eurozone with some of its country's believed to be in or heading into another wave of recession two of europe's larger economies italy and spain are facing a crucial investor confidence test next week as they race to raise public funding its own prime minister mario monti met french president nicolas sarkozy in paris on friday to discuss the spiraling debt turmoil which threatens to engulf their economies they called on all their member states to show more confidence in the single currency the meeting comes amid fears of the crisis knocking at the door of the heavyweights meanwhile greece has warned of a disorderly default in march if it can't secure more bailout cash economic analyst johan bend over felt a says that greece is exit from the euro zone is inevitable. 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're now at the point where everybody realizes that we can now go online live. and. even in the country is becoming so much of a threat that some drastic things need to be done. 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 or quarters of european commission people start to realise they really are at the end of the road there is no other option left for them they're in a work they cannot rewind the greek economy and so they are facing in a big black hole for more on the eurozone struggle with its debt and what may be in store this year stay with our team for an interview with a prominent dutch economist coming up in just over an hour's time. security

conscious israel is the only country of which close up images can't easily be found online but turkey's announced plans to launch a new military satellite that could provide the rest of the world with detailed images of the camera shy country for the first time artist policy player 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. with. thank you. not to enable me to very high resolution. 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 and 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 aviv a day and co are at an all time low and aid futile attempt on gaza two years ago that left nine to exterior and cause 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 whereas 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 ignore the playground of. the phone companies everyone should abide to the same laws they have the same standards one satellite is barely enough. to put israel's picture shy world in a spin but this is not a country that once its neighbors knowing its business especially with an arab world in flux and israel foster losing form afraid is policy r t the veil on israel all throughout the week r.t. has been introducing foreign entrepreneurs who came to russia in search of success and found it it's time now for the latest edition in our pathfinder series.

just in order to help an enterprise grow you need the right facilities and the go to person here is texan chris van overeat and he shares his experience of adapting to the russian way of doing business and explains his part in raising a modern moscow skyline. 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 truly 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 summarise 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 a b. c. d. and you're just overcome every step of the process and you achieve the 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 well 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 that 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 a 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 me and 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 you know 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. in

a few moments we have a special report on the lethal force of avalanches and those who face the. world of the future science technology innovation all the news developments from

around russia we've got the future covered. white stream cascading from mom slopes the view is miss moments in. this beauty brings death at a speed of more than two hundred kilometers per hour on. a step in the long run on. morning news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are old today.

thanks for being with us the latest news on the week's top stories there is no halt to the killings in syria as the arab league gathers to debate the future of its observer mission aimed at overseeing the peace plan critics say the league's efforts are failing to end the syrian regime's crackdown on the opposition. iran promises to hold more navy drills in the persian gulf and threatens to block a key oil route in the region if the country's crude exports are affected that says the west tighten sanctions targeting top brands of oil and financial sectors.