we look back at the past seven days on the latest developments this is the weekly on r.t. fresh clashes have broken out across syria with at least eleven government troops and ten civilians reported killed the violence rages on of the time when the arab league has decided to continue its observer mission in the country critics say the league's failing to oversee a peace plan on the which the sira g m agreed to end its crackdown on protesters hundreds of civilians have reportedly 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 political analysts. told me earlier that she thinks the arab league is poised to make sense of the crisis but needs more time. the violence is two sided that there are attacks against government troops these realities on the ground need to be reflected by the observers the arab league observers and unless they have time

to really see both sides of the story we're not going to know how best to solve this conflict we're not going to know how best dialogue will happen and who to trust and who involved in this process syria also has to be careful to have reliable people come in and not those with political agenda seeking to destabilize or undermine the syrian regime of course there's also violence continuing in this must stop so the arab league needs to find a just way to end this crisis and not listen to the western pressure that's coming from europe and from america to intervene in syria and to get the united nations involved right now let the arab league try to do its job. iran says it's planning new military exercises near the strategic strait of hormuz following its ten day maneuvers in the persian gulf tehran also renewed its threat to close the strait that's one of the world's most important all routes in response to u.s. and european sanctions last week new washington sanctions began targeting iran's

financial and oil sectors to hamper its nuclear program france is calling for even tougher messages meanwhile according to an iranian newspaper iran has begun to rein him in richmond for peaceful purposes of well protected underground facilities in the city of qom the u.s. and its allies continue to accuse iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons a charge to run denies generates from stop the war coalition believes that pressure on iran is an excuse to weaken 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 cause it's belise but the reason for this continued conflict is because the american administration simply can't live with an 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 ministration 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. party life here in moscow still ahead for you this hour the fate of a dictator in egypt calling for the death penalty for ousted president mubarak we hear why its execution could result in. the whole region. plus europe is in for a rough ride this year as a recession and economic instability creep closer towards the heavyweights.

this story start a company but first in america the race for the presidency is in full swing with six republican hopefuls competing for the chance to challenge barack obama in november as vote front runner mitt romney's taking flak from he's a republican rivals who dismissed him as a business manager but romney has a comfortable lead after the iowa caucus this week ahead of the first probably vote in new hampshire in just two days from now 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 august seasoned politician and fierce antiwar advocate ron paul is trailing far behind in the poll former congressional aide joel ruben thinks that's because gender is appealing but not to the members of his party. because he took so much it was 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. affairs in some areas that can be good he's opposed to military

action with the rod who was 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. voters want to support him as a 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 a free america 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. as the republican slug it out for the right to take on obama the president himself is ratcheting up support for his election bid but with his approval rating down and the economy still on the ropes some of those who voted for the yes we can man in two thousand and eight say they made a mistake what is more important or has more. four years ago one historic campaign turned us politics into

a pop culture phenomenon. free 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 there are twenty people holding out david move food 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 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 he's got the beers you got the newness he's got the first. taking part in more than one hundred campaign events but last april the prominent

intellectual told r.t. that obama has failed he's a 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 by default. artsy new york. party live here in moscow still to come in the program this hour silencing the press journalists in iraq report brutality and torture if they try to shine a light on corruption and repression in the country that's been left behind after america's withdrawal. first egyptian prosecutors this week demanded ousted president hosni mubarak be hanged for digitally ordering the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and also seeking the death sentence for the country's former interior minister and six other security chiefs moscow's expressed concern over the possible death penalty and call for a more humane verdict more than eight hundred died during the violence which forced out in february last year since his trial began in august the eighty three year old has appeared on a stretcher due to poor health u.s.

based talk show host and author stephen lemon believes the military rulers are using mubarak as a scapegoat as discontent with the current regime is running high. this is a distraction this is to divert the public a wrong story it's legitimate a year believing the interstate. for several days and then trying to absolve themselves in the process seems a worse no one of the military and no also the people running the country the same ones closely allied with the are used to seeing people because all we remember those are the people who are objecting to but i think the protests will go or and people won't be cool the violence will continue to struggle there's a long way to go. cause for mubarak's execution to being seen as part of a wider battle by egypt's military rulers to curb the ongoing public can get on the

other front of the country's governmental organizations suspected of fueling the protests with foreign help i mean i'm going to reports now from congress. 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 to elections on the one hand. 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 left off 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 from him sitting on a sidewalk by their former office the vix it angio workers point out a certain irony this never happened when mubarak was in charge says i would surprise. the police but the. ticket system just. can't take a position. against so he moderates the activity and they should. see. it is a. 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 streets some of the trouble in tahrir square has been in some way fostered by these n.g.o.s 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 the

permanent arnie's 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 pressure has to come from the egyptians and we as a human rights organization should provide it with the mother my mother knew from us whatever the real reasons for the raids of n.g.o.s says 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. . time now for some world news in brief for you this hour and first to nigeria where days of sectarian violence have killed at least forty four the latest attack occurred when the radical muslim sect boko haram targeted a church service in the country's northeast killing at least fifteen of the violence comes after the group promised to kill christians living in nigeria's not

and in the north the president has declared a state of emergency for areas affected samy unrest is worse than the country's civil war which took place in the one nine hundred sixty s. . an afghan investigative commission says the american military abused detainees at the country's largest detention center inmates at bagram 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 and the u.s. says it will investigate the claims. africa's oldest liberation movement celebrated its one hundredth anniversary today tens of thousands of south africans gathered to wave the green and gold colors of the african national congress in c. is credited for ending white minority rule in the country almost eighteen years ago south africa's first black president nelson mandela was absent from the celebration due to his frail condition. this in

a miraculous escape you see here in this video showing a twenty two year old tourist for him to be examined these are river in zimbabwe when her cord snapped during a bungee jump australian aaron lang worth took the leap on new year's eve she had to find it in strong currents and rapids in the river and had to free herself part of it snagged on to spend a week in hospital or though she was not seen. and you can watch that video again on our website at our teeth dot com now since the last american troops left iraq the country is learning to manage its own affairs but the consequences are proving fatal for some a decade of conflict was meant to herald a move to do democracy but journalists there say intimidation and brutality against them is rife. now reports. this spring iraqis inspired by neighboring arab countries began protesting against their government in a square in baghdad one which shares its name with the better known counterpart in

cairo. but iraqi journalists trying to cover these protests silenced by the government security forces in today's america journalists who speak out to me in prison are just simply killed it seems to be a high level of intolerance or dissent or for public criticism of their government policies or particular leaders to me a freelance journalist showed r.t. some shocking youtube footage from the protests this very explicitly show iraqi security forces targeting him because he's a journalist. he shouts which is arabic for a journalist over and over again but it makes the police more violent three or four maybe five. right police were around me one of them slapped me in the head other one kicked me in the and they grabbed me fast managed to escape

arrest thanks to two foreign journalists who intervened but since the arrest of one of his colleagues he stopped covering protests altogether it became hard for for example to go to i myself i don't go there i stopped there a long time ago not because. i'm not that scared to be arrested. you know i'm worried to be mistreated we tried to speak to journalists who've been arrested in baghdad but everyone was too afraid to appear on camera so we came up here to the more peaceful kurdish region to see if the situation was any different here i met a young photographer who was arrested while covering similar protests in the kurdish region but after the interview he called to tell me he was scared of reprisals from the government and asked to blur his face and change his name after his arrest in april and was imprisoned for four days and tortured. six men came to

the room and started to shout at me and beat me with cables then they gave me electric shocks they wanted me to admit that i hadn't been at the protest. when he was finally released after four days a friend took pictures of his wounds and publish them in a local magazine immediately ahmed was rearrested as a punishment for publicizing his initial arrest. came and they held me for three days and made me sign a document declaring that i would not talk to the press again back in baghdad the government spokesman admitted to r.t. that individuals in the iraqi government were indeed using their powers to silence the press noticed that people been. using there but this is again is not protected by the government the government so that they think and you can see that there are people in the midst of it for example they have misusing their their power against the citizen and there is this year and that is they keep a comfortable and some of them has been fired almost nine years after the invasion

u.s. troops are home but what of the country they're leaving behind with politicians using the security forces to silence journalists it appears that iraq lacks any credible press freedom or freedom that is essential to any democratic country sebastian meyer r t iraq. it's been a rough start to the year for the eurozone with some of its countries believed to be in awe 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 the race to raise public funding italian prime minister mario monti met french president nicolas sarkozy in paris on friday to discuss the spiraling debt turmoil which threatens to gulf their economies they call on other member states to show more confidence in the single currency the meeting comes amid fears of the crisis knocking at the door of the e.u. is heavyweights meanwhile greece has warned of a disorderly default in march if it can't secure more bailout cash economy economic analyst overbuilt says that greece is exit from the euro zone is inevitable.

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 realizes that we cannot go on like this 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. well it's not our fault if 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

big black hole. well for more on the eurozone struggle with its debt and what may be in store this year stay with r.t. for an interview with a prominent dutch economist coming up in about ten minutes from now well to deal with his own dire economic outlook britain has to make further public sector cuts as part of the government's austerity measures and that will mean thousands of police officers will disappear from the streets affecting some of london's most impoverished areas where gang culture is rife and as our correspondent laura smith reports the timing for these cuts could have come at a worse time as london gears up for the twenty twelve olympics. and often also. 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. to. go 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 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 the 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 a. i don't think they know it looks like. you were around no in a bar of the house in london and the neighboring bar was good. and the neighbor does good. in london. so 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 if you found some excellent police

work to identify and manage the highest risk 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 gangs gun violence. gang rape drug. that's just a manifestation. from family breakdown moles 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. twenty seven minutes past the hour exactly here in the russian capital shortly for you the storms brewing as we outline the financial forecast for the euro zone that's all for headlines stay with us here on r.t. .

i had a family i lived in a fairly nice community wasn't which was an upscale it was just like you know the society ok then they started showing up at what happened was my company decided i could get cheap labor and they got rid of us. george loser. rosen eaglets lum legally we have to get up every morning we have to go to work and you know we have to pay our bills only have to do it and i'm going to that's just the american dream and if you want the american dream you have to go buy the los i figure it's here's one of the major trails in the united states. i watch and they run run down my property and something about this noise. mean that cockroaches from coming over the wire is protecting the country i'm the kind of guy

who doesn't mind goodness pay and sturdy so i come out here you know we're all immigrants as well that we all came from somewhere else. loses. its tsu the. posts. on.

the. c c. c. c. and they just. news in the week's top stories this is the weekly here in r.t. there's no stop to the killings in syria as the arab league decides to continue its observer mission aimed at overseeing the implementation of the peace plan. drawn promises told war may be drills in the persian gulf and threatens to block a key oil route in the region as the west tighten sanctions targeting terrans oil and financial sectors. plus six republican candidates race for the right to take on the president in november selection of the current administration support waning across the.