it's good if you to join us today here on r.t. rory sushi welcome to the program tensions between iran and the west are soaring ever higher with fresh calls on terror and to stop all nuclear enrichment they've come after an urgent un security council session was called by france in response to reports of a new atomic facility in the islamic state meanwhile u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton has dubbed terror on this recent threat to close off a vital oil trade route as a provocation the u.k. has also reportedly sent its best equipped warship to the persian gulf saying it's ready to send more if iran moves to block the strait of hormuz. which you can now looks at the latest in a deepening dispute. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is

simmering. it seems the slightest the increase of heat could make it boil over into an all out confrontation. where we'll be that boiling point the point of no return we're getting closer and closer to war with iran the iranians are playing with fire problems in a crisis if you get where any small thing can really set it off and it doesn't quell washington that the international nuclear watchdog these arm side closely monitoring iran's nuclear activities are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon no but we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability and that's what concerns us and our red line to iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon iran's main source of livelihood is oil export is in danger the u.s. is imposing fresh thank sions that will dramatically complicate transactions through he ran central bank iran is also close to losing europe as a customer the reason that this is happening is that this is the logical conclusion

of our current strategy against iran we have sanctions in place with no diplomacy the only way that that is through confrontation cornered by crippling sanctions iran's threatening to block the strait of hormuz a vital artery through which a sixth of the world's oil is shipped the u.s. replied by moving its fiercely to the region and saying if iran goes for it they will attack experts say the policy of isolating iran may lead to other threats from tehran and the possibility that one day they will go through with their threats but washington signals that it's ready or it wants everybody to believe that it's ready could weigh if we had to without using nuclear weapons ourselves take out their their nuclear capability well i certainly want them to believe that that's the case well is that if i absolutely want them to believe that that's the way that secretary would you add anything to that somebody. it's just a war of words and neither side will go for an all out conflict considering what it

is that it will be for the whole region frankly speaking this tension is artificial it doesn't have to happen it doesn't need to exist the iranians would do themselves an enormous favor by saying less. and we would do ourselves a favor by ignoring most of it all of this sadly i think is connected to israel and the israeli fear of iran for rhetorical reasons more than military ones it may be a war of words but actions are already showing thousands of u.s. troops are being deployed to israel an american citizen has been sentenced to death in the rand convicted of espionage iran might feel cornered and therefore make drastic moves right now it's in a war of words but one bullet shot and the powder keg can blow up the question is what's going to provide that deadly spark i'm going to check our reporting from washington r.t. . and iran is blaming america and israel for the assassination of

a nuclear scientist in tehran on wednesday it's further destabilizing the delicate situation columnist and veteran war correspondent eric margolis believes terrine is willing to retaliate but he's being cautious as he doesn't want to spock a major regional conflict. it's either israel did the killing murder and the united states certainly didn't condemn israel for doing it and gave its assets through a major financial supporter of israel i'm surprised that in fact these attacks have not invited reigning in retaliation against these suspects it in certainly an international crime violence and international law and this issue has not been raised that the u.n. security council which it should be retaliation could be directed against this really were american scientific personalities. in the region i

think the iranians are just very anxious to get revenge but they're being cautious now because it seems not so far away in the gulf american forces massing and there are a growing threats war against. well we always are always looking to know what you think of the stories we cover including this one when i website we are asking you what do you think will come next in the standoff between iran and the west here come your vote from our web site and here we go almost half of the votes say the u.s. will attempt to provoke iran into an all out war just under a third think washington was simply to strike worry about the consequences later but the rest are split fairly equally eleven percent saying iran will try to scare off its adversaries by playing the get out nuclear capability ten percent believe tehran will forge an alliance against the u.s. with countries in south america do not want to. vote right now in our world wide

poll. although with the iranian standoff gaining momentum its bitter rival israel is coming in for a stinging criticism at home head on the program we reported on at the wave of anger over a planned inutile which people there say threatened their freedom of speech and human rights. a foreign journalist has been killed in syria for the first time since the. uprising began a french reporter and more civilians died when shells struck a pro-government rally in the central city of homs both the country's government and the opposition were quick to blame each other for being behind the attack meanwhile one of the arab league monitors in syria has abandoned the observer mission claiming it was unable to achieve its goals another monitor has threatened to follow suit inside twenty four hours despite growing tensions that president assad is still backed by a large number of syrians during

a pro-government rally seen here he once again accused foreign powers of sponsoring the unrest and online news journalist james corbett says the syrian leader may have a point. it's important to understand that when he speaks of this conspiracy that he's going to strike down and these leaks foreign terrorists who are invading his country that this is in fact not something that's open to debate it was actually revealed in documents that were leaked from the u.s. state department last april that prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the u.s. state department has pumped in at least six million dollars secretly and covertly into syrian opposition groups since two thousand and sixty arab league mission there is is pretty much pre-ordained no matter what the mission itself comes out with if there is even one dissenting voice the one dissenting voice will be given all of the media attention so it's a question of which way the the powers that be have decided this is going to go in unfortunately it looks like it's going to stack up in the in favor of military intervention once again. without the view of james kopp at an independent news

journalist based in japan while a professor of international relations or mark almond says that even those opposing assad still prefer him to the idea of a foreign intervention and not to provide the risk of a more bloodshed i think the problem for president assad is that the main centers of resistance to him all based around the borders and that also however is a sign of the limitations on the support for an insurrection against him that it really depends upon getting money weapons and even perhaps personnel across the border from lebanon turkey and to some extent from jordan so we have a kind of standoff president assad has all of us part of the opposition has support we don't really know what ordinary people feel but i think one of the things the president said just trying to do is to say do you want to see debian style civil war chaos. or to worsen this or that happened in iraq a few years ago and that's quite

a powerful argument for people not necessary to be taught how to porters and certainly not to want to see themselves die in a brutal civil conflict that could spiral out of control. marty is also explore this issue in more depth with a professor of middle east politics jeremy salt he believes that the death toll figures in the conflict may have been exaggerated and the not of all the fault of the regime you can watch that full interview that will be next hour here on our t.v. for now a quick preview. human rights council reports four thousand but there was no explanation of that figure where they go. a few days later. who's the u.n. human rights commissioner she stood at the security council and said five thousand and could the figure echoes around the world and i think it lodges in the popular imagination is five thousand people being killed by the syrian government but security forces by the military whatever whereas in fact i don't think it's any

doubt at all that a large number of military of civilians have been killed by armed gangs and part of it is so what we actually need to do is to aggregate these figures. are he has come to you live from moscow yet another scandal is erupting for u.s. forces in afghanistan this time in the form of a you tube video which appears to show american marines urinating on the corpses of afghan fighters the video went viral in just a few hours causing outrage and revulsion among viewers the u.s. department of defense has promised to investigate or to talk more about the video in the possible consequences i'm now joined live from islamabad by our president of the nationalists pakistan's first political lobbying group thank you for coming on the program the afghan president has condemned the incident as quote shame for all

that he said he wouldn't do rail peace talks are there many concerning thinking about other concerns that this could cause some type of a militant backlash what are your thoughts. well it's quite obvious that the u.s. military presence in afghanistan has lost legitimacy completely i mean we are we are. we are far ahead from those days when the united states military presence had some sort of an international. legal cover in the shape of a u.n. mandate after the nine eleven attacks what we're seeing right now is that is a fig leaf and and the u.s. military presence in afghanistan has turned into a complete occupation and the result of this we're seeing that there is a complete sort of we're reaching a point where the u.s. military is closer to defeat then to any other time and this is the reason for this defeat is that the local of the population has turned against the u.s. military presence and the foreign military presence and

a lot of it's done now we must understand one thing it is a fig leaf this terror group to end and destroy this terror group was important but i think more and more analysts now are reaching the conclusion that this target to suggest it was achieved i think sometime back probably the two thousand and six or two thousand and seven and the united states should have really rolled back its presence in afghanistan at that stage what we're seeing after that is really the slow and quiet transformation of opulence done in two and american military base where the u.s. military is basically saying or if i may just interrupt just a moment i do apologize for interrupting as you say the original u.s. in a very small afghanistan has not prolong itself into that of an occupation but if we could just focus as we go about this video that allegedly shows the u.s. marines urinating on the corpses to. afghanis it's one thing very sad to see the

video but on the other hand when it comes to war there is a sense of a humanizing that goes on is it really fair do you think to judge the state of the mission in afghanistan by the apparent action over fema remains with incidents like this appalling if they all happen on both sides of any war take a look back to a few years ago in iraq and other members of blackwater being dragged through the streets. he has us true it does happen but this should not really be used as an excuse to sort of go soft let's say on this military presence list on forget that the americans came to understand with the explicit objective also off transforming this country into a more humane country into a democracy and we are seeing happening right now with the appearance of this kind of video it's the opposite and it is having an impact let's not forget that this is a region where religious values are really very deep deeply entrenched and the way

you treat bodies and the way you treat the dead is something that is treated very secretly here and with this video you can you can rest assured that this will have an impact in terms of the kind of reaction the kind of backlash to this will generate this video will generate against the very. the american soldiers who are there right now in afghanistan it really in danger is their life so what it is fair to say that with this video surfacing the lives of american soldiers in afghanistan have become more let's say in a more precarious situation than they were before this video when you when you talk about a potential backlash we're now having a statement from a top taliban official saying in response to this video will at least continue for the foreseeable future the u.s. state department the pentagon says they are investigating this video allegedly showing u.s. marines urinating on what we what we believe about soldiers here do you ever at any

point expect a formal apology to come out of washington d.c. regarding this. oh. possible at all i don't think it will happen we haven't seen the americans relieve apologized for any frankly off the off the attacks or killings or murders. murders of citizens are citizens in this war and that will not happen and the biggest example of course that we have is what happened in november the murder of twenty six pakistani soldiers in an attack by u.s. helicopters and an apology is not forthcoming deseret going to happen also in the case of bombs president of the pac national forum of pakistan's political lobbying group thank you thank. you watching r.t. the world's most controversial person has now turned ten years old and the anniversary of guantanamo bay was met with protests all around the world and fresh calls as well on

a president obama to keep his election promise and shut it down but today about say fading fantasy after washington acted a new law now allowing the military to indefinitely detain anyone it deems hostile laura smith reports. one homeowner one. abdel moneim am absolutely today is probably just another day for the inmates of guantanamo bay they may not even know that people around the world are campaigning for them but as far afield as london demonstrations are held to demand the release of the hundred seventy one men still held without trial in the cuban camp after ten years one of those men is shaka omer who's earned the dubious distinction of being the last british resident held in guantanamo he was in afghanistan or nine eleven he says doing charity work digging wells and building a girls' school in kabul. when the u.s.

invasion began almost went into hiding from an increasingly wary northern alliance but his freedom didn't last shuckers supporters maintain he was sold for a bounty went into the hands of the northern alliance who were warlords basically and he actually thought all the americans that my goodness it will save me from the torture that he's had lots of torture by the way but no he was transported to the internet and back he has remains despite president obama's original election pledge to close guantanamo altogether despite being cleared for release and despite being a legal permanent resident in the u.k. with family in london which includes one son he's never even seen and fall for a moving closer to being freed shuckers supporters see worrying developments in the us is attitude to extrajudicial detention obama recently signed the national

defense authorization act which places domestic terror investigations into the hands of the military and extends a ban on transferring prisoners out of kuantan i'm very sorry indeed president obama for reasons of. the political will. complete inability to live. up to that promise. is now bracing to book american citizens. in military commissions very far from being. the british government has requested the release of but there's been no movement on the case since two thousand and seven meanwhile as his family grows up without him he lives out his life in a tiny windowless not knowing whether he can expect to be released. if a reporter. talks to us or you can find more about him in our story at r.t.

dot com and see what else is available on our website at the moment of a crying shame of north korean authorities. punish the citizens who didn't display enough to the death of former leader kim jong il. the examines the first reason to be considered up to no good has become the issue of skin color. in about five minutes time is the business but for now the chorus of critics is growing in israel against the so-called boycott law punishes anyone who speaks out against the country's settlement construction in the west bank human rights

activists of time to israel supreme court to overturn the legislation but as artie's reports there's a whole raft of other controversial bill that might not be to their liking. gershon baskin is a wanted man in israel for his outspoken views against the government's policy of settlement expansion it's ironic because if it wasn't for those left wing israeli activist it's dark for israel would have secured a recent prisoner swap that's always way the soldier gilad shalit exchanged for palestinian prisoners after five years in captivity gershon says it was his contacts within him us that allowed the two sides to reach an agreement but now a controversial so-called boycott law threatens to fly in the post war hero if he steps out of line the appeal to the public is an arab appeal. and there is a competition of who is more strongly advocating a position which is a very arab what the law says is that any israeli could face legal action just for

speaking out in favor of boycotting settlements the first steps to fascism are quiet so. i i hope that the supreme court is allowed scoring telling us that fascism shouldn't pass but for now the supreme court is keeping quiet the state attorney again this month asked for more time to consider the arguments angering gabion her team who filed a petition to another law the morning after it was passed in parliament until the court rules otherwise israeli owners of companies based in the settlements can seek damages for boycotts called against the goods i don't accept any boycott not by the . right not boycott the boycott law is one of several controversial pieces of legislation being advanced by the netanyahu government a number of similarly criticized bills are currently under discussion in the israeli parliament another ball aims to dramatically limit foreign funding of nongovernmental groups critical of israel it's expected to receive cabinet approval

soon this is a very conservative right wing coalition they have a solid majority in parliament but. still they sort of promote these bills which which are preceded not only by the left but by the press by the courts . is not encouraging democracy ok or sort of limiting free speech in israel many here think it's a way for the right wing coalition government of prime minister netanyahu to stay in power but for people like gershon baskin he says he'll continue to call for a boycott of the settlements and far from since when him the law has only strengthened his resolve to stop israel's growing onslaught on democracy policy r.t. tel aviv. all right so let's check out some other international news in brief with the art world out there now a mudslide and severe flooding caused by two days of heavy downpours has killed at

least twenty nine people in southeast brazil almost a dozen are missing thirty thousand residents meantime have been forced to flee their homes more than thirteen hundred people died or went missing last year because of the floods in the same mountainous region. a south korean fishing vessel has burst into flames in the southern ocean near antarctica claiming three lives thirty seven crewmen were rescued including seven who were severely burned in the fire so that started in the living quarters of the ship the boat which is still burning is to be towed away from antarctica to minimize the impact on the environment. well our let's get to some amazing pictures of adrenaline junkies storming the russian well railways have a look right here one day a devil climbed the roof of the country's fastest train just before its departure from one of moscow's main railway stations not a film that you can see this is the hair raising footage as he defied sub zero temperatures speeds of up to three hundred kilometers. something.

well if you stay with us for the business news daniel his next. book the business the threat of oil supply disruptions continues to trouble investors as japan the second largest consumer of iranian crude but its new sanctions against the islamic republic mean more the nigerian oil union has started shutting down the platforms of america's top petroleum producers in support of the bonds for the return of fuel subsidies energy strategy davis says reshuffle the middle east energy supplies could offer russian crude a great opportunity other oil producers might benefit from the removal of the reigning oil from the world market and in particular russia produces a crude which is fairly similar in quality to the iranian crude and a lot of the refineries in europe in the mediterranean which currently run rate you

crude. would find euro's crude to be very useful as a substitute. let's take a look at the markets now oil first post brant and lloyd's sweeter up over a dollar a barrel today after hitting a two week low earlier in the week has been triggered by the concerns we just heard that the strike in nigeria and threats of more sanctions against iran's nuclear program crude supplies stock markets have shot up in italy and spain off the boring course fill in did talk today in a sign that those countries are getting to grips with the euro did millions jumped almost three percent on thursday london and frankfurt are also higher this hour. here in moscow the markets have picked up their first gains for the week both e.l.t.'s and my six a whole ring around one percent in the black at the moment this is a look at some of the share moves on the minus six today energy majors are on the rise this hour gas monopoly from is up over

a percent after its announced plans to spend five point seven billion dollars on the sochi winter olympics in twenty fourteen well joy has slipped into the red in the last hour as investors cash in on this week's gains carmaker after verse is among the main winners for the second day running some reports the alliance plans to increase its share in the russian carmaker to fifty percent in the first quarter of this year. global investment major goldman sachs has boyd three russian stocks traded on the nasdaq the bank has upgraded the ratings of internet search engines and to mobile phone operators vimpel com and m.t.s. each now given a boy grade in place of the old neutral expectations that russia's economy with a global slowdown better than other nations more exposed to the e.u. crisis. and the russian car market stall sales jumped thirty nine percent in twenty eleven. european businesses as they reached over two and a half million vehicles that's much higher than for coffee still hasn't managed to

get back to pre-crisis levels yet. expects the market to screw a slower pace this year worldwide economic uncertainty. that's the business for now to join us for more nextel.

thank you. the official. from the. video. feed.

five thirty pm here in the russian capital. if you had lines as a storm brews over iran the west accuse it of provocation and its a specialist developing nuclear. iran blames the u.s. and israel for the assassination of a fourth scientist into the. violence in syria claims the life of a foreign journalist for the first time since the on the rest of the arab league to continue its observer mission there.