i. fly from our headquarters in central moscow you're watching r t with me and you so now it's two pm here in the russian capital eleven am in brussels and it will be a soul searching weekend for the eurozone with credit rating agencies standard and poor's downgrade ing nine countries the biggest blow was to france the currency union second largest economy which has been stripped of its top notch status along with austria the commission has described the decision as inconsistent sets are cilia has more from brussels. this comes at a time when optimism was just about going up when it comes to the euro zone with some positive data coming out first week of two thousand and twelve well clearly a new such as this would again down to investor confidence and a stall that process now france one of the countries is leading the efforts and

bringing about this fiscal compact agreed upon by the european leaders now this downgrade of frenzy was not entirely unexpected i mean s. and p. had given it warnings the last year and even a lot of the analysts we've been talking to had said that a french downgrade was imminent so now that it has actually happened still the markets reacted negatively to all of this is happening because of france's role in the bailouts is one of the reasons in the it's role in the bailouts of greece and italy through the european central bank as well support your goal so it has left the financial system the banking system of france in a very vulnerable position now what it comes to italy now this is one of the countries that has been considered too big to fail and it comes just days after the premier mario monti had met at berlin with german chancellor angela merkel and french president nicolas sarkozy where they stressed the growth prospects when it comes to credit ratings agencies there's a lot of indignation coming from e.u.

leaders there saying that all of this is happening at a time when the eurozone is trying to get out of the crisis and they've put out bad news like this and in the past they have attempted to limit the influence of credit ratings agencies in the financial markets and if you remember we go back to the question the credibility of these agencies going back to two thousand and eight financial crisis the role that they played in that crisis where they had backed assets as well as financial instruments that were essentially junk still the investor confidence one of the most important aspects of all of this which is more often than not psychological than rational if this is affected we can see a chain of events unfolding and unfortunately it might more most likely be negative . well investment analyst patrick young says the downgrade has been a long time coming and is disastrous news for the euro it's been deserved frankly for several years i mean the french government has been economically incontinent

for the course of several decades they've lived in never never land they have no concept of how to run a reasonable economy in terms of not spending more money than they can afford the edge of disaster for mr sarkozy but then again it's been coming since the start of his presidency it's been building for twenty five years and he did nothing about it so he's just as culpable as everybody else in this issue on the future of the euro everything is not up for grabs again it emotionally destabilizes every single aspect of the euro because we still have no leadership in the euro zone we've got situations like greece needing fourteen and a half billion euros to refund in march alone the euro cents on the precipice tragically and not a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world. where italy dropped two notches in the latest downgrade decision that one thirty pm g.m.t. max kaiser and stacy herbert exposed those who are still raking it in the supply

and the tough times. here now italy's number one bank as crisis bites the sky marial monti. running italy here is a leg breaker with ties to goldman sachs goes back years already so he's a capital capital you know he's of course he's asking the go more or in the course of nostra from the south to come up north baby we've got a lot of people here you can find actually rape with your predatory loads these says a three card monte. tunisia is marking the first anniversary of the revolution that triggered the arab spring and change the face of an entire region while the country can boast of peaceful transition radical religious ideas are on the rise as are going to go now reports. it may have looked like a successful revolution getting rid of authoritarian regime while retaining its

westernized facade but in parliamentary elections that followed tunisians voted for a naga and islamist party which now firmly holds the majority of seats in the new parliament. of political culture. the first experience. making the choice between. political programs it was hard especially political campaign. that pushed people to choose either with muslims and then muslims. if you. go but western tourists need to have nothing to fear the party's leaders say beer and bikini's irregular staples of tunisia's holidays hot spots are here to stay yet recent events at the maneuver university one of the largest in the country show the tunisian ways are indeed changing their protests erupted right here on the we're going to verse thirty several female students came in wearing. this in the islamic

headdress which covers most of the face leaving does the eyes open we're going to versus the authorities have evidence that's had. so the students went on strike saying their freedom was being oppressed almost for. the majority of students were against the strike but they were threatened by those in the minority we held out on principle we are against girls wearing head dress and during the exams it's a question of security and of trust and professor believe he acknowledged the students right to wear whatever they please after all she says this is the essence of freedom but in the case with niqab she felt a different from the simple issue of dress code since usually head dress serves to protect the woman from possible unwanted advances and activists for women's rights in the country believe the underlying political tendencies are thinly veiled by the strikes at the new beginning versity. a lot but bad about whether one wears any cop or whatever else this thing's an important i'm not afraid of women's desire to wear

head dress i'm afraid that this issue may be used to provoke other problems the parliamentary opposition meanwhile fears this may mean bad news for the newly born tunisian democracy you know because i've had the covert chemical we're worried that we may slump down to a new hedge of money ruled by one of the representative parties and not to receive forty percent of the seats in the assembly the post of prime minister is also there's every tunisian is afraid that confrontations and riots may occur. the larger leaders have with us a certain sense that they're not going to turn to media interest to sharia law states but maybe the country are already saying that the worrying signs are here in those r.t. tunisia. when middle east expert terek of the told r.t. that the new islam is leaders are indulging in emotional populism instead of trying to bring on a practical change the way in which the army has been operating the way in which

this extremely unintelligent president market will see what has been operating and the way in which the new justice minister than the slimy this sort of going social and moral crater to decide what can go on and what can even go on and what shouldn't go on television is avoiding the real problems of photogrammetry which are social and economic problems and a plan needs to be implemented to help the boy of the people who outreach aapl the dictators go back to be so-called moderate islamists of basically concentrating on moral censorship and what people should do in general is a sign of the bankruptcy it's because they are not of the people anything else so they are receding along. meanwhile in syria there is a warning from the head of the arab the that the conflict torn nation is sliding into civil war it comes as tens of thousands rallied on the streets after the

largest civilian opposition group decided to both cooperation with an armed faction western leaders are continuing to work past. regime debate is now a priority at the u.n. with russian proposed draft resolution on the table but ashlan burn from the lebanese great conflict told r.t. that the white is more interested in regime change. this is actually a project very much about regime change and the aim of it is the way it's part of the war on iran which is that right tbilisi started and there were comments by the national security advisor from the us tom donilon by jeffrey feltman in his testimony to congress which has basically been very explicit about the regime change of gender of the u.s. they've been very careful to acknowledge any kind of being perpetrated by any others apart from the government forces in syria but i think just

a few days ago the u.s. ambassador didn't mean it that actually there is violence there is there are. active who are not government forces. and with antigovernment feeling now rising rapidly in nigeria after an oil subsidy was axed the fear is an arab spring style situation lies ahead. later in the program we have how the situation might turn out from one of the biggest oil suppliers to the black. but with for a nutritionist once in american schools we explore why pizzas are being classed as best symbols in a country where one in three kids are overweight. but first a leaked cia report says the situation in afghanistan is mired in stalemate contradicting recent optimistic pentagon statements the sobering conclusion is

deepening divisions between u.s. intelligence and the military about the outcome of the decade long war the report also claims that attempts to improve security are being undermined by corruption incompetent governance and taliban fighters operating safely from neighboring pakistan. who's a co-founder of the new world strategies coalition told r.t. this situation in afghanistan is so graham that the u.s. might be having second thoughts on this drawing. it has been ten years that has not unified the country i said should have been it looks like there is no chance for the americans to see a government standing on its feet however this could prolong americans be honest on for quite a number of years i would say and the years are unknown at this time but it looks like it's going to be a long time because of a different corrupt government cannot function in the way that it is right now the

fact is that there is a friction in the white house right now that some or say no basically the pentagon going to a treaty is the one that's calling off that same to know we should not really here rush in pull out fast as we can. neighboring pakistan is also far from being stable with tensions boiling between the country's political and military leaders parties military contributor thanks if the policies of islamabad our ally the us which are shaking its internal situation it was the white house strategic mistake. to authorized a unilateral operation in a budget in may last year that has effectively undermined the pakistani civilian government the white house decision to go unilaterally against osama bin laden has triggered a chain of events that has resulted in a total paralysis of the pakistani government the result of that

a government right now he's under the cross fire pakistani military on its own supreme court and the pakistani population at large we have no end in sight so the only way to stabilize the situation in pakistan and in their region as a whole. to beat for will pick up and go home that's the best the u.s. can do well fewer foreign wars while battling more answers on the home front appears to be what most americans want from their presidential candidates or harford has now asked voters in new york whether they think the upcoming election will bring any tangible change to u.s. policy. this year the us has the opportunity to elect a new president are they ready for radical change this week let's talk about that

changing that much i just don't think is realistic at all we don't move that quickly it's not the way our system works and it will move in different directions over time but i don't think it's going to happen do you think that's a detriment to us that everything takes so long. maybe but it's the way the system works and i think that those checks and balances in the way that it moves slowly actually is good in the long run well they thought they were ready four years ago for radical change do you think they had radical change so far i feel like they had a radical change in the wrong direction so what direction do you think it should go in the way of the people which is what which is when the government actually works for us not for themselves the change i would like to see would be probably they would be complimentary because there are some libertarian ideas that are great but you just can't pull the social fabric out from the folks that need it you can't do it i'm a really hard time with the fed and i think we should be out of all countries you

know we should be occupying anything but we need to take care of our own i think you need somebody who is prepared to stick his head out and do big changes or i like to say do you think that the u.s. people would get behind the leader that that that if they get desperate enough because of the split that's happening with people who are employed not employed to have money and no money they desperately nuffield at it whether or not the u.s. needs radical change the bottom line is it remains to be seen whether or not they'll vote for it. powerful unions in nigeria are warning it will shut down all crude and natural gas production in the country on sunday if the government doesn't reply. a fuel subsidy to keep prices down situation is threatening to turn nigeria into the next arab spring style trouble spot as i'm well yeah so warring from the so how reporters dot com news magazine tells r.t.

axing the subsidy it was the straw that broke the camel's back but it's clear that this is not some kind of mass action or strikes didn't buy the union a little you know this is the nigerian people rising up years of dictatorship of corruption and mismanagement of their resources and it was driving the fight against the government now just happened to. cause the stock market movement. so you could become a frugal revolution. that you had the best. country to a black people we were about to lose their leader and you know your people are calling this an urgent how my turn as opposed to the arab spring. well united states has a close eye wants happening in nigeria as it depends heavily on the nation's oil the editor of the past for can news wire says that washington has every reason to be concerned we have to keep in mind that right now as far as the united states is

concerned some twenty five percent of the all that's happening imported right now into the united states is coming from the african continent nigeria is the number one on our exports to the united states and poland is number two in fact. all of that is it's poor form africa and think united states now seen. all of the places that exported from the entire we're going to so he was very much concerned about maintaining stability in nigeria for the simple fact that it is heavily reliant upon the ball that's being imported from nigeria into the united states. it's eighteen minutes past the hour a look now at what else is making news around the world first to iraq where fifteen pilgrims have been killed by a suicide bomber near the city of but they were among the hundreds of thousands of shia muslims from across the country and abroad who are making their way to

a holy shrine in the city of karbala they are observing the high point in their religious calendar over thirty thousand iraqi security forces remain on high alert in the area. a cruise ship with over four thousand people on board has grounded off italy's northwest coast at least three bodies have been recovered with more than a dozen others still missing most of those on board the coast of concordia were evacuated from the vessel after it hit a reef near the island of vo late on friday passengers reported a loud bang during dinner and were told the ship had stopped because of electrical problems. abbas has exploded into a fireball in peru during a crash which killed at least eleven people it was carrying dozens of passengers when it hit a cement lorry head on causing a massive explosion many on board suffered severe burns while recovery teams say they're having trouble identifying some of the worst affected victims it's not yet known why the two vehicles collided. but millions of american children are

classified as obese as a result the u.s. government is making sure they get a full serving of nutritious vegetables from the school cafeteria there are still some unhealthy definitions making the menu in the guidelines are these were in a fortnight explains why. it's a super sized crisis impossible for america to disguise an insatiable love for food and big portions has served up a nationwide majority of overweight children none of us want this future for our kids as first lady michelle obama attempts to tackle the epidemic by advocating more exercise healthy eating and penning a book about the white house garden u.s. lawmakers are getting kudo's for stirring the how problem her efforts which i applaud in a single woman tension fear will go nowhere given the allure of the. recent decision by the congress to send pizza was

a vegetable you heard correctly the greasy cheesy cheap meal known as pizza is served as a lunch vegetable to thirty two million public school children how because u.s. department of agriculture guidelines qualify two tablespoons of tomato paste as an official veggie serving in november u.s. congress rejected a request from the department that would have changed requirements and ultimately removed from school menus congress has really shown who controls them and that's the big corporations and the big food corporations companies like con agra and swans these are the makers of the frozen pizza and they have huge financial interests in that obviously ok we're going to publish reports food companies spend five point six billion dollars this year lobbying specifically to keep pizza friendly u.s.d.a. guidelines in place the social consequence of overweight kids has millions

currently battling diabetes and millions more vulnerable to heart disease and shortened life expectancy granted issues such as corporate control and obesity are not new problems for america but over the years the hunger for profits. compromised the health of an entire generation the u.s. department of defense says twenty five percent of the young americans are too overweight to join the military and epidemic so bad experts say threats to national security. our short but quite totally unscientific poll found americans picking logic over the world of their lawmakers like pizza. it doesn't going to mean a. funeral. we try to speak to the surface but that's not

enough to put it like this much made of the earth that's what. that's what the nutritional value in this. period whatever it is i don't buy whatever you're feeding in the cheese is terrible knowing that u.s. leaders have a hand in cooking up the greedy and can also leave a bad taste in many mouths. r.t. new york. well if you missed any of our stories from the mall at our dot com let's have a look at what else is find out for you there right now russ and branson are get fire power instead of firewood after accidently being sent a deadly arsenal of colossal it called rifles instead of winter fuel. and pointing blame at a seventy six year old millionaire who was in hot water after breaking a waitress rangar at a swanky restaurant in florida find the full story at archie dot com.

now more first hand experience of what it means to be an entrepreneur in russia as pathfinders talks to experts discovering the country's potential. just. russian managers certainly have a perception problem with domestic companies prefer to hire foreigners believing local talent isn't up to scratch but terry lyndall who created the staff well recruitment agency has a different story to tell. i am really fortunate that i've had a really good run with our business in russia i started southall in two thousand and that was still during a time when it was a little bit of a crisis here after the ninety eight financial crisis and i think the key to our being successful one of them a very big one and we had an excellent chief accountant who really helped us set up the whole financial side of this business and that to me for going to set up any

company in russia you have to have a good finance team we have one competitor here who set up their business right at the beginning of the actually right before the crisis so they came in about two thousand and seven and they really i mean they did not survive i mean they're here but they've had to downscale their offices like a skeleton crew and that's because they i mean some of the things that they did you know they did wrong they had management that was not successful they had huge huge expenses right now i mean we're still in an upswing at stafford which means that recruitment is moving along nicely with any business for it to be successful you've got to constantly be on top of it and constantly motivate everyone to just keep going if you want to succeed no matter what the market environment is i think there's a lot of opportunities here you have to have the you have to have the drive to do that you know and that's what i think you know naturally in the world russia as well as anywhere else sometimes there's a fear of putting that drive into place or there's there are some you know barriers

maybe but but anything can be done here if you just put your mind to it i mean look at me i open my company and it's you know one of the strongest recruiting firms in russia and who was i you know i don't have the big education or the big experience but i had the drive and i had the will and i had a love of what i did and i wanted to succeed and i just pushed myself and i worked extremely hard day and night nonstop and i loved every single minute of it so that's the key i'm also really heavily engaged in sports here in russia. so i do take one do i play broom ball i will go bowling i play softball so a lot of different sports i'm involved with a metal really helps the first of all networking and the focus that a lot of it brings is really great like the type of for instance for me it takes away a lot of the stress that i may have sometimes on different things and i can bring it in here and just be much more focused and i am i'm always accomplishing it i think my family is you know it's extremely important to me and that's one of the

things that is kept to be here obviously is we're here they're very happy here and now i get a lot of support from them in terms of i mean everything i do is for them really you know the love of my life my little boys are just incredible and i really have a great family and very close and that's why you do everything i think you know in life so it's very positive place to be and that makes me happy i think it makes a lot of people have lots. of special report on journalist caught in the cross-fire during the war in iraq is coming up for you in just about three minutes that's after a recap of our main stories after this break. if

they shoot something inappropriate from the public they can easily be shown to accept casualties of war ok. i wish he would have never happened but it has. been a war a t.v. camera becomes an unnecessary what does their own safety all foreign nationals including journalists and inspectors should leave around. and this clear what happens with such witnesses i got it on my site. one of many

objects submitted. to her shoes shooting on our. oh.

at three thirty pm moscow time these are the top stories on our chain the eurozone suffers a fresh financial blow as nine nations get a downgrade from credit ratings agency standard and poor's france and austria have lost their top scores sending markets into a sharp fall with the single currency hitting its lowest mark in over a year. to news or marks a year since president ben ali was toppled by an uprising that also spearheaded a wave of revolution.