it's three pm here in moscow this is r t coming to you live from news to now with our top story this hour and it will be a soul searching weekend for the eurozone with credit rating agencies standard and poor's downgraded 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 e.u. commission has described the decision as inconsistent says our silvia 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 role in the bailouts of greece of italy through the european central bank as well as of portugal 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 is 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 and 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 his disastrous news for the euro has 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 neverland they have no concept of how to run a reasonable economy in terms of not spending more money than they can afford it's

a 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 sits on the precipice tragically and not a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world but italy dropped two notches in the latest downgrade decisions at one thirty pm g.m.t. max kaiser and seizing herbert exposed those who are still raking it in despite 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 out of north baby we got a lot of people here you can find actually rape with your predatory loads mario monti says a three card monte. well tunisia is marking the first anniversary of the revolution that triggered the arab spring and changed the face of the entire region and while the culture can boast a peaceful transition radical religious ideas are on the rise as a radical there are 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 another and islamist party which now firmly holds the majority of seats in the new

parliament. of political culture. for the first experience. making the choice between. political programs it was hard. 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. hotspots 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 at the amman they were going to verse thirty several female students came in wearing which is the traditional islamic headdress which covers most of the face leaving does the eyes open we're going to versus the authorities have prohibited. us so the students went on strike

saying their freedom was being oppressed almost for. the majority of students were against the strike but there was threatened by those in the minority we held out on principle we are against girls wearing head dress in lecturing and during the exams it's a question of security and of trust and professor believed he acknowledged the students right to wear whatever they please after all she says this is the essence of freedom but in the niqab she felt a different from the. 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. whether a woman wears any cop or whatever else this thing's an important i'm not afraid of women's desire to wear a 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. we're worried that we may slump down to a new head to moni rule 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 or. the other leaders have it worse this year and says that they're not going to turn tunisia into is to sharia law states but maybe the country already saying that the worrying signs are here in the r t tunisia. when it is the expert eric told r.t. that the new islamist leaders are indulging in emotional populism and sort of trying to bring any practical change. the way in which the young me speed operating that we're in which is extremely unintelligent president mark good to see who has been operating and the way in which the new justice minister than the

slow minister of going social and moral crozier to decide what can go on and what can even go on to know more shouldn't go on television is awarding the real problems of photogrammetry which are social and economic problems and the plan needs to be implemented to help the board the people who outreach aapl the dictators goes back to the so-called moderate islamist of basically concentrating on moral censorship and what people should do in general is a sign of the bankruptcy it's because they cannot for the people anything else so they are receding along. meanwhile in syria there is a warning from the head of the arab league that the conflict or nation is sliding into civil war it comes as tens of thousands rallied on the streets after the largest million opposition group decided to boost cooperation with an armed action

western leaders are continuing to put pressure on president assad regime the debate is now a priority at the u.n. ambassador post draft resolution on the table by passing byrne from the lebanese based conflicts forum told r.t. that the west is more interested in raising taxes. this is actually a project very much about regime change and the aim of it is that 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 agenda of the u.s. they've been very careful up till now to acknowledge any kind. perpetrated by any others apart from the government forces in syria but i think just a few days ago the u.s. ambassador did admit that actually there is violence there is there are. actors active who are not government. well in with anti-government feeling now rising

rapidly in nigeria after an oil subsidy was axed the fear is an arab spring style such a way said lies ahead. revolution later in the program we ask how the situation may turn out from one of the biggest oil suppliers to the united states. plus how's this for a once in american schools we explore wide pizzas are being planned for just that symbols in a country where one in three kids are overweight. but first the leaked cia report says that 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 could be a lorry who is the co-founder of the new world strategies coalition told r.t. the situation in afghanistan is so grim that the u.s. might be having second thoughts about withdrawing. it has been ten years that has not unified the country i said should have been it looks like there's no chance for the americans to see a government standing on its feet however this could prolong americans be on a stone 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 the victims of a 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 get some more say no basically the pentagon going military is the one that's calling up that same to know we should not really

rush in and 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 artie's military contributor thinks it's the policies of islam about ally the us which are shaking its internal situation it was the white house strategic mistake to authorized a unilateral operation in. in may last year but 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. government right now he's under the close for pakistani military it's really cool 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 bid for a will pick up and go hold that's the best the u.s. can do well if you were foreign wars while battling more issues on the home front appears to be what most americans want from their presidential candidates or hard finesse now asked voters in new york whether they think the upcoming election will bring any tangible change to u.s. policies. 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 i think we'll 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 were i

like to say do you think that the u.s. people would get behind a leader that did 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 nuff you look 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 the sun down all crude and natural gas production in the country on sunday if the government doesn't replace a fuel subsidy to keep prices down situation is threatening to turn nigeria into the next arab spring style trouble spot as a more unisa warrior from the sorry reporters dot com news magazine tells r.t. axing the subsidy 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 by the unions or little you

know this is the nigerian people rise in the. years of dictatorship of corruption and mismanagement of their resources and it was driving the fight against the government now it just happened to remove the subsidy gosselin it was the stock market movement. so you could be. a revolution. the best we can country to a black people we were about to lose their leader and in a year people are calling this dinner joint how my turn as opposed to the arab spring. the united states has a close eye on what's happening in nigeria as it depends heavily on the nation's oil the editor of the pan-african 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 being imported right now

into the united states is coming from the african continent nigeria is the number one export to the united states and its number two in fact. all of that is export from africa into united states now seeing. all of the basic exported from the entire arabian peninsula so he u.s. is 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. let's take a look at what else is making news around the world first to iraq where at least fifty pilgrims have been killed by a suicide bomber near the city of basra they were among hundreds of thousands of shia muslims from across the country and abroad were making their way to a holy shrine in the city of karbala there observing a high point on their religious calendar over thirty thousand iraqi security forces remain on high alert in the area that. 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 costa concordia were evacuated from the vessel after it hit a reef near the island of. late on friday passengers reported a loud bang during dinner and we're told the ship had stopped because of electrical problems. the bus was about it into a fireball in route during the crash which killed at least eleven people it was carrying dozens of passengers when it hit a cement truck head on collision a massive explosion many on board suffered severe burns while recovery teams say they're having trouble identifying some of the worst affected victims not yet known why the two vehicles collided. now millions of american children are classified as obese and as a result the u.s. government is making sure they're get a full serving of nutritious vegetables from the school cafeteria but there are

still some unhealthy definitions making the menu in the guidelines aren't is more important 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 wants 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 first 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 to tablespoons of tomato paste as an official veggie survey 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 according to published 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 has. compromised the health of an entire generation the u.s. department of defense says twenty five percent of young americans are too overweight to join the military and that the damage 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 look good to me no. not at all . we try to speak to the surface but. it's not enough to put it like this much made of beer at all that's what. that's what the nutritional value in that.

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 you can always find them online at ardsley dot com let's have a look at what else is lined up for you there today a russian a pensioner gets firepower instead of firewood after accidentally being sent to their arsenal. at a winter fuel. and pointing blame at a seventy six year old millionaire is that hot water after breaking a waiter's finger at a swanky restaurant in florida find the full story of our team. more firsthand experience now what it means to be an entrepreneur in russia pathfinders talks to ex-pats were 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 lynn burke 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 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 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 i mean right now i mean we're still in an upswing at staffel 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 metal really helps the first of all networking in 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 who are. well from dentistry to the big screen we've been meeting all kinds of experts success stories and russia in our pathfinder series and if you missed any of our profiles you can find them all at our dot com we're going to take a short break and i'll be back with a recap of our top stories in just a moment. thank

you.

here with our to you live from moscow our top stories the eurozone suffers a fresh financial blow as nine nations get a downgrade from credit ratings agency standard and poor's france and austria lost their top score sending markets into a sharp fall with the single currency getting 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 the wave of revolutions across the arab world.