oil exports to the west. it's five pm here in moscow this is r t coming to you live on news and now with our top story this hour and the french finance minister insists it's not a catastrophe but the markets are indicating otherwise a slew of credit rating downgrade has rocked europe depriving france and austria of their prized aaa grades and slashing the scores of seven other nations has hit back at standard and poor's the agency being behind the move calling the decision in comprehensible these tests are silly has more the wider implications. this comes at a time when often as it was just about growing 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 dampen investor confidence and stall that process

now this downgrade of france 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 this 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 this is one of the countries that has been considered too big to fail at it comes just days after the premier mario monti had met in 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 and if this is affected we can see a chain of events unfolding and unfortunately it might more most likely be negative . well that's what analysts patrick young believes there is absolutely nothing surprising about s. and p's latest decision and that it's been a long time coming. 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 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 cents on the precipice tragically i'm not a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world. but only the economy too big to fail has also been dropped two notches by s. and p. many there are exhausting to the reality of austerity and among them is the country's notorious mafia or in that in the kaiser report coming your way in just

over twenty minutes. past the hour now italy's number one bank as crisis bites the primary on monday. running italy is a leg breaker with ties to goldman sachs goes back years already so he's a cap with a capital you know he's of course he's asking the go more are 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 the three card monte you know is the global aspiration to be a gang step on a wall street make part of our loan to extort money. well it's been exactly one year today since the popular uprising brought an end to president ben ali's rule in tunisia but little has improved in that time as the country is still plagued by unemployment and crippling economic problems it has

seen a wave of suicide protest attempts with four people setting themselves a light inside a week desiring the glue school reports the only real change since the revolution of been a surge in radical religious ideas. it may have looked like a successful revolution getting rid of all 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. political culture. of the first experience. making the choice between. political programs it was hard. pushed people to choose either with muslims and muslims. but western tourists need to have nothing to fear the party's leaders say beer and

bikini's irregular staples of tunisia's holidays 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 there are protests that erupted right here at the university several female students came in wearing what is that in this in the islamic headdress which covers most of the face leaving does the eyes open we're going to versus the authorities that prohibit its head from being worn on campus so the students went on strike saying their freedom was being oppressed by 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 in lecturing and during the exams it's a question of security and of trust and the first to believe be acknowledged as 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 simple issue of dress code since usually head dress serves to

protect the woman from possible unwanted advances and actually is for women's rights in the country believe the underlying political tendencies are thinly veiled by the strikes at new beginning versity. but whether a woman 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. 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. not only theirs have made numerous assurances that they're not going to turn to me into a strict sharia law states but many of the country are already saying that the worrying signs are here. are tunisia. but mideast expert

terry goalie told r.t. that the new islamist leaders are indulging in a most know populism and set of real solutions to the country's woes. way in which the young operating that we're. extremely unintelligent president mark good to see congress has been operating. the way in which the new justice for him is to be useful only the start of going social and moral greater to decide what can go on and more can even go on to know more shouldn't go on television is a war within the real problems of third country which are social and economic problems and the plan needs to be implemented rid of the ball of the people who are treatable dictators go back to the so-called morgridge islamist basically concentrating on moral censorship and more people should do in general is

a sign of bankruptcy it's because they are not of the people anything else so they are proceeding along. well so coming up here in our to military optimism outweighs silver intelligence the pentagon proper for us all for us is doing well in afghanistan and the taliban is losing ground while our cia report reads as the campaign is wired in a stalemate. well for look into what america says is good nutritious food for children find out how pizza is classified as and that's the ball in american schools or one child in three is dangerously overweight. but first powerful unions in nigeria plan to resume talks with the government after five consecutive days of nationwide protest against skyrocketing fuel prices and food prices the move comes after the unions threatened to stop all crude and natural gas production this sunday and we get this through are you from. dot com

says financial decisions made by the government drove people to the wall. 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 corruption and mismanagement of their resources and it was driving the fight against the government now it just happened to remove subsidy gosselin it was the stock for the smarts movement. so you can because if revolution. they do has it best we can country a black people we were about to lose their leader and in a year people are calling this an agent hamet turn as opposed to the arab spring. where fears that the total sum town of oil exports from nigeria could deal a major blow to the world's wobbly economy the editor of pan african newswire has

told r.t. the west 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 all that's being imported right now into the nine 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 that's poor form africa and i think united states now see them are on the basis that exporters are from the entire family of him so he was very much concerned about maintaining stability in nigeria for the simple fact that it is heavily reliant upon the organs being imported from nigeria into the united states. but with the tensions in the middle eastern oil fears dominating the world you can always involved with the latest developments on our website our dot com among stories there today the party dignitaries often plant

a tree or two when they leave all this and that's what ross is a former envoy to nato wanted to do at the alliance headquarters but failed to mention that the trees he had i should say in mind share their name with russia's new with nuclear missile or nato reaction is that our website. also i phone craze turns ugly in china a disgruntled one of those stores with eggs prompting the tech giant to shut down its operation in beijing and much more for you at r.t. dot com. u.s. defense secretary leon panetta says the american campaign in afghanistan is suppressing taliban activity and heading in the right direction that's in direct contradiction

to the leaked cia report presented to the white house earlier which casts doubt on the optimistic rhetoric suggesting that the u.s. operation has sunk into stalemate several top commanders have signed a letter of dissent in response to the paper saying it doesn't show an understanding of taliban tactics and is based on flawed evidence the report concludes that troop reinforcements have been ineffective because of corruption incompetent governance and attacks by taliban fighters who are hiding out in neighboring pakistan this may result in an even longer stay by american troops beyond the planned withdrawal in twenty fourteen according to. the new world strategies coalition. it has been twenty years that's not unified the country i should have been. it looks like there's no chance for the americans to see a government standing on the street however this could prolong americans. want

to stay 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 there's a corrupt government cannot function in the way that it is right now the fact is that there's a friction in the white house right now that some more say no basically the pentagon good military is the one that's calling up that same to know we should not really rush and pull out fast as we can. but just ahead with popular disapproval of u.s. wars abroad growing americans will have a chance to vote. changing that match i just don't think it's realistic at all we don't move that quickly it's not the way our system works but the presidential election do later this year we ask what policies americans are looking for whether they think. and this woman created the most

profitable recruitment agency in iraq saying now since rates are the secrets of her success some of them perhaps join her in a few minutes on the latest top line here on our. obesity has long been a major problem for many children across america and while many look for solutions the government stands accused of turning a blind eye to a trend that's causing diabetes and heart disease that spells profit for diet food corporations corporations i say. tasted what's on the menu of u.s. public schools. 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 first stirring the health problem 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 come. for my eyes 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 that the damage so that experts say threats to national security such.

our short but quite telling unscientific poll found americans picking logic over the word of their lawmakers like pizza. it doesn't look good to me to. really be true to its serious or its. belts not just what it's like it's much made of the earth that's what. that's what the nutritional value in that. period whatever it is i don't buy whatever you're feeding in treme about the cheese is terrible knowing that u.s. leaders have a hand in cooking up the ingredients can also leave a bad taste in many mouths in a port in iowa r.t. new york. it's nineteen minutes past the hour let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world fifty three people are reported dead and over one hundred wounded in a bomb attack on she of pilgrims in southern iraq according to local officials of terrorists in police uniform approached the checkpoint and blew himself up in the

middle of a passing crowd hundreds of thousands of shia believers are making their way it's worse shrine in the city of karbala to mark a religious festival scores of pilgrims have reportedly been killed in sectarian violence in the past few weeks despite stepped up security. at least three people have been confirmed dead after a cruise ship carrying over four thousand passengers ran aground off italy's northwest coast sixty nine people are still unaccounted for most of those on board the costa concordia were evacuated on lifeboats or swam ashore the vessel hit a sandbar near the island of didio on friday. iran's foreign ministry has said it has proved to us was behind the assassination of a top nuclear scientist in tehran on wednesday meanwhile thousands of people have been mourning his death in the streets shouting anti-american anti israel slogans he was

the fourth scientist assassinated there in the space of two years all in similar circumstances the us has strongly denied involvement. and now it's time to feature more trailblazers among russia's ex-pat entrepreneurs as they share their stories of success. well in russia foreign job seekers have often been preferred over a local talent but terry limburg who created the staff while recruitment agency took many of the country's homegrown and gifted can do this out of the shadows and she and they have never regretted it. i am really fortunate that i've had a really good run with our business in russia i started sefl in two thousand and that was still during a time when it was a little bit of a crisis here after the ninety 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 we just need to get through the election period and things will probably go very smoothly 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 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 come. also really heavily engaged in sports here in russia so i do take one do i play broom ball i would go bowling i play softball so a lot of different sports i'm involved with a metal really helps the first of all networking is fantastic and the focus that

a lot of it brings is really great like the taekwondo 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 has kept to me 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 it's 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 makes me happy i think it makes a lot of people have. fewer wars abroad and more action on pressing issues at home those appear to be the most popular demands for americans for their presidential candidates more harford is takes to the streets of new york now asking whether it's change they can believe.

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 who 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 will improve 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. i'll be back with a recap of our top stories after a short break. wealthy

british style it's a mess but i'm not surprised. that.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our g. was.

elite in. the. mornings today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are all today. i'm fortunate to you live from moscow our top stories defiance despite the downgrade france says it's not an aching in the wake of losing its top credit rating status at the center of importance in the euro zone increasingly on trade to deal with its debt crisis. for years and the news of president ben ali was ousted the new islamist leaders are fears of ignoring the real issues of poverty and unemployment in favor of spreading the bottom of the list and china.