and it's all exports which are vital to the west. it's seven pm here in moscow this is r t coming to you live on news 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 stew of credit rating downgrades has rocked europe depriving france in austria of their prized aaa grades and slashing the scores of seven other nations leaders hit back at standard and poor's the agency behind the move calling the decision in comprehensible are two steps are silly has more on the wider implications from brussels. 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 down to investor confidence and

a stall in that process now this downgrade of france was not entirely unexpected i mean s. and p. had given that 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 of 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 when it comes to italy 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 in berlin with the council i believe merkel and french president nicolas sarkozy were 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 . investment analyst patrick young believes there's absolutely nothing surprising about s. and p's latest decision and 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 never land 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 eurozone 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 that's a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world. italy the economy dubbed too big to fail has also been dropped two notches by s. and p. many there are just saying the reality of austerity and among them is the country's notorious mafia more on that in the kaiser report coming your way seven hundred

thirty g.m.t. . mafia now italy's number one bank as crisis bites the sky mariel monti. running italy gave a leg breaker with ties to goldman sachs goes back years already so he's a capital gap oh you know he's of course he's asking to go more in the course of nostra from the south to come up north baby we got a lot of people here you can find actually rape with your part of torah loaves mario monti says a three card monte you know is the globalist parisian to be a gangster on a wall street make part of door a load of money. now it's been exactly one year 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 is seen

a wave of suicide protest attempts before people setting themselves a light inside a week and as our teams are going to go to school reports the only real change since the revolution has been a surge of radical religious ideas. 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. political culture. of 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 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 that 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 things the windows the eyes open they're going to burst the authorities have evidence that's had. so the students went on strike saying their freedom was being oppressed. 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 professor bleby acknowledge 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 because it had the cove kimock were 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 in riots may occur. the larger leaders have with us this year and says that they're not going to turn to media interest to sharia law states but meaning the country are already saying that the worrying signs are here and even goes r.t.

tunisia but mideast expert tariq ali told r.t. that the new as well as leaders are indulging in a must know populism instead of real solutions to the country's was the way in which the army's been operating the way in which this extremely unintelligent president marco's see has been operating and the way in which the new justice minister than the slimy the sort of going social and moral pressure 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 country 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 bankruptcy it's because they are not other people anything else so they are receding along these lines. so coming up for you in the program military optimism outweighs sober intelligence on the ground stop in the u.s. is doing well in afghanistan and the taliban is losing ground while the cia report says the campaign is marred in a sampling. we also look at what america says is good nutritious food for children find out how pizza is classified as a vegetable an american public school i want trials in three years 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 and food prices the move comes after the unions threatened to stop all crude and natural gas production this sunday and we get this warrior from so horrid

reporters dot com says financial decisions made by the government drove people to the wall. by the. years of. a corruption of mismanagement of their resources and it was driving. the government just happened. to do. it was just. so you could be. a revolution. country. we were about to lose their leader and people are calling this. the arab spring. there are fears that the total shut down of oil exports from nigeria could deal a major blow to the world's wobbly economy the editor of the pan-african newswire

told r.t. that 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 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 exported from africa into united states now seeing. all of the basics that exported from the entire arabian peninsula so he was very much concerned about maintaining stability in nigeria for the simple fact that it is so heavily reliant upon the ball that's being imported from nigeria into the united states. but with tensions in the middle east oil fears dominating the world stage you can always keep up with the latest developments on our web site r.t. dot com and among the stories there today departing dignitaries often plant

a tree or two when they leave office and that's what russia's former envoy to nato wanted to do with the alliance headquarters but he failed to mention the trees he had in mind share their name with russians you with your misfiled nato's reaction visit our website. also i phone craze turns ugly in china disgruntled one of apple's flagship stores with eggs promptly with tech giant shut down its operation in beijing more pictures many more stories to log on to our to me. u.s. defense secretary leon panetta says the american campaign in afghanistan is suppressing taliban activity and heading in the right direction well 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 and this may result in an even longer stay by american troops beyond the planned withdrawal in twenty fourteen that's according to camille nori of the new world strategies coalition. it has been twenty years that has not unified the country i should have been it live. like there's no chance for the americans to see a government standing on the street however this could prolong americans. want to stop 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 eager rush and pull out fast as we can. just ahead with popular disapproval of u.s. wars abroad growing americans will soon have the chance to vote. changing their match i just don't think it's realistic at all we don't move that quickly is not the way our system works but the presidential election do later this year we have what policies americans are looking for and whether they think they'll get. this woman created the most profitable recruitment agency in ross i now see very sad the secrets of her success while some of them perhaps you can join her in

a few minutes in our latest binder series right here on our team. 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 but spells profit for giant corporations arteries were an important i had tasted what's on the menu 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 for stirring the how problem her efforts which i

applaud in a single woman feel 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 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 has come. as 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 the damage so bad experts say threats to national security. our short but quite telling unscientific poll found americans picking logic over

the world of their lawmakers like pizza. it doesn't look good to me no matter. which are two three swords but that's not what it's like it's much made of beer that's what. that's what the nutritional value in that. period whatever it is i don't buy whatever they're feeding in treme but the cheese is terrible knowing that u.s. leaders have a hand in cooking up being greedy and can also leave a bad taste in many now it's very important r.t. new york. let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world the emir of qatar oman been a colossal tamani has become a first arab leader of openly support the idea of foreign military intervention in syria speaking to c.b.s. news in tunisia he said the arab states should send in military forces and ten months of bloodshed in the country this comes as a top opposition leader in syria has claimed that the country's deputy on commander

fled to turkey two weeks ago becoming the highest ranking officer to defect so far . 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 the coast of concordia were evacuated on lifeboats or swam ashore the vessel hit a sandbar. judio on friday. the former head of the un's nuclear watchdog calls off his presidential bid in egypt's election and el baradei i said his decision was a protest against the way the military government has been leading the country since x. president hosni mubarak was ousted the election is said to take place in june this year el baradei i had been seen by many as one of the front running liberal candidates. and now it's time to feature more trailblazers among russia's ex-pat

entrepreneurs as they share their stories of success. in russia foreign job seekers have often been for over local talent but terry lynn burke who created the staff well recruitment agency took many of the country's homegrown and gifted candidates 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 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 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 we just need to get through the election period and then 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 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 on. 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 are fantastic 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 has kept to being 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 i'm 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. fewer wars abroad more action on pressing issues at home those appear to be the most popular demands from americans for their presidential candidates or hard for mistakes in the streets of new york now asking whether it's change they can believe him. 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 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 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. to take a short break here and aren't and i'll be back with a recap of our top stories stay with us.

this is our song. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one that won't we breathe the we hope. to me the american dream is to live in peace and prosperity and freedom and a government under socialism is not a government a free. man. you

. have very motivated out for us the ones who are activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but the fact is forty four bridge. we are counting. properly counting and i think it's spread by it's cutting off our. it's making real democracy. all but impossible.

mine. would be soo much brighter than if you knew about soon from phones to british and. these friends don't on t.v. don't come. at seven thirty pm moscow times these are the top stories from our chief defiance despite the downgrade france says it's not panicking in the wake of losing its top credit rating status as standard and poor's deems the eurozone increasingly unfit to deal with its debt crisis. a year since the news as president ben ali was ousted the new islam as leaders are accused of ignoring the real issues of poverty and unemployment in favor of reading a radical religious agenda. and right.