and doubts over the euro zone's ability to tackle the debt crisis grow as nine nations get their credit rating with france losing its top notch status. a warm welcome to the weekly here on our t.v. this sunday on money so now with the latest from around the world and a look back at the week's top stories tensions between iran and the united states increased dramatically this week to iran blames the west for orchestrating the assassination of one of its nuclear scientists on wednesday america is also pushing hard for an oil export embargo on iran over its nuclear program with tehran threatening to block a vital maritime trade route in response to cam has the story. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. it seems the slightest

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

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

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

all prisoners jailed for peacefully participating in anti-government protest amnesty is one of the major requirements of the arab league peace plan it comes as captors ruler proposes sending arab troops to the country to stop the violence second been called the five honey is the first leader of an arab the country to call for military intervention cats are which is a u.s. ally has been one of the strongest advocates of regime change across the arab world despite being a monarchy itself international affairs load of a news told r.t. the arab league countries lecturing syria and democracy is hypocritical. now so there's clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the hour she should not do is to me on the contrary i'm a dad i believe he's doing i mean the end of elite group is in the back of the rain the united arab emirate showed you review what do it do a few do namely peace and they are not just the ones that should point

a finger and whether there is an international conspiracy with them and said point on to me to do this part i think i think it cheats more conflict than just that the results show genuine popular belief only but it is absolutely sure that the men who are taking to rob you abusing whatever there is living among the people for their own purposes that is absolutely. well turkey also stepped up pressure on its neighbor at the beginning of the week re of the most know takes a look at why syria has one time our eye is now advocating sending in troops. with the bloody status quo in the syrian crisis mounting a crime and says he is a growing and finest may start spreading beyond the country's borders especially with his close neighbor turkey once a close friends too but now a harsh critic of damascus on the night you can be serious first priority should be

to listen to its people and meet their demands and not to denounce others and sort of massacring its people you should listen to them. so to clear the gloom is a harsh critic himself but he says he's criticizing the turkish government ankara is on the side with the free syrian army and the syrian national council and military and diplomatic forces aimed and overthrowing the regime of bashar assad it supports a buffer zone and a humanitarian corridor which some fear could bring turkish troops to syrian soil what does that mean according to international law it means aggression against a country it means war but any intervention would be different from the one in libya since russia and china have made it clear new or no fly zone resolutions which means the role of visual players like turkey increases dramatically but for new claims and korea's behavior is irresponsible and risky it has larger implications beyond the bilateral context of turkey syria as such the situation in

syria must be handled with great care by all powers and unfortunately i don't see that cache. sufficiently especially on the part of our government. works with a middle eastern studies center based and kyra it's sponsored by the turkish foreign ministry to how to shape policy and its opinion on syria it's clear syria is killing people. not always that's clear nobody has objectively information what is going on in syria the center specialists haven't been to syria for over year it to me is the picture they paint for officials in ankara isn't likely to be accurate on the technology at changing you know when you look at the photographs or the videos coming from these governorates you can easily see that there is something going on but this is these videos are often questionable so it's

easy to be misled and you get a false picture of what's really happening but there does. researchers from coming to find conclusions military operations this is the last option which turkey does not want to see but this is an option it may have declared it doesn't welcome a military solution to the syrian crisis but turkey hasn't ruled it out either plain and if game if there is massive migration from its troubled neighbor turkey says it will have to protect its own people and marc fisher and korea insists it wants peace and stability in the region its troops are already just kilometers from the border with syria. r.t. turkey. minority later we hear from the author of what's been described as the blueprint for a nonviolent revolution. explains whether his concept of peaceful revolt any match for the reality of the arab spring. and where in kazakhstan with many see

as next in line for regime change to find out why that's a likely by the similarities to other trouble they sent. here of debt management got a cold shower from a major ratings agency this week essentially being told that the austerity they're imposing on the people isn't working standard and poor's lowered nine countries scores with france and austria stripped of their top aaa status the reaction around the euro zone was mixed with some expressing disbelief and others like germany's foreign minister calling for europe to have its own ratings agency says there merkel said there is a long road ahead when it comes to rebuild the confidence there is now a nervous wait to see how world stock markets will respond on monday jan laughlin from the institute for democracy and cooperation in paris says europe's leaders have become accustomed to blaming the ratings agencies for their trouble. downgrading shows that those strongest countries are not as strong as we thought

they were even austria has been downgraded so this idea that a call europe can somehow save the periphery even though it is not an ability it's true that these agencies are not above reproach they've made a lot of mistakes in the past and goodness knows the financial services industry including the ratings agencies is far from perfect but i think that european leaders are being completely paranoid when they blame the ratings agencies for their problems any fool can see that there is a massive debt problem in europe the fact is there's been a lull in the crisis but that was really to do with the christmas and new year holidays they have assessed the situation and they have come to the conclusion so many other people that the situation in the. euro zone is untenable and i think when the euro finally collapses as it will do surely within i would think probably the next year that we will see just a this announcement that downgrading of france or as having been one of the decisive moments. there when it came out of the downgrade and scamps keeping its

aaa rating and investment analyst see that as this power set in the eurozone the situation in france is finances is that they've basically been borrowing money on their every year budget since the mid one nine hundred seventy i mean it's absolutely ludicrous and unfortunately all good things must come to an end and actually they've only been lucky because of economic growth in europe as a whole and the fact that there are economic powerhouses being strapped to the ultimate power out of europe which is germany and that's why this is such an emotional moment of the european experiment because not everyone across the border into germany from france is going to be looking down on their neighbors and saying why should we germany and up being a little was amongst the very elite club of nations that have got their aaa the top grade rating and indeed our french partners the germans are going to see it is no longer the perfect bride it's tarnished goods. still to come for you here on our

t.v. the soldiers sowing the seeds of their own destruction why the american marines urinating on the corpses of taliban fighters could be putting their fellow troops line risk. when we visit ukraine to find out why many are wary they're not ready for the football championships predicted huge cost of the event will never pay off. but first people in kazakhstan are heading to the polls the parliamentary election comes just a month after the country was shaken by deadly riots in the town of zen the scene where striking oil workers clashed with security forces over poor pay the polls were originally scheduled for next august but because it's not there by of dissolved the parliament in the autumn and brought the date forward the move is seen as an attempt to broaden the single party dominated parliament on a boy who reports the time seems right for change in

a country that doesn't want to follow in its restive neighbors footstep. it wasn't for the snow and the freezing temperatures stance capital of aston i could easily be mistaken for one of the gleaming cities of the gulf a village just two decades ago it is now an oasis in the desert but it's architecture having a distinct arriving flavor like many arab countries kazakhstan's primary sources of income our oil and gas and it is that x. ray that allowed this country the luxury of building its new capital city from scratch in fact kazakstan is now producing about as much oil as lieve beer was churning out prior to its civil war and the similarities don't and here both kazakstan and libya have predominantly muslim populations both were considered still words of calm in their turbulent neighborhoods and both have experienced decades of rule by just one man in terms of style that's fast no short on the

survivor is the exact opposite of erratic more market afy and of course he's still in power but the libyan scenario no longer seems improbable in kazakstan even to its leader some young people are fascinated with what's happening in the world right now in africa and europe but we have to explain to the new generation that blindly believes everything it's told that there are those who envy our well being the countries who are revolutions took place have gone back ten to fifteen years economically speaking the town of john knows and is rightfully called castle stands all capital but it's no match for glistening asked. despite producing much of the country's hydro carbons for decades it's been poor and neglected. the uprising in western kazakstan has smouldered since last spring but culminated in december in a weekend of clashes with police that left seventeen dead and more than one hundred injured as the protests spread to other cities. in the wake of the arab spring

but it was the. because extern has a semblance of democracy with several parties in parliament and some a position in media but the essence of the regime is similar to those of the arab countries that's why the first thing the authorities did when their prize and began was to switch off the mobo networks and the internet connection before the people even demanded it out loud because of the riches decided to offer political reforms the people in there are going to the polls to elect a new parliament recent constitutional amendments guarantee they'll be more than one party that has been up until now the challenge now is to keep all the good things stability prosperity. and at the same time allow the society to evolve. meanwhile their wishes have approved millions of dollars worth of programs to give the rest of cd a facelift and create new jobs but you need to use. the president's close

associates appointed to oversee the turbulent region in a few years and will make some cities in the gulf pale in comparison bill come here in a few years and you won't recognize this city while the arab spring may have inspired protesters around the world it's also taught authorities valuable lessons on how to contain those rallies like the rulers by would much rather learn from the mistakes of others especially if they come at a price paid by gadhafi on a boycott artsy kazakstan. well some news coming in from kazakhstan that's not connected to the election a mosque thought to be the biggest in central asia is on fire in the capital. the building is still under construction but was almost complete and one hundred workers have been evacuated from the site there are reports of injuries but that's not been officially confirmed and the cause of the fire is still being investigated

again the biggest mosque in central asia thought to be on fire in a stunning six town. well a group of american marines filmed urinating on the corpses of taliban fighters have been identified and punished is a punishment i say is promised but it's doing little to call the growing discuss felt throughout the world this week and regional experts say it could mean that u.s. soldiers currently serving in afghanistan will end up paying the price let's not forget that the americans came to understand with the explicit objective also of transforming this country into a more humane country into a democracy and what we're seeing happening right now with the appearance of this kind of a video is the opposite and it is having an impact let's not forget that this is a region where religious values are really very deep deeply entrenched and the way you treat bodies and the way you treated dead is something that is treated very

secretly here and with this video you can you can rest assured that this will have an impact in terms of the kind of reaction the kind of backlash to this will generate this video will generate against the very. the american soldiers who are there right now in afghanistan it really in danger is their life so what it is fair to say that with this video surfacing the lives of american soldiers in afghanistan have become more let's say in a more precarious situation than they were before this video but the video also triggered fears that will encourage more young people to join the taliban and al qaeda afghanistan war veteran jake the birth of said that coupled with previous abuse says this latest scandal is simply helping terrorists recruit new members. just to remind people of a few incidents that occurred a while back there was the burning of the koran that happened with you know jerry

jones and then there was a grave incident and before then there was the decision to invade iraq that had nothing to do with nine eleven so all of these these situations pile on and they add up and what happens is al qaeda and other terrorist organizations and then using this video and they put it in their recruiting videos and up on you tube across the jihad web channels and they end up reading anti-american sentiment this is the hugest recruitment for al qaida that we can do what it can do nobody in the united states military is trained to pee and dead people this is the behavior of ill discipline soldiers under my opinion are probably also separate from of severe amount of p.t.s.d. for a long ended war and what happens when you're so. you ended dehumanizing other human beings in the battlefield it's. it's unfathomable how pathetic this is become because the war hasn't been brought to it and like obama said he was going to do

and what we're seeing great it's happened twice now in afghanistan not everyone in america is outraged by what the marines were filmed doing as our team here is all mine them and you should get our praises the troops action as school thank you went to the same and their families. elite cia report shows that the war in afghanistan is in stalemate with the taliban determined to make a comeback as soon as nato troops leave it's at odds with the recent optimism from the defense department twenty fourteen may be that withdrawal date but an american think tank on peace in afghanistan believes the actual pullout will take far longer . 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 here government standing on its feet however this could prolong americans being 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 the 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 good military is the one that's calling up that same to know we should not really rush in and play fast as we can well the report also claims the taliban is operating from neighboring pakistan undermining the results of operations in the region but defense analysts say of how tall are the document is mostly about america's shifting the blame for its last war basically what the americans are not trying to do is their boss the responsibility of their failure isn't of one is founded on baucus done and this is also corroborated from the fact that the nato supplies that box time has blocked the day in pakistan and the

military hardware which is an invasion level hardware almost nine armored infantry divisions and their support supplies up and then i'm going to spock and baucus tom and the concern box on all me is that it's me a modicum the talking of the drawing from of honest on the bees knees of a bomb then why would the amount of bins need a bronze and one a one man back to the banks and almost nine ahmed in front three divisions. explore all our stories on our website with much more lined up at our two dot com for you it was like makes a passenger aboard a luxury cruise liner which ran aground off the italian coast leaving three people dead and dozens still missing or streaming live coverage of the rescue operation and the compounds and r t v dot com right now. and finally fall or probably run out of there being that rolling earth for several weeks after

getting stuck in orbit come down certainly in the pacific ocean discover more online at our dot com. people in ukraine are worried their country may drop the ball in hosting football zero twenty twelve finals having failed to tackle issues like police corruption and poor infrastructure as a legacy or says he discovered there is also concern that authorities are splashing out more on the tournament than they can afford. the incredible adventures of food bullheads from extreme accommodation to driving through impassable roads this is the scenario some believe awaits fans who will flock to ukraine for the euro twenty twelve tournament gave based journalists organized this photo exhibition trying to

voice a rather pessimistic message about the upcoming football club. staying there go it out we're being told by the government that everything has been built that the fans will face those problems the twee ordinary. very poor straight better issues bribery by the police officer and general medical facilities i'm afraid it could be a major fear of that but i mean you're at first glance sites. concerns may seem laughable even in the darkest times of financial troubles the euro twenty twelve projects remained top priority when almost all construction projects were halted roads airports and stadiums never stopped being built after a string of stadium opening ceremonies in ukraine you wait for chiefs are now completely sure the country is ready to host the tournament but this is just one example of what really worries some in ukraine this broken road is only several

hundred meters away from a vital highway and there is a slim chance it would ever be repaired before or after the tournament kicks off experts believe ukraine simply has no money for that and the euro twenty twelve will not change the situation. ukraine is spend fourteen billion dollars on euro twenty twelve projects but we predicted to earn only half a billion from the tournament twenty eight times last everyone knew that it's a typical situation especially faced in europe the question is if we could afford such spending in hard times like this. tournament organizers brush all this criticism aside saying regardless of how much money your twenty twelve brings the country is building a bright future for itself for the first time in twenty years history we will get new airports. new terminals everything is new we believe that people who is in ukraine they will come again the ways of ukraine so this is our main goal

especially euro twenty twelve clock was installed in central kiev to count down the minutes to jews kickoff and despite some skepticism the majority of ukrainians are relieved to see it ticking in their capital city not anywhere else with all the airports and stadiums springing up it's hard to believe now that almost a year ago the tournament could have moved to another country by you a far as ukraine was not doing good enough now there is no doubt whatsoever it will . be held here but one question still remains whether it would become an opportunity of a lifetime or a luxury this economic lead country could not have afforded a look see russia see reporting from kiev in ukraine. it's twenty seven minutes past the hour we're going to take a short break and i'll be back with a recap of our top stories stay with us.

this is our. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one that won't we breathe 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 cross the country who are activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but in fact this border for brick and. we are counting. properly drowning and i think it's threatened by it's cutting off our. it's making real democracy. all but impossible. none with snot about spilling blood. just a war of barricades from one side and fears blockade from the other.

invisible border has cut people from the land for twelve year. the conflict that divided serbia into two hostile parts is still not over. there with our to you live from moscow here's a look at our weekly top stories tensions between iran and the u.s. intensified with tehran blaming the west for killing a nuclear scientist a washington the threatening action if you run walk so vital all over and over and then sank so. qatar becomes the first arab league member to call for troops to be sent to syria to tackle the ongoing violence there the proposal is being labeled hypocritical coming.