it's five pm in moscow you're watching the weekly with me and you so now a thanks for being with us we begin with the crisis in relations between iran and the west which picked again this week fueled by wednesday's assassination of a top nuclear scientist in tehran iranian officials blame the murder on the u.s. and israel want to stop its nuclear program meanwhile american and british warships are gathering in the persian gulf where iran had earlier threatened to block a crucial oil lane that's amid a pending oil embargo and that forcing tehran to abandon its atomic ambitions. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. it seems the slide is the increase of heat could make it boil over into an all out confrontation. but

where will 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 quote washington that the international nuclear watchdog these arm 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 is 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 europe 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 to a confrontation cornered by crippling sanctions iran's threaten to block the strait of hormuz a vital oil artery through which a sixth of the world's oil is shipped the u.s. replied by moving its fifth fleet to the region and saying if iran goes for it they will attack thousands of u.s. troops are being deployed to israel experts say the policy of isolating iran may lead to other threats from tehran and the 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 way if 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 case then 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 story 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 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. when coming up for you this hour here on r t the cookbook politics complex takes sample left turns out a few fulfilled promises and seasoned with the ear of the common people feel lose the recipe for peace that kazakhstan is serving up in a region simmering with an wrath. of the u.s.

military optimism for progress is crossed by a lead cia report paints a grim picture of what's really going on in the country suggesting nato decade long occupation has hit stalemate. but first syria's president bashar al assad has issued an amnesty for crimes committed during the ongoing anti government uprising in the country according to the official state news agency it will pardon peaceful protesters those who carried unlicensed weapons and army defectors who turned themselves in before the end of the month meanwhile pressure on assad has been growing this week the ruler of qatar suggested a military intervention should and the rest in syria been calling for khalifa all to honey has become the first arab leader to openly endorse military action qatar a monarchy itself is an ally of the us and a strong advocate of regime change across the arab region and international affairs consultant told r.t.

that arab league countries lecturing syria on democracy are being hypocritical. it is clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the hour context he should be not the worst one on the country and what data to me is doing i mean who does the arab league represent bahrain the united arab emirates how do you arabia you. do it there are few do monarchies and they are not the ones that should point a finger and whether there is an international conspiracy where there are elements that point out and we did this part of it i think it's more complex than just that there is also genuine popular revolt but it is absolutely sure that there are elements from outside who are taking to rob you abusing whatever there is living among the syrian people for their own purposes that is absolutely. and syria's longtime ally turkey is among the increasingly vocal chorus calling for president

to step down its lending of support to the armed opposition and keeping its own troops operating near the border but aren't as wary of the notion of reports ankara might not be getting an accurate picture of what's actually happening inside syria . with the bloody status quo in the syrian crisis maintaining for months she is a growing and finance may start spreading beyond the country's borders especially with its close neighbor turkey wants to close friends too but now a harsh critic of damascus on. syria's first priority should be to listen to its people and meet their demands not to denounce others sort of massacring its people we should listen to them. so to call it a glue is a harsh critic himself but 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 at overthrowing the regime of bashar al 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 war no fly zone resolutions it means the role of regional 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. separation. especially the part of our government. works with

a middle eastern studies center based in and kyra it's sponsored by the turkish foreign ministry to help shape policy and its opinion on syria it's clear syria is killing their own people or 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 here it means the picture they paint for officials in ankara is unlikely to be an accurate one the technology at changing you know when you look at the progress or the videos coming from these governorates you can easily see that there is something going on but the sources of these videos are often questionable so it's easy to be misled and get a false picture of what's really happening but there does. researchers from coming to firm 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. later on r t we hear from the author of what's been described as a blueprint for a nonviolent revolution our deeds sarve explains whether his peaceful revolution concept is a matter for the arab spring reality. when we visit ukraine to find out why many are wary they're not ready for the football to appear to others predict a huge cost of the event will never pay off don't miss that stay with us next hour here on r.t. . the struggle for survival got that much more difficult this week after a major credit rating agencies twice the credit scores of nine you nations the

downgrades handed out by standard and poor's come amid growing concern that the eurozone failed to rein in its runaway finances and debt france and austria were especially hard hit live from their proceeds as aaa status that made them a safe haven for investors well the reaction from leaders was very with some calling the move on justified while others accepted the decision and called for urgent action economists across the e.u. are now waiting for monday when global markets opened to gauge how much damage has been done darkman from the institute for democracy and cooperation in paris believes that the euro project has reached its end. of the downgrading of france but not of germany obviously means that the franco german axis is no longer a turn of all proposition what we see in the euro is there's there's only one country calling the shots not two and that's germany there's no doubt that it will extract a terrible blow for sarkozy's only real chance of winning the election was to show

himself as a safe pair of. devil you know in a crisis now it's clear that sort of france has both a crisis and the devil look you know i mean it's true that these agencies are not above reproach they've made a lot of mistakes in the past 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 and i think when the euro finally collapses as it will do surely within i would think probably the next year what we will see this day this announcement that downgrading of france or as having been one of the decisive moments. investment analyst patrick young believes the reading cards were well overdue. 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 but 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 that's a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world. it's thirty minutes past the hour later in the program empty promises from the story of montana mowbray that marked his birthday with protesters in the u.s. and great britain urging obama to keep his word and settle down. to meet russia's

new with airport security recruits bread for their partners and they plan their jobs their tents of trouble for passengers carrying weapons shown. millions of people went out to vote today in kazakhstan flocking to polling booth to decide on a new part of the meant elections come a little less than a month after all workers staging a prolonged strike over poor pay class fatally with security forces feel actions were said to take place in august but the president dissolved parliament last november and ordered an immediate vote to move with welcome by the opposition and is expected to break the country's single party system as a clown avoid going to reports brianna think violent unrest is a priority in context having learned disturbing lessons from the arab spring. if it wasn't for the snow and the freezing temperatures stands 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. for 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 turning out prior to its civil war and the similarities and here both kazakstan and libya have predominantly muslim populations both were considered still roots of calm in their turbulent neighborhoods and both have experienced decades of rule by just one man in terms of style that fast. 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 enjoy our well being the countries who are revolutions took place have gone back ten to fifteen years economically speaking the town of john the sand is rightfully called catholic stands all capital but it's no match for glistening asked despite producing much of the country's hydrocarbons 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 injuries as the protest spread to other cities. jittery in the wake of the arab spring but it was because i stand as a semblance of democracy. with several parties in parliament and some of position 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 the chasm half the riches decided to offer political reforms the people are now 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 thirties have approved millions of dollars worth of programs to give their breasts a cd a facelift and create new jobs but unities. the president's close associates appointed to oversee the turbulent region says in a few years and will make some cities in the gulf pale in comparison. come here in a few years and you won't recognize this city while the arab spring may have been

sparked protests around the world it's also taught authorities valuable lessons on how to contain those rallies unlike all rulers and is that a buyer would much rather learn from the mistakes of others especially if they come at a price paid by gadhafi on a boycott artsy kazakstan. some other news coming out of kazakhstan that's not election related a mosque clock to be the biggest in central asia caught fire in the capital astana the building was still under construction but almost complete there's still no water supply to the structure which made firefighting more difficult for one hundred workers have been evacuated from the site and one person has died the country's emergency services says the fire has now been put out. a cia report leaked this week says the u.s. military operation in afghanistan is doomed to failure it directly contradicts recent optimism expressed by the department of defense u.s.

troops are said to leave the central asian country in twenty fourteen but an american think tank on peace in afghanistan believes the actual pullout will take far longer than 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 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 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 day you know we should not really rush in fast as we can report also says the taliban havens in neighboring pakistan are dashing nato

efforts in the region but defense analysts say you've told r.t. that document is mostly about america's shifting the blame for the war it has lost . basically what the americans are not trying to do is their past the responsibility of their failures in afghanistan upon pakistan this is also corroborated from the fact that the nato supplies that pakistan has blocked in pakistan contain the military hardware which is then i envision level hardware almost nine armored infantry divisions and their support equipment supplies weapons and ammunition are stuck in pakistan and the concern in pakistan army is that if the americans are talking of the drawing from of understanding talking of peace deals with taliban then why would the americans need abrams m one a one main battle tanks and almost nine armored infantry divisions. well still to come on our next

hour a perfect recruitment ad for the taliban produced by and starring americans for the soccer you would have us were you you're naming on that afghan you militant get the reaction and comments on that in our next news bulletin or head to our website argue dot com right now for more. also on line passengers onboard the luxury cruise liner ran aground off italy's test the code says it was like the sea in the movie titanic we have pictures of the capsized close to the rescue and some live pictures here from that search and rescue operation which we're streaming online for you on line for you today at our. violent clashes in romania watch our footage as a race in iraq over off thirty cars and low standards of living. this week the anniversary of the world's most controversial prison at guantanamo bay was marked by public protests on both sides of the atlantic demonstrators

called on president obama to honor his election pledge and shut down the jail it was hard to use laura smith reports many a site a new law that allows america to detain anyone he deems hostile as proof that obama's promises were empty once. one homeowner. abdel moneim am absolutely today is probably just another day for the inmates of guantanamo bay they may not even know that people around the world are campaigning for them but as far afield as london demonstrations are held to demand the release of the hundred seventy one men still held without trial in the cuban camp after ten years one of those men is shaka omer who's earned the dubious distinction of being the last british resident held in guantanamo he was in afghanistan or nine eleven he says doing charity work digging wells and building a girls' school in kabul. when the u.s.

invasion began almost went into hiding from an increasingly wary northern alliance but his freedom didn't last shuckers supporters maintain he was sold for a bounty went into the hands of the northern alliance who were warlords basically and he actually thought all the americans that my goodness it will save me from the torture that he's had lots of torture by them but no he was transported to graham turner and bear he has remains despite president obama's original election pledge to close guantanamo altogether despite being cleared for release and despite being a legal permanent resident in the u.k. with family in london which includes one son he's never even seen and fall for moving closer to being freed shuckers supporters see worrying developments in the us is attitude to extrajudicial detention obama recently signed the national

defense authorization act which places domestic terror investigations into the hands of the military and extends a ban on transferring prisoners out of kuantan i'm very sorry indeed president obama for reasons of. lack of political will or he would say the complete inability to deliver has not. lived up to that promise and indeed it is now bracing to book american citizens. in military commissions which are very far from being. the british government has requested the release of but there's been no movement on the case since two thousand and seven meanwhile as his family grows up without him he lives out his life in a tiny windowless cell not knowing whether he can ever expect to be released laura smith r.t. london. but special breed of sniffer dog has become the latest recruit in russian

airports to help tackle terror armed with one of the best mouse in the dog world these four legged crime fighter spend their day sniffing out trouble parties peter all over paid the canines there is a visit and put their noses to the test. man's four legged friends on the front line in the fight against terror these dogs are a special breed. part jackal and it's their acute sense of smell which makes them perfect for sniffing out explosives in ports. it turns out that the canines it's the jackal that has the best sense of smell to call to use that to improve the sense of smell and dogs. their husky her it it means that they can handle temperatures as low as minus seventy degrees centigrade while the jackal side of the family provides them with equally impressive abilities in the heat. as an experiment we took these hybrids to the united arab emirates where they were able

to work in forty two degrees centigrade ordinary dogs wouldn't be able to handle that. the slowly move dogs have two hundred and twenty million smell receptors forty four times more than a human this allows them to detect even trace amounts of explosive material making them invaluable for airports looking to put passengers at their ease. and that ever working with these dogs among passengers makes people feel more secure in their ports as for accuracy they've even detected gun powder residue on the clothes of hunters returning home. a false alarm is detected in less than north point five percent of searches making the dogs far more reliable than the best manmade detection device much of that is down to the breeding but a lot of training is required before they are ready to work amongst the public. well it doesn't take the dog long to find what was hidden underneath my feet but

it's all well and good doing it here on the training ground but how will they fare in the busy atmosphere of an international airport on an average day over one hundred thousand people pass through this terminal of the airport plenty of distractions making it the perfect place to conduct a test this bike here contains around three grams of plastic explosive i'm going to go and hide somewhere here in the terminal while fraga tries to track me down. it's about sniffing me out finally chewed nose searching every nook and cranny in which a potentially dangerous package could be hidden some passengers don't even notice that their parts are investigation. sure enough she finds me trying to check in for a flight. well it's all good to me no matter how hard you try to hide if you have explosives these amazing animals will find you. r.t.

moscow. probably back with a recap of our top stories after this short break they were. when clinton covered bill question. leads to a grave accusation the world who is more xena following. the president who isn't

supposed to hide anything. more it's someone asking him why do you make a secret out that when the powers to be suppress the voice of those who think different. when you get experiencing very serious problems off of the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three if you put it from a book that was when the problems began piling up. interviews were now off limits to our journalists they were often beason up and humiliated in public when the attempt to protect property puts life in real danger is that we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living i have got to our original sit all the papers. at them legalized the ownership rights on the basis of companies freedom becomes just a stage prop. your

regards to live from moscow look at the real main story there is no let up in the iran u.s. feud over nukes and sanctions following the assassination of a top of common researcher in tehran blamed on america and israel. a growing line of intervention supporters the emir of qatar is the first arab leader to openly call for foreign military action in syria former ally turkey you can force them on down by only.