moscow this sunday night you're watching the weekly it's our roundup of the top stories from the last seven days with me kevin and first the crisis in relations between iran and the west peaked again this last 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 meantime american and british warships together in the persian gulf were rounded earlier threat to block a crucial oil they made a pending oil embargo aimed at forcing to ram who abandon its atomic ambitions. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. it seems a slight is the 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 and the problems in a crisis if you get were any small thing can really set it off and it doesn't quell washington that the international nuclear watchdog is arm side closely monitoring iran's nuclear activities are the trying to develop a nuclear weapon 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 the 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 is through. confrontation cornered by crippling sanctions

iran's threatening 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 it sensibly 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 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's true 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. and coming up this hour an hour to the cookbook of politics and culture star take the lead ins ad of the year for the common people and season with a few fulfilled promises and that three elusive recipe for peace that has xander is serving up in a region that's severing with red. blasts it's a bigger problem for the taliban produced by and starring american troops see

reaction to the shocking footage of u.s. marines you will need to know that afghan military. pressure on syria's president assad's been growing this week the ruler of qatar suggested ability intervention should end the unrest in the country he's become the first lady to openly endorse military action international affairs consultant load of told r.t. that arab league countries lecturing syria on democracy are being hypocritical now so this is clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the context he should be not the worst one on the contrary. i don't believe he's doing i mean you do see an oblique represent the facts remain united arab emirates so do you review those do a deal few do monarchies they are not the ones that should point a finger and whether there is an international conspiracy where the elements that point out to me did this part of it i think it's more complex than just that there

is also genuine talk all but it is absolutely sure that they 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. syria's president bashar al assad's issued an amnesty for crimes committed during the ongoing anti-government uprising in the country including army defectors who turned themselves in before the end of the month independent journalist lucy feel and told r.t. that assad's submitting to foreign pressure despite it being dangerous for the balance of the country. it's being received in a kind of mixed way by the syrian syrian people course these people they were by no means just peaceful protesters according to the syrian government they were in fact rioters they were people who had set things on fire destroyed many government buildings and these kind kinds of thing the reaction is very much seen as though

the president is being very generous he is releasing more people despite that the situation in some parts of the country is still very extremely tense there are concerns among some sections of the syrian population that amongst the many people who are being released there will be some criminal elements who will slip through the net people understand that the president is under a lot of pressure especially international pressure to respond to calls to release these prisoners but at the same time there is very much a concern that it could be a dangerous move. coming up next syria's losing allies turkey keeps its troops on a mobile border and does rule out intervention but. information on what's going on in syria if you. will to the now it's time to visit ukraine to find out why manning and worried they're not ready for this summit for the championship while others predict the huge cost of the event will have a payoff come go back to. the euro struggle for survival got

that much more difficult because last week after a major credit rating agencies slashed the credit scores of nine 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 that france and austria were especially hard hit losing their prestigious aaa status that made them is safe haven for investors the reaction from e.u. leaders was varied with some calling the move justified while others accepted the decision and called for action economists across the. you and i waiting for monday were the markets open to gauge just how much damage may or may not have been done to laughlin for the institute for the walk of fame cooperation in paris told me the euro project. downgrading of france but not of germany obviously means that the franco german axis is no longer tenable proposition what we see in the euro zone is that there's only one country calling the shots not two

and that's germany there's no doubt that it will strike a terrible blow for sarkozy is only real chance of winning the election was to show himself as a safe pair of hands as the devil you know in a crisis now it's clear that france has both a crisis and the devil they 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 ahead we will see this day this announcement that downgrading of france or as having been one of the decisive moments. for young says he believes the ratings cuts are 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 i took it so he 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 euro 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. but our booth across cars and start of now closed after millions of people voted to decide on the country's new parliament elections come a little less than a month after all workers staging

a prolonged strike over poor pay cuts fatally with security forces the elections were set to take place in august but the president dissolved parliament last november and ordered an immediate vote the move was welcomed by the opposition and it's expected to break the country's single party system that is it going to void of course preempting violent unrest is a priority. of england disturbing lessons from the arab spring. 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 its architecture having a distinct arabic flavor like many arab countries kazakhstan's primary sources of income are all in gas and it is that axe 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 churning out prior to its civil war and the

similarities and here both kazakstan and libya have predominantly muslim populations both were consider 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 marget 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 your own or well being the countries who are revolutions took place have gone back ten to fifteen years economically speaking the town of jena zahn 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. because extern has a semblance of. democracy with several parties in parliament and some a position media but the essence of the regime is similar to those of the arab countries thats 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 cancer has authority has decided to offer a 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 the authorities have approved millions of dollars worth of programs to give the rest of 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 and like all rulers and those that are by would much rather learn from the mistakes of others especially if they come at a price paid by gadhafi and a boycott artsy kazakstan. by torture and now ten

years old we report on the last british citizen being held in guantanamo bay despite barack obama's election pledge to shut down and repeated calls for protests for him to keep to his work. i mean russia's latest airport security stuff these four legged guardians are bred for hardness and a keen sense of smell it's their job to sniff out tenfold trouble for the passengers who carry what the shouldn't plus. the wave of anger true by israel's so-called boycott law activists call it the first step towards fascism that's just a bit later in the program to. the world was shocked this week by an online video that showed american marines urinating on the dead bodies of taliban fighters the u.s. military says it's identified the soldiers in the clip and appointed a three star general to investigate but regional experts say the damage has already been done and it'll be the u.s. troops currently in afghanistan who will pay the price list and forget that the

americans came to understand with the explicit objective also off transforming this country into a more humane country into a democracy and we're seeing it happening right now with the appearance of this kind of a video it's 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 that and the way you treated dead it's 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 lives. many have said that the video will encourage more young muslims joined by to kill terrorist groups like the taliban or al qaida toes in afghanistan war veteran he says that the latest scandal along with previous abuses is the perfect advertisement for

recruiting terrorists just to remind people of a few incidents that occurred a while back there was the the burning of the koran that happened with. jerry jones as then there was the abu ghraib 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 using this video and they put it in their recruiting videos end up on you tube and across the jihad or web channel and they end up reading anti-american sentiment this is the hugest recruitment for al qaida that we can do it on fathomable how pathetic this is become because the war hasn't been brought to an end like obama said he was going to do and what we're seeing abu ghraib happened twice now in afghanistan. well not every one of america's outraged by what the marines were filmed doing as you find out on our website r.t. dot com the c.n.n.

contributor praises the troops actions as quote cool saying she'd do the same in their position we think about that we're going to comment that we thought would read up more on why also passengers on board that luxury clues cruise liner which ran aground off for italy tuscan coast say it was like a signal from the movie titanic over the search and rescue operation around the capsized cost of korea without online video coverage from the get. in israel the heated dispute is gaining momentum over the controversial boycott lore there it outlaws any criticism of the country's policy including its settlement construction in the west bank activists are putting their hopes on the israeli supreme court to overturn the legislation but if not please pull asli a found out the country's parliament's got a whole range of other controversial bills on its agenda to. gershon baskin is a wanted man in israel for his outspoken views against the government's policy of settlement expansion it's ironic because if it wasn't for this left wing israeli

activist it's done for israel would have secured a recent prisoner swap that's always way the soldier gilad shalit exchanged for palestinian prisoners after five years in captivity gershon says it was his contacts within him us that allowed the two sides to reach an agreement but now a controversial so-called boycott threatens to find the post war hero if he steps out of line the appeal to the public is an arab appeal. and there is a competition of who is more strongly advocating a position which is a very arab what the law says is that any israeli could face legal action just for speaking out in favor of boycotting settlements the first steps to fascism are quiet so. i i hope that the supreme court gives us a loud scream telling us that fascism should have passed but for now the supreme court is keeping quiet the state attorney again this month asked for more time to

consider the arguments angering gabion who team who filed a petition to another law the morning after it was passed in parliament until the court rules otherwise israeli owners of companies based in the settlements can seek damages for boycotts called against the goods i don't i don't accept any border. but it's the. right word not let. the boycott law is one of several controversial pieces of legislation being advanced by the netanyahu government a number of similarly criticized bills are currently under discussion in the israeli parliament another ball aims to dramatically limit foreign funding of nongovernmental groups critical of israel it's expected to receive cabinet approval soon this is a very conservative right wing coalition they have a solid majority in parliament but. still they sort of promote these bills which which are preceded not only by the left but by the press by the courts

. is not encouraging democracy ok or sort of limiting free speech in israel many here think it's a way for the right wing coalition government of prime minister netanyahu to stay in power but for people like gershon baskin he says he'll continue to call for a boycott of the settlements and far from centering him the law has only strengthened his resolve to stop israel's growing onslaught under marcus e policy r t tel aviv. this week the anniversary of the world's most controversial prison growing town of mowbray was marred by public protests on both sides of the atlantic demonstrators called on us president obama to want to election pledge and shut down the jail was artist laura smith reports next many side a new law that allows america to detain anyone it deems hostile as proof that obama's promises were empty words. one zero zero zero zero zero one zero zero abdullah and we are now freely 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 armor who's on 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 they actually thought oh the americans 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 there 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 fell 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. you like the preschool will or he would say complete inability to live as normal. up to that promise and indeed he is now bracing to

book american citizens into trials in military commissions which are very far from being fair trials we. 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 expect to be released laura smith r.t. london. now for a brief look at some other stories making headlines around the world a bomb blast has killed at least thirteen and wounded twenty at least in pakistan the explosion happened in the midst of a religious procession in which hundreds of shiites were marking the end of a period of mourning it it's believed the bomb was planned ahead of the gathering and time for maximum impact after the blast mourners began throwing rocks at the police so in turn deployed tear gas to control the crowd. must demonstrate the

continuing in rumania preferred day with riot police firing tear gas in an effort to control the crowds at least nine of buildings and so dozens of arrested protesters are rallying against strict government imposed for service as well as the health care reforms but also calling for early elections in the resignation of president by cisco. a special breed of sniffer dogs become the latest recruit in russian airports to help try and tackle terror with one of the best snouts in the dog world these tell wagon crime fighters spend the day sniffing out trouble. pay the canine sleuth a visit and put their noses to the test. the man's four legged friends on the front line in the fight against terror these dogs are a special breed part husky part jackal and it's their acute sense of smell which makes them perfect for sniffing out explosives in airports. it turns out that of all the canines it's the jackal that has the best sense of smell so called to use

that to improve the sense of smell in dogs. their husky hurry to 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. this early most 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 as they are not ever working with these dogs among passengers makes people feel more secure in their ports as for accuracy they've even detected gunpowder residue on the clothes of hunters returning home. a false alarm is detected

unless the north point five percent of searches making the dogs far more reliable than the best man made the texan 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 so. well it doesn't take the dog long to find what was hidden underneath my seat but it's all well and good doing it here on the training grounds 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 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. no matter how hard you try to hide if you have explosives these amazing animals will find you. r.t. moscow. in the next thirty minutes the top american academic whose book called peaceful revolutions is considered the last word on the subject we're told to him a sport to cater to the latest on our t.v. from moscow.

this is our time. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we all want that wall 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. you have very motivated out who are active who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but back in order for it.

we are. crowning and i think it's threatened by it's cutting our heart. it's making. all but impossible. to look at our top stories. this is no let up in the a brand us to speak of a new sanctions for the nation of. iran thank you the american is. a growing line of intervention supporters the editor of qatar is the first out of me to vote in the call for a military action in syria well for. forces on the border. and sending up a heat wave of credit rating down.