welcome it's ten pm here in moscow this sunday night you're watching the weekly a roundup of the top stories from the last seven days with me kevin owen but a developing story for you now to start this begin with that long anticipated news about the first fragments of russia's failed force group space probe well we never know reach the surface they fell into the pacific ocean for boys grow it was launched from baikonur in kazakhstan in november it was supposed to reach the martian moon of course in september this year to collect soil samples but it got stuck in earth's orbit supposedly because of engine failure the probe weighed thirty eight and a half tons and was one of the heaviest pieces of space junk ever defaulter worth ten tons of that there was fuel now the pieces cause no harm to the on the ground that's the latest we're hearing these details are just coming through it is only just happened despite earlier speculation that the spacecraft could have led to

serious damage so at the moment the reports of good will be talking to a correspondent peter all over a little bit later this hour for more. now the news that shape this week the crisis in relations between iran and the west peaked again fueled by wednesday's assassination of a top nuclear scientist into ran the radio officials blame the murder on the u.s. and israel want to stop its nuclear program meantime american and british warships are gathering in the persian gulf with iran and earlier threatened to block a crucial oil main that's made a pending oil embargo aimed at forcing to ryan to abandon its atomic ambitions. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. seems the slightest 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 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 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 thanks and that will dramatically complicate transactions through he ran 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 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 to the u.s.

replied by moving its fiercely 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 i absolutely want them to believe that that's the. it's secretary would you. do 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 were by saying unless. we would do ourselves a favor by ignoring most of it all of this really i think is connected to israel. is really fear of iran for rhetorical reasons war the military iran might feel coronary didn't 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 getting our reporting from washington r.t. . coming up this hour on this channel the cookbook of politics in kazakhstan takes never lections for the common people and season with a few fulfilled promises that's the elusive recipe it seems for peace that kazakhstan is serving up in a region simmering with unrest. plus is a perfect recruitment out for the taliban produced by and starring american troops see reaction to the shocking footage of u.s. marines urinating on dead afghan militants. syria's president bashar al

assad says she did amnesty for crimes committed during the ongoing antigovernment 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 meantime pressure on assad's been growing this week the ruler of qatar suggested of military intervention should end of the unrest in syria shake bin khalifa ofan is become the first arab leader to openly endorse military action qatar a monarchy itself is an ally of the u.s. and a strong advocate of regime change in damascus more thoughts dependent journalist lizzy failand told r.t. that the amnesty means assad 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

. they were people who had set things on fire destroyed many government buildings in these kinds of things the reaction is very much seen as though the president is 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 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 by the same time there is very much a concern that it could be a dangerous move. international first consultant told our countries lecturing syria on democracy a big hypocritical. assad is clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the context he is certainly not the worst one on the

country and what the arab league is doing i mean who does the an oblique represent the backer in the united arab emirates how do you review those do it do a few do monarchies and they are not the ones that should point a finger and our south where there is an international conspiracy where there are elements that point out to me did this is part of it i think it's more complex than just dad there is also genuine popular call but it is absolutely sure that there are elements from outside who are taking abusing whatever there is living among the syrian people for their own purposes that is absolutely. the euro's struggle for survival got that much more difficult this last week after a major credit rating agency 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 rate in its runaway finances and debt france and austria were

especially hard hit losing their prestigious aaa status that made them a safe haven for investors the reaction from e.u. leaders was very diverse some calling the move unjustified well others accepted the decision and called for action economists across the e.u. are now waiting for monday when markets open to gauge just how much damage is being done about it john laughlin is from the institute of democracy and cooperation in paris he told me believes the euro project has reached its end. the 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 extract 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 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 have we will see this day this announcement that downgrading of france or as having been one of the decisive moments. investment analyst patty until he believes the rating cuts 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 the edge of 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 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 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 later this hour tainted by torture are now ten years old a report on the last british citizen being held in guantanamo bay despite barack obama's election pledge to shut it down and repeated calls from protesters for him to keep to his word. 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 has appointed a three star general there to investigate but regional experts say the damage has

already been done and it'll be the u.s. troops currently in afghanistan will pay the price. let's not 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 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 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 thing. the american soldiers who are there right now in a lot of it really in danger is their lives. well many are no fearing that the

video would encourage more young muslims to join radical terrorist groups like the taliban or al qaeda. in afghanistan war veteran he told us that this latest scandal along with previous abuses is the perfect advertisement for recruiting terrorists just to remind people of a few incidents that occurred while there are 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 they're using this video and they put it in their recruiting videos the end up on you tube across the jihad. channels and they end up reading anti-american sentiment this is the hugest recruitment for al qaeda that we can do it's own problem of all 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 has happened twice now in afghanistan. gentilla bertold everyone in america by what the marines were filmed doing as you can see on our website our t. dot com a c.n.n. contributor praises the troops actions is cool saying that she would do the same in their position of show you got some views about that either way take a look at our web site also online it's the ultimate solution for social networking at big city like to have the last word this controversy over a new online craze as an israeli company releases a facebook app for wait for it posting stakes is updates from beyond the grave. polling booths across because it started now close billions of people cast their votes to choose the country's new parliament and those votes are now being counted the elections come a little less than a month for oil workers staging a prolonged strike over poor pay well locked in fatal clashes with security forces the elections were set to take play. in august but the president dissolved

parliament last november and ordered an immediate vote to exit polls so far show the ruling noro turn parties and some eighty one percent of the vote with his closest competitor coming in at seven percent that party will become the second political group to enter parliament and xander boy can report preempting violent unrest is a priority and. disturbing lessons from the arab spring. it wasn't for the snow and the phrasing temperatures stands capital of aston i could easily be mistaken for one of the gleaming cities of the golf 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 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 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 time the buyer 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 genesis is rightfully called catholics tons of oil capital but it's no match for glistening asked despite producing much of the country's hydro carbons for daycare . 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 it got it worse because extern has 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 but 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 the riches 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 their thirties have approved millions of dollars worth of programs to give their restive cd a facelift and create new jobs between each case. 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 in is that a buyer would much rather learn from the mistakes of others especially if they come at a price paid by gadhafi and a boycott artsy kazakstan. this week three year anniversary of the world's most controversial prison guantanamo bay was my. by public protest song both sides of

the atlantic demonstrators called on us president obama to honor his election pledge and shut down the jail results his lawyer smith reports when he cited a new law that allows america to detain anyone he deems hostile as proof that of promises were empty what's one zero zero zero zero one zero zero zero zero zero zero abdel moneim am absolutely today's 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 whose earned a 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 couple. 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 he 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 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 here in london which includes one son he's never even seen and fell for moving closer to being freed shockers supporters see worrying developments in the us is attitude to extrajudicial detention. i 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 there i'm very sorry indeed president obama for reasons of. lack of political will or he would say complete inability to deliver has not. lived up to that promise and indeed is now basing to book american citizens need to trials in military commissions which are not very far from being fair trials we. the british government has requested the release of armor 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 so we'll do some brief demonstrations a spread of mania just

a day after riot police fired tear gas in an effort to control crowds there at least nine have been injured so far with dozens arrested protests over the fourth day with rallies against strict government imposed austerity as well as unpopular health care reforms they're also calling for early elections and the resignation of president bush says school. another two bodies have been pulled from the stricken cruise ship costa concordia bringing now the death toll to five earlier three survivors were rescued from the vessel of over four thousand people on board fifteen remain unaccounted for tonight the ship capsized late on friday near the italian island of giglio police have detained the captain who was seen drinking in the bar at the time of the incident he may face charges of manslaughter and abandoning the ship leaving passengers in danger. over one hundred forty people have been arrested after members of course of a radical self-determination movement clashed with police five kilometers from a border crossing with serbia the activists were heading to the frontier to block

goods shipment from serbia but were stopped and pepper sprayed by police for disputes between kosovo and serbia of course tensions in the region for the last decade now belgrade's made a series of concessions to kosovo because of its ambitions to join the e.u. but as it is a god never reports next they come at the expense of ethnic serbs living in the south proclaim state. it's a checkpoint in northern kosovo may not look like an obvious triumph of peace but here is the same spot just two weeks ago since the summer you backed kosovo albanians have tried to take control of the border between serbia and kosovo the serb minority erected barricades in response they don't recognize course of independence saying that the albanian dominated province is still part of serbia now both sides of fire new agreed that the border will be jointly policed. anyone can freely pass through this checkpoint when you're trumpeting this as

a happy resolution that a standoff and while life here has become easier a lot of serbs are saying that once again they have given up too much for the compromise and have received no rush owen says about their long term future belgrade try to talk serbs in kosovo down from the barricades so it was to join the e.u. which made a peaceful solution to the border issue a precondition but despite progress on the border belgrade's application for candidate status has been stalled in the latest round of talks with brussels some countries which did recognize and they feel that serbia is a weak just before they are getting the kind of as a status that's why they are squeezing serbia exacta trying to achieve something more than than usually are asking their candidates. just meters from the e.u. soldiers in the asked serbian militia many here have been engaged in conflict with since nine hundred ninety nine when an ethnic war divided their territory into they

have been coming to this roadblocks in july and say they will carry on despite a border deal and only supposed why should we be happy to see you soldiers give us permission to use this road we never used to need permission to use it at all we do not trust the e.u. and albanians wanted it when a relative's and friends have been injured in this conflict for the past twelve years. those who gain the most from the border compromise are ordinary serbs blocked prevented many children from coming to school and their parents from buying even basic foodstuffs but normality is some distance away. so. there are constant warning sirens during the lessons these children are not growing up normally their lives are defined by the conflict and this is true not just for children but for all serbs have been living in kosovo for twelve years while opening the roads is a step forward to serve status in. they do not consider their own and that does not appear to want them remains as uncertain as ever you go girl and of. course.

it's going to turn twenty six moscow time kate's latest sport few bit later this hour including heated tempers in the tennis world she's here with us in less than twenty missed tell us more about that this house interview as well right after i've recap the headlines for you this link suddenly died in moscow watching r.t. .

this is our time. 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 the fact is already we're bridge and.

we are counting. properly drowning and i think it's spread by it's cutting off our. it's making real democracy. all but impossible. no it's not about spilling blood. it's the war of the 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.

if they shoot something inappropriate from public they can easily be shot by. casualties of war ok. i wish he would have never happened but it has happened. in a war a t.v. camera becomes an unnecessary what destroys their own safety all foreign nationals including journalists and inspectors should leave. and this clear what happens with such witnesses i got on my site. many checks a. person is shooting on our.

russia would be so much brighter if you move out sam from france to pressure you. for a start on t.v. dot com. hello this is r.t. from moscow it's now or half past ten pm moscow time and breaking news this the top the obvious tragic and russia's failed probe for bushcraft has finally reached earth falling into the pacific two months after its launch no damage reported so far. the top story is the week's main news the last seven days in a weekly there's no let up in the a rarely u.s. dispute over nukes and sanctions following the assassination of a top atomic research or into rather has been blamed on america and israel.