to step down britain and france the foreign ministers of those countries today made a new call encouraging for more defections within the syrian government and the syrian military the russian baths are tonight nations vitaly churkin i did address the security council and raised the issue of the fact that the unilateral sanctions that western countries including the us britain and france those sanctions that they've placed on syria are only hurting the syrians. the sanctions imposed by passing the u.n. security council have nothing to do with actual efforts to settle the syrian crisis they complicate the lives of average citizens and do not allow them to meet their elementary needs or fully enjoy basic human rights this is not only our conclusion but also that of an independent commission in syria we call upon nations who impose sanctions against syria to immediately lift them we see the efforts of certain states to use humanitarian reasons to justify financial technical and logistical

support to illegally armed groups as unacceptable. but the u.s. and its western allies have underscored as late as this eat this meeting taking place security council that they will continue supporting the syrian opposition and continue providing them with a quick meant. under from rome this is aeration iran syria was spoke to professor fruit of california state university who specializes in middle east on the phone as he believes the u.s. and its allies are using the humanitarian situation in syria to pursue that in the region. it's a pretext it's still another way to divide and take over the country using the united nations as your vehicle is unfortunately a repetition of what happened in libya or the united nations being used to promote war instead of promote their playbook worked in libya they want to try the same playbook until it doesn't work anymore there is no desire. at the west nato to have

been negotiated settlement the oldest purpose of this exercise is to make sure that there is no competition in the middle east for play well in such as by way of syria you wrote it other places all these other things are excuses to claim that they care one bit about humanitarian concerns as it is a gross. wikileaks is planning to plunge into the syrian debate with julian assange promising millions of related emails to be published in a range of you there whistleblower gave to upon latin american t.v. network he also pointed to a clear many patient of the media over the syrian conflict a song also defended today we can expect citizens saying that unlike us actions in afghanistan and they're wrong no one was hurt as a result holding what science publications and he said he has never bortle sold information on the system everything his website ever revealed was the truth is also touched upon surveillance via the internet suggesting the us maintains this

plane that what through google the whistleblower admitted he may have to spend from six months to a year holed up in acquittals london embassy until there's a diplomatic solution also we've been dropped the case against him. this is that he still had figured this out like germany brings out the old guy on some telly still and they piggy bank on bank used to have it some of the german economy special homes have them. and in the business bulletin later this hour china suggests boosting bilateral trade with russia by incorporating deals in the national currency. this story and more and. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.

i've been going down of the song and good morning we will remember that we will. what combined this is asking am do we go to the u.s. now where the republican candidate for the presidency mitt romney has been laying out his case for office he had some strong views which could war is some outlet

some on looking nations but he's now got such a reputation for changing his stance on a shares it's hard to know exactly where he stands of anything and archie is going that she can is here to tell us more lives of the great. well mitt romney is now officially barack obama's opponent for the white house and he's talking tough throwing rocks small verbal rocks not only the president but also of nations at the republican convention where he accepted his nomination mr romney did not fail to once again highlight his animosity towards russia he criticized the president for not being hard enough in his view on russia when it comes to missile defense mitt romney says under his administration quote mr putin will see less flexibility and more backbone end of quote and of course that adds up to his earlier statements that russia is america's number one geopolitical enemy that they need to reset the reset that's actually what he says on his website as part of mitt romney's foreign

policy agenda so yes a lot of tough talk i heard experts say that's how mitt romney makes up for lack of charisma what's interesting about the backbone comment is that mitt romney himself is often characterized as lacking the backbone as he has flip flopped on so many issues like abortion he was for abortion before he was against it or immigration when he was for giving them legal status then he was for deporting them mitt romney's flip flops have been widely discussed it's been an endless source of inspiration for comedians and this is from the tonight show for example with jay leno actually mitt romney and hurricane isaac have something in common they can both change directions at any moment there goes another comedian he says. he goes like obama was like you can be whatever you want to be while lonny was like i can be whatever you want me to be there are tons of jokes about mitt romney and his

backbone issues apparently and one way of showing some backbone for him is this kind of tough talk you know fool of threats we'll see how far it will take him in this november election indeed thank you very much. qantas's have been keen to mention american supremacy and its responsibilities in the world in their campaigns but is the country still the greatest power in the world or is that just election rhetoric that's the topic of discussion in today's call still coming up on our late today. let's take a look at a very well known clip from h.b.o.'s program newsroom. just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day there's some things you should know and one of them is there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world we're seventeen literacy twenty seventh in math twenty second in science forty ninth in life expectancy one hundred seventy eight to infant mortality thirty eight median household income number four and labor force the

number four in our exports we lead the world in only three categories number of incarcerated citizens per capita number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending a lot of the facts mentioned there are correct ok they're easy to find and didn't have been known for a long time now is america's number one there's a there's a gradual decline john quincy adams said when he was secretary of state an eight hundred twenty one before was president that we could be dictators of the world what are its policy would then shift from a policy of liberty and freedom to a policy of domination and control and now we are a country that's lost its way and it's not because we may not be number one in the amount of arms we sell you know we felt about three quarters of all the arms abroad or have the greatest military power but because we lost our moral stature and values of who we are as a people. i. i . i.

was the eurozone seeking a financial savior europe's biggest hates uncle americal has turned east german chancellor is in china clutching their lives and contracts to science in beijing and house ninety eight from the european council on foreign relations believes china is a country was spending some time with to make friends. the big hope in europe is that the chinese would invest in some of the new vehicles that have been crazy like the european stability mechanism. the chinese. offer lots of words of support today and yesterday but not much in the way of concrete promises to buy bonds in any case the chinese don't tend to make their bond purchases public so we don't know for example how much the chinese invested in european bones in the last two

years since the euro crisis began anyway and we probably won't know so there's a lot of there's a lot of uncertainty about in the case of their boss but we see this is a european company and so it will benefit not just germany but also france and other countries in europe the loss of the deals that have been signed. for german companies are open to european companies and so to do in that sense there is a competition going on between germany and other european countries germany seems to be winning that competition well another way germany differs from the rest of the union as its old currency they don't because not only credible but still it is based on of a has the details of berlin's old school savings for a rainy day. here in germany the don't try are still very much alive and kicking in fact in a store in central berlin the good old they market is still accepted as legal tender when it comes to purchases with an exchange rate of around two dogs marks to

the euro the store's manager says that there's still enough of the old currency around to warrant them taking it was on the name of three the reason we accept which marks is there are still plenty of people with the old currency we get quite a few people wanting to spend them in our store for it's not just in shops that they're accepted if you find a few d. mark coins down the back of the sofa germany's public telephones will happily take them off your hands germany officially dropped the old money for the euro over ten years ago in two thousand and eleven alone though over eight million bucks marks were brought to the bundesbank to be changed into crisp new currency but where is that cash coming from. that he had that is not in one of my other lee relatives gave me the school and as a gift so i decided to turn them into something it could spend on television. we've had them lying around the house for ages we've only just got around to getting

democrats changed or there are those though who say they won't part with their marks as a minister. i keep them as a souvenir i'm not going to change them into europe and according to the blunders bank there's still more than thirteen billion dollars each marks in circulation they say they get returns from as far away as brazil and new zealand so unlike some eurozone members the bank won't place a time limit on accepting old money. so we will continue to take them as long as people keep bringing them it's something of a tradition here that currency from years and years ago will always be exchanged for legal tender there are conspiracy theory. though who say that in the bank vaults are trillions of marks being stockpiled should the euro crisis deepen only only rumors so if the cash that's returned isn't being kept for a rainy day what happens to it and once the exchange is complete those deutsche

marks the shredded ending their days is very expensive confetti future all over r.t. . and don't forget you can find plenty more stories on our website ask dot com and here's a taste of what we've got for you there right now. a lot in his direction not a protest to find out why the russian punk band is being linked to a grisly double murder. and also that the youth sports results a cake recipe all made it the latest updates on the u.s. military drone attacks all available where they knew i. was some other stories making headlines around the world two hundred seventy south

african miners have been charged with the murder of thirty four their colleagues despite the fact that it was the police that shot them national prosecutors say all this is only open fire because they were under time by armed protesters more than one hundred fifty of the miners being held claimed to have been beaten up in custody the killings at a strike l.a. this man's became the bloodiest incident since the fall of the apartheid regime. the banter going to is threatening legal action over a burger describe the details of this civil raid that killed osama bin laden in may last year the department of defense says the author is a former u.s. navy officer had violated agreements not to divulge military secrets the book published next a week irately contradict the official account of water up and local monarch. cabin staff for german airline prancer began the strike at the country's busiest airport in frankfurt. our industrial action has

a ready caused the cancellation of more than one hundred fifty flights start want to improve pay and working conditions and guarantees jobs won't be outsourced. on time now for a business update with natasha and the time it turns out that russia's most promising and the true project has not been put on hold so it will settle about well actually what we're seeing is that the partners of gals problems flagship offshore projects are really issuing conflicting reports french took tal is now denying early reports that the project has been suspended indefinitely the firm says that the partners and stockmen that in addition to gazprom include norway's stadol well are pursuing technical studies to come up with an economically viable solution on thursday gazprom said the project was put on hold as the development costs of chocolate are too high considering that gas prices are falling. and it's

time now to take a quick look at the equity markets and let's go straight to europe to see what's going on there what we're seeing there is a pretty upbeat picture actually higher metal prices helpful in helping the miners on the footsie and germany the banking sector is outperforming the doubts but overall we're seeing gains of around half a percent there traders anxiously anticipate the speech by the federal reserve chairman ben bernanke you later in the day the markets for the most part not really expecting bernanke to to announce any stimulus measures but they're just looking for some clarity one of european union's a few group stories poland is feeling the squeeze of the downturn the country's second quarter growth eased to two point four percent the lowest is three years and significantly below the forecast poland's g.d.p. kept expanding over the past few years while much of the e.u. showed negative growth but a series of gloomy economic indicators show that the so-called economic miracle is

coming to an end. and here in russia the equity markets are also on the rise regaining some of the ground they lost on. there's they want stocks fell to the lowest said about a week the r.t.s. is now gaining around half a percent the movers among the blue chips include off to vaas shares they are actually quite i'll be off to oz will start assembling the new version of its popular real logan next year swag ship air carrier aeroflot is down with its passenger traffic grows a by about a quarter in the first seven months of the year which apparently is not enough to impress investors and ennobles bank is gaining almost sixteen percent told reports about a financial firm agree is honoring the bank as a possible acquisition target. now moving on to prove a lower crude hurt the russian market markets on thursday it dropped to the lowest

level in shoe weeks as worries about hurricane isaac subsided but now what we're seeing is a pretty i'll be picture of crude is demonstrating pretty hefty gains moving on to the currency markets at the moment the euro dollar pair is is actually trading with euro in the lead and when it comes to the russian ruble it's mixed to the currency basket the privatization of russia's state assets could soon go online the state has agreed the charms of selling its property through electronic auctions analysts say that would make the privatization easier and more transparent but online sales don't really exclude privatizing state assets through the more traditional means and saying with a high tech sector russia's largest free email service mail dot ru has brought out what out its ukrainian namesake mail dot you

a the company's did really disclose the financial terms of the deal but analysts estimate it's probably around the house a billion dollars the move should be. melgar used position in ukraine where it's already pretty popular and china wants to boost its cross border trade in its national currency the yuan beijing already uses it on trading with hong kong which has the hong kong dollars and also singapore but it also hopes latin america and then will east could be next meanwhile russia has long been calling to move it away from the dollar and the trading in the national currencies hong kong's financial secretary john sound explains how this could work out. what is happening now is a great deal of trace element in the national currency so in terms of for example between russia and china they would be doing

a lot of settlement in un or in ruble this way you can weigh reduce the currency risk that might incur and that is already happening i think we should expect to see a lot more of that and as this two currencies become a some space research currency for for the rest of the world. and that's it for now see you next hour all right at a later thank you and other top stories in just a couple of them.

dreaming of a luxury see round trip with the open air entertainment. a little bit of exercise to get in better shape. and cuisine with all the healthy ingredients. in this case something to. our summer sales m r g.

o p. hello again this is the headline. barry's berezovsky loses his multibillion dollar claim against a roman abramovich in the london courtroom clownish told the russian oligarchs billed as one of the most expensive at the scene the judge dismissed claims of blackmail and intimidation over a business deal. it pushes for the un security council to intervene in syria militarily to protect civilians as britain refuses to rule out taking action beyond the organization is most powerful body. also a series of one on big topics in drilling off the latest interview the whistleblower promises more we can leaks revelations and claims the media has been manipulated over what's happening as for his own predicament also he might have to

spend six months to a day in the ecuadorian embassy in london. and the real news of rumble to be do us republican candidate promises to show. if you wins the election but faces criticism himself for flip flopping on occasion trades . with matronly now officially named a republican nominee for u.s. president. talks to. ivan eland about the race for the white house. what do you read into the g.o.p. convention. well conventions in the u.s. now are sort of a beauty contest they're not they used to be in the history they used to have a lot more effect than nominees actually chosen at the conventions but now we have

a party primary and caucus system which does that so it's just sort of a coronation of the nominee of the particular party and they script them pretty heavily romney has complete control over the conference convention and there observe you ron paul supporters that kicked up a little bit but largely even ron paul is playing the game inside the party so you don't see hardly any disputes or anything like that over the platform or anything else and no surprises all the romney started at the very beginning of his campaign was very rough there was a lot of competition a lot of other candidates so basically discredit him and yet now at the convention it seems as the g.o.p. just wants from need to be the president yes well they've all that's the tradition in american politics usually is they have about a battle during the primaries call each other all sorts of names criticize each other's policy and then all of

a sudden you see people who are criticizing him before when he gets enough electoral i mean convention delegates he flip and then start supporting him so as it ran this time they think now for the u.s. well usually they're on the republican side they they nominate the person who lost last time the next in line the democrats are a little bit more if he but but i think basically comes down to these conventions and surfers are surface phenomena at the don't really mean much people who actually study elections in the u.s. say it's not really between two candidates it's a referendum on the current administration so you know they could have almost anybody running and the economy is bad and it's going to be very close but i think some of the models predict obama still eking it out of a. close victory but it's going to be close so those models could be off as well but i think obama has an intrinsic. advantage in the electoral college because in the united states you know we don't. as we saw in two thousand election

we don't elect the president on the popular vote it can sometimes be different than the electoral college so we really don't have a national election we have a state by state election and so the. candidates have to win so many states which add up to two hundred seventy electoral votes and so that can sometimes differ from the national popular vote totals so this could be another election where that happens we'll see obama as a slight edge in the electoral map and they kind of mean is bad but romney's policies are too far to the right and he seems as if he's moving even further to the right choosing paul ryan for instance a lot of people like his and accuse him of wanting to assert to the right wing of the republican party do you think the u.s. is moving in that direction or is it just politics that brought him here well the republicans seem to think that they can energize their base more than the

democratic base because the democratic base is kind of disappointed with obama in certain respects and if they can energize their base they can win that way but i don't know that's a bit iffy i think they may have made a bad choice in paul ryan and i think that's choosing him said ok we're going to mobilize our base instead of going for independent voters because he would have picked romney would pick somebody that was like chris christie or somebody that was more moderate to go out to the center and there may have been a mistake because most of the conservatives are going to vote against obama. and so they really didn't need paul ryan they needed somebody to get people in the middle particularly. suburban women and you see these comments by the republican candidate. one of the senate candidates on abortion and rape. you know that really. disaffect women so the republicans led that's what happened leading up

to the convention so they don't really want to talk about that the republicans want to talk about the economy and they want all those social issues which are very divisive and might turn key voting blocks like suburban women against them so and in a close election they really need everybody on their side do you think he's able to move to appeal to the middle well not as much i guess somewhat it's hard to say where he stands on many issues he's kind of moved around enough that's believable but after you do that and now if people you know stick you with the flip flopper type thing flipping back and forth between you know like john kerry was labeled with that. a while back for the demo on the democratic side you know if you're inconsistent on your and then mitt romney has been inconsistent on abortion assault weapons ban and even on health care yes in fact obama and mitt romney have switched positions because.