curious is is that there's no there's no move to a circle and this is entrenched in the polar opposite positions that they just want to fight you know this money took them towards thinking in terms of settlement all right thank you very much john flawed professor of law at westminster minster university thank you for your time. turkey wants the u.n. security council to set up a safe zone within syria to protect citizens fleeing war a move that would effectively require military intervention given russia and china's opposition to an armed involvement in syria's affairs britain made it clear foreign nations could bypass the council to implement the idea western powers are already discussing the future of syria without its current leadership. brings us all the details from new york well the security council remains very much divided over how to deal with the syrian crisis the high level meeting that was taking place in new york focused on the humanitarian circumstances in syria right now and

how they continue to exacerbate according to u.n. officials at least two hundred twenty nine thousand syrians have fled the country in the past eighteen months spilling over to neighboring countries turkey has asked the security council to consider setting up refugee camps inside of syria that are outside countries would safeguard this is a suggestion that the syrian government say they are very much against russia and china also opposed it saying that it could only create more conflict and violence so clearly you have a very complicated situation here but we did hear western countries address the security council their representatives calling once again for syrian president bashar al assad 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 millet's. terry the russian ambassador to 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 france those sanctions that they've placed on syria are only hurting the syrians because up on the stool 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 for more on the situation around syria we spoke to professor paul sheldon foote of california state university who specializes in middle eastern affairs affairs rather he believes that the u.s. and its allies are using the humanitarian situation in syria to pursue their own agenda 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 it is unfortunately a repetition of what happened in libya or the united nations being used to promote war instead of promote case that playbook worked in libya they were drawn to the same playbook and all of those work anymore but there is no desire. of the west nato to have been negotiated settle with the old with the purpose of this exercise is to make sure that there is no competition in the middle east for playboy and

such is by way of syria you wrote it other places all these other things are excuses there to claim that they care one bit about humanitarian concerns as it is a gross war and wiki leaks is planning to plunge into the syrian debate with julian assange promising millions of related e-mails will be punished and our interview the whistleblower gave to a pen latin american t.v. network he also pointed to a clear manipulation of the media over the syrian conflict songe also defended the wiki leaks activities saying that unlike the u.s. actions in afghanistan and iraq no one was hurt as a result of the websites publications he said he has never bought or sold information and insisted everything his website ever revealed was the truth assad also touched upon surveillance via the internet suggesting the u.s. maintains a spy network through google whistleblower admitted he may have to spend from six months to a year holed up in ecuador's london and the same until there's

a diplomatic solution or sweden chops the case against him. still ahead for you on r t this hour germany brings out the guns. deutsche marks still in the paid bank are being used to cover some of the german economy's shortfalls. and in the business bulletin later this hour china suggests boosting bilateral trade. with russia by importance. in the national currencies this story and more in less than ten minutes. all right we head to the u.s. now where the republican candidate for the presidency mitt romney has been laying out his case for health he had some strong views which could worry some on the king nations but he's now got such a reputation for changing his stance on issues it's hard to know exactly where he stands on really anything so if he's going to she's here to tell us more. while 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. i have something in common they can both change directions that any moment there goes another comedian he says. it goes like obama was like you can be whatever you want to be while romney was like i can be whatever you want me to be there are tons of jokes about mitt romney and his backbone issues apparently one way of showing some backbone for him is this kind of tough talk you know full of threats and we'll see how far it will take him in this november election well both candidates have been keen to mention american supremacy

and its responsibilities and 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 the heated discussion in today's crosstalk and it's coming up on our team in the next hour. 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 and twenty second in science forty ninth in life expectancy one hundred seventy eight to infant mortality thirty 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 in angels are real and depends upon a lot of the facts mentioned there are correct ok they're easy to find and they've 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 in eighteen twenty one before was president that we could be dictators of the world what our was 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 sell that about three quarters of all the arms abroad or have the greatest. terry power but because we lost our moral stature and values of who we are as a people. want to. call it the euro zone seeking a financial savior europe's biggest header angle america has turned it german chancellor is in china clutching billions in contracts to be signed in beijing and

holland school in the army from their pay and council on foreign relations believes china is a country worth 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 but 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 and anyway and we probably won't know so there's a lot of there's a lot of uncertainty about in the case of a boss that we see this is a european company and so it will benefit not just germany but also france and other countries in europe but lots 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. one other way germany differs from the rest of the union is its own currency the deutsche mark it's not only credible but it's still in use here all over has the details of problems on that score savings for a rainy day. here in germany the don't try are still very much alive and kicking in fact in the 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 the reason we accept bleach 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 demarche 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 dollars marks were brought to the bundesbank to be changed into crisp new currency but where is that cash coming from. he had to does not and one of my other li 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 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 your room 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 euro zone members the bank won't place a time limit on accepting old my. 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 theorists though who say that in the banks bolts 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 feature all over r.t. berlin. you can find plenty more of our stories on our website r.t. dot com there's a taste of what we've got for you right now. bloody miss direction now the protests

find out why the russian punk band is being linked to a grisly double murder. support results a cake recipe or maybe the latest updates on the u.s. military drone attacks vailable with a new i phone now. here at r.t. time now for a look at some other stories making headlines around the globe two hundred seventy south african miners have been charged with the murder of thirty four of their colleagues despite the fact it was the police that shot them national prosecutors say officers only opened fire because they were under attack by armed protesters more than one hundred fifty of the miners being held claim to have been beaten up in custody the killings at

a strike earlier this month became the bloodiest incident since the fall of the apartheid regime. a bunch of gone is threatening legal action over a book describing the details of the seal raid that killed osama bin laden in may last year the department of defense says the author who is a former u.s. navy officer had violated agreements not to divulge military secrets and a book published next week apparently called her addicts the official account of what happened to him. captain stuff or german airline have begun a strike at the country's busiest airport in frankfurt our industrial action has already calls the cancellation of more than one hundred fifty flights staff want improved pay and working conditions and guarantees jobs will be outsourced. all right time now for business with natasha so it turns out that russia's most promising energy project has not been put on hold what's that all about while the

partners of problems flying ship offshore project stockman are issuing conflicting reports french oil major took tall as denying early reports that the project has been suspended indefinitely french tall is denying it the firm says the partners stockmen that in addition to gazprom include norway's stopped oil or pursuing technical studies to come up with an economically viable solution on thursday gazprom said the project was put on hold as the development cost of the shock one way too high considering that gas prices are falling. and now check out the equity markets will start with what's going on on a new europe and what we're seeing there is a pretty upbeat picture higher metal prices help the miners on the footsie and germany the banking sector is outperforming on the dax the u.s. futures point to a higher opening on wall street in

a few hours so that adds to the general optimism the traders anxiously anticipate the speech by the fed reserve chairman ben bernanke he later in the day for the most support part of the markets are not expecting any monetary easing but they are looking for some clarifications one of european union's few growth stories poland that is feeling the squeeze of the downturn the country's secular growth eased to two point four percent the lowest in. about three years and significantly below the forecast poland's g.d.p. kept expanding over the past two 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 ad. now checking out the russian equity markets so far so good pretty i'll beat the r.t.s. is gaining more than three quarters of a percent some of the main movers on the my sex include car maker off to vaas its

shares are pretty albi to fact gaining around one and three quarters of for sound as of plans to issue a new version of its popular reno logan our next year flagship carrier air flight is down its passenger traffic rose by a border in the first seven months of the year partly not enough for investors and no one's bank is gaining actually pretty hefty like sixty eight percent on the rumors that financial corp is eyeing it as a potential acquisition target now crude is recovering from a two week low it reached on thursday and it's actually demonstrating pretty have to gains moving on to the currency market the euro is stronger to the dollar at this hour the russian ruble is a strange thing to the currency of us kept out of the privatization of russia's state assets could go online the state has agreed to terms of selling its

properties through electronic auctions analysts say this would definitely make the privatisation process easier and more transparent but online sales don't exclude privatizing through the more traditional me. and staying with a high tech sector russia's largest free email service mail dot ru has bought out its ukrainian namesake mail dot a the company's didn't disclose the financial. details of their deal but analysts estimate that it's around a half a billion dollars the move to boost mail daughter use position in ukraine where it's already pretty popular. china wants to boost the cross border trade with its partners by doing it in its national currency the yuan it's already doing so with hong kong which has the hong kong dollars and also singapore but it

now hopes that latin america and the middle east could be next meanwhile russia's longer in favor of moving away from the dollar and trading in the national currencies hong kong's financial secretary john tsang explains to business r t how it could all work out. what is happening now is a great deal of trace settlement in the national currency so it 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 it's already happening i think we should expect to see a lot more of that and as this two currencies become at some stage research currency for for the rest of the world. and that's the latest from the business team here karen my colleague dimitri medvedev and co will bring in updates in about fifteen minutes all right we look forward to thank you natasha and i'll be back with our

top stories in just a couple of minutes to stay with us. dreaming of a luxury see round trip with open air entertainments. a little bit

of exercise to get in better shape. and cuisine with all my healthy ingredients. in this case something to remind our. summer sales are cheap. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations rule today. the world's leading. technology innovation all the developments

around russia we've got this huge earth covered. hello and welcome to our team this friday on the current hour option with your top stories buddies but is also loses his multibillion dollar claim against our mom rich in a london courtroom clash of the russian oligarchs it's billed as one of the most expensive ever seen the judge dismissed claims of blackmail and intimidation over a business deal. turkey pushes for the un security council to intervene in syria militarily to protect civilians that refuses to rule out taking action it beyond the organization's most powerful body. syria's one of the topics and julian assaulters latest interview it was still lower promises more weighty leaks

revelations and claims the media's been manipulated over what's happening there as for his own predicament assad said he might have to spend six months to a year and door an embassy in london. and romney's rumbled the u.s. republican candidate promises to show russia more about bono if he wins the election faces criticism himself for flip flopping on key issues. our special report it's coming up here on our team in just a couple of moments. playing football in the scorching july sun of the iberian peninsula is senseless torture for some of these men others see it as a simple warm up before more difficult contest on dry land they see their rivals face to face but at sea competitors are nothing more than a blip on a radar screen. the wind and waves are the only

tangible evidence of their determination to win. the crew of the russian three masts sailing ship mir has little time to prepare ahead of the second phase of the two thousand and twelve toll ships race nevertheless they find five minutes for a brief meeting ceremony thank you i would like to congratulate you today as we begin our voyage out to sea i hope will have a good start this time too i urge you all to do your best like it was. a true success is a matter of honor for the captain and instructor of mir he will soon be celebrating his seventy fifth birthday and has devoted a third of his life to the world's fastest sailing boat victory would be the

perfect gift the crew will need to give it their all in the first phase of the two thousand and twelve tall ships race ended with a discouraging result from the air. of the building actually we were the first to come in after the first lap but after time update we turned out to be third in our class of ships. and frederic chopin polish sailboats where head of us our sister ship from poland will be our main rival both ships have similar designs and sails according to the time correction will last about thirty minutes during the first phase i. think again a thirty to ninety minutes will be enough for us to win here to give a long blast campaign. a. long one by. by noon more than thirty sail boats have left the port of lisbon the second part of the race is short little more than two hundred nautical miles they will need to

make up for the time she lost in the first place before she reaches the spanish port of kids is the crew unfurls mears sails all three thousand square metres all. over all of the boats in this prestigious class of ships mere has the greatest claim to victory her rivals pale in comparison to the number of wins she has racked up over the years she also boasts a skilful crew. strictly speaking these races are a side project from there the russian ship is primarily for training purposes cadets of them a car of academy a would be captains of the russian merchant fleet and they learn how to set sail climb the rigging and timing knots although in the age of nuclear vessels such skills seem as useful as speaking latin. your best out there and where you.

will get your any seaman must have practiced as well as theory decides they need to have certain character traits epaulets as well as sailors are sent to other sail boats because these people need to make the right decision in the nick of time the sail boat offers the best schooling and character training. day pharrell of canada knows what the bo's'n of his main sail wants him to do their commands and not translated into english after spending several months on may he's used to the routine and was. so expect it of him indeed sometimes he copes with his assignments better than his russian comrades this is not my first time on the starboard vessel i still aboard a vessel called the picture council on the around the world voyage and doing this made me realize i want to sail on the tall ships a for a living and so i went to school to be a navigator and this was not one of the opportunities for our work term was to come on the show that you know. there were about twenty trainees like dave on the ship

like the sailors they keep watch and they also share courses with the crew there's only one thing that sets them apart they have to pay for the privilege is a floating democracy even the old superstition about women on board being a bad omen is ignored right you know twenty young female cadets some trainees are taking part in the race. my name's leanne i'm from hamburg germany and yeah this is my second time on the air i would say that the big guys help us but we try to do our best like pulling the ropes and so on it's not difficult but it hard they like physically hard right now in fighting the position in the atlantic ocean on route downs and that's i plodded every half an hour i feel great about it we all work together as a team. we help each other through it also makes us.