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 military the russian baths are to deny 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 that there was a post this jewel in the sanctions imposed bypassing 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. also weighing in on the serious situation is wiki leaks with julian assange promising to publish millions of e-mails to cast new light on the crisis they're supposed to show just how comfortable the west used to be with president assad and how the media is currently being manipulated to vilify him they whistle blower made his comments during a rare interview with a south american t.v. network while hold all the ecuadorian embassy in london assad criticized washington's harassment of wiki leaks saying speaking the truth should never be considered a crime he also mentioned how the west is turning into a surveillance mega state which he believes makes

a mockery of human rights as entre predicted he would stay up to a new year at the embassy surrounded by british police until either a diplomatic solution is found or the case against him instruct more on the interview with paul within from the united kingdom independence party. paul thank you for joining us today now joining us on it was very scathing of what he called a transnational surveillance network headed by the united states he says wiki leaks wants to stop it but do you think it count. well i don't know whether it can but he's certainly right i would only challenge one thing which i would say that we here in britain suffer even more from this surveillance society in the united states london is the world capital of surveillance everywhere you look there's a c.c.t.v. camera we are constantly monitored monitored twenty four hours a day. now we independents party try and fight this in the same way that wiki leaks

has been trying to do but it's very difficult because every time you protest about it helps with catching criminals when you're made out to be against the rule of law if you don't want to be so very you know every moment of your your waking life now with regards to these sexual allegations against him a science says he just can't deny them because it would be like wrestling with a pig you'll get muddy either way do you think that's a valid argument i do i'm always very worried when i hear that people who are involved in politics who are campaigning for some cause or other get tarred with the sexual allegations brush it's the easiest thing to allege it's the most difficult thing to prove or disprove it seems to be a very useful tool for those who are attempting to you know put us in a tighter and tighter strait jacket so many of the people who have been

instrumental in in fighting for our freedom end up being tarred with this particular brush and while star don't know anything about the particular allegations against julian it seems to me that it's the handiest implement to to use if you ever want to discredit anybody now without a doubt and i think you will agree with me paul wiki leaks has certainly been weakened to a certain extent by both financial blockades and some media ridicule could the group yet to be brought down do you think. well i don't know whether they can be brought down it's i think it's all a question of how much or how little influence people have and i can see that this has certainly we couldn't some of the case for the documents that they are are revealing but the fact of the matter is that there's been no attempt to say that any of the stuff that they revealed is fraudulent or misleading the whole. seems to be to take them out because the actual documents speak for themselves and

clearly for the most part you know extremely and very relevant you know you know a science suggested that his plight might either be resolved by the u.k. and accurate or reaching a diplomat diplomatic agreement or by sweden simply dropping the case which scenario do you think is most likely if any. well i wish they'd hurry up and come to some resolution on this because it's costing us a fortune in policing but i think the most likely thing is that this i guess we could call it an ecuadorian standoff rather than a mexican standoff will will end up being resolved by dropping the case because i don't see how they can proceed from here although it's very uncomfortable for him where he is there's no reason why you he he needs to leave the going to see you doesn't have any medical condition are aware of that might force him to seek medical treatment for example so i don't see. a very quick resolution to this

unfortunately for our coffers here it is if our police weren't under enough pressure with all the other policing they're having to do with the olympics and everything else at the moment. but i don't see a resolution you know william hague or stop threatening to storm the ecuadorian embassy which i think he was very foolish to even hint originally but we might come to some arrangement with the ecuadorians i don't know but i think the most likely thing is that sweden will realize that they've created by not sending a prosecutor to talk to him in england as he offered to do to speak to them to answer their questions by going this heavy handed route i think they've they've made a rod for their own bike and they're going to end up having to drop it i don't think they'll do their own time drain thank you for that i'm afraid that's all the time we have to live from london you're inside analysis paul with and thank you from the united kingdom independence party. you can always stay with us here on r t because

still ahead for you this hour the most be verdict from iran on a new u.n. report claiming to have evidence that the country has doubled its nuclear capacity . mitt romney house been outlining more of his policy plans as he accepted his nomination as the republican candidate for the u.s. presidency he wants more stressed his aggressive views towards some nations including russia but with a reputation for changing his stance it can be hard to tell just how trustworthy he really is party's going to can explains. mitt romney is now officially barack obama's opponent for the white house and he's talking tough throwing rocks well verbal rocks not only the president but also nations at the republican convention where he accepted his nomination mr romney did not fail to once again highlight his any masorti 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 and of quote and of course that adds up to his earlier statements that russia is america's number one geopolitical anime 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 illegal immigration he was for giving them legal status that he was for deporting them mitt romney is flip flops have been widely discussed they've become an endless source of inspiration for comedians this is. from the tonight show with jay leno it says

actually mitt romney and hurricane isaac have something in common they can both change directions at any moment and another comedian goes obama is like you can be whatever you want to be while romney is 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 full of threats we'll see how far it will take him in this november election. and don't forget to log onto our website r t dot com for the latest news comment and videos and while you're there here's a taste of what else might catch your eye. plans for a new album which give the latest album dates on u.s. military drone attacks including a body count find out why the hour pozen been approved. was on line vision of the future a woman who had lost her sight has got it back again surgeons have implanted her

with the first ever successful biopic i. iran has rejected as a political move the latest report by the u.n. nuclear watchdog which claims the country's doubled the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges to iran believes the i.a.e.a. findings are aimed at overshadowing the non aligned movement summit taking place there for deeper insight into the story we're now joined live by saeed mohammad marandi professor at the university of tehran side thank you for joining us today so tuckwell believes the report is just another element of psychological warfare waged against iran what do you make of the timing. well that's what the iranians are saying they're saying that the timing is highly suspicious because the nonaligned movement. conference in tehran has been highly successful instead of the

united states being isolated or iran being isolated the united states has become isolated scented opposed senior figures going to tehran and many major world leaders have come to the country in addition the president egypt came to iran which is a political earthquake so the iranians are saying that this report came at a sensitive time to sort of distract attention away from this iranian success and also the report is misleading in many ways what will get to those ways in just a minute i do want to point out that the report does state there are now more than two thousand uranium enrichment centrifuges installed in iran now tell me do they really need that many machines if they're simply used for peaceful purposes. yes because the iranians are producing uranium. enriched uranium at twenty percent for facilities in tehran which then produces medical isotopes.

roughly eight hundred thousand to nine hundred thousand. people in the iran need this medicine many of them are cancer patients and the fact that the united states and the europeans tried to prevent iran from obtaining that fuel in the past meant that meant that they were taking the iranian cancer patients hostage which was in the eyes of iranians inhuman so the iranians basically felt they were forced to produce their own uranium at twenty percent the irony here is that the iranians at the beginning had no intention whatsoever to produce it you aenima twenty percent and then produce nuclear fuel but the americans and the europeans by as i said taking iranian citizens and people hostage forced the iranians to take that step now we've seen a rise and certainly a rise in israel's aggressive rhetoric towards iran while washington has been very cautious when talking of

a possible air strike on the country so if israel does decide to attack iran do you think the u.s. will help. well obviously any attack on iran would not be in the interests of the united states or the europeans and it wouldn't be in the interests of the israeli regime because it would be seen as an aggressor it would create major harm to the local economic situation and the global economy is not doing well and the countries will blame the israeli regime for any deterioration of the global economy there is a possibility that israelis will carry out an attack because they are not rational actors in the eyes of the iranians but the iranian response would be very severe and if the americans. try to intervene on behalf of israel then i believe that we will have a major conflict in the persian gulf region and oil tankers oil installation got

oil installations gas installations all these would most probably be destroyed the persian gulf is a very. small gulf and the iranians have a very long border so the iranians are quite prepared to defend themselves and i think the americans really know that all right well thank you for your insight and analysis professor side mohammad marandi from the university of toronto. german chancellor angela merkel is on a visit to china hoping to tap into the country's monetary muscle to help pull europe out of the downward spiral she's seeking to boost the flow of investment from beijing into the european stability fund a fire wall against financial trouble that the chancellor worked very hard to create however hollande scorned nominee from the european council on foreign relations says that the chinese are not in a hurry to lend a hand to brooklyn. 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 obviously 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. off for german companies are open to european companies and so in that sense there is a competition going on between germany and other european countries and mostly

germany seems to be winning that competition while germany is striving to make sure the euro stays afloat its old currency the deutsche mark showing no signs of being discarded artist peter oliver 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 dollars each marks to the euro the store's manager says that there's still enough of the old currency around to warrant them taking it once on the name 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 demarche coins down the back of the sofa germany's public telephones will happily take them off your hands germany officially drop 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. that he had that is not any one of my only 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 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 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 banks bolts are trillions of being stockpiled should the euro crisis deepen 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 as very expensive confetti feature all over r.t. berlin. right dimitri joins us now from the business desk so what's come out of the fed chairman's speech in wyoming well it's hard to say actually how to interpret this speech but let me just tell you that six pages out of eighteen of that speech which have been published are devoted to quantitative easing so that's good on one

hand but on the other hand basically there's no concrete call for action was taken look at saudi markets reacting basically to it well the dow jones right now if we take a look here there it is it's up point three percent but that's also on the back of the fact that factory orders report has just come in and it's up two point eight percent and that's a sign of economic recovery but coming back to ben bernanke he has was very important said that basically the problems in the jobs markets in the united states they are connected with the systemic economic problems in the united states so he acknowledged that fact and if needed he said the fed would act with additional buy of assets but again there's no specific ation as to when or how this is going to happen but volumes are still not not clear so two years ago ben bernanke you

basically did the same thing he said that there could be a new wave of quantitative easing and it did happen that was q.e. two in two thousand and ten and then he evolved about that throughout the year so we'll see of course what happens but so far the market reaction is rather wrong. careful i would say sick of what's happening in europe and it's all kind of come down the words on the markets before we saw the dax more than one percent up but right now as you can see it's all coming back down to move over to the a russian markets and they're actually the audios in the my six managed to move downward so they're not happy with the fed chairman's speech and the my six is pushed down half a percent on energy shares notably luke while which has been buying up assets massively in the previous days now it's announced that they see investors choosing to secure profits and on the commodities market we're also seeing some kind of easing with light sweet now up just to hartford all of the valley was up more than

one dollar twenty cents before so so this is this is the picture we're seeing right now basically with no promise of concrete action the demand for energy is unlikely to change that much in the future to the positive. and in the currency market we are still seeing the euro without barely any change from the previous hour but it's up massively almost one percent as you can see there to the dollar and the russian ruble is now strengthening against a basket of currencies but that's up to several sessions of losses against both of them. so that's the way the markets look at this hour this is the reaction that we've got so we'll wait and see what happens next of course i'll be back in fifty five minutes time to bring it up to.

a little bit. dreaming of a luxury used sea round trip with open air intertainment. a little minute exercise to get in better shape. and cuisine with only those the ingredients. in this case something to remove our

summer sales m r g. l o n welcome to our t.m. karen tara got our top stories it went or takes it all the loser standing small the russians all the exiled tycoon bodies a bit is all state is a lot of empty handed after a london court dismissed as has had to do all suit against a billionaire from on abramovich. turkey's pitch for a syrian intervention had stayed dead and at the un leaving nato countries warning they might simply follow passed the security council. plus republican mitt romney accepts his nomination as presidential candidate with a promise to show russia more backbone critics that's not his greatest asset. up next r t travels on board one of the world's fastest sailing ships stay with us

for that. playing football in the scorching july sun of the iberian peninsula is senseless talk show 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 of the only tangible evidence of their determination to win. the crew of the russian three mast sailing ship mir has little time to prepare ahead of the second phase of the two thousand and twelve tall ships race

nevertheless they find five minutes for a brief leaving 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. the crew 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 ear. of the killer 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 of thirty to ninety minutes will be enough for us to win here to give a long blast get. that. 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 mia sails all three thousand square metres all. over all of the boats in this prestigious class of ships near 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 untimely knots well then 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 practice as well as theory besides 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 person of his mainsail 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 this type of vessel still aboard a vessel called the picture castle on the around the world voyage and doing this made me realize i want to sail on the tall ships of for a living and so i went to school to be a navigator and this was not one of the opportunities for a work term was to come on the show. 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 i think i was better we tried to do our best like calling the ropes and so on it's not difficult but it hard labor like we are right now in fighting the position in the atlantic ocean on route events and that's i plodded every half an hour i feel great about it we all work together as a team and we help each other through it also makes it ok. for chickie's pilot steering mir leaves the bay at two pm there is less than an hour to go before the race starts to motorbikes form a starting line none of the participants in the race is allowed to cross it until a certain moment the most difficult task is to make a careful assessment of the ship's speed and direction so that she enters the stock car window exactly on time it takes some complicated arithmetic to.