create more conflict and violence but we did hear all 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 military the russian ambassador 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 france those sanctions that they've placed on syria are only hurting the syrians that there was 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 professor paul sheldon foote from california state university has been monitoring turkey's no fly zone bid he says that underneath the rhetoric and humanitarian concerns it's all about politics. 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 provoke

a step playboy who are doing whatever they want to try to save playbook and deal with those who work anymore but there is no desire. of the west nato to have been negotiated settlement of the old with the purpose of this exercise is to make sure that there is no competition in the middle east for pipelines such as 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 also weighing in on the syria situation as wiki leaks what 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 bill if i have the whistleblower made his comments during an interview with a south american t.v. network on his hold up at 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 sons' predicted he would stay for up to a year at the embassy surrounded by the british at least until either a diplomatic solution is found or the case against him is dropped paul wilson from the u.k. independence party says the issues wiki leaks brings up are extremely relevant. we here in britain suffer even more from the surveillance society in the united states and london is the world capital of surveillance everywhere you look there's a c.c.t.v. camera we are constantly moment to moment to twenty four hours a day. but now we we in the u.k. independence party try and fight this in the same way that we kill each has been trying to do but it's very difficult because you're made out to be against the rule of law or if you don't want to be surveyed you know every moment of your your

waking life but the fact of the matter is that there's been no attempt to say that only of the stuff that they reveal is fraudulent or misleading the whole. seems to be to take them out because the actual documents speak for themselves and are clearly for the most part you know extremely damning and very relevant you know to try and stay with us here on our team still ahead for you this hour politically motivated verdict from iran on a new u.n. report claiming to have evidence that the country has doubled its nuclear capacity . over in germany where the old to do it smart house more than just sentimental value in uncertain times. mitt romney has 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 toward some nations

including russia but with a reputation for changing his stance it can be hard to tell how trustworthy years as our you can explain. 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 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 and of quote and of course that adds up to his earlier statements that russia is america's number one geopolitical anime and 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 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. the idea of america's greatness and special position in the world is a staple of both candidates campaigns but is it fair to say the u.s. has a unique role to play in global affairs well that's the question today and it's coming up in just about fifteen minutes. 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 lead the world in only three categories number of incarcerated citizens per capita number of adults who believe angels are real and depends upon who is america's number one there's a there's a gradual decline john quincy adams said when he was secretary of state in eight hundred 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 felt about three quarters of all 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. 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 technion believes the findings are aimed at overshadowing the nonaligned movement summit taking place there so you mohammad marandi a professor at the university of to run thanks the release of the report at this time is highly suspicious. the iranians are saying that this report came at a sensitive time to sort of distract attention away from this iranian success the

nonaligned movement. conference in tehran has been highly successful instead of 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 of egypt came to iran which is a political earthquake the iranians are producing uranium. enriched uranium at twenty percent for facilities in tehran which then produce medical isotopes the fact that the united states and the europeans tried to prevent iran from obtaining this fuel in the past met that meant that they were taking the iranian cancer patients hostage the irony here is that the iranians at the beginning had no intention whatsoever to produce a name at twenty percent and then produce nuclear fuel but the americans and the

europeans by taking iranian citizens and people hostage for sea iranians to take that step the politicians senior politicians really know that an attack on iran would be devastating for the united states and not only for its economy but for its global position and its credibility. don't forget you can log onto our web site r t dot com for the latest news comment and videos while you're there here's a taste of what else might catch your eye. plans for a new album which gives the latest updates on u.s. military drone attacks including a body count find out why the op hasn't been approved. also online vision on the future a woman who had lost her sight has got it back again surgeons have implanted her with the first ever successful by ironic.

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 its downward spiral. and she is seeking to boost the flow of investment from one into a european stability fund a firewall against financial trouble that the chancellor worked very hard to create however hans calling nonny from the european council on foreign relations says the chinese are in no hurry to hand to berlin. with 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 a bus we see this is a european company and so it would 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 and mostly germany seems to be winning that competition and while germany and striving to make sure the euro stays afloat its old currency the deutsche mark is showing no signs of being discarded participator 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 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 went on to 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 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 dollars marks were brought to the bundesbank to be changed into crisp new currency but where is that cash coming from. he had that is not any 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 euro any 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 theories. though who say that in the banks

vaults are trillions of marks being stockpiled should the euro crisis deepen only room so if the cash that's returned isn't being kept for a rainy day what happens to it and once the exchanges completes those deutsche marks the shredded ending their days as very expensive confetti peter all of a r.t. . all right let's now have a look at some other international news in brief south africa's justice minister has demanded an explanation over the decision to charge almost three hundred miners with the murder of their thirty four coworkers despite the fact victims were killed by police prosecutors claim police were provoked to during the incident two weeks ago and opened fire only after armed protesters attacked them but there is huge public outrage with many believing the government is trying to shift the blame the incident was the bloodiest in the country's history since it became

a democracy in one thousand nine hundred four. a massive wildfire in southern spain has forced around four thousand people to flee their homes with some losing everything in the flames firefighters believe the blaze was started deliberately they hope to get it under control by the end of the day spain's countryside has been very dry this summer because of a prolonged heat wave. tens of thousands have taken to the streets of sought to protest against government labor policies and support the ongoing strike announced by one of south korea's largest trade unions a nationwide walkout of more than one hundred thousand employees is expected to be supported by other unions the protesters demanded and and to the privatisation of public companies want to put a stop to what the mass layoffs and private sector. dimitris over here with

the business news and it seems the markets have been anticipated anticipating the jackson hole summit in wyoming all week now that it's all tell us are they happy well yes we could say that one russian classic said you know waiting and chasing of the two worst things in the world are going to happen do you know that it's all and we've already had ben bernanke you speech basically. time now for the markets to assess the speech and make their own conclude. i could say that the market is rather positive about what they've heard and so what we're seeing right now is indeed a growth on the markets but as general chairman ben bernanke said on friday the federal reserve will do more to boost the economy because of high u.s. unemployment and an economic recovery that remains quote far from satisfactory and he also argued that the fed's move so far to keep interest rates at record lows and encourage borrowing and spending they've all helped bolster the economy but at the same time the fed did not provide any indication as to which concrete moves it

would use well this let's meanwhile take a look at what's happening on the markets and basically he has mentioned quantity of easing as an option and that the fed would do anything needed in this respect and that going to be easing has been helpful before but so far we have no information as to when how and which volumes but the dow jones as you can see there is up more than one percent took it a while to actually get here but a sweetener here is also manufacturing data came in for the month of july up to two point eight percent and that's a good sign that not everything is so bad for the economy now over in europe or the markets are also positive here the investors are also anticipating the c.b.s. moves to help will buy out the spanish and italian debt notably bonds and therefore the dax is up one point three percent that's out. now let's turn to poland one of

the european union's a few growth stories it's now feeling the squeeze of the downturn in the country's second quarter growth fees to two point four percent that's the lowest in three years and significantly below the forecast polish g.d.p. kept expanding over the last few years well much of the e.u. showed negative growth in a series of gloomy economic indicators show that the so-called economic miracle is basically coming to an end. now let's move to the closing picture on the russian markets and it's a mixed picture we've got the r.t.s. up slightly well the my six as you can see is falling hard five percent how the markets have been kind of out of sync today with the rest of the world it seems that it's a long awaited correction it's coming in at least on the my six that is which has been pushed down also by lukoil shares which are down more than two percent of the close as the company unveiled it has been buying up more than two and a half billion dollars worth of its own shares from the market. now on the

commodities market everything also looking pretty rosy would light sweet now back at one dollar fifty three last and that's of course in anticipation of these moves that the fed has promised even though it has not provided any information as to when so basically that could spur demand for energy as it would stimulate the economy. and on the currencies market the euro right now is still up but as you can see there one hundred twenty points almost one percent versus the dollar while the russian ruble managed to strengthen at the close of the session against the basket of currencies but that's after several sessions of losses. alright beijing is aiming to use its you one more international trade so far it's trading with the hong kong and singapore in its national currency but it's now eyeing latin america and the middle east russia has also been trying to do the same or at least calling

to do so and hong kong's financial secretary john tsang told r.t. that the two countries could help each other out. what is happening now is a great deal of trace. in the national currency so. for example between russia and china they would be doing a lot of. this way if you can. the currency risk. and that is already happening i think we should expect to see a lot more of that. currencies become. currency for for the rest of the world. on this edition of the business. all.

is easy. in the. culture is that so much money in the commercials is more monotones ability to use the us still the one in the world opinions differ sharply though there can be no

doubt american supremacy is being challenged by a number of big. hello and welcome to our team karen tyrol chew with your top stories the winner takes it all and the losers and small erosions self exile tycoon buddies but his office queue is left empty handed after a london court dismisses his had a lawsuit against the billionaire a man of the mortgage. circus pitch for a certain intervention has a dead and a at the at the rather new when leaving nato countries morning they might simply bypass the security council. plus republican mitt romney accept his nomination as presidential candidate with a promise to show rochelle more backbone but critics night that's not his greatest

asset. thanks to america's role as the top world power goes up for debate in peter lavelle's crosstalk. please. liz. and. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle is the u.s. still number one in the world opinions differ sharply though there can be no doubt american supremacy is being challenged by a number of international players however if indeed the u.s. is in decline aren't all americans to blame. and.

to cross out whether america is still number one i'm joined by bruce fein in washington senior policy adviser to ron paul two thousand and twelve presidential campaign and the founder of the link field group and american freedom agenda also in washington we have michael hughes he's a journalist and foreign policy analyst and in harrisburg we cross to jeffrey lord he is a former reagan white house political director and author all right gentlemen cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want but before we start our discussion here let's take a look at a very well known clip from h.b.o.'s program newsroom let's have a look. 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 and infant mortality third in median household income number four in labor force and number

four in exports we lead the world in only three categories number of incarcerated citizens per capita number of adults who believe angels are real and depends upon where we spend more than the next twenty. six countries combined twenty five of whom are allies none of this is the fault of a twenty year old college student but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever period when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world i don't know what the fuck you're talking about somebody. sure used to be. we stood up for what was right. we fought for moral reasons we passed laws struck down laws for moral reasons we waged wars on poverty not poor people. we sacrificed we cared about our neighbors we put our money where amal's were and we never beat our chests we built great big things made on godly

technological advances explored the universe cure disease and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. we reached for the stars. acted like men we aspired to intelligence we didn't belittle it it didn't make us feel inferior. but in identify ourselves by we voted for in the last election and we didn't scare so easy. we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. by great man men who were revered. first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. america is not the greatest country in the world any more.

i'm not ok michael very powerful acting extremely powerful words how do you react to that i mean because 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. maybe but it's there's a there's a gradual decline and it has to do with a lot of what he said there's. a lot of it is political gridlock because of special interest groups you know we have a sixteen or fifteen dollar outstanding public. and seven hundred billion dollar defense budget. and for some reason we need to be projected worldwide we have this global footprint that does not match up to the actual threats ok it's very uncertain bruce if i can go to you i mean ok go ahead jump in. i just say i think the diagnosis is correct but i think the reasons are wrong ok one or the really

shouldn't be a country it's the reasons are that we have lost our way from what we were invasion desert country from the founding we shouldn't be going abroad in search of monsters to destroy what would make a country number one is complying with the rule of law on during the liberty over big government making sure you have a level playing field so everyone has the opportunity to develop their endowments and faculties and achieve what their ambition and industry will achieve it's not having government favor one side or the other side and say honoring respect for international law and not invading anyone sovereignty because we say that in our viewpoint you're harboring someone at some time some place could be a danger the united states global projection of military power going back to what john quincy adams said when he was secretary of state an eight hundred twenty one before his president that we could be dictators of the world what our policy would then shift from a policy of liberty and freedom to a.