the country. and security. for economic growth see the president's approval rating. after winning. the east asia pacific look away. as the. democrats and republicans. head of the u.s. presidential election we hear from critics who question whether. with

the stories that made headlines this week this is the week. with me. first a large scale protest against a new round of wage and pension cuts with thousands marching through the streets of the country's second biggest city. with riot police or up to the end of what was otherwise a peaceful demonstration and several young people. in new flag of the protest took place against the backdrop of. spector's visiting greece to assess whether the debt qualifies for its next. tranche of aid to secure that rescue the

eurozone. spending cuts worth almost twelve billion euros reporting from. people. he will do everything within his power to make sure the greece remains within the euro zone however he did acknowledge that the cuts it is government were making were both unfair and painful for the greek people but as unfair and painful as they are he says that the necessary as without being in the eurozone greece would die as a nation now he also says there are important is in terms of the country men taining any credibility that it has left on the global financial stage and not credibility is set to be tested quite soon is all that is from the so-called troika arrives in greece to see whether they've fulfilled their part of the bargain when it comes to making the cuts that they were asked to do on whether they receive the next round of bailout money

a massive thirty one billion euros worth of assistance whether those cuts are necessary they're certainly not popular here in thessaloniki we've seen thousands of people out on the streets of greece the second city demonstrating against the way that the current governments are handling the financial crisis when anger and the way the government is dealing with the crisis what they're doing is wrong it's not just in terms of protest the greek people are airing their their grievances with the current government if you look at the latest political polls we're seeing that some are ases government lies in second place behind a a opposition party that anti bailout money was perhaps more worrying though is if you see that in third place is the ultra rightist party golden dawn party that has a far right agenda some of called neo nazi and fire they certainly have a seemingly growing popularity here in greece which is concerning many people many

people i've seen out in the streets here in thessaloniki protesting what they call the fascist organization i have to say that this demonstration thessaloniki far more. peaceful and some we've seen in the past in greece could people are upset they're airing their views but they're certainly not of the violence a that we've seen in in cities like athens as people demonstrate against the handling of the financial crisis. reporting right outrage at the crippling austerity has flared among other eurozone countries portugal's main trade union dubbed the new government cuts a declaration of war with spending on welfare being slashed while in spain hundreds walked out against what they called the german meddling in their country's economy that's us the european central bank finally brought out the big guns and announced it will be buying indebted countries bonds the move has already seen spain's and italy's borrowing costs fall but french economist here believes the e.c.

peace plan will not actually help in the long term. the european central bank will buy. three years doing the same time we resell private corporate bonds it's called realization not to increase global liquidity on that market as a result effect of this strategy all to be short lived i don't expect this kind of anti christ plan to work more than three to four months he didn't address the main crisis of the eurozone crisis is not a crisis of the debt it's a competitive into krises and by the way it's as a decrease of rules the collapse of growth we have in a lot of eurozone kountry and formed the e.c.b. is not addressing the real crisis and the problem is the fact that the eurozone is in recession so far and we see the is now stating that

rescission cool go on for the next year this is not good news you know and the e.c.b. is not. addressing this problem. disillusionment with the government is also spreading in. a slump in economic growth the huge job cuts and war rhetoric regarding syria have all led to a record number of french citizens disapproving of their president so shortly after he took office. explained. france may have lost its title as the country with the highest per capita consumption of antidepressants but the french certainly have at last a peasant as it now with more reasons to be unhappy because the new record unemployment levels an economy that's just not growing and we prospects all around and when they look to their new president they don't expect much of a future either so much so that sixty eight percent of french people are fearful for their future close to the record high of seventy percent in two thousand and

five shortly after jacques chirac was reelected for a second term but france did manage to beat all other presidents in unpopularity after just one hundred days on the job. rating this came after nine years in government and. bad ratings come after only four months. so it's catastrophic situation for when you vote for change and you relate as the president doesn't have even a plan to deliver. the reforms you vaguely promised i mean of course you are. adding salt to injury the state just threw a life like to a struggling mortgage lender by guaranteeing its debts after a long and explicitly declared the world of finance as his enemy during the election campaign. this craziness has to stop i think this financial sector is

spending on the other side billions for things which are not a priority for us. francis began sending direct aid to anti assad regions in syria a former french colony. a move that shortly followed a last promise to recognize a provisional government formed by the opposition an all too familiar style in french foreign policy that irks citizens like mathilde despite having voted for a law and what she calls france's intrusive behavior she says is all about securing financial interest. we can change president but the foreign policy doesn't change both main political parties decided to go to war in my need of country to send the french army to go and kill people and i recall today it is syrian money abroad they were trying to get just like what happened with libya the french have a superiority complex to a point where they imagine that they are the one saving others when they don't know is there we see other people for their money. a teacher at a local school and

a mother of three this is what she tells the kids to see the film so they tell the kids to study hard improve their language skills and then they must think of their future outside of france. and at this point the french have clearly lost patience does or sylvia r.t. paris. and i just a bit later in the program hear one more reaction on western plans to recognize the syrian opposition. under what you could call the equivalent of fabulous recognition of a government in exile rebuilding a government in exile perhaps if the russian government were to recognize the ku klux klan as a government in exile in america and provided heavy artillery so that they could go against washington or something like that. so it is past the hour here in the russian capital boosting free trade and nurturing close links that's how asia pacific nations aim to energize economic growth across the world the apec summit

that's just now wrapped up in russia's far east developing nations sought to underpin global recovery and outpace expansion in developed countries reporting from the city of light of our stock is our teams to retrieve after thank. when a lot of a person was rounding up the results of the two thousand and twelve form which russia posted for the first time he basically again praised the fact that apec is extremely important as a region and as an organization it accounts for around fifty percent of the global economic output and global trade and therefore the shift is happening globally towards this region and russia is no exception and that in effect and has said that china plays an extremely important role as a driver of global economic growth actually in an exclusive interview that the president gave prior to this forum that it was and also still stated the importance of russian chinese relations china is indeed becoming

a global economic and political hub china has taken up this new leading rule by not only in russia's eyes but also in the always of the whole world what makes us rather special however is that russia and china are neighbors you know social relations took thousands of years to evolve to where they are. over the coming years we are bound to achieve a one hundred million dollar turnover rate that exclusive interview is of course available on our youtube channel you can catch it there but also what was i think more important was the q. and a session which followed that round up of the four and letting the person had a chance to comment on this state of russian and european relations of course the euro zone is now in a crisis and therefore that in a question was asked as to what is happening between russia and europe is there a trade war he answered the situation is far from a called trade war and the fact that your commission is new right now looking into gas problems a so-called monopoly position on the eastern european markets is based on the

economic problems in the region and that basically europe now wants to transfer some of this economic burden onto russia and a rather peculiar and one thing i would say question that let. and was asked to comment on his recent stop the he made prior to the apec summit and that was your model in russia siberia to teach a flock of cranes to fly south he was using a hang glider and the journalist said that basically it's a it created a whole wave of internet jokes and a comparison also was made to russia's electoral race that only sixty three percent of the craves the sighted to follow putin and the others decided to go somewhere else and this is what he had to say not all the queen's fallujah mediately only the weak ones don't. i must admit it's also the leaders fault the pilots phoned the not all the koreans fallujah mediately if you

fires too fast and too high he can't keep up there are also birds who don't fly in a flock even if they aren't part of the flock they're part of our population and they should be taken care of as much as possible. and i was listening to that q. and a at the international press center here and the answer was followed by a standing ovation. he said to me to never take a reporting right there was certainly more details on the speech by of let me put into close the apec summit or bus analysis of the main outcomes of the event on our website of course r.t. dot com. now not all countries to send their leaders to the summit in of whatever stock with the us elections approaching barack obama opted to stay at home to concentrate on the campaign trail he's currently tied in the polls with a republican rival mitt romney and as r.t. is a marina portnoy reports when you look at the two parties platforms it might seem there's

very little to separate them. in two thousand and eight frock obama turned us politics into something of a pop culture phenomenon we made at one of those defining moments. a moment when our nation is at war our economy is in turmoil the democratic presidential candidate accepted his party's nomination valuing to rebuild america's moral standing and break from the policies of his predecessor the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in washington and the failed policies of george w. bush four years after change occupied the white house america is still at war twenty three million citizens are unemployed and most of the national security policies cemented by george w. bush continue unabated or have been expanding the coded fixation of what were illicit abuses under bush imprisonment without trial spying without warrants we've

now replaced imprisonment and torture largely with assassination which is actually not a moral improvement under obama's leadership guantanamo bay remains open the patriot act has been renewed warrantless wiretapping extended but cia black sites have closed targeted killings have been justified drone strikes publicly acknowledged military commissions codified however enhanced interrogation like waterboarding has been banned critics say obama has not only double down on bush's policies he's also raise the stakes signing the national defense authorization act made him the first us president to assert the right to assassinate anyone anywhere without any legal sanction if there is a war cries out there we can the war crimes iraq. tops the list this made many of those who voted for him hoping for change left disillusioned in fact what they appear to have voted for was more of the same obama's ratings are now the lowest of

any incumbent. since the one nine hundred eighty s. the two major parties are very very much the same on all the important issues when it comes to spending more money than we have engaged in in foreign conflicts that we can't afford the cost of america's overseas military campaigns have contributed to a u.s. national debt that topped sixteen trillion dollars this week while obama's america is running on empty critics say wall street continues to play largely by the same rules that led to the global financial crisis there hasn't been regulation of the banks in a sufficient way and that the main crisis affecting the united states which is to say the financial clutch on the global economy and the corporate stranglehold on the political system hasn't changed at all because president obama comes from a coalition that led to that in the first place since obama has stepped into the white house america has seen an unprecedented rise in grassroots movements like the

tea party and occupy wall street they'll both very different one thing uniting them is the claim that the people of america are being ignored by their own government the two major us political parties have historically gone to great lengths and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to highlight their differences yet following obama's first term in office the biggest change may be that more voters are likely to see a democrat and a republican as two sides of the soup marina port ny r.t. new york. well certainly it's good to have you with us here on r.t. today just a bit later in the program we take a closer look at the recent political protest. with another heavy handed police crackdown on activists who were packing the streets to rally last for their political rights. i just had our attention out of out of syria where the u.s. has reportedly been beefing up its presence along the turkish border american

officials said this week that washington is sending teams of advisers to support the assad fighters commenting on western nations plans to recognize the syrian rebels list and writer william engdahl says that would be a grave mistake given that certain elements inside the opposition ranks their long term agenda is introducing a. taliban like fanatical. islamic sharia law in syria and ending in the tolerance of different religions which has been the trademark of syrian life for decades under under the old assad family. in general and there are reports from journalists inside syria over the last months of these so-called opposition in many cases there are al qaeda or mujahideen that have been brought in from saudi arabia and elsewhere and provided guns and weapons . that they have beheaded civilians and blame the atrocities on the assad

government so this is really. i don't know what you could call the equivalent of the obvious recognition of a government in exile really a government in exile perhaps if the russian government were to recognize the ku klux klan as a government in exile in america and provided heavy artillery so that they could go to washington or something like that it's just absurd. now the british prime minister has also reiterated his calls for president assad to step down to make way for a new government formed by the syrian opposition as the u.k. continues to provide indirect help for the rebels there are now fears that ordinary britons are headed for the syrian front line laura smith has the story. to most britons going about their everyday lives the war in syria seems worlds away but for a few it's a struggle they feel personally involved in as the u.k. government portrays president assad as an evil dictator there's evidence that

britons are going to syria to fight for the opposition birmingham area m.p. khalid mahmood says some in his community have already gone there is particular individual who's actually gone back to baghdad at the moment and is going back in a few weeks time who's been engaged in fundraising supporting people and putting people together to go back to their people who signed the support and made work and other. broad saying that they're going to support the resistance some says mahmud of british syrian extraction others of british muslims who feel their faith makes this their struggle but whatever their reasons for going the fear is what they'll be when they return they're trained in the art of warfare but also radicalized as well and then they want to then continues on credit causation they want to bring more people on board and then perhaps to try to. resolve some of the gripes they

have here that's blowback the u.k. has already seen from another conflict here in london on the seventh of july two thousand and five the official reports into the seven seventh's bombings revealed the existence of that two house of the four bombers had been to afghanistan for so-called violent jihad back in the u.k. mohammed sidique khan and says that town with together killed fourteen people in combined suicide attack specific and seven bombers were only vaguely known to the authorities and that could be the case for fighters returning from syria too it's all very well to notify the u.k. borders agency but in reality there's very. little they can do people that may leave here to fight in syria will not go directly to syria they may stop in turkey or lebanon or arc so the government will not be able to really know the. nation there's no real way of telling whether they're actually going to end up in

syria there is no way to know. who when they enter syria who they'll be liaising with. their ideology is necessarily how the ologies and viewpoints might change in syria these are the scenes that could greet them on their return and he islamist organization the english defense league is unlikely to take further radicalization of british muslims lying down creating more bad feeling and deeper fissures in an already divided society full western who's british freedom party is allied to the e.t.l. says militant groups are preparing for a confrontation we're going to get further and further into this horrible situation of them and us and them and us and then you have small scale violence that starts. to i think literally entering into a religious civil war scenario so far the government's given the syrian opposition eight million dollars for non-lethal equipment including communications

but ordinary britons could find themselves paying the far higher price of unrest and insecurity at home for the support for the syrian opposition laura smith. far from syria to bahrain where fresh anti-government demonstrations have ended in six arrests after dozens took to the streets in defiance of a banned by authorities the protesters called for the release of prisoners of conscience detained allegedly planning to overthrow the government a riot police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowd but the pro reform movement did stop back in february of last year police crackdowns allegedly leaving at least sixty dead and dozens of arrested and your times correspondent pepe escobar accuses the u.s. and e.u. of a hypocritical attitude towards the event in bahrain. oh only washington would european capitals as well and the european union always carping about how preoccupied they

were with the human rights all over the war no this is absurd so this is the one game because they managed to convince the americans and europeans that this is a destabilizing plot snatched in tehran which is scoop. and a good rain is they were totally separate fires you don't hear anything in a washington in paris in london about it they are talking about regime change in syria they are talking about the bombs that iran does not have from the beginning this this the saudis especially the core don't off the air at these either they sold to washington the idea that this was an iranian plot in where ever happens in bahraini is always for you by the saudis and by washington as a minor disturbance in of course the u.s. does not want to compromise its position as being the aircraft. go r.d.

an angel of the persian gulf. or into the all the world of that we go we will start with iraq wave of. cities across the country. sixty wounded more than two hundred at the latest two blasts at the city of amara claiming the lives of sixteen no immediate claim of responsibility but sunni insurgents and al qaida have launched a series of major attacks this year in an attempt to ultimately undermine the government and stoke sectarian tensions. forces have killed thirty two militants in an ongoing operation against islamists in the sinai this according to officials the operation was carried out with israeli punished due to the two countries peace treaty that bans heavy weapons in the zone along the border as long as the militants have gained a foothold in the sinai area since the overthrowing last year of president hosni mubarak and the government crackdown began after militants killed sixteen border

guards last month. over the rather dramatic pictures over two tornadoes that hit parts of new york in the space of just ten minutes he was told in the air and power knocked out in certain areas as you can see the videos are showing a funnel cloud sucking up water and sand several houses and trees damaged no injuries groet. i ought to have you can stay with us here in just a couple of minutes here a documentary on the tragic events of the best one school hostage crisis that will be after a recap of the week's top stories here on. their

cloudless childhood was a rich shadowed by this tragedy. these two feel the fear they faced. and remember every second of the slightness. it will remain in their memories and hearts forever. the dark and as you saw. an innocent victim. the tongue of a little angel wings on our cheek. more

news today boylan says once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. the giant corporations are old today. i had a family i lived in a fairly nice community wasn't which was an upscale it was just like you know archie bunker's society ok then they started showing up here what happened was my company decided i could get cheap labor and they got rid of us. rosa legally legally we have to get up every morning we have to go to work and you know we have to pay our bills and we have to do it and that's just the american dream and if you want the american dream you have to go by the laws i figure is

here's one of the major trails in the united states on. my watch and they run run down my property and something about this noise. will mean that cockroaches from coming over the wire is protecting the country i'm the kind of guy who doesn't mind it is pants dirty so i come out here you know we're all immigrants as well that we all here are some sorry ass. wealthy british scientists on the roads and that's not on the front.