greece. the country's most vulnerable even though most. greeks. take their toll on the french with freshly elected president francois watching his ratings. to the asia pacific summit economic and political ties with china growing ever stronger. the u.s. . influence in the region. is a dead heat between the republicans and democrats in the race for the white house with. remarkably similar.

with their top stories of the week and of today this is the weekly on our with me will receive shy first night in a greece's second largest city of. fifteen thousand protesters taking a stand against a new wave of punishing budget cuts. locals and even burning in. more . peaceful as a small army of police officers looked on the cuts are especially painful to the country's most vulnerable including pensioners. but not everyone is against the cuts. specters are in athens to assess how the austerity drive is going decide whether the government deserves. more bailout money. reports from salonica.

prime minister antonis samaras has said that 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 to are 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 meant taining any credibility that it has left on the global financial stage and not credibility is set to be tested quite soon is all it is from the so-called troika arrive 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 received 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 anger and the way the government is dealing with the crisis and 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 a. in the streets here in thessaloniki protesting what they call the fascist

organization i have to say though this demonstration thessaloniki far more peaceful than some we've seen in the past in greece that people are upset they're airing their views but they're certainly not of the violence a that we've seen in cities like athens as people demonstrate against the handling of the financial crisis and it's not only here in greece where the cuts are being met with a wall of public protest in portugal government slashes to social safety nets have been dubbed an act of war against the working class and next door in spain angela merkel's visit there sparked street protests demonstrators demanding an end to berlin zoo meddling in madrid's affairs thanks to the daunting financial storm clouds over the eurozone with the blocks central banks forced to roll out the heavy artillery the u.c.b. says it will now begin buying up your own nation's debts to stabilize their costs something m.e.p. william darkness doesn't believe. this is their last last

throw really i should make the point that back in two thousand and ten the your prince central bank spent nearly seven hundred billion euros buying greek greek war which did push down the interest rates down for about a week. but didn't didn't work thereafter and my prediction for what it's worth is that it won't work in the medium or long term this time either i mean they have a political problem with spain there's a huge problem of this and also the condition which the european central bank are seeking to impose on countries participating are such that. the very independence is under threat. and it's anything but smooth sailing for the larger and more stable european economies as well in france the president's ratings are in a state of freefall as waste to war and economic weaknesses take their toll on the

public as artie's explains traditional means of dealing with stress just start cutting it anymore. 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 of now with more reasons to be unhappy because the new record unemployment levels of economy that's just not growing and 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 with a 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. came after nine years in government and. after only four months. so it's

catastrophic situation for you 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 regencies syria a former french colony a move that shortly followed along as promised 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 for now. show interest. we can change president but the foreign policy doesn't change both main political parties decided to go to war in my native country to send the french army to go and kill people and i recon today it is syrian money abroad that we're 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 seeding others but they don't know is there we see other people for their money. a teacher at a local school at a mother of three this is what she tells the kids. to move and tell the kids to study hard improve their language skills and he must think of their future outside of france are your confidence and that this point the french have clearly lost patience just so sylvia are to paris. so good to have you with us here on our tour

today still ahead for you in this hour crossing the line fear the u.k.'s policy towards syria could backfire as reports suggest british fighters are heading to the front line that could bring violence back home. of the deadly shooting bars a separatist post-election party in francophone quebec highlighting there were new tension in the province. now the world shifted to the east this week as heavyweight asia pacific nations gather to decide how to prop up global growth the cooler weather of the russian far east did not show the warmth between russia and china which friendship are seen as a strong asset to economic recovery dimitri medvedev reports now from the city of light of our stock. one logical person was rounding out the results of the two thousand and twelve form which russia posted for the first time he basically again

praise 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. 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 stuart stated the importance of russian chinese relations china is indeed becoming a global economic and political hub china has taken up this new leading role 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 and 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 for that exclusive interview is of

course available on our you tube channel you can catch it there but also 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 eurozone is now in a crisis and therefore that in a question was asked as to what is happening between russia and europe is the 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 taunting i would say question that led. and was asked to comment on his recent stop the he made prior to the apec summit and that was your model in russia to teach a flock of cranes to fly south he was using

a hang glider and the journalist said that basically it's 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 grades 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. from it i must admit it's also the leaders fault the pilots found the not all the koreans follow. if you fire is 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. dmitri medvedev reporting right there from of lot of our stock

rushers a turn to the east could come at the expense of its trade links with the west but the us and europe only have themselves to blame that's a quote of the benares editor in chief of the business new europe magazine. the idea is the you know the fast growing economies of the world are increasing linking up i mean they formalized politically with the brick. has gone from a marketing an acronym to actually a political organization me a change in politics starting from about two thousand and four and going up to putin's famous speech in two thousand and seven where he called the west to account and said. turn our back on you and i think this conference actually marks the point where they begin to turn their back they're talking about increasing trade the russians with asia five. america is only talking about trade with russia since it is ceded to the deputy and so clearly the building. konami union

has gone to the top of the russian policy agenda. russia asia led by china of course and that's where all the effort is going. now on the sidelines of the apec summit moscow and washington once again disagreed over the handling of the syrian crisis hillary clinton labeled the geneva peace plan which called for a cease fire and a political transition she called it as toothless rusher insisted in june the initiative was accepted by most of the international community including the us and it should be approved by the security council meanwhile washington intensified calls for arming rebels who have been desperately trying to seize more weapons on saturday government troops turned back an attack on a major military base in syria's largest city of aleppo and the capital damascus has also been plagued with rebel incited violence with the latest fighting taking place in the southern districts of the city analyst and writer william engdahl says that recognizing position as a legitimate political power would be ridiculous. their long term agenda

is introducing a. taliban like fanatical. islamic sharia law in syria and ending the tolerance of different religions which has been the trademark of syrian life for decades and there are reports of from journalists inside syria over the last months of these so-called opposition in many cases there are al qaeda or mujahideen that they have beheaded civilians and blame the atrocities on the on the assad government 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. well but for the british prime minister the idea of interfering doesn't seem so bad david cameron once again

we called the president assad to resign to make way for a new government formed by the syrian opposition and although the u.k. insists its support for the rebels is limited to non-lethal aid laura smith reports that fighters from britain are already on the front line. 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 bumming an area m.p. khaled mahmoud says some in his community have already gone there is particular individual who's actually gone back to baghdad at the moment and has came back in a few weeks time who's been engaged in fundraising supporting people and putting people together to go back to get people who signed the support and made work and

other. rides saying that they're going to support the resistance some says mahmoud of british syrian extraction others a 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 their looks 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 rumors that two out 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. well they can do people that may move 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 point 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 in the tit for tat and that's why. you know i think we literally entering into religious civil war. 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 this support for the syrian opposition laura smith. there's no rest for bahrain either the monarchy deals with daily protests that have not stopped now since the end of august demonstrators defied

a government ban on unauthorized rallies despite heavy policing with tear gas and stun grenades used during mostly peaceful rallies but you can watch the full story next hour on arts. funding and in these words into a weapon some in israel use rhetoric from tehran as a means to justify aggressive settling outside the jewish state's official. six twenty pm here in moscow on barack obama's captivating showing at the democratic national convention this week appears to be paying off new polls that give him a slight edge of a republican rival mitt romney if only by the slimmest of margins and with just two months to go until the presidential vote both candidates will be working overtime to out shine the other and there are. reports that maybe a challenge. in two thousand and eight for aco bomb i turned us politics into something of a pop culture phenomenon we may be 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 valiant 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 expanded the code of fixation of what we're 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 raised 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 president since the one nine hundred eighty s. the two major parties are very this are very much the same on all the important issues when it comes to spending more money than we have. engaging 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 and kevin zeese so director of a come home america he believes that the truth is that both candidates of the corporate rather than the public interests. mitt romney i think is a great example of what's wrong with america that he's obviously a plutocrat he's highly his taxes for the american people as was know the truth about his finances he sending money offshore he created he became wealthy by destroying u.s. businesses and create jobs overseas he's exactly what's wrong with this country on the economic side it's a he's a one percenter and he's the one percenter deep in his heart so he's really what's

wrong with president obama the same time you know he's supported by wall street he supported by the health insurance industry he puts in place policies that support the corporate agenda so neither of these candidates really represent the people they represent the big business moneyed interests and not the people of either romney nor obama will confront these issues and that you want to marry miss question about breaking up the big banks you want here any discussion about amending ending u.s. empire cutting the military budget. we can follow this and many other stories online that are t. dot com less of a quick look in to see what else is there for you right now and the russian prosecutors target the more exotic forms of corruption sex bribes are sparking debate over just where to draw the line on illicit payments. technology gives life a chance for us research and successfully test robotic prosthetics to be driven by the power of one's mind.

so good of you to join us here in our teeth today let's turn our attention now to that of canada and a separatist victory in a divisive election in the french speaking province of quebec was marred by a deadly shooting at the newly elected premier's victory party had to be cut short when a man trying to get into the building where the rally was being held shot one person dead and injured another at the police led him away he shouted anti french slogans independent journalist robert i may believe that the shooting reflects deep divisions between quebec and the rest of. it would be nice to believe that the man is just a lunatic it's pretty clear he may be a lunatic but he is motivated by the divisions in canada one has to remember the divisions go both ways. because the english canadians under the british empire

always ruled the roost the french canadians began to become very bitter about this and inevitably over time that has caused many problems and they want more tommy so it is going to revive the passion of years of sorceress the right way to put it that's putting in just a little bit emotional obviously it will and some english canadians feel very strongly about this i know this of course to some french canadians well clearly the people who feel passionately action remain part of a canadian nation and never going to trust her because she belongs to a party which believes in the maximum amount of autonomy so-called. time now for the r.t. world update will start in iraq where a spate of attacks basically hit at least eleven iraqi cities at this point killing at least forty four and one car bomb targeted police recruits lining up for a job at a company's office in the northern city of cook outside the capital ten soldiers

were killed in a dorm ambush other car bombings hit cities from the southern port of basra to the northwest border with syria at this point nobody has claimed responsibility for all of these attacks. new york city and its immediate surroundings have been hit by two tornadoes as severe weather pummeled the u.s. atlantic coast the twisters caused power outages and property damage but no injuries were reported but the storms caused flooding in areas of new england and left thousands without electricity further to the south in washington. all right back with a recap of the top stories of today and of the week with the weekly in just a moment.

wealthy british scientists on roads and sometimes. markets finance scandals find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tuning in to cause a report on our. mission free i couldn't take should free transport charges free. range month free risk free.