thousands rise against austerity in greece as the country's coalition government fails to agree on a package of spending cuts. the euro will always take their toll on the french with the president for us was a law and watching his ratings plummet. russia turns eastward at the asia pacific summit economic and political ties with china growing stronger which could the nerve the u.s. and its move for influence in the region. at almost a dead heat between republicans and democrats in the race for the white house with both candidates looking to set apart their similar remarkably similar platforms.

to have in moscow i might treasure bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r t greece's second biggest city thessaloniki has been iraq by protests with some fifteen thousand demonstrators taking a stand against a new wave of punishing budget cuts so far the country's three party coalition governments failed to agree on an austerity package waving banners chanting slogans and even burning in the e.u. flag the event was by and large peaceful as a small army of police officers watched these latest cuts are especially painful to the country's most vulnerable including retirees low income workers and dependents but not everyone is against the cuts e.u. and i.m.f. dead inspectors are in athens to assess how the austerity drive is going and to decide whether the government deserves more bailout cash parties peter all for reports. 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 he also says the 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 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 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 and anger

and the way the government is dealing with the crisis is upon their 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's anti bailout money was perhaps more worrying though is if you see that in fifth 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 testimony protesting what they call the fascist organize. zation i have to say though this demonstration thessaloniki formal peaceful and some we've seen in the past in greece that people are upset airing their views but there's certainly none of the violence

a that we've seen in in cities like things as people demonstrate against the handling of the financial crisis. it's not only in greece where 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 next door in spain agoa merkel's visit sparked street protests with demonstrators demanding an end to berlin's interfering in veterans affairs thanks to the daunting financial storm clouds over the euro zone with the bloc central bank forced to roll out the artillery the e.c.b. says it will now begin buying up euro nations debts to stabilize our borrowing costs but that financial advisor marco peter pollie thinks this isn't the solution . they refuse to deal with the issues it's very simple and that you want to put fiscal integration which means that the germans have to sign for everybody else's debts and you get. your. shared liability for the desk

in front of his colleagues should you have a split of the year. in the meantime what you can do is keep printing money which is what everybody is hoping for used to drug to keep going to. help the situation until the politics can catch up with the politics. and they've had lots and lots of meetings with close to. full solution through the eurozone and it's anything but smooth sailing for the larger more stable european economies too in france the president's ratings are in a freefall as waste war and economic weakness are taking their toll on the public as are he explains traditional means of dealing with stress just aren't 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 even 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 launch 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 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. actual interest about the we can change president but the foreign policy doesn't change and move main political parties decided to go to war in my native country to send the french army to go and kill people in ivory coast today it is

syrian money abroad that we're trying to get just like what happened with libya that the french have a superiority complex going to a point where they imagine that they are the one saving something as you well they don't know is that we see the other people for their money for peace as a teacher at a local school at a brother of three this is what she tells the kids they see the film something they do music tell the kids to study hard to improve their language skills and they must think of their future outside of france i also add that this point the french have clearly lost patience does or sylvia r.t. paris. you can follow this and many other stories online here's what else is on the line for you right now it's got tailors and soldiers and now germany is working on the spy part as berlin creates a brand new intelligence network. the russian prosecutors target the more exotic forms of corruption sex bribes sparking debate over just what to draw the line on

illicit payments. the world shifted east this week as the heavyweight asia pacific nations gathered to decide how to prop up global growth the cool dad weather in russia's far east didn't chill the war with the warmth between russia and china whose friendship is seen as a strong asset to a global economic recovery or to dimitri medvedev has more from a lot of us stuck. 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 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 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 role 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 our special relations took thousands of years to evolve to where they are. over the coming years we are bound to achieve a one hundred billion dollar turnover rate that exclusive interview is of course available on our youtube 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 of them 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 the trade war he answered that there's the situation is far from a cold trade war and the fact that your commission is not 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 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 krays the sighted to follow putin and the others decided to go somewhere else and this is what he had to say and if you're not all the. only the week. for it i must admit it's also the leader's fault the pilot's phone the north pole the koreans fallujah. if you fly 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. it's not just economic interest russia and china have in common there's also been agreements on international disputes much to the detriment of the u.s. according to financial consultants money. the time between putin and hu jintao have

been extremely strong and this has frankly been at the expense of relations with the u.s. and not overtly obviously but when it comes to issues like syria and iran there is a great deal of coordination between the two sides on those political issues then you know these things spill over into the economic side as well of course you know and we're starting to talk about how both countries handle the oil embargo that the u.s. has been sort of pushing on iran you know russia as a producer and china as a consumer they both you know the fact that they're harmonizing this really sort of helps to. counteract u.s. u.s. influence and the ability to which the u.s. can exert its influence on its european allies in asia and japan specifically so we're seeing a lot of that. turning now to syria a powerful explosion iraq the country's largest city aleppo

a car bomb near two hospitals in a sports stadium killed at least seventeen civilians and injured forty others the city's been plagued by violence a massive battle between rebels and government troops has been ongoing for days saturday troops loyal to president assad turned back an attack on a major military base this while the un syria piece on why he locked our break he is in egypt trying to make the warring parties cease their fire from our war cough a member of the syrian social club ex-pat group thinks there's been a pattern of a rise in violence ahead of any diplomatic meetings aimed at finding a peaceful solution. but whatever the security council met on syria there was an atrocity before that i think the most infamous one was supposed massacre on the fourth of february when we remember russia china used a double veto against the resolution in the security council condemning syria and this trend has continued in a sense we've seen on. massacre taking place when kofi annan was about to meet president of the next the and so on and so forth the western powers have for

a long time seen this conflict as the same model although that the same you know if you point it just like these did with three decades ago the western powers have given these you have these these extremist limbs the opportunity to win a certain war they've held them they hold them they funded them they gave them weapons and they won a war and they didn't think that this was because of the c i m i six funding and backup but actually because they thought god actually gave them this victory and this has ruled a lot of trouble and alienated large segments of the societies of the muslim societies in the west and countries. french surgeon just returned from syria where he helped rebels working at a besieged northern city hospital says that half those treated were foreign jihadists jacques baer a co-founder of the medical charity group doctors without borders says foreign nationals are actively involved in the conflict laura smith reports there could be

reports there could be people with u.k. passports on the rebel side as well. 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 britain's all 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 your people who signed it. and made work and other. rides 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 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 attackers specific 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 the. 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 iraq 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. ideologies necessarily how the ologies and viewpoints might change in syria these are the scenes that could greet them on their return and 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 whose 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 and it's the tit for tat and that's why. you know i think we truly 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 r t. stay with us here on r.t. still to come kosovo closes its doors for western overseers hailing it as a historic move despite thousands of e.u. and nato forces still being on its territory. demonstrations continue in bahrain despite the government's bad are authorized for our use the full story later this hour. but first president barack obama's captivating showing at the democratic

national convention as we could. here's to be paying off new poll numbers give them an edge over republican rival mitt romney but only by a slim margin with just two months to go until the presidential vote both candidates will be working overtime to outshine the other party's we're in a port i reports though that could be a challenge. in two thousand and eight for aco bomb i 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 valley 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 in the code of your station 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 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 cries and. 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 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 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 same court during a fortnight i r.t. new york. now to some other stories making headlines across the globe a spate of attacks is hit eleven iraqi cities killing at least one hundred a car

bomb targeted police recruits lining up for a job at an oil company's office in the northern city of kirkuk outside the capital ten soldiers were killed in a dawn ambush another car bombings hit cities in the southern part of to the northwest syrian border no one has yet claimed responsibility for any of the attacks. meanwhile iraq's vice president has been sentenced to death after a court ruled he was guilty of masterminding the killings of the country's security forces and shias tariq al-hashmi was not in court though as he had fled to turkey as soon as the charges against him emerged in december the case sparked a political crisis in iraq with other sunni politicians branding the prime minister who issued the warrant for hashmi dictates that. eighty police officers have been injured during clashes at a kurdish cultural festival in southwest germany he had arrested after a teenager tried to get into the event with a band flag police used pepper spray as they were pelted with stones and bottles of water the clashes lasted for about two hours thirty one people were detained.

at least sixteen people have been killed by government soldiers after failing to stop at a checkpoint in mali victims are believed to be molly and maria tanian members of the tao a sect that were headed to a religious conference in the capital city of resources reports the army had lately mick has likely mixed the preachers up with islamic fighters. in the breakaway serbian region of kosovo has had mended its constitution to eliminate western lead overseers who previously had the power to fire government officials and reject laws the international civilian office was set up in two thousand and eight to ensure the protection of the serbian already in the region kosovo's prime minister calls it a historic move but what journalist thinks the change is more cosmetic. the i think tensions are constantly in a state of escalation. since last year since the attempt of the thirty's to a certain troll of the northern part of the province and foreign supervision as i

said it's not so much decreasing as it's changing venues now all of the contact is going to be directly between nato and the sponsors of this so-called independent state of course and the so-called government there the i.c.a.o. was simply an office whose. which was supposed to give a pretense of legitimacy to the whole process. bahrain is witnessing daily protests and violence though this time incited by the police security force security officers resorted to tear gas and stun grenades to deal with scores of peaceful protesters who defied a government ban on authorised rallies activists past that packed the streets demanding democratic change in the release of political prisoners saying the ruling family is ignoring their calls tuesday bahrain's court decided to hold the decision of the guilty verdict for opposition activists accused of plotting to overthrow the government pepe escobar a correspondent for egypt times things protesters are only gaining momentum. the

protests in bahrain which are absolutely it's the case of a shiite majority seventy percent of the country protesting because they are treated as second or third rate citizens in their own country you don't hear any saying you know wash it down 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 they could. they sold to washington the idea that this was an iranian plot in war ever happens in bahrain is always viewed by the saudis and by washington as a minor disturbance and of course the u.s. does not want to compromise its position as being the aircraft. go. angel of the persian gulf and if your mom is president vladimir putin tells r t where he sees russia's future but first

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