coalition government leaders failed to agree on a package of spending cuts dealing a blow to the country's prime minister who says the measures are crucial to restoring the country's credibility. euro woes take their toll on the french with president francois hollande watching his ratings plummet. russia turns eastward at the asia pacific summit economic and political ties with china are growing stronger than ever which some say could unnerve the u.s. and its moves for influence in the region. almost a dead heat between republicans and democrats in the race for the white house with both candidates looking to set apart platforms critics call remarkably similar.

five m. in moscow i'm at treasure bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news we begin in greece where the leaders of the three coalition government parties have failed to agree on a package of spending cuts that the prime minister says are crucial to restoring financial credibility they're asking international creditors to give them more time to implement austerity measures with further talks set for wednesday the latest cuts especially painful to the country's most vulnerable including retirees low income workers and dependents saturday greece's second biggest city fesa la mckee rocked by protests with some fifteen thousand demonstrators taking a stand against the measures peter all over reports. minister antonis samaras has said that he will do everything within his policy make sure the greece remains within the euro zone but if he did acknowledge that the cuts that is given to making will both on thing 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 meant taining any credibility that it has left on the global financial stage and not credibility is set to be tested quite soon is old it 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're 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's second city demonstrating against the way that the current governments are handling the financial crisis when anger in 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's anti bailout money what's 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 in fact 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 festival nikki 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 that 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 crime. 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 and nearby in spain german chancellor angela merkel's visit sparked street protests with demonstrators demanding an end to berlin's interference in some madrid's affairs thanks to the daunting financial storm clouds over the euro zone with a bloc central bank forced to roll out the artillery the e.c.b. says it will now begin buying up your own nation's debts to stabilize their borrowing costs but actual advisor marko peter polito thinks this isn't the solution. they refuse to deal with the issues it's very simple that you want to put fiscal integration which means that the germans have to sign for everybody else's debts and you get your right. shared liability for the day in front of his colleagues should you have a split of the year. in the meantime what you can do is keep printing money.

was everybody's hoping for us to drug to keep going to. help the situation until the politics can catch up with the politics. and they'd be lots and lots of meetings with close to. see the solution to the eurozone and it's anything but smooth sailing for the bigger more stable european economies as well in france the president's ratings are in a freefall as waste war and economic weakness are taking their toll on the public as artie's tests are so your reports from paris traditional means of dealing with stress just don't seem to be cutting it anymore. rounds may have lost its title as the country with the highest per capita consumption of antidepressants but the french certainly haven't lost their pessimism 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 present. 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 did manage to beat all other presidents in unpopularity after just one hundred days on the job sure i can lower ratings came after nine years in government and. bad ratings come 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 had a plan to deliver the reforms you vaguely promised what i mean of course you are unhappy 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 setting direct aid to anti assad regencies 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 that she says is all about securing for national interest. we can change president but the foreign policy doesn't change in this move main political parties decided to go to war in my native country to send the french army to go and kill people and i reconstitute today it is syrian money rule and they were trying to get it just like. what

happened with libya that the french have a superiority complex to a point where the imagine that they are the one seeding under these but they don't know is that we see the other people for their money as a teacher at a local school at a brother of three this is what she tells the kids. do music tell the kids to study hard improve their language skills and that he must think of the future outside of france. and that this point the french have clearly lost patience does or sylvia r.t. paris can follow this and many other stories on our web site r t dot com here's what else is on the line or right now. elements of awakening a volcanic eruption in nicaragua a speed of gas more than five kilometers into the air to find out how many nicaraguans safety has been put in jeopardy on our website. and in control of the manhattan skyline becomes over the internet sensation ahead on live to find out how long it took the artist to finish his masterpiece.

the world shifted east this week as heavyweight asia pacific nations decided gathered to decide how to prop up global growth the cool and damp weather of russia's far east didn't chill the war between russia and china whose friendship is seen as a strong asset to economic recovery r.t. dimitri medvedev has more from a lot of awestruck when the other person was rounding up the results of the two thousand and twelve forum 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 right. no exceptions 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 not only in russia's eyes but also in the hours of the whole world what makes this 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 the 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 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 letting a person was asked to comment on his recent stilt that he made prior to the apec summit and that was in 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 grades decided to pull the curtain and the other decided to go somewhere else and this is what he had to say a new future not told. us. it was good and i must admit it's also the leader's phones the pilot's phones the not all the koreans fallujah plea 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 there are parts 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 that was followed by a standing ovation it's not just economic interest russia and china share have also been agreements on international disputes to the chagrin of the u.s. according to financial consultant so. the time is between putin and hu jintao 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 that he 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. and u.s. influence and the ability to if 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 to syria where a powerful explosion has rocked the country's biggest city aleppo a car bomb near two hospitals in a sports stadium killed at. seventeen civilians and injured forty others the city's

been plagued by violence a massive battle between rebels and government forces has been going on for days saturday troops loyal to president assad turned back an attack on a major military base this comes while the u.n. syria peace envoy lakhdar brahimi is in egypt trying to make warring parties cease fire a marble calf a member of a syrian social club ex-pat group so there has been a pattern of rising violence ahead of any diplomatic meetings aimed at finding peaceful solutions. to whatever the security council met on syria there was an atrocity before that i think the most infamous one was the supposed massacre on the fourth of february when we remember russia and china use a double veto against the resolution in the security council condemning syria and this trend has continued in a sense we've seen in the massacre taking place when kofi annan was about to meet prisoners of the next day and so on and so of course the western powers have for a long time seen this conflict as the same model with the same you know if you

bring in point just like they did with have learned three decades ago the western powers have given these jihadists these extremist memes the opportunity to win a certain war they've held them to them they funded them they gave them weapons and they won a war and they didn't think that this was because of the cia and m i six funding and backup but actually because they felt god actually gave them this victory and this has brought a lot of trouble to and alienated large segments of the societies of the muslim societies in the western countries. a french surgeon who's just returned from syria where he attended to rebels at a hospital in the besieged city of aleppo says at least half the opposition forces he treated were foreign geodes bear co-founder of the medical charity doctors without borders says foreign nationals are actively involved in the conflict there admits that some are of french origin and were inspired by mohammed merah

self-styled militant who killed seven in the french city of toulouse back in march or a smith reports there could also be fighters carrying you ok passports on the rebel side. 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 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 now 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 get people who say that's going to support the made work and others are blatantly at ryde 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 libya official reports into the seven seventh's bombings reveals the existence of rivers that two house of the four bombers had been to afghanistan for so-called violent jihads back in the u.k. mohammed sidique khan and says that the town with together killed fourteen people in combined suicide attacks 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 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 ultimate destination 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 what the ideology is necessarily how the ologies and viewpoints point 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 in this way. and i think we truly entering into the 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. still to come here on r t kosovo closes its doors to western overseers hailing it as a historic move despite thousands of you where nato forces still be got its territory . and demonstrations continue in bahrain despite the government's bat are

authorized rallies full story still to go. but first broke obama's captivating showing at the democratic national convention this week appears to be paying up.

cries barack obama should. good 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'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 same coin merino port my art new york. turned out of some other stories making headlines across the globe

a spate of attacks as a thirteen iraqi cities killing at least one hundred a car bomb targeted police recruits lining up for a job in the oil companies office in the northern city of kirkuk outside the capital ten soldiers were killed in a dawn ambushed. other car bombings hit cities ranging from the southern port of basra to the northwest syrian border no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks. while iraq's vice president has been said to death after a court ruled he was guilty of masterminding the killings of the country's security forces and shias. he was not in korea 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 a dictator. eighty police officers have been injured during clashes at a kurdish cultural festival in southwestern germany he had arrested after a teenager tried to get into the event carrying a band flag police used pepper sprays they were pelted with stones and bottles of

water clashes lasted around two hours thirty one people were detained. the sixteen people have been killed by government soldiers after failing to stop at a checkpoint in mali victims are believed to be molly and mauritanian members of the dow a sect on their way to a religious conference in the capital sources report the army had lately confused the preachers with muslim fighters one of the islamic militant groups in the country has called the slaughter a declaration of war. the breakaway serb region of kosovo has admitted its constitution to eliminate western lead overseers who previously had the ability to fire government officials and reject laws that were passed the international civilian office was established in two thousand and eight to secure the protection of the serb minority in the region kosovo's prime minister says it's a historic move but web journalist. says the change is more cosmetic the i think tensions are have been constantly in

a state of escalation since last since last year since the attempt of the any authority so search control of the northern part of the province and foreign supervision as i said is that it's not so much decreasing as it's changing venues now all of the context is going to be directly between nato and the sponsors of this so-called independent state of kosovo 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 police security officers resorted to tear gas and stun grenades to deal with store scores of peaceful demonstrators who defied a government bat out unauthorized rallies activists packed the streets demanding democratic change and the release of political prisoners saying the ruling family is ignoring their calls on tuesday bahrain's court decided to uphold the guilty verdict for opposition activists accused of plotting to overthrow the government

patrick having as an analyst for the u.k. column website these protesters are just game momentum. but the problem in bahrain is this is an actual democratic reform movement this is a real arab spring movement this isn't like the kind of fake arab spring that you saw in egypt this has been brewing and boiling over for over one year now but yet it's been more or less not commented on at all in the global mainstream corporate media and some of the state run media organizations like the. see they're in a very difficult position the opposition movement because as a result of this ruling some of the potential sentences for protesting against the government could be as fudge to life in prison. what's happening in their sort of constructing a sort of program. to quell any dissent whatsoever. our top stories in a couple of minutes stay with us.

i'm in sochi the only city in europe i'm the host of the twenty fourteen winter the pick a. seat. thank you. thank you. a. dog days of. days a.

week so come. see it's so true.