in an exclusive interview the syrian president says he won't step down and warns foreign intervention global disaster. protests in athens lead to a president in violence as parliament approves a new set of cuts in a bid to keep greece solvent in the eurozone. president calls on china's new leaders to turn the country into a major naval force as beijing begins a once in a decade communist power transfer. international news and comment from the new center here in moscow this is r.t.

r t is gained exclusive access to the syrian president who continues to govern from damascus in defiance of foreign calls to step down bashar al assad condemned those calls and warned against outside intervention in syria when i. interviewed the embattled leader in the capital. we had a chance to speak about fifteen minutes before the interview very educated very down to unst definitely not megalomaniac. contrary to what people like people praise him in the media very well informed he feels like i think that this whole thing that's happening is like a cancer that either he has to beat or he has to die of it but there is no other way out when what we're talking about western leaders telling him to step down i mean it kind of sounds ridiculous because he really has nowhere to go like when he were to step down where would he go and we asked in that interview you can see

parents into it to a piece of the us that interview so if we speak to him about the push for foreign intervention i think the prize vision if it is going. to be more than the whole world came before because if you have a problem in syria and you got the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence it's it will have a domino effect if it will turn to the pacific you know because you know. i don't think. it's going. to go but you do so nobody can pick what's next. did you feel like you were sitting and speaking to a man who was losing power losing control of this country i think is very well aware that he definitely isn't in a position in which he was like two years ago or a year and a half ago or he's not crazy i understand he's still going about his business i

think it's more about the fact that he knows that he has no choice he has made a choice of having no choice and. he has no other way than to fight till the end i believe it's not about staying in power for him and i do believe it's not about. his family because his kids still go to public school in damascus and his wife is still there and he told me you know i'm a younger man i love sports i love life i could have just picked up and left lead it for example you know this is no fee for example and the thing that really mark me the most is how really how much more complicated situation inside syria from what we see in the media because i talk to people yes the country is divided and even the people who didn't like assad before this conflict started are now so scared that fundamentalists will come to power fundamentalists who are fighting on the side of the free syrian army and syrian people are not about that i mean this is like the only secular that had a lot of different religious groups always living in peace with each other whether

it's to me or a wired to or or christian so they're really scared that if the army will fall apart and then you know you'd have six premiss must come to them and asking them to basically be just like them basically they're targeting also famous people who don't want fundamental fundamentalists in power so it's not just about assad i think people feel like whether he goes or stays. it's only can get worse if it goes because it will get to terror attacks will continue and the fundamentalists will come to power so they're very scared of that. maybe inferior but after even going to bash our allies so i didn't r.t. exclusive friday through sunday on r.t. and r.t. dot com. meanwhile first clashes have reportedly erupted in northern syria just across its border with turkey and greece placing its forces in

a higher state of alert and now wants to deploy surface to air missiles from its nato allies amid a new wave of kools for a no fly zone over syria and its connection to border tension comes as the political leaders of the syrian opposition fourchon new cabinet which they came to present as a government in waiting but the syrian national council met in qatar far from the syrian frontlines where dozens of people were reportedly killed on thursday and the rebel factions remain split with some refusing to recognize the authority of the s.n.c. middle east expert jeremy salt says damascus is being provoked from a group. that turkey wants to it's in that condition conscious wants to name all directions all human and therefore we have the negotiations all the talks nice huge missiles along the east of the border now. upgrading and installation of the situation music some sense of this interest in coalition and that's includes britain france take a huge cost on saudi arabia if not the strait an inch from that time and destroying

the syrian government what is the cost of a full page dismissed ignored sidestepped undermined interesting. journey and once this process began to shake italy take it would be imposed. in syria and then. especially someone have to respond. a new package of billions of euros in cuts and measures through the greek parliament to be met by violent protests outside frustration over the disintegrating economy led to street battles between far bomb wilting demonstrators and russia police armed with. all of the reports now from athens. well the greek people of continue to vent their anger against what they see on the fail story is being placed upon them by the government wednesday evening here in athens we saw those tensions boil over into a nother round of violence a crowd of around one hundred thousand people had gathered here it's just in front

of the building and. very quickly we saw police and protesters fights running battles through the square itself in the streets surrounding it. tails thrown rocks throwing the police responding with flash bang grenades and of course the tear gas it's become so synonymous with the violent demonstrations and violent clashes we've see in athens in recent times now over one hundred just over one hundred people were detained by police the majority of those were released straightaway five people being arrested involved in last night's violence and also hearing that there were some injuries on both sides both the protesters and to the police well the reason that this took place on wednesday evening was because the pall of and just behind me was voting on the latest round of austerity measures now that has

been written into greek lloyd by the slimmest of majorities one hundred fifty three emcees go to yes one hundred twenty eight saying no eighteen stanchions now what that means for the greek people is they will have to team point five billion euros worth of savings forced upon them now the savings will take the form of raising the retirement age going to see some people seeing as much as fifty percent cut from their pensions they'll also be cuts to wages both in the public sector and the minimum wage as well being cuts and it's also going to be new laws that will make it easier for employers to fire them for. all of this is. causing great anger in greece they say that this is being dictated to them because this thirteen point five billion euros worth of savings was demanded of greece its three main creditors the so-called troika and the reason they demanded that the reason it greece is push

this through is because if they didn't they were told they wouldn't get the next round of the bailout money now with if greece doesn't get that money essentially it's out of the eurozone and it faces an incredibly painful the fault. ponding on the bad news for greeks of figures showing unemployment in a record high german this child in the draft believes the country is spiraling into total chaos. people killing themselves in front of parliament in greece you have people that are losing everything using home that don't last think to go i think is going to be there since they have anybody representing them with so far whatsoever you have this is a tyranny of the technocrats majority inside greece a hundred fifty three out of three hundred vote more austerity on the people i think it as they continue to lose all hope that they have any control of their own financial destiny whatsoever how can it be anything but you know digress into but potentially civil war the financial health of the country is not going to change

for the better until they realize that they are in default they're bankrupt and they tell the banks that are holding their debt and the european union and the e.c.b. and the trail they are going to default this is what happens if the market caps there their prospects for a return to a healthy economy it has to start with them realizing that they are completely and utterly broke and start over from scratch. r.t. if you're in moscow other world news this an hour at least eighteen people have been killed in three separate bomb attacks in afghanistan the deadliest blast was in the southern helmand province when a minibus hit a roadside bomb killing tens of millions including four women and two children a second attack killed three policemen and wounded two others in the southern city of kandahar and in the east a military convoy struck a landmine killing five local troops. a court in bahrain is denied

a release request for a prominent human rights activist. whose cases been adjourned until next month in time for tweeting and participating in illegal gatherings in hopes to appeal his three year prison sentence the country's crackdown on the opposition has been going on for nearly two years without to eighty people killed and thousands arrested. four people have been killed many more wounded in the series of car bomb attacks in iraq the blasts hit residential areas in predominantly shia town south of the capital baghdad insurgent attacks often aimed at undermining the sheer led government or a frequent occurrence as the country struggles to find stability after years of foreign occupation. in just a few minutes here in r.t. heads clash over billions we look at how proposals for the european union budget is deepening the cracks in london berlin relations. and china's communist party begins a weeklong change of leadership i made calls to root out corruption and make the

state a major power on the high seas live analysis on that very shortly and r.t. . its perched atop a giant rock and the view from the ball scrubland stretches as far as the eye can see. for a city to siberia for centuries. it lost its economic importance even before it was bypassed by the child siberian railway but the ball screw. a spiritual center. scenes like these are a yearly occurrence thousands of all the docs worship them selves and blessid water to commemorate the baptism of jesus. in the fifteen eighty s.

the russians had only just conquered siberia taking it from the muslims. surrounded by enemies the balls to be their stronghold constructed on top of the city but soon enough it became an economic hub siberian was the oil of its time bringing in a third of all russia's state revenue put the location head of the says for the russians the russian crowd a revolt against the czar and eight hundred twenty five known as the decembrists will stand there in droves there they created a replica high society adopting the latest fashions as soon as they came out or a place once they made it from paris to siberia. but the city also served up some bit of irony for the russian royal family after the bolshevik revolution. this is the office was czar nicholas the second spend most of the last year of his life his whole family had been exiled here and they lead a fairly comfortable existence this was a big house but they weren't allowed to see visitors or go outside themselves was

leading the ordinary normal countryside life style they even have thought of a scape but within the year the czar and his family would be dead. r.t. life here in moscow a major transfer of power has begun in china the country set to appoint its new top leaders next week as part of the communist party congress which is now under way president huge in town was called on the nation to fight corruption improve its military and keep the economy growing well for more on this let's go live to germany the research and dull author of myths lies and oil wars well china's economic policy has seen a slowing of the country's growth recently a widening gap between the rich and poor and of course corruption how hard will it

be for the new leaders to deal with these issues. well i think the easing years of the chinese economic miracle are behind them and what i've seen in my recent visits to china over the last three or four years is a great sense of questioning how valid the the western especially the american economic model is for going forward in china now the party itself you mentioned the corruption issue and that's a huge issue among the chinese population i've talked with students as recently as three weeks ago when i was in beijing. and i asked them what they considered the greatest weaknesses and. this is a pervasive sense among young people that the party leadership is not. in touch with the aspirations of the younger generation or the people generally in this this is a question of the very legitimacy of the party and that i think is a huge challenge that they're going to have to address in not just

a symbolic way with one or two convictions like you had recently with the party with conviction and stripping of party membership you're going to have to have a much more convincing reestablishment of legitimacy that the party is actually leading the country with the best interests in mind and not simply the interests of their own families and lining their pockets and that's a difficult task i think turning from domestic and that is let's talk about foreign policy now there are territorial disputes in east china in the south china sea with of course the us getting involved in that is to how do you think relations will develop between beijing and washington then there is talk of perhaps a military clash being likely is that really possible. well the chinese are very concerned about these so-called obama pivot the asian pivot which is really a china pivot obama announced earlier this year and what is happening is a u.s. military deployment in australia in japan and. in south korea

that. really. has the focus on china encircling china's. freight pathway from from the persian gulf to get its energy supplies its energy resources so the chinese see this as very much a threat when obama in the presidential debate referred to china as an adversary that did not fall on deaf ears in beijing so they have a what they see is a real security challenge that. washington whether. obama in the next four years escalates sharply or not clear but certainly the tensions are very real between washington and china and the chinese are quite concerned about this and are trying. to leave possible to color the anti missile defense shield the u.s. is building up not only against russia but also now against china using japan and australia as a launch pad for that yes and that's an interesting point isn't it that because

there we have washington setting up those all helping south korea to set up those long range ballistic missiles and yet we've got china trying to control solve the tensions over north korea's nuclear aspirations another area of tension then you know well the. it's like a noose that the chinese feel is tightening around their neck and the south china sea the provocations there with the eastern part of that with the islands next to taiwan where the japanese government made an extremely provocative move no doubt at the behest of washington to claim that those islands are japanese islands because private investors sold them to the japanese government that those islands are a security necessity for the chinese in their long term defense as they see it and historically the chinese have. quite a strong right to claim those as those chinese territory so it's

a very provocative kind of game that's going on between japan and australia and the chinese with the u.s. very much in the background just quickly your thoughts on the masses of dissidents and democracy their major topics concerning china the future leadership react to these criticisms from the west. well i think the future leadership passed to be more responsive to the concerns of genuine chinese not calling for a breakup of china and little five terms as some dissidents have recently done. but chinese youth are very concerned they consider themselves patriotic chinese but they want more freedom of expression and i think the important thing for the party leadership is to show the younger generation that freedom carries with it responsibility and how that is going to work will be a crucial test of the very legitimacy of the party leadership over the next ten years so i think china is facing a challenging time it's

a fascinating country with a huge potential. for stability in the world actually if they play it right that's going to be something that the world is going to be watching very closely economic research and author william engdahl thank you very much indeed for joining us live there from germany thank you. kate the ruling party gathers to select the next generation. today on hard darty dot com. london remains worlds apart from the ease paymaster on the debated seventy eight budget crunch downing street talks with his german counterpart the british prime minister reaffirmed he would not accept any proposed hike in spending it's our first with a deeper look at britain's widening rift with europe and the support for specific. prime minister david cameron and german chancellor angela merkel are probably feeling pretty food today after the downing street dinner last night on the menu is

mushy and spinach tart venison finished off with a traditional german putting beneath the smiles and the friendly handshake you can imagine that probably have been some quite awkward dinner conversation on the surface of it the german chancellor is here to discuss with the prime minister the upcoming budget meeting that will be taking place in brussels but of course there are a much bigger issue at stake most importantly the discussion about britain's position within the european union itself now the end of their meeting bayside says said that they were on the same end of the spectrum but is that really the story because of course in recent weeks here in britain we've seen the talk of a possible referendum in or around referendum whether britain should remain within the european union really kicking up again you wouldn't have been the one to want to break that needs to anglo american she doesn't look like a woman who suffers food gladly unfortunately the prime minister hasn't looked like

the strongest leader in recent weeks we saw that humiliating defeat in the house of commons with tory backbenchers calling for a real term cuts to the budget now we know when these meetings take place that britain is going to be asked to contribute even more to the point there's going to be some tough negotiating taking place what you have here at the moment very much is a big perception problem when it comes to the european union at a time of austerity in the midst of a double dip recession many british people feel that the european union to be asking for even more money is simply on reasonable and you seen a very very strong reaction to that here so in the coming weeks ahead of that budget meeting the topic of britain's role within the european union itself is very much going to be on the top of the menu. for more insight on the deteriorating ties between the e.u. and london check out sarah's latest blog entry. she says the two of caught in

a romance. also on a website accepting responsibility suspected whistleblower bradley manning might plead guilty to supplying wiki leaks with classified material go online to find out the conditions of the possible deal. and work from russia's i'm on guard. at the christie's sale in new york how much that made. while barack obama celebrates his presidential victory there is lukewarm reaction from washington's top ally in the middle east israelis openly back to his rival mitt romney during the campaign and many are disappointed at the democrats' reelection could lead to an unprecedented rift in u.s. israeli relations as. reports. from this. to this it was never a secret who the israeli prime minister wanted in the white house the often public spats between his government and the obama administration of

a palestinian peace talks and iran's nuclear program did nothing to advance american israeli relations and only a mosque the two leaders personal dislike for each other we are the junior partner in this relationship both men want to succeed they need to cooperate in order to succeed and i think it's not it's not only insurmountable challenge but i don't know to fix the relationship but he has some fixing to do relations between the two countries are at an all time low and most of his radio americans were also hedging their bets on the republican candidate of the roughly eighty thousand who voted from israel four in five voted romney these few got up early to watch the results obama can be harsh make a destructor of israel because he doesn't have to worry about reelection anymore and the time we are all has to do with obama's tells in many aspects because israel is dependent on america for allies and for support in the war in the international

arena the pressing issue now is what is obama's victory mean for israel's foreign policy after all netanyahu saw in one knee and why someone he agreed with on most issues including what to him is the most urgent stopping iran's nuclear program netanyahu is trying to convince the world to strike iran a position that until now obama has not supported the question is will israel go it alone in order to destroy completely destroy iran's nuclear weapons capability i think you need. in many many strikes over an extended period of time only one country in the world that is capable of doing it and i don't think they will do it this is the united states of america and without u.s. backing netanyahu is in a corner we risk a strike back down from his warmongering neither position it puts him in a good light netanyahu took

a gamble so openly favoring romney welcoming him in israel during the election campaign and appearing in republican campaign ads that were all of the dice could now backfire as the israeli elections quickly approach and a ten year who himself will be fighting for another term in office police fear r.t. to sell him. up next here on our team next call as it takes on the world of big business the latest cause a ripple. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

do least be cool language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on all t.v. reporting from the world's hot spots of the ip interviews intriguing stories for you here. in troy all t. arabic to find out more visit our big teeth dog called. i'm in sochi to know his city in europe and the hosts of the twenty four team which are the biggest. sun see. you all the way. to a. tsotsi. think of the sun the way a. dog days are gone and the pride days it. takes of coming out

of the. sun sea it's so true. love. is the. be cool language. programs and documentaries in arabic in school here. reporting from the we'll talk school of p.r.p. interview intriguing story for you.

visit our big. macs kaiser welcome to the kaiser report george osborne chancellor of the exchequer you know the stuff of nightmares economically physically and literally yes georgie porgie you've got fat bubble and fraud by and now you're scaring the population to death. yes max i find this an interesting headline to start as we have a obama reelected to the white house and you know in america it's very partisan and every side claims to be terrified of the other side's president winning but here people know you look at the.