latest news the week's top stories from us barack obama's tough foreign policy action kicks in quick after soft talks acutest control for another four we. urged by western powers to step down in facing death threats from the rebels the syrian president exclusively talks to us he tells r.t. that he'll stay until he's voted. after some of the most intense a stereotype clashes in months greets faces more protests this is assad's and draconian twenty thirty budget. and new developments out of israel which is fired its first warning shots into syria after a mortar shell hit the north as well as killing six palestinians in retaliation for attacks from gaza.

are you watching the weekly roundup of top stories here on r t with me kevin our internet and first republicans in the u.s. a licking their wounds after voters put democrat barack obama back in the nation's top job it was a close race the ultimate lee ended in a clear win over hard line a mitt romney but a soft campaign talk on foreign policy transformed into tough action even before all the ballots have been counted he's going to church he can explain more. in the wake of president obama's reelection there was no sense of euphoria as in two thousand and eight but his victory did come as a relief to most americans his challenger mitt romney was widely seen as more aggressive especially his foreign policy rhetoric also a seemingly out of touch with middle class america we are on american family and we rise or fall together as one nation. waiting for him right after

reelection is the so-called fiscal cliff a combination of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts all we need is action from the house. and i've got the pen ready to sign the bill right away. but averting the fiscal cliff is probably not the first issue addressed by the president. he also rise the drone strike targeting a group of al qaeda militants in yemen on wednesday the un has raised concerns about the legality of such strikes due to reported heavy civilian casualties on lack of transparency on the u.s. part we're in uncharted waters when it comes to policy american policy related to drones this week the administration imposed financial sanctions against iranian officials so the u.s. planes were jamming satellite broadcasts and blocking internet access in iran that comes on top of a whole lot of other sanctions that had been put in place by the u.s. which proved to be crippling for the iranian economy the goal is not to change the

iranian government's decision making it's actually leverage ordinary civilians against the iranian government and to threaten to topple the government by inciting you know food riots or you know people who are on happy because they can you know their grandparents are dying and can't get medicine and on friday despite president obama's claims the u.s. should move away from the cold war thinking in relations with russia the white house launched its first permanent military presence on polish soil the issue has been a constant sword in the side of relations between moscow and washington as the u.s. also plans to install missile interceptors in poland but the president every other democrat that i'm aware of is also made it clear that if it needs russia is still opposed to it still sees it as we're just going to have to go ahead with any of the president's actions so far have shown while he may be talking soft he's acting tough looking at some of president obama's first moves after reelection one could

say he takes the idea of america being the wall police very seriously but the question is who can hold that world police itself accountable in washington i'm going to check on. a former cia officer told us that a bubble used to break free of the strings being pulled from the right. what i would suggest is that he call a press conference what he would say is you know the campaign is over and i found out that i've been grievously misled they told me to say that iran had threatened to wipe israel off the map and i found out that they never said that it's a matter of fact the israeli deputy prime minister sort of said ok ok they never said that and so my speechwriters are being canned i'm going to get some new speechwriters the intelligence community keeps telling me that he run has not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon and so i'm going to get rid of all those folks from brookings other places who are the soft launch the speech saying well you know you still have

to worry about this instead of negotiations once these troublesome people have their own agenda are dismissed then he has a square chance of saying look we're going to do it deal with iran just as i said five years ago we're going to talk directly to them and we're not going to let that be sabotaged by either israeli intelligence or israeli official or not of those within the neoconservative camp in washington. from voting machine glitches to bureaucratic barriers voting wasn't exactly straightforward for many americans but those troubling bought it off by the united states with accusations that it prefers to disguise everyone else's election rather than its reporting on badly. but next serious presidents rebuffed western calls to step down and warn foreign intervention will spark a global disaster in an exclusive interview first this week the interviews in r.t. dot com and it's coming up as well in full later this hour if you know called it

already this weekend. but the thing that really marked me the most is how really how much more complicated situation inside series that 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 us 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 sunni or shia or always or christians so there are really scared that if the army will fall apart and then you know you have this extremist muslims coming to them and asking them to basically be just like them 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 i mean the terror attacks will continue and the fundamentalists

will come to power so they're very scared of that. that he is not a western puppet he also denies the fact that civil war is taking place in this country he's saying that it's not civil war it's a conflict where he has to fight different fractions of terrorism. as on the fact that the financing of this terrorist fractions was unprecedented and it was coming from abroad he also said that if the west were to intervene militarily it would have a do you know if from atlantic to pacific vision. it's going. to be more the whole world came before because if you have a problem if you drop the loss of. ability in the region and coexistence. it will have a domino. to the pacific you know because you know. it's going. to go but. nobody came. next the bush

our allies didn't r.t. exclusive friday through sunday on r.t. and r.t. dot com president assad says that only elections can determine his future but it seems not everyone agrees the free syrian army is media chief says that they want the president's head on a plate. in his statement to your channel he said he would not leave syria we know this very well because he will not be able to leave syria he and his people will not manage to leave the country the free syrian army will not let him do this he will not get out of syria lying you'll be lucky if he meets the same fate as market daffy. the leaders of the syrian opposition say they've signed an initial agreement now to form a new umbrella coalition during a conference this weekend encounter but the bodies lost support in syria itself the local coordination committees of activists there have disavowed the exiled officials the president of the arab lawyers association says the foreign backed national syrian council does not represent the revolution.

the only credibility it had was with the western powers we all remember when the us forced many countries to attend a meeting in turkey to recognize this as the legitimate representative of syria which was part of the political gimmick that the us and the western powers nato france britain were following because what they wanted is the change of three g. but this is a unique case where there is a true revolution within syria but those who are recognized by the us and others have absolutely nothing to do with it and so most of them have never been there and most of them have been out of the country for tens of years and the us knew that and the west knew that but they were still nevertheless recognized as the representative of the people now they have come to realize that actually the revolution is going on in syria there is the free army there is the people who are

revolting in syria and they have no links with the external. people who are claiming to represent them so i don't think they credibility before i don't think it would have credibility at the present moment because this is an attempt to create a revolution or evolutionary body in the west created this something. called the present that. is gritted teeth in greece again tonight people are gathering in central athens as parliament prepares to vote for next year's budget does make comfortable reading for hard pressed citizens but need to prove all for greece to secure a fresh international loan and added condition was further wage cuts and tax hikes which narrowly squeeze through parliament on thursday but public patients were long ago five years into the crippling slump now more than a quarter of the country's out of work violence broke out as more makers mold these latest cuts while police were pelted with molotov cocktails the furious crowds while trying to secure the parliament building there were over one hundred arrests

let's go live to athens then dr dimitrius morris is from the daily greece dot com sir get even thanks being an hour to international time again we've witnessed this endless stream of intense public protests but are they ever going to have impact any effect from where you are what do you see. good evening world green house fronts are in the three years are austerity remote and they're losing money they are suffering coutts all these things are true and perhaps they are getting worse this winter this is going to be our winter of discontent if you want this is a game accts of the of the problem no danger of impacts of course they do have a vote to own constituencies m.p.'s. individually and collectively they are pushed to react to their push to rock is some of them have already did others are

a. fear very salacious. but at the end of the day i think these are these are old that needs to be followed through on. the first big step was made them wednesday night. this is just the second step which is a much safer vote if you want to. but is there any site the doctors that really where the end of the day to to break this vicious circle of one and government cuts that that lead to the protests in the strikes that we doing the rounds for over three years now is there any light at the end of the tunnel any time soon you think . well it should be. because this is a shoe people because people are in a three year of state of the guts with no hope and this is a political problem in my book because. you may draw a very nice a steady back and soon to be successful in coutts in the white house have your

surplus of the end of the year or. better day you need to act politically and. and move forward. for design something. that's the problem design the plan what is the plan going to bates the golden million dollar question it well the elements are already known late but only days asians are going through all this you know and inefficient good existence of decision making when it comes to big decisions bed again referring to is the word the proper authority we need that we need to just make the shift from drama to call the silent parliament as i mentioned just now barely managed to pass these latest cuts thursday several lawmakers were expelled as you mentioned just now for not backing it just how divided is the coalition and how's it going to

affect sunday's vote let's look ahead a bit. well there. you have a stronger start below which is the new democracy party you have a bus stop which is second in a row and perhaps degrading a bit. many analysts see the end of the coalition may be affected by aids and left foot of the coalition. or the house debated strongly the labor measures said no on wednesday. some secondary effects are going to be. acting as wait. day think go today's vote is a safe vote they're going to go for it it's the end of their forward monday we have . probably we're going to have a political message from the euro group prime minister will be there our finance

minister will be there if they don't get the political group they're going to have a problem here and so that's going to touch my next question sure problem with five years into this slump we've seen the protests getting more and more violent what is in store if this problem you talk about happens if the government can. news ignoring people's demands and the right messages don't get through to the public could the protests be could it get worse. it could it could get there we have to be we have to make some tough decisions the collective memory now what's been built this is still. stuck in a false disparity three or four years ago and these people are handling the situation in terms of what they lost or what they keep losing. their house we need to see the situation in more forward durham's and the government needs to express that now of course policing is becoming more

strict. this continue but i do think violence is increasing not because. i don't think there is any m.s.'s political message store it's violence now it's different ok we're watching that. we're bringing our viewers the latest as and when it happens thanks ever so much for being on the problem giving us your thoughts on the ground there if you are dr dimitrius journalism professor and director of daily greystock called appreciate it. israel's go to militarily tangled two front t is only one day firing its first runs into syria sunday just hours before hitting back at militants in gaza killing several civilians because the details on bad just ahead also they need to rein the reform complaint is they're facing troops instead of told us in the long struggle for voice and find out what's really driving the crackdown in

a few minutes as well. usually the police and occupy protesters are like oil and water but in atlanta they've come together to save the house of a former detective jacqueline barber unfortunately ms barber lost a lot of money battling cancer and was facing eviction which she turned to occupy homes for help so far she's managed to stay in her home despite it being sold out from under her feet but the main thing is that her fight to stay in her home has become like a bridge between two groups who are usually at each other's throats the police and occupiers the thing is that cruel economic practices can affect us all even retired police like ms barber i know there are some irresponsible people who buy things they can't pay for and here the police have to do something about them but they

shouldn't throw you out of your home that you've paid for for years just for getting cancer no one should have to live with the constant fear that their home will be taken away after years and years of payment just because they got sick and america i thought we believed in private property not eternally renting from big banks but that's just my opinion. i mean. i'm the host of the. winter the pick of.

you watching a round of the big stories from the past seven days and first israel's military's engaged on both its northern and southern front is right now the country fired into syria today in response to a mortar attack on the golan heights. warning of tougher action against militants in gaza to offer salvos from the palestinian territory paula slee is called the latest. early on sunday afternoon israel fired into syrian territory for the first time since the one nine hundred seventy three war as spoke earlier with the israeli

defense forces folks first in unit who did confirm that these warning shots took place he said that they were in response to a more to show for link near and the israeli military post in the golan heights now these ladies do not believe that they were the target they do believe that the shell was part of the byproduct of the internal fighting taking place in syria between forces loyal to assad and rebel fighters but the army is saying that it won't tolerate more tests from syria that violates the disengagement agreement between israel and syria now there have been several such incidents over the past two weeks just last week three syrian tanks crossed over the demilitarized zone between the two countries alarming israelis and also causing them to ways they lived in the area the idea of has filed a complaint with the united nations saying that any kind of fire immigrating from syria into israel will be responded to also on the southern israeli border we have seen a flare up of violence between the israelis and palestinian militants the latest we

heard from the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is that his country is ready to strike hondo against the gaza strip if it does not stop attacking israel he made these remarks today sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting in which he said and i'm quoting that the world must understand that israel cannot sit idly by while attempts are made to attack it the hostilities along the israel gaza border have it's going to choppy particularly this past weekend this follows israeli airstrikes that killed six palestinians four of whom were teenagers and two of whom belonged to the militant group islamic jihad according to the gaza health ministry spokesperson there are a number of people who were injured the biggest stands at around thirty including children the problem though is that often in these israeli airstrikes israel lands of killing civilians and not militants as its intention. is a must has taken responsibility for this attack they were four israeli soldiers that were wounded in it and response from the palestinian side was dozens of

rockets that were fired into southern israel early on sunday morning the whole sort of israel is in a state of high alert and this comes as palestinian militants about to take revenge for the stiff's now flare ups along the israeli gaza border are quite common and we had seen already two flare ups this month this though is one of the highest casualty counts in gaza in a single incident in recent months. closely our middle east correspondent that bahrain's largest opposition group says hopes are fading for any breakthrough dialogue the gulf kingdom's deepening crisis witness fresh clashes this week with authorities deploying its paramilitary national guard to back police in the battle against protesters the latest wave of protests began on friday security forces tear gas thousands of shiite worship was trying to reach their mosques for prayer as a teenager was killed in a traffic incident during the clashes and there was more violence during his funeral on saturday authorities banned all public gatherings last week to try to quell any two years of anti-government actions jim political and i specially having

seen told me western nations are helping the monarchy gag the opposition. if you look at you know william hague and quit hillary clinton gallivanting around with the friends of syria meetings accusing the assad government of crimes against humanity you only have to look at bahrain to look at a litany of crimes they're revoking nationality of protesters right now they're they blaming the latest bombing on his ball up as if it's his ball has any any connection with bahrain so all rajab he's going to have his appeal denied next week by the the all talk or see in bahrain so you know the euro loves bahrain and they go down there for loads of money and their country formula one grand prix every year and loads of oil coming out of that country there's absolutely zero chance of any democratic reform in this country and this is a country that absolutely needs it washington and london have more or less given the boot the go ahead for the bahraini role family in that and that government talk

received to really go hard and fast and drop the hammer down on any pro reform movements and that's exactly what we've seen. several high ranking russian officials were sacked this last week in the wake of corruption allegations shaking the country's military the defense minister his first deputy and joint chiefs of staff were forced out of the ministry was drawn into a scandal over allegedly selling assets at well below market value and it's not just there russia's space industry is also improved in a corruption scandal these days a government backed probes underway into a company developing russia's satellite navigation system called glo ness after it was revealed that over two hundred million dollars were allegedly embezzled by management president putin and his predecessor to be preventive named countering corruption in russia as one of the main goals china has launched a once in a decade transfer of power this week the communist party congress is now reviewing the list of candidates and is expected to announce them in the next three days the

incoming officials vow to tackle the growing challenges facing the world's second largest economy the i.m.f. predicts it will overtake the u.s. have become number one by twenty sixteen pages promising to increase its influence across the globe buying up ailing businesses in europe building infrastructure in pakistan and cashing in on africa's vast natural resources but it won't be that easy as economic research we're going to explain to us. 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 the chinese are very concerned about the so-called obama pivot the asian pivot which is really

a china pivot that obama announced earlier this year the south china sea the provocations there with in 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 now 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 chinese territory so it's a very provocative kind of game that's going on between japan and australia and the chinese with the us very much in the background. less than a month after the deadly assault and siege of libya's historic opposition stronghold the country is a tourist hot spot not the brochures take the full picture of a nation ravaged by revolution we've got

a story. also contracts corruption and question marks a racket denies pulling a four billion dollars deal with russia over concerns of foul play in baghdad explain the full story. on the march under guard to these men and women are walking one of the longest and probably the loneliest road in the world they reenacting the march into exile made by thousands and czarist russia. if i was here three hundred years ago i may have dissipated my local lord i may have deserted from the army or a variety of other crimes the result was the same flight my fellow prisoners around me i've got a long and very cold walk ahead into exile in siberia it took them years to get

there summers and winters entire years a lot of people died on the way this group in the western siberian region of omsk discovered the living on the only surviving stretch of the original nine thousand kilometers of the siberian exiles track that's had no modern changes made to it have guinea discovered that he's descended from some of these exiles and decided to build a museum telling a story he and his re-enact is now receiving from all over the world to show them what it was like when these bloody good earnest it's scary to put the shackles on of course but it's interesting if we don't remember our history we will have no future. it's a monument to one of the restructures cruelest chapters. the city serves as the capital of anticommunist white russian leader admiral co. track in the civil war from one thousand nine hundred to nine hundred nineteen lost and residents who live here though the study of the man like the maintenance of this building has remained ditto blew right up until the present day or we still receive hate mail saying that

he hanged a lot of people and was famous for severe punishment it's all true but it was a time of civil war both sides were monstrously cruel it is sadly the theme of cruelty which links so much of history to the rest of russia's particularly of exile where they were an apple or a criminal. that is trying to tout its wealth of ancient ruins to attempt to respect these days after the revolution kept visitors well away but the country's most recent history is off the map and holidaymakers aren't likely to learn much about the deadly siege of bani walid less than a month ago r.t. sara firth reports we're here at the wild cattle market trade say taking place.