latest news in the week's top stories from r.t. barack obama's tough foreign policy action kicks in quick after soft top security is control of the white house for another four years. urged by western powers to step down in facing death threats for the rebels the syrian president exclusively tells me that he'll stay until he's voted out. after some of the most intense a stereotype clashes in months it's like greece faces more protests as it decides in a draconian twenty food budget. that israel takes aim at its neighbors firing its first rounds at syria since the start of the conflict after killing six palestinians in retaliation for attacks from gaza.

you're watching the weekly a round of the top stories here on r t with me kevin no internet in 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 too that ultimately though ended in a clear win over hard line and mitt romney but obama's soft campaign talk on foreign policy soon transformed into tough action even before all the ballots have been counted out his going to church account reports. 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 the american family and we run as little golf together as one. 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 ben 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 u.n. 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 way the administration impose financial sanctions against iranian officials who the u.s. planes but jamming satellite broadcasts and blocking internet access anywhere and 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 miss. interceptors in poland but the president in every other democrat that i'm aware of is also made it clear that if it needs russia is still out it will be opposed to it still sees it as as a threat we're just going to have to go ahead with anyway the president's actions so far have shown while he may be talking soft he's acting tough looking at sounds president obama's first moves after reelection one could say he picks the idea of

america being the wall police very seriously but the question is who can hold that wall police itself accountable in washington i'm going to check on. a former cia officer told to sort of bomb a news to break free of the strings big 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 on which 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 the run 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 is really for sure not ose within the neoconservative camp in washington. well syria's president has rebuffed western calls to step down in the wake of war and foreign intervention will spark a global disaster he did that in an exclusive interview he gave to us last week if you don't see it this weekend it's online streaming whenever you'd like to see it on t.v. or call when it's on again in full on this channel in a few hours time interview so if you shevardnadze explains what he had to say. this ng 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 talked 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 he 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's not a western puppet he also denies the fact that civil war is taking place in his country he is saying that it's not civil war it's

a conflict where he has to fight different fractions of terrorism. 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 its last stronghold. ability in the region and coexistence. it will have to do mean off. to the pacific you know because you know. it's going. to go but you do so nobody came. next bash our allies sided r.t. exclusive friday through sunday on r.t. and r.t. dot com where president assad says that only elections can determine his future but

it seems not everyone agrees the free syrian army media chief says 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 long enough you'll be lucky if you notice the same fate as. the leaders of the syrian opposition say they've signed an initial agreement to form a new coalition joining a conference in qatar but the body's lost support in syria itself after if it's there disavowed the exiled officials me tell you case a top general says the country may launch a limited military intervention in syria as early as this winter is the most serious british threat to damascus yet political analyst dr franklin lamb told me only foreign action can topple assad at this point. out third

a nato type no fly zone massive massive air strikes no i don't think. the regime can be defeated because their air force is being supplied it still has a lot of reserves and i don't i don't see it you measure got nato or a ground invasion i think what we've seen so far of this opposition which is actually splendor and some ways they've got a very steep slope to climb the only reason we have that almost tissue quality agreement was the threats and they could join and it and the political pressure that was put on them they had to do something this weekend do you think the west is going to show up in qatar and arrange a show or no result to know how long it will last we don't know and it's been twenty one months in libya you recall and there are factions still aren't glued together and they had the benefit of nine thousand bombing runs by nato so i

think the three other problem is not the groups themselves which are very disparate but the lack of support. paid. now among the syrian people and what they have lost in terms of respect with through a lot of crimes they've committed a lot of assassinations and massacres and this is a last ditch effort in a sense to try to put together a viable opposition and only time will tell if it's going to stick together. there's gritted teeth in greece tonight people were gathering in central athens as parliament is preparing to vote for next year's budget it doesn't make of the reading citizens though but it does need approval for greece to secure a fresh international load and another condition was further wage cuts and tax hikes which narrowly squeeze through parliament thursday but public patience wore out long ago five years now into this crippling slow all the reports are of the country's out of work broke out as lawmakers mulled the latest cuts but police were

pelted with molotov cocktails from furious crowds will try to secure the parliament building there are over one hundred arrests greek civil servants union spokeswoman display you know could somebody told me the people are not holding their breath about this upcoming budget. this budget is a catastrophe for this country are all the measure of miles will lead does look at us or the end we know we've got to keep coming even if we didn't protest now we will do we want even to have any jobs any almost without any schools whatever we keep right now and we are keeping you until our government all the european union has government to change their policy and unless the end of this is the catastrophe or until we change our government it's not just a greek problem and everybody knows that now we need that important goal and everywhere in europe even in new england all the people of europe joined their voices peoples of the world are rising up and i understand now that it's not the

lousy greeks and their is that the people of europe do not have to pay for the prizes do not have to pay for their they didn't. interfere into they don't have to pay for bankers pay all the time so we need our pensions we need our incomes we need we need to live in this guy in the not just to survive but really. israel's go to militarily untangled on two fronts is this weekend all in one day in fact firing its rounds into serious. sunday just hours before hitting bucket militants in gaza killing several civilians killed because of all that it's just ahead. recently protests and demonstrations of any kind were banned until further notice

and by crane a curfew as in you can't go out of your home when the government doesn't want you to has already been in effect in the country since two thousand and eleven many of the protests which are now totally forbidden were related to members of the public demanding the release of political prisoners four people were also recently arrested for insulting the king over twitter wow a middle eastern country that has totally shut down any form of protest and holds you down if you tweet about the leadership so it's pretty undemocratic to me i bet nato is already fueling up ready to take action and bomb some freedom into warmer right well not really if nato really cared about spreading democracy you'd think they'd be more consistent with their targets but that's just my opinion. it's.

going to speak with you soon let me. my son died in iran don't agree you don't agree with you don't want to look for other games my son isn't isn't in the arena i don't know what his craft be are going to be trying to hurt you farai. surely a country. with a country isn't yours. when you cross the moon or in hope to help you find it. you find in so many old says war. and meet some stress. you know 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 realize everything you thought you knew. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. welcome to the. science technology innovation hall the least developed around russia we've got the future covered. commissioning free cretaceous free cruise court judge is free to arrangement free. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects a free media dog r.t. dot com in.

israel's military is engaged on both its northern and southern front is this weekend the countries fired into syria in response to a mortar attack on the golan heights and television warning of tougher action two against militants in gaza after a surge in salvos from the palestinian territory. 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 listen unit who did confirm that these warning shots took place he said that they were in response to a mortar shell falling 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 raise the alert in the area the idea of has filed a complaint with the united nations saying that any kind of fire imitating 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 harder 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 escalated choppy particularly this past weekend as 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 eight including children the problem though is that often in these israeli airstrikes is will end up killing civilians and not militants as its intention. it is a must have taken responsibility for this attack there 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 vengeance for these deaths 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. china launched its one of the decade

transfer of power this past week the communist party congress is now reviewing the list of candidates is expected to announce them in three days' time the incoming top officials vowed to tackle the growing challenges facing the world's second largest economy they have critics and they did set to overtake the u.s. to become number one hundred sixty beijing's promising to increase its influence across the globe by buying a bailey business if you are developing africa's vast natural resources. traces the nations. lighting the flame on the international stage building to new heights on this world. and soaring beyond its limits whether in outer space the arctic outer continental shelf or on your local store shelves china is making its ambitions known let's see this is made in china. made in china china where cheap economic goods have translated into massive profits for china as

well as criticism you know this comes amid growing concern that china is using its economic clout for political leverage. different. try not is a very promising country. you pump your top with your i phone twenty try less than fine the i.m.f. says china could surpass the us economically in real terms by twenty sixteen it may not help the countless chinese who live in poverty but it sure makes rivals nervous china's economic clout has grown it is now the second largest economy in the world it's the second largest manufacturing exporter in the rimini the trainees currency is playing an increasingly important role in the world economy so there is a shift in relative economic might in the world that might has been threatened by the economic slowdown and it will be up to china's new leaders to try to reverse the trying. and for now they seem to be getting their way china is

inching into europe to snap up ailing businesses this french vineyard is just one of the casualties. with these people they come here only by learned just like to buy it but castle jewelry on iran u.s. sanctions against oil trading with the islamic republic don't apply when you're america's largest banker. in africa china is using cash to buy clout beating western rivals in the race to exploit the continent's vast resources you know its efforts to buy influence through investments have been met with an intense public backlash in countries like pakistan and building infrastructure instead of military bases has made china the preferred superpower among locals. born into feel. other countries that does not like. it or that like america. still it has not abandoned its military the country's new leaders are expected to

continue to pour billions into its defense budget the second largest in the world this may worry pentagon planners and beijing's asian neighbors but so far china's economic might has proven more powerful than the sword there are two nations which are fighting in the world what is america what is china so america is using which is water and there is a lot of losses and china is using up peacefully and civilized it is no loss and if the strategy is working well why change it chinese leaders understand the importance of soft power. and yet understand the economic. team. to some extent has made it a certain to be studied if not to be followed completely for now a growing red dragon means that china's version of a new world order is here to stay you see captain of r.t.

moscow. but despite its success china also faces a few major challenges at home and abroad because of your research william angle told me corruption and the south china sea will be tough bones to crack in the coming years. 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 to the chinese are very concerned about these 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 oil 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 our japanese islands because private investors sold them to the japanese government william and del programs continue we take the second part of our look at those signing up to seven call someone a few minutes and whether prejudice plays a part in who's chosen to be sent to the front lines it's our next program tonight that our team from moscow. the sun rises over what seems like enlist forest here in town your reactions quite hundred kilometers north of light of our stock and in much of the world it's disappearing at a catastrophic rate. markers

both illegal and those finding ways to outsmart the system filing down the forests of the more secure region for them profit goes well beyond the future of our planet and the. could be an ecological crisis the world wildlife fund for nature makes regular trips to help local rangers do what little they can to stop the logging but it's not easy longer set up trucks making them hard to reach in an already rough terrain and have mastered ways to jump through legal loopholes this is a nature reserve were only sanitary logging of disease trees is a lie out according to law and not a single berry can be picked but loggers like this use their sanitary logging permit to cut down absolutely healthy trees and sell the profitable timber over the border in china we are on the hunt for illegal loggers and it's not going to be easy to forests. and our chances are slim now for now we can stay in our dreams but

as soon as we find solid tracks we'll have to drop our wheels and get out silently in order not to scare them off alexander someone has been a ranger for over twenty five years he can spend weeks at a time tracking a single group of loggers easier to work when snow falls in autumn it's impossible to find human tracks and even transport tracks are hard to see after hours of driving we get sent in the right direction by word of mouth you can see that the ground is soft here which means that twelve the tractor trails are very fresh which in fact means that we need to be quiet in order to not scare them off as we get closer. to this team says they're illegal but have no documents now xander can now call the police to take over his work here is done overwhelmingly outnumbered there are too few rangers working in the region and the w w f a says the government isn't doing enough to stop it the government now for

more of. the. forest and according to. the guys in the. in the forest to the still forest courts still doesn't work just you. know it is no one tries to stop them in just five years the force will be gone they'll sell it all to china and what will the people who live afterwards do like it's a question more and more people are aware of today climate change in the safety of our environment as a whole are being discussed around the world and perhaps it's those small steps that might be a start to people living in harmony with nature. i think now it's very obvious and clear and i have no doubt that donald rumsfeld may

god forgive him dick cheney. and george bush and the other people who have been responsible for the deaths of these tens of thousands of people americans iraqis and other nationalities tens of thousands if not over one hundred thousand people they are responsible for that because they lied because they wanted a war for economic reasons for political reasons for popularity reasons and maybe in george bush's case for family reasons. united states right now it's not beating its recruiting targets. we have walked through some neighborhoods down here in guatemala tens of thousands of young able capable boys girls men and women. give them the opportunity from fight for us for five years and here's your green card a. lot of them are going to say yes. they think if they go to the united states

they're going to find this beautiful lush lovely land no problems no employment no violence no poverty. and sell that story trade that image and they're going to have lines willing to. take the risk to get into heaven like. and as long as people are willing to pay illegally low salaries somebody will go illegally to take that job. or do you think is building the wall between mexico and california. getting stateside contractors at fourteen dollars an hour paying those. half the workers are probably undocumented or tearing false documentation because they are taking a lower salary. and this is the wild along the mexican border.