the week's top stories are from our team palestine moves up in the international arena becoming a un recognized observer state which could allow it to pursue israel over claims of war crimes. egypt is heading deeper into chaos after the country's top court halted all work in protest over being blocked from ruling on the new constitution this comes amid public outrage triggered by president morsi his self-imposed powers. plus watch this space there are more wiki leaks on the way during assad's promises more ground shaking revelations next year as the talks started.

going live from our studios in moscow recapping the week's top stories with our weekly report this is r.t. if the palestinians moved a step closer to being fully recognized as independent the u.n. voted to upgrade the administration's diplomatic status to a nonmember observer state our middle east correspondent paula slayer reports now on how the move may signal a change in the way the world sees israeli actions. it might have been a foregone conclusion but that didn't dampen the jubilation on the streets of palestine. overwhelming support for upgraded palestinian state has to a nonmember observer state in the un one hundred thirty eight voting in favor nine against look at me forty one abstentions it's important political and legal victory to hold israel accountable in a practical way on its violations the national law and its violations of the rights

of the palestinian people especially on the expansion of illegal settlements palestinians can now apply to join the internet. criminal court and other global organizations giving them better bargaining chips in dealing with israel but it came at a price within hours tel aviv announced it was building three thousand more homes in the west bank a sure sign that the situation on the ground won't change overnight does it's not a step forward it's a step aside or even you know a step. berkut it's really a pity the international community gives hand to this violation the us was also quick to cost a cloud over the palestinian party mood the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the united nations general assembly that just passed today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed but washington's unflinching support

for tel aviv has separated from some of its longtime allies in the un more and more countries are turning their back on decades of negotiations that have led nowhere what has changed has been the continual failure of the us controlled so-called peace process to lead to any kind of end to occupation and what i think was the catalyst here is that political pressure on other matters in on the palestinian authority from their own population from their own people who were saying you know what we've had twenty one years of failed diplomacy we're not looking for twenty two we want something different and that's something means a real shift in policy first and foremost the consensus on the international stage is that israel needs to stop building settlements deemed illegal by the un certain to be international community you know is a horse this way to start

a provocation which heroes of course are going to run so called. it was. a little more than a year ago that palestinian president mahmoud abbas came to the un in a bid for statehood since then tel aviv and washington's approach to the middle east conflict has gained them an ever shrinking minority of supporters the irony is that the bid was passed on the watches of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his right wing foreign minister avigdor lieberman it was last year that lieberman boasted in the united nations that the moral majority of western states was with israel it's now turns out he was wrong and whether israel wants it or not it's increasingly clear that something needs to give pause here r.t. tel aviv earlier israeli college lecturer miri eisin told my colleague kevin owen of that thursday's un move was directed against israel. the majority of israelis including this government by the way have stated clearly that they'd like

to see palestine independent both of us understand that there is a difference between saying palestine independent and doing it on your own with the united nations without israel as a partner as if saying that the impediment is just the state that's here let's do this hand in hand without negotiations without us as a partner to do a one sided to impose it on israel and they feel the strong need to give a response as an israeli i can say that has to do with domestic politics personally i don't necessarily adhere to that stuff i think you've heard a lot of criticism here in israel and in linking it in such a way that is also about politics but of course maybe not helping the other could be said on top of the announcement of the settlements rules also announced is not going to hold over a hundred billion dollars of aid to the palestinians to pay back debts to israeli companies is really an option one of course you got the world's largest refugee populations on your doorstep well that refugee population is something that needs

to be taken care of in any case but i'm looking at these as part of the last four years the decision that was made on thursday from my point of view is an israeli who was anti israel not just pro palestinian i want to see something which is a win win situation one that's both pro palestinian that goes towards an end and an state not just in rhetoric no not just decorations but in actuality and to do so those same palestinians kevin how to come back to the negotiation table for the last four years they have refused to do so they've refused time and again and we're all aware of that it was one of the main reasons that the forty states who did abstain from the vote on thursday did so because of that rejection of israel it isn't just about being pro palestine it's also about accepting israel here and that's where we need to go. egyptians are supposed to decide on their new constitution into why. thanks but if last week was anything to go by it will not be easy there was widespread anger as the president granted himself sweeping new

powers supreme court judges could not rule on the legitimacy of the draft charter after supporters of mohamed morsy stop them entering the chamber the court has now suspended its work indefinitely in protest parties tom barton is in cairo. good unrest returns to the streets after the revolution that toppled hosni mubarak after the election that brought in mohamed morsi egypt is in turmoil once again these round the clock protests have been going on for a week now it resembles early two thousand and eleven when hosni mubarak was removed from power but that was nearly two years ago shouldn't the revolution have ended by now the mood on top risk where became defiant again after last week's to creba president morsi meaning his decisions would face new legal challenge we had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant a dictator. and we in in order to that we made elections and with that

evolution and with elections to choose someone to the present us and turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself however morsi claims his new powers are only temporary he nor any of the duke de bakey two in the world here close to leave you will tell you it is a temporary thing it is full emergency told us the seamstress same thing city usable on the president obama and we stayed under emergency rule for seventy years that opponents say egypt's new constitution is too islamist and could set the country on the road to religious dictatorship but some sections of society are keen to show their support for morsi and this storm for judges who would block the constitution and i'm here to support the president morsi films open by the piece for them is open for them to the constitutional court. most of us knows that since it is the morsi is that they got elected by the people. you know that the fight for history of the risks in society are undeniable and perhaps more even the north or

terry in islam this fear is that chaos will tear apart any gains made by the revolution this is something new in egypt that's why it's it's more of a city thing in a way where you'll find that people are facing each other in the streets in demonstrations. facing that type of violence from islamic groups egypt's president its government its courts its very constitution and now matters of heated debate one of the few things moved to gyptian steve seem to agree on after the long night of mubarak a new date is proving it. tom bottom. julian assange is promising some new shocking revelations to rival the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables published by we q leaks two years ago the editor of the whistle blowing web site also claims the us is becoming a totalitarian state with the help of social media you can see the full interview on our website at r.t. dot com. the problem is that all the time everyone nearly everything they do on the

internet is permanently recorded every web search do you know what you were thinking one year two days three months ago now you don't know but google knows it remembers the national security agency intercepts requests that the u.s. border it knows will be. national security agency whistleblower who was research head of the national security agency's signals intelligence division describes this as turning a key to tell it terrorism that all the infrastructure has been built for absolute totalitarianism it's just a matter of turning the key and actually the case has already been turned a little bit and it is now affecting people who are targeted for us drone strikes organizations like wiki leaks. national security reporters who are having this. sources investigated is already partly turned and the question is were we would go

all the way. the election turnout has tumbled in kuwait and it seems the opposition boycott has paid off in a few minutes so we tell you why changing the rules has enraged to the voters. good leverage or. to build a new most sophisticated. fortunately doesn't sound anything turns mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans in. this is why you should care only. for the. science technology innovation believes developments around russia

we've got the future covered. download the official ati up locations so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch ati any time of the. 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. soon which brightened if you knew about soon from phones to christians. muslims don't talk teen dot com.

it's. a recapping the week's top stories live from moscow this is our team. in kuwait a pro-government candidates have won the lion's share of seats in parliament after saturday's election but the islamist led opposition which boycott of the vote claims the turnout was as low as twenty six percent dismissing the lawmaking body as illegitimate the opposition has vowed to continue their protests until the u.s.

backed monarchy dissolved parliament parties lucy kosmos reports from the gulf state voting in kuwait highly controversial elections may be over but the battle over the country's political future has only just begun lots of new faces in the newly elected parliament which is deemed to be far more government friendly than the previous assembly but that is because the opposition didn't want any candidates and oh boy caught up the vote that protester was deemed to be a success with official estimates of placing voter turnout at roughly thirty nine percent in stark contrast to sixty percent voter turnout that we've seen in the last three elections in this country the opposition claims the turnout was in fact much lower and in its eyes the new body is illegitimate in fact they told the new assembly on constitutional according to the popular committee for boycotting election votes the new body doesn't represent the majority of the way to vote and has lost popular and political legitimacy the question is of course whether the

opposition is now going to take its battle to the streets and whether the monarchy a lot worse. current with a heavy now what happens here in kuwait has implications far beyond the country's borders as an opec member any sort of honor rest is bound to happen and if that world oil prices the country also serves as a hub for the pentagon's ground forces with thousands of american combat troops stationed here as a military council wait to get her on the gulf monarchies as a whole have been struggling to stave off the effects of the arab spring with varying degrees of success kuwait is largely seen as the most tolerant of the trees but the worry is that the trend could be reversed over the past few months the country has seen increasingly violent escalating protests between the opposition and security forces with the latter using tear gas stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse crowds political parties are banned as are political gatherings of more than twenty people and activists are claiming of a clampdown against dissent here in this country authorities did allow thousands of

opposition demonstrators to gather in a largely peaceful rally on friday but of course the coming weeks are bound to test the limits of the government's tolerance as well as the self control of the opposition what happens here in kuwait could very well write the next chapter of the arab spring you see caffein of r.t. the weight of explosions in syria's western city of homes have killed at least fifteen people and left more than thirty injured the blasts happened near a mosque and a stadium witnesses say there were two separate car bomb attacks is feared the number of dead could rise with many of the wounded in a critical condition this comes amid reports that syrian warplanes have hit rebel targets in the suburbs of damascus where fighting between militias and regime troops has been raging for a month. gruesome footage has emerged apparently showing syrian rebels killing ten unarmed prisoners as they pleaded for their lives one of the gunmen is heard referencing the al qaeda linked al nusra front which has been behind several

suicide attacks in the country meanwhile internet and phone. access across syria was cut off for two days and while the opposition widely blamed the assad government for the information blockade news analyst patrick kennington says it primarily benefit of those backing the rebel militias. massive problem again with syria and we've had this problem from the beginning which is the skewing of information coming out of the country the syrian observatory for human rights was responsible for a lot of the usual bogus claims or allowed the west to sort of justify the backing of the for you syrian army terrorist groups the leaders of our western countries particularly nato countries or encouraging the syrian terrorist rebels guerrillas whatever you want to call them to really accelerate the bloodbath in that country because in the eyes of washington london the bigger the blood out the quicker they can have reaching here in just a report just came out this week with

a supplying satellite units to rebels rebel groups terrorist groups essentially in syria so they can communicate while the internet is down the country there was a niche initially sold in the media in places like the washington post as a move by the assad government possibly to shut down rebel communications but actually you know one further investigation it looks like it's possible that actually the combination of the united states offer tubes and the syrian rebels could actually be behind the bringing down the internet and the reason is is because if the blood escalates in that country the last thing that the west wants is any reports coming out on the internet of actual rebel terrorist atrocities in that country atrocities that we've seen quite a bit of recently. on our website we have more on what is happening in syria including how france could be about to start funding militant groups some of which are associated with al qaeda. britain's free press

a discovered it could face its toughest regulation in three hundred years. it's crossed the line when some papers were caught hacking the voice mails of royalty celebrities and a murder victim polly boycott reports on the inquiry that exposed to the sea the relationship between the paper's police and politicians. revelations that the british press and gauged in phone hacking sparked a wave of public revulsion and kicked off one of the biggest media scandals the u.k. has. at times that threatened not just fleet street. but downing street as well as the allegations went all the way to the heart the british government to douse the flames number ten ordered the creation of the leveson inquiry in order to investigate the claims and now two years in the making after a chorus line of celebrity witness says and millions in taxpayers' money the leveson report damning about the press and heavily critical of both the police and

the government thought it says was that cozy relationship with the media cameron has been shown with a hunt two or three nicely batting for the murdoch empire was part of all of this so you know i think that you know there used to be a bit more of a focus on the site is of the police. to do anything about these criminal acts lord leveson his recommendation is for highest standards of self-regulation by the press in forced by legislation and that's what critics fear could stifle the already declining newspaper industry and deal a huge blow to the freedom of the press in the u.k. is there any way in which you can be a little bit censored or a little bit monitored and most people say no with britain now in the midst of a post leveson hangover it's the country's two top politicians who are likely to be the most embarrassed david cameron might be suffering from some uncomfortable

flashbacks back in october the prime minister promised to support the leveson recommendations. as long as they went bonkers and cut into last week i have some serious concerns and misgivings on this recommendation they break down into issues of principle practicality and less s.t. but david cameron's change of heart regarding the inquiries findings will be causing him half the headache that nick clegg might be nursing at the moment the liberal democrat deputy prime minister used to talk about liberal democracy a labor previous essence will be will be remembered as the government who took your freedoms away we want to be remembered as the ones who gave them but not anymore here he is off to leveson published their report i have always said that i would support lord justice leveson reforms providing they are proportionate and workable and i will come on to why i believe that is the case as far as the report's corporate core proposal is concerned namely a tougher system of so for

a glacial supported by new independent checks recognised in law recent polls suggest that over two thirds of britons have little or no faith in the newspaper industry anymore and with revelations about the strong links between the police the politicians and the media it's not only trust in fleet street that when dealing i think going to be the word you know obviously we've been very worried about his press for some time i think it's always going on but we should keep an eye on it and be aware of it. with opinions raging for and against new legislation it's turning into a no win situation for those in power by questioning the results of the inquiry david cameron looked to his critics like he abandoned the victims of media intrusion for some good press which is what got the government in trouble in the first place polly boy k r t london. and now let's take

a look at some other stories making headlines across the globe this. the radical islamist set is being blamed for a series of deadly attacks on churches and buildings in northeastern nigeria there are conflicting reports about casualties but at least ten people are thought to have died gunmen in cars and on motorbikes rampage through two villages in borno state targeting christian worshipers and government buildings and what are understood to be attacks by the boko haram group. disabled people in spain staged a mass protest against a government cuts in health care due to austerity measures more than ten thousand people turned out for the demonstration many many and build chairs or with guide dogs the spanish government is struggling to deal with the country's debt crisis which has left one in four people unemployed. after the break r.t. traces the emergence of the occupy movement as the people's force to be reckoned with.

the sun rises over what seems like and list forest here in the new directions quite hundred kilometers north of light of all stock as in much of the world it's disappearing at a catastrophic rate. mockers both illegal and those finding ways to outsmart the system filing down the forests of the more skewed region for them profit goes well beyond the future of our planet and the result 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 logger set up traps making them hard to reach in an already rough terrain and have mastered ways to jump through legal loopholes this is the 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 long. 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 the 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. 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 says the government isn't doing enough to stop it the government. of. the. forest corp and according to. the guys in the forest through this still. no one tries to stop them in just five years the forest will be gone. to china what will the people who live afterwards do. 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. my name is dennis i made this movie and there are a few things you should know about me right from the jump i'm not an expert on the economy climate change or foreign policy i'm also not an expert on sustainable farming systems the history of social movements or lego's the occupy movement has experts on all those things and more not really want to the happily married husband a father of two fantastic children i live on a main street in a small new england town with actual white picket fences i made this movie for you me and everyone we know in the hope that we can create a world where human need comes before corporate greed so why does it feel almost un-american to say that think about it this way just go with me for a second here you know that scene from the oliver stone film wall street when

gordon gekko played by michael douglas in a role that would win him an oscar appears at a shareholders meeting of a company paper to defend his actions and his grotesque worldview and delivers the now famous speech where he says. the lack of a better break is good. we didn't write. works. greek. can. see evolution. and. my. well not only state tells us but that other elephants a full range of. body and says flipped out they cheered everybody in the eighties wanted to be gordon gekko but the thing is this oliver stone wrote it as a piece of satire nobody got it just the opposite all over stone was trying to send up the excesses of the reagan era.