u.n. says it should be the only one to establish whether there has been a chemical attack in syria that's after the us secretary of state john kerry claimed his intelligence agencies have new proof. this is the world holds its breath over possible intervention in syria as president obama calls for military action but looks for approval from congress. the russian president appeals to the american leader was a nobel peace prize winner warning him over the grave consequences of a campaign against syria. but also a worrying rise in radiation of the fukushima nuclear plant levels up eighteen times higher than previously thought which could prove lethal within hours.

a look back at the top stories from the past seven days and the latest developments this is the weekly here on r.t. the u.s. president wants to launch a military strike on syria but he wants to win a domestic political battle for that to happen barack obama is seeking congressional approval for the attack and congress will consider it on september the ninth washington wants to punish damascus for an alleged chemical attack but the evidence so far presented has left much of the world unconvinced more on this now from artie's marina. obama said although he does believe that he has the authority to carry out a military attack without approval from congress he feels that the country would be strengthened by a public debate on the matter now the u.s. leader says that he feels absolutely comfortable carrying out a military attack against syria without the approval of the u.n.

security council according to international law any military strike taken needs approval from the security council and a resolution to be adopted but u.s. officials believe that any security draft resolution allowing for the use of force against syria would be vetoed by russia and or china now obama says washington's planned military strike against damascus is is not time sensitive meaning it could happen one week from now or one month from now but ultimately the u.s. president says that the syrian government of bashar al assad will pay consequences for allegedly using chemical weapons after careful deliberation i have decided that the united states should take military action against syrian regime targets and should not be an open ended intervention we would not put boots on the ground. instead it would be designed to be limited duration and scope the white house released assessment of this use of chemical weapons on august twenty first and

a countless amount of experts were not convinced by the intelligence that's been presented nowhere in the report to the us confirmed that assad that the assad government used chemical weapons instead the four page report used wording such as we assess with high confidence or multiple streams of intelligence indicate that this week also saw america's major ally britain opting out of military intervention in syria and nato also said it would not be participating in a potential military strike in the meantime the u.n. investigation team that recently returned from damascus has announced that adam lies ng the samples from the site of the alleged syria come syrian chemical attack will take up to three weeks and many countries as well as the un secretary-general ban ki-moon have asked that no military action be taken before u.n. experts present their conclusion will secret state john kerry said the u.s.

has evidence that these are a nerve agent has been used in syria that's despite the u.n. team not yet completing its own investigation in fact they plan to return to the side told the alleged return with the world waiting in anticipation of the results u.n. spokesman martin the stressed the global body is the only one to establish the credible facts. the united nations mission is uniquely capable of establishing in an impartial and credible manner the facts of any use of chemical weapons post directly on evidence collected on the ground and that relates to chain of custody this morning as i'm sure you saw and saw secretary kerry said very specifically talked about blood and hair samples struggles to answer that i understand you said it but seems like your lab has moved pretty fast are you saying that their lab work is is is less than credible have they share this evidence with the u.n. as the secretary general requested all i can do is repeat what i already said but the the united nations mission is uniquely capable of establishing impartial and

credible manner the facts of any use of chemical weapons based directly on evidence collected from the ground ok and if the u.s. share any of this evidence that is described with the u.n. well as we've said repeatedly serves member states are encouraged to share information information they may have with regards to alleged incidents. but we're keeping track of everything that's going on around the world after that u.s. announcement on syria social media reaction expert analysis and fresh updates are waiting for you on r.t. dot com. well obama wanted to strike syria without consulting congress at first but changes mind at the last minute now that decision is in line with public opinion one poll showed that eighty percent of americans believe the president should get the stamp of approval before military action but the majority of people in the u.s. still don't want their country attacking syria while more than twenty percent are actually in favor of military action over half of those who participated in the

reuters poll are against it and even if a sad is implicated in using chemical weapons only thirty percent want the u.s. then to attack syria now france and turkey are the only ones who are backing washington on this the british parliament said no most of syria's neighbors declined to provide support for seamus milne is an associate editor at the guardian who thinks that the focus shouldn't be on chemical weapons but on ending the conflict well together. one of the risks of this action and one of the reasons people oppose it not only that it won't achieve what it's aiming to do but will actually increase killing and spread the war but that not only the syrian government but its supporters both states and non-state actors in the region may well take retaliatory action but i think what really is missing from this debate at the moment is a serious focus on bringing the entire conflict to an end because the problem for

most syrians is not chemical weapons however gruesome that may have been on this or even other occasions the problem is the huge scale of conflict death and destruction that has taken place in syria in what has become an increasing be vicious sectarian war. despite the fact it'll be more than a week until the u.s. congress sits to make a decision on intervention in syria america's military in the region is already waiting for the green light to strike its naval forces in the mediterranean to be boosted to five destroyers and an amphibious assault ship with hundreds of marines on board now officials stress that the troops are not part of any military planning just a precaution but the destroyers pack some serious fire power each of them as you can see carries up to ninety tomahawk cruise missiles they can strike syria from a safe distance while dealing massive damage to the country syrian president bashar assad says he is ready to deal with any external aggression. is gauging the mood in

the mascot's. i followed obama's message from the white house i was that even with syrians and i had a very good opportunity a chance to see their vivid reaction to their to read their faces and to see all the developments of the emotions and feelings that i have to say that if at the beginning of a bomb a speech people were nervous and would tans and of course were frightened obviously what i saw at the end of the massive trauma america was relieved what i saw in people's eyes because the president said that the u.s. should take a minute response to chemical weapons use in syria and that could happen tomorrow next week or next month he'll seek congress' approval for attack in syria and that manned delay for everybody here and many here are two good legs that strategy they

say congress is unlikely to a group interaction against we're so there's a strike they've been waiting for several days and they have the pressure had they been leavin. first announced about a possible strike against syria they can now forget about that at least for some time. and you can follow all of these more information on twitter she's posting on the latest from damascus earlier today she was reporting heavy artillery fire around the capital. in. the u.s. speaking it's war drums the spot warnings in harsh criticism in moscow president vladimir putin said washington's assessment the government could launch a chemical attack against its own people is utter nonsense thomas has more now on

russia's reaction. moscow has been very busy this week urging the west not to intervene in the situation in syria vladimir putin spoke on the situation saying that the idea of the assad regime using chemical weapons that in country is ridiculous saying the situation on the ground just does not allow for it he said that the g twenty summit this week is a good place for the global leaders to discuss the situation in syria he also called on president obama as a nobel laureate not just as a fellow head of state a winner of the nobel peace prize to consider his actions and what it would mean for military intervention and more loss of life in the country the president said of course russia is against the idea of the use of chemical weapons but in this case that the global community needed to wait for the u.n. to do its job and then present evidence to the u.n. security council and then they would decide how to react in a lawful manner according to international laws and what he had to say about that

when it comes to the stance of our american partners friends who are insisting that syrian forces have used w m d's in this case chemical weapons and stating to have proof they should demonstrate that proof to the u.n. inspectors and the security council because lanes that the proof exists that cannot be shown to you to secrecy do not stand up to criticism is disrespectful towards america's global partners if there is proof it has to be shown it is not showing it doesn't exist and the president also said that he was pleasantly surprised at the situation in the u.k. as the british parliament debated and then voted down the idea of military intervention in syria right now the global community is waiting to see if the u.s. congress will follow suit and also continue in a spirited debate as obama has sent the idea of military intervention to congress. well those who are against a military attack in syria are out in force all over the world these are the protests in cairo the arab league members

a meeting where most seem to agree that there can't be a military solution here protesters gathered in front of the white house after obama's announcement and they were also crowds in new york even before the u.s. confirmed its plans for military action more than a thousand were seen in london chanting hands off syria in paris some held up signs saying president land is a terrorist along with david cameron and barack obama and that sentiment was echoed in turkey as well britain's former first sea lord hand security minister told us that the intervention could have foreseen consequences. the danger with saying we're going to use a limited surgical strike is all my experience of wars and i've been in them and in the lead up to them and i've been running them and things is to find that you have a lot of unintended consequences you think you're just going to do one little thing but actually things then happen expands we need to be very clear what is it we actually want to achieve what is the end state we want we need to have in place

mechanisms militarily to ensure that things don't go beyond a certain degree but i'm not at all convinced that attack would actually help the condition of the people within within syria we've seen what happened in iraq you know we've seen what's happened in afghanistan i have no doubt that the al qaeda group and there are a very large group i'm afraid in the opposition funded by people who haven't thought through what this really means would be delighted if america and britain and france attacked they would be delighted by it but that doesn't mean they like us and they want to actually have they oppose us and would like to do is farm but in a temporary basis that would suit them so we need to be very very careful how we actually act radiation levels at japan's devastated nuclear plant in fukushima have increased by eighteen times we'll bring you reaction on this story after a short break this is the weekly.

what i mean here is of course the bailout in the united states with eighty five percent of the population being strongly against it and i don't think you meant it in a democratic institutions and the will of the people would prevent the government from actually implementing it we have created a system that is against the will of the people that is too big to fail we know bankers that committed these heinous acts which destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth and so it does bring into question the very strength of democracy right now i would argue that it's quite weak. first rate. and i think the church. doors. instead.

of. the weekly continues here on our t.v. radiation has risen to japan's devastated nuclear plant at fukushima reading show levels in one of the storage tanks of contaminated water have shot up by eighteen times and that's enough to kill an exposed man in just four hours this comes just after a massive leak of radioactive water a week ago which may have reached the ocean the focus of the plant was damaged by powerful earthquake and tsunami that hit japan in march two thousand and eleven the tepco announced on friday that it detected new radiation hotspots in parts of the compound where contaminated water is stored professor chris busby he's the son to fix secretary from the european committee on radiation risk he fears it's next to

impossible to control the situation at fukushima. radiation suddenly cannot increase unless something has suddenly happened and that something cannot be a leakage from the tank because gamma radiation goes straight through a tank the tank has only got very thin metal walls and as we know these metal walls will only attenuate gamma radiation by about five percent if even if it's one centimeter thick so although they may think that this is a leak from the tank and there may well be leaks from the tank this sudden increase to one point eight sieverts power which is an enormously big dose in fact probably kill somebody and in two hours not four hours i mean nobody can go in to measure where these leaks are or do anything about them because anybody who approached that sort of area would would be dead quite quickly they would be seriously harmed i think it's likely that many people are going to die as a result of this just like that the liquidators died after chernobyl they will die over the next ten years or so nobody has actually realized how bad it is because

the national clearness trees in trying to play this down so much that they've sort of come to the idea that somehow it can be controlled whereas all along it could never be controlled and in fact i see a photograph in which the water in the pacific ocean is actually appearing to boil well it's not boiling but you can certainly see that it's hot steam is coming off the surface there's a fog condensing over the area of the of the ocean close to the reactors which means that hot water is getting into the pacific that means something is fissioning very close to the pacific if that graph i see is true they should now be evacuating people outside the hundred kilometers up to the hundred kilometer zone. and you can find more live updates on the emergency of focus on our website as well and here's what else are online team has to be at the moment to enforce your anus was all alone but now astronomers have spotted a lump of rock an ice they've named trojan orbiting the planet over two billion kilometers further from the sun and typical asteroids and go online to check out why it's been given the ancient greek name in particular. plus the latest

from whistleblower edward snowden shows america conducted hundreds of cyber operations in one year alone with iran russia and china topping the list of hacking raids you can really get the full article right now on r.t. dot com. download the official publication. stream quality and enjoy your favorite t.v. if you're away from your television just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch ati anytime anywhere. greece's jobless rate is continuing to rise with the latest statistics released this week pointing to another record really one point four million greeks are out of work today that's almost fifteen percent more than just three years ago were

back in two thousand and ten with the recession already taking its toll the unemployment rate was almost fifteen percent but the numbers only been increasing this year reaching the record of twenty seven point six percent now young people appear to be the worst affected when nearly sixty five percent of those aged between fifteen to twenty four without a job this is greece is stuck in its sixth year of recession and seems to need another bailout next year when international lenders have already poured billions into rescuing its ailing economy its credit has already paid one hundred ten billion euros back in two thousand and. ten well greece accepted it had to wield the axe on its spending and by embracing a sturdy and another one hundred thirty billion followed shortly thereafter but public debt has only been growing in those three years at the beginning of the meltdown it rocketed to one hundred twenty nine percent of the country's g.d.p. the extra aid boosted that by more than a quarter one author and journalist iris chassis is to follow who believes that the

e.u. rescue package seems to have been a trap. what happened during the last two or three years during the so-called salvation period was that greece became a junkie or for foreign intervention and foreign help it's simply impossible anymore during the three hundred twenty billion saying it was impossible even in two thousand and nine everybody knew that but we wanted to bring greece into the strap that help only foreign banks especially in germany france and some other countries we only shouldn't you should now it's to do for having big greek people in control of the procedure eurozone creates deficits and debts to the european very very well at the same time create services to the european core so we were saying from two thousand and nine two thousand and ten that we should leave the eurozone again in our therapist and not interim seem posed by berlin brussels or any other place in europe destroyed again the infrastructure of the greek economy

not only of the greek economy the same thing happening in spain portugal and ireland all the countries that took the strait jacket off. of a monetary union. now to some other news from around the world in a world update this hour starting with this incredible dash cam footage from taiwan capturing a deadly double near misses the car in front gets hit by a landslide along the coastal road and then just narrowly avoids being crushed by a huge boulder because passengers miraculously escaped with only minor injuries the country remains on high alert as torrential downpours from tropical storm kong ray continue to batter the island. now to pakistan where a roadside bomb has claimed lives of at least nine people the blast happened when a convoy was passing through the northern province of was there a stand not far from the border with afghanistan at least twenty one soldiers were reported wounded turbulent region has seen

a lot of violent attacks by both al qaeda and the taliban while u.s. drones hunting the militants often catch civilians in the crossfire on saturday a drain a drone raid that killed three foreign militants there. also the world up to two hundred protesters defied france's ban on rallies against the new law and gay marriage to march in paris demonstrators calling themselves by the name of nightwatchman close their rally with a vigil in the center of the capital was back in may that france's parliament approved same sex marriage and mass demonstrations and unrest across the country. now that max twenty thirty an air and space show has made its final approach and drawing to a close one of the world's top aviation events just being held outside the russian capital showcasing all the latest aerospace technology well heavy rain may have delayed performances but it didn't keep the planes grounded ortiz paul scott's is

there for us. it's been a good weekend for the crowds unfortunately the weather on the final day has was disrupted the shuttle slightly this big thick gray clouds above us and the rain has predominantly held off it has made visibility quite difficult the highlights on the final day included a display from the russian knights the robotic display wing of the russian air force for the planes came out and thrilled the crowds with that death defying stomach churning stunts we also saw commercial flights as well the airbus a three eighty was spinning around overhead and also they were military on display the highlights of which was the showing of the t fifty which is the stealth fighter that is going to be part of russia's force come two thousand and six day now final testing on those planes is still going ahead it's expected to be completed by the end of two thousand and thirteen when the russian air force will take delivery on some of those some of those stealth fighters the rule was deafening the crowds the

plane were just around the head it really was an impressive sight now unfortunately the weather on the final day put paid to a display from better kuti which is the helicopter display team of the russian air force they were meant to impress the crowds on sunday afternoon but that was council however they did participate earlier on in the weekend over friday and saturday when the weather was slightly better organizes will be looking back on a record breaking year for max in terms of business deals struck almost sixteen billion u.s. dollars worth of contracts were signed it was record breaking as well in terms of number of attendees with representatives from more than one thousand companies worldwide from forty four different countries striking those deals and. you've been watching the weekly i'll be back with a news team with wolf in just over half an hour from now in the meantime we have the latest world program with books on a look at that after this short break. sometimes

it seems like in the face of giant corporations people are just sort of helpless i could be pretty pessimistic myself about what a few individuals with no real money or power can really do against the system but you never dull in fact if you remember tour discussion about ammonia doused pink slime being used across america and frozen fast foods well shift jamie oliver has actually managed to shame mcdonald's enough on t.v. to get them to back down and stop using this ultra processed form of quote meat at their establishments also we recently discussed gamer rage at the rather racist portrayal of russians in the game company of heroes two well all the rage actually worked and thanks to the seventeen thousand signatures on the change dot org

petition that game has been pulled from russian shelves by the developer the thing is that massive corporations do a lot of bad things because they have no morals and are obsessed with profit but because they have no morals and are only obsessed with profit the second you even slightly threaten their cash flow they will instantly start cowering at your feet sometimes but that's just my opinion. hello and welcome to all the part because of the soviet union it was widely perceived as the historic triumph and validation of capitalism only to see that a major crisis less than two decades later and while the number of those who are forced to by the bullet by the recent crisis is comparable to those left by the

crash of ptolemy as. a critical analysis of loss rates of capitalist system is still fairly rare well to attempt to do just that i'm now joined by jeffrey summers an associate professor of political economy at the university of wisconsin in milwaukee thank you very much for your time mr summers i know that you are a frequent guest here in moscow and you are on today you will be speaking on what awaits the world off to the end of american imperialism beach i think is a kind of topic that will certainly resonate with many people in moscow but i assume that for many americans it's not just a provocative topic some may perceive that as simply a patch or audit on the part well you know i thought that patriotism is rather weak in the united states today but i think americans are very weary they're not particularly patriotic right know and they feel under a great deal of stress and so they're not really thinking in terms of patriotism in

the way that they once did especially during the cold war now i think that there are a couple of words in the political science vocabulary imperialism being one of them that are sort of dirty i mean the ones who use them you risk being classified as. conspiracy theories there may be an american hater but as far as i understand your main message is not so much about the america as a great nation but rather the end of certain policies by the united states government that you view as no longer sustainable yes definitely and in fact i also find the term somewhat problematic because it's very value laden as you suggest but what i'm very concerned about is the introduction of. these austerity policies frankly which have been the primary response of not only the u.s. government but also of the european union to their crisis and these policies seem to be spreading globally as a response to this crisis in the united states the european union and increasingly

the world and i think it's very dangerous because my wife we've done this once before you know the famous american literary figure mark twain once used to say that history doesn't repeat itself but it's certainly wrong it's well in the one nine hundred thirty s. and actually in the one nine hundred twenty s. as well we had governments in germany japan and italy all try austerity policies in response to a crises which they experienced and with all of them within a couple of years they opted for military fascist regimes as responses so you see it is something that people. links to you radicalization of political class that in the fact that you also had radical nationalists within their respective militaries who were not happy with just how much their nations were being weakened so i'm not suggesting that we'll see an exact repetition of that but what i am suggesting is that we're playing with fire by introducing these austerity policies and they're really really hurting people and that's.