you the leave it alone as if you. were going to come out and bite you and that's what we did when we invaded iraq you know three in al qaida hoists is a band of soviet ways of iraq as a washington of the world helped by imbeciles and on just a forces on the predicting and bloodbath. and syrian rebels turn on each other in a mostly turf war with over five hundred fighters killed in a slum of clashes ever just one week smoking a change of heart among some of their foreign backers. while the month before the winter olympics starts of the home city is putting a priority on security to make sure the games remain safe and undisturbed. blasts confidence in the easy leaders has never been that larry walked into

a new poll east in the heart he had to areas of governments us solutions to an entrenched economic crisis. it's sunday it's time for the weekly here on r t international you with me to be on with say the black flag was this week raised to eva true iraq's cities which are now under the control of jihad and on creating a new islamic nation but the real bloodletting is yet to begin one expert says the iraqi army and tribal militias mobilize and prepared to come to tag. reports. do. they run on chaos emboldened by the fighting in

syria these al qaeda linked militants overran parts of iraq including the city of fallujah. we have said earlier that the syria story can will actually go into iraq and this is what we were warning about chaos in neighboring syria deepened as the u.s. and its allies threatened the syrian government sending the signal to the rebels to fight on to the detriment of a political outcome islamic groups have now taken over the opposition movement there and have even chased the western backed leader of the free syrian army out of the country. to be honest you the leave it alone because if you kick it they're going to come out and that's what we did when we invaded iraq you know three and it can bite not just somewhere far in a war zone but here in the u.s. american intelligence and counterterrorism officials now say islamic extremist groups in syria with ties talk to recruiting and training americans who have traveled there to get them to carry out attacks when they return home there are

dozens of extremist islamist forces that are operating both inside syria and over the syrian borders iraq has been a breeding ground for extremists since the u.s. invasion now residents of and other parts of the country are bracing themselves for the iraqi army's assault as it attempts to drive militants out of seized areas the u.s. is supplying hellfire missiles and other weapons to help the iraqi government in the fight the last thing for needs is more missiles we heard the u.s. government say they decimated al qaeda is needed but the groups that continue their cause expand and what they thrive on best is chaos the u.s. backed chaos to iraq and in syria washington support for armed opposition has benefited extremists in washington i'm going to check on our quick. earlier we spoke to iraq war veteran adam cole cashew told us al qaeda is resurgence was

essentially guaranteed by the occupation. i was quite a long way since my time in illusion two thousand and four and been able to step back and you know i've been involved you know a lot of various efforts here in the united states to help veterans out with a few years day and things like that so i it's it's just it's incredible to see that you know a lot of the projections that those of us who understood what the war was about at least figured out when we got home are coming true now because when you understand the nature of war as a racket you want to stand the true motivations behind the united states and variation occupation when you want to stand what kind of government was installed in iraq your standard it was really only a matter of time before this happened. in syria with a nation watching in horror as their favorite rebel groups turn on each of them last week go almost five hundred opposition fighters have died fighting each other in a tour for that appears to demonstrate if the more hard line islamists are running

the show but the fact is a causing quite a scare among the leafs and prompting them to change stance former cia director michael hayden said the us should regime is beginning to look like the lesser of all evils former us ambassador to syria iraq and afghanistan ryan crocker agree that asset is not as bad as the jihad is russian foreign minister sergey lavrov welcomed the change of stance. a german journalist who just returned from syria says of the moderate opposition is now extinct. the term syrian opposition is as strong as it could be this these groups are neither syrian nor opposition so they don't have in their interest the good the benefit of the people or of the country to screw ups are very very often influenced by the west by turkey

by the goal of states we have to imagine or to see those groups more like militant gangs like a sort of mafia so those groups who claim about themselves that they represent the moderate opposition of the moderate moderate rebels don't have any influence on the better we know in the meanwhile that the fights on the ground are told by islamic extremists. us of getting some relations are put under more strain stalling. the deal which washington sees as essential a hit after american troops accidentally killed a toddler staking him on militant that's coming up. the host city of the twenty fourteen winter olympics seeing one of the biggest security operations in the game's history tens of thousands of police officers have been deployed in access to the area strictly monitored with the aim of preventing

any disruption when events begin. the twenty second olympic winter games in two thousand and fourteen are wardak to this city of sochi. as soon as russia's black sea resort was awarded the game seven years ago some observers to question the choice of host city such as close proximity to the volatile caucasus region was they argued a cause for concern. and the recent twin terror attacks in volgograd some seven hundred kilometers from sochi have reignited some of those worries organizers though say security has been their main priority since day one terrorism is the global threat and for terrorism there is no one there is no terrorists but here in sochi from the very beginning of the construction phase the state that sort is made those to prepare the special measures starting from the screening of

their own materials checking in all the venues and preparing incredible measures of the security to provide this safe environment here with less than a month to go now until the games begin tight security measures are already in place around forty thousand police and security offices are expected to be on patrol all sales of dangerous hunting equipment a bond for the duration of the games there's also a controlled zone stretching sixty kilometers along the coast and twenty five kilometers inland and encompassing all venues. in terms of security so it is a special case because this whole area is authorized visitors only there are security details from a number of countries including the u.k. and u.s. working here. no security forces will be coming together to protect places like this is the brand new purpose built train station in the olympic village is going

to be one of the main transport hubs during the games moving thousands of spectators. we have cameras into crumbs that connect you with the engineer and the police present train stations and on the train security is pretty tight with the bulk of the work now complete with all venues and transport networks built and tested so she is now just waiting for the sporting world to descend. altie. the traditional olympic torch relay has been a collection of first this time around it's been taken to the north pole underwater and into space and r.t. has followed it all the way one of the torches even ended up here in our studios but to my colleague lindsay planted by ideas james france james brown welcome to the studio what do you have with you here the torch of the olympic games can you

give us a look at this as you say this is my. personal torch it's as you can see very one of the color and souvenir let me let me have a look at it i mean this this is not light by any means heavy this is yeah it is what two kilos about four actually really yes you could. actually hold it out that is heavy quite and this is a better record breaking relay for the olympic torch going places it's never been before you were following it which one of the milestones do you think was the last memorable or important i think for me i've been to several. going to by car was amazing they took on the water into my car so you have the burning flame torches specially made and passed very impressive on the water and then flew the top back with the man with the jets on to the. very good video that was it was a sight to be seen but there was one amazing moment in a real once the last saw

a moment was going with the torch to the north pole you see on t.v. you read it and then you think wow that must be really must be very interesting never going to go and then this opportunity came up to go on this nuclear icebreaker this huge. ship was cut through to me to. fuel by two gigantic reaction so you're. which is a strange feeling in itself yeah. but we were going to go to the north pole with the flame and we made. less and for half that it was a world record pace arrived in the middle of the polar nights with the liberty to launch in the north pole for the very first time in history. where we've got the highlights of the olympic torch is journey across russia on our website check out the follow the flame section but also while you're at r.t. dot com of fukushima radiation despite efforts to contain the hazardous leak

readings. eight times the japanese government safety standards even at the edges of the contaminated zone more on that on line. u.k. schools take the fingerprints of over eight hundred thousand students a third of those without their parents concerned officials they think of security parents and civil liberties groups are questioning that and more stories on our. many europeans blame you. politicians of all the a difficult economic predicament that's according to a new continent wide poll the newstead to show very low approval ratings for the e.u. leadership in economically devastated spain for example more people than ever before think top politicians have done a poor job or through the financial crisis ireland has also seen

a strong believe in eagerly to norway by increasing financial hardship there seventy percent of people used to approve but that's not just drop two and a half and in europe skeptic you're u.k. just under a third now think that the leadership is doing a very good job and as a public of faith in the e.u. institutions the dips to record levels in economically hard hit countries governments have been selling of the families over to pay their debts artist as a sawyer reports. it's been dubbed the great european fire sale in a bid for cash these are just some of what's been up for grabs but even funds raised from headline grabbing deals might not be enough like six greek island sold for eight point five million euros an italian island sold for two point nine million exclusive rights to use the coliseums image on their products for fifteen years twenty five million euros government debt in the euro zone is greater now

than it was a year ago and some of the sales of led to public anger and frustration bestselling history and culture there selling beauty things that a priceless and they've attached a price tag to it i think that's absolutely reprehensible there's absolutely no guarantee that that privatization will help consumers at all and one of the most surprising items recently put on the market was citizenship for a little over a million euros you get a maltese passport and therefore become an e.u. citizen a move that's been put on hold as two thirds of the public at opposition leaders cry foul. splitting the same legal gone through these which. meant a huge international dunnit which was uncalled for because more go to date has when the lowest rate of unemployment in the whole european union it's a question of principle over citizenship should not be pulled out on say proponents

of privatization see it as a necessity for nations that are in dire straits but also warned that by europe at a bargain may not be as much of a jackpot as one might think if i were investor i wouldn't be buying many of these things all these countries have serious political risk for any kind of foreign investor anybody trying to. buy a house and italy has to reckon with the possibility that ten twenty years down the line a government is just going to nationalize whatever they whatever they want to nationalize but for what it's worth this sale continues tesser so they are. we spoke with financial expert patrick young on of the e.u. response to his huge debt levels he doesn't believe the big selloff is any way to solve the real problems of the usa when you've had a swindling incredible recession as we've seen in many parts of europe there will ultimately be a point in time when the economy bonds and spark to some degree but truly the problem is that the euro is still fundamentally

a cancerous disorganized monetary system up the core of the european union the mediterranean countries have still done little or nothing to organize what is affectively intergenerational warfare alder people can keep and get on hold on to their jobs younger people simply have no chance of getting any jobs in the first place let alone keeping them. japan becomes a fertile ground for the far right as activists gain ground with their calls for foreigners to leave and for the army to be ready to go into action if needed arises . and water becomes a resource to sink the ties between nations report on one of the ongoing middle eastern disputes caused by blue called. bad news for shinton came out of afghanistan this week

a top american negotiators said it was highly unlikely a new security agreement would be reached before the afghan presidential elections in april the deal if signed would allow a portion of u.s. troops to remain in the country after the official withdrawal they to the c.m. tension between washington and kabul have been aggravated recently after american soldiers killed a toddler mistaking the child for militant rank ledwidge a lawyer and former military officer who served in iraq and afghanistan explained why the u.s. will once the deal so badly. no settlement in my view anyway is likely to have any chance of success by settlement i mean sort of political way forward for the american perspective troops because what will simply happen is they actually an insurgency in the south that we call the taliban is likely to take a far greater stake in any political arrangement after the election assuming of course that the elections go well this is an absolutely crucial deal for the

americans. playing a very dangerous game here the cards are good because our house has all the good has all the good cards for a long time our oil and gas have held the potential to make a break relations between nations but now there's often a much more widespread commodity causing diplomatic disputes what i look at this map here it's been dubbed blue gold for reasons scars are quite exhausted as have cause almost two hundred incidents since the one nine hundred fifty s. you can see from all those dots that the disputes range from protests all the way to deadly confrontations are does put us near dives into what i mean ongoing causes of friction in the middle east. the bible tells us that within a short distance from here jesus turned water into wine two thousand years later the great american might be turning the wine back into water bubby carballo has

been living in the golan heights for over thirty years each day he attends to has been yard in orchards keeping his wine in a cellar that was once a syrian bunker he is proud of the wine he produces but knows that in the absence of water none of this would be possible but i know you question me water is important because it's the second main resource that we have other than the land each crop needs water and without it you will destroy all the crops and destroy all of the farming here you can turn the golan heights into a desert and it's not just about the golan heights rainwater from its catchment feeds into the river jordan providing a third of israel's water supply the disputed region with seeds from syria after the six day war and residents of the golan remember that water was a key issue in the conflict i mean one of stands here and the stones the borders of the world that all the water supply of israel because every door was raining

on it's prone to the security of the food we can say that it is a must will. respect the resolve to have all over what the fox says it's a worldwide rule that whoever controls the water controls the land but the problem is in some places there's very little water to go around bring you have the common waterfalls shared by several foreign nations is always the possibility of a clash of religious conflicts that should be manageable was spread out of control and examples of possible conflicts are plentiful syria's major water sources travel through turkey and iraq making it vulnerable while jordan is reliant on a river with syria bill today egypt. also recently expressed concern over countries using the upper now to generate electric power in the dry landscape of the middle east water is a prize more precious than diamonds in its absence famine and drought are quick to

follow but this is a region that very seldom needs an excuse for war and water shortages might just tipped the balance here r.t. in the golan heights middle eastern affairs journalist abdel darwish things politicians and willingness to share vital resources are pushing the world with a new complex as the population grew and as are going to cause for growth is all of those. what it is when dealing probably reach board or hardly any fresh water lives on the planet that could be averted if the idea was exploring a while what we call a water bank the rivers or water resources shirred among nations if we can quantify the usage of it what you wish for agriculture what you wish for and what do you wish for power generation and complain see each other by sort of making the water dollar or daughter pound or whatever and then be quantified into more

cooperative projects but without giving give a human nature and nature of politicians are probably not very optimistic. well there's another type of a water conflict brewing between russia and senegal after the west african nation seized a fishing trawler eighty two crew members of the vessel were arrested amid allegations their activists activities in the area way legal greenpeace also stepped into the role taking the side of the stand a girl who is in russia to accuse the government of being the group's puppet however later the organization condemned the use of force against the russian ship and deny putting pressure on senegalese authorities. the far right in japan is on the front foot demanding a tougher stance on immigration and to reinforce army and as artie's alessio you found out of the nationalistic chest beating is also in some difficult questions.

it's become a tradition in japan when some foreign officials are subjected to verbal abuse on this particular occasion japanese nationalists made their feelings known loud and clear to russia's foreign minister china and south korea have also been in their crosshairs one for an island dispute the other for sending too many labor migrants to japan and while the latest protests korean workers were described as cockroaches which needed to be exterminated this man is one of those behind the nationalist rallies in japan he says he'd like to see japan a more close a citee one of the there was an openness and we've been to open to the world no foreigners come here and commit crimes i want us to return to pre-war period when we were closed and south sufficient despite criticizing the government for its immigration policies the movement could not be feeling more comfortable since twenty twelve when she and so are there was reelected as prime minister such rallies have been on the rise. those are not only foreign nationals and delegations

getting this take from japanese nationalists there are locals who have directly suffered from their country for becoming on the far right these school teachers have been protesting because they lost their jobs for not complying with what they call ultranationalist regulations in schools. should be made as an obligation to listen to the national anthem before classes i told my pupils part of who were not even japanese that it wasn't obligatory to stand up and then i got fired but it's not only about instilling national pride speculation is rife that with all this stronger japan hype is eager to amend the nine hundred forty seven constitution namely article number nine which braves japan from having any kind of army other than for defense purposes in the increasingly intertwined world we can't ensure the peace of our nation without broad actively taking a role in the peace and security of the world why don't we take some. forward on

the issue of constitutional amendment but not everyone is buying it and more far reaching goal could be reshaping the regional balance of power. but there has been talk among high profile politicians including former prime ministers who want you to public debate whether japan should have nuclear weapons its new material waste but it's something the ruling to it has been pondering for years now. and non-pacifist japan let alone a nuclear power would send shock waves across the region say experts but for now even with nationalist voices getting louder all suggest that such ideas are still some way from becoming reality next year shifty r.t. reporting from japan. to other news making headlines around the world human rights activists wires and journalists face marches across the u.s. demanding guantanamo bay detention center be shut down the date was symbolic it was the facilities twelve anniversary protesters demanded president obama deliver on

his broken promises to shut the prison down planning it a duck mark on america's record. toilet brush and brandishing demonstrators marched through the german capital and the city of hamburg they were protesting the set up of so-called danger zones in hamburg we police allowed to stop and search people at the areas was that best following a violent late december protest against a fictional local out of his community and the usual symbol was chosen by the activist after a police almost recorded the arrest of someone carrying a toilet brush seeing it as a potentially dangerous weapon. tens of thousands of protesters flooded on the streets of our bilbao in support of jailed or members of the at a separatist movement the march in the basque region of spain was originally organized to call for convicted members to move to jails closer to their families but it became much broader always support for. two main political parties with

demonstrators marching in favor of peace and human rights. to get a small business off the ground you need be backing of a bank but choose carefully because some like queues are like you used of not exactly having entrepreneurial interests at heart larsen has been to meet one couple in britain who found their lender more predatory than protective and discover they are far from alone chris richardson and ernie bernstein used to own this hotel but not anymore three years ago out of the blue they say their bank took it from them nat west stole our hotel this hotel beyond me here because i was always will and it will be coming back if there's justice in this country these guys will be arrested. we will be giving this october back in two thousand and ten chris and ernie had a loan from the west to do up the coniston hotel and conference center in north

kent they were just eleven days from opening when their bank manager told them there was a problem releasing the latest tranche of their loan. is the last we've ever heard of. we have not heard from later the owners know the bank was saying they'd run out of money despite having one point six million pounds of their agreed loan left now west then revalue to the hotel at just over a third of its original price so the hotel found itself in administration from where it was snapped up by west register the bank's property. the kicker r.b.s. and its subsidiary now west are majority owned by the taxpayer but it's a ruse r.b.s. has been accused of many times over laurence timing is a small business by the to the government his recent report exposes the seemingly duplicitous nature of banking operations my report focuses on r.b.s.

and what we're saying is that restructuring division georgi in a way that the businesses that they were supposed to be helping get back to health . put into distress for the benefit of the bank we actually see. property company called west register and we're seeing r.b.s. owning those customers property after they've been in distress told linton's report is twenty pages of examples and findings under headings like engineering and defaults and it's fees in response r.b.s. said in a statement no evidence had been provided to support the allegation that the bank had systematically profited on the backs of their customers and they'd be looking into it fully christened ernie's hotel is now a thriving business fitted out exactly as they left it but it belongs.