the motion would be soon which brightened if you move all the songs from phones to pressure these. stunts on t.v. don't come. voting for a stable state as could get stunned heads to the polls we report live from across the republic. the ongoing vote is considered to be crucial for the central asian state as it's going to change the way the country is ruled on the founding of a from the capital bishkek i mean it's going off here in the south of here just on the election is also on their way amid fears of the return of ethnic well and falling jews warship. mourners are in russia's city of somalia to lay wreaths at the site where the plane no poland's president crushed six months ago. he is that the son i saw of the plane

crash where the families of the victims have now arrived a memorial service is a wrong way. and in our review all the week nine years on afghanistan's casualties are mounting while critics say that the u.s. war on terror is getting out of it. plus a stop of three cosmonauts reached the international space station we report on sky hi john. you are with r t as we are highlighting the top stories of today and all this week

it's good to have you with us after six months of political turbulence and violence the people of killer stunned casting their ballots for a parliament that will rule the country the vote will take power away from the president and give it to m.p.'s in what would be the first such case in central asia it's also hope to stabilize the region where hundreds of people died in brutal clashes in recent months earlier i spoke to our correspondents going off in the restive southern city of osh and that's in the capital bishkek. this is the landmark poll for the country regardless of how many people are going to show up at today's election the election will still be valid and after this election kyrgyzstan will become the first country in central asia to become a parliamentary state where a prime minister has more power than the president and accountable to the parliament traditionally central asian states are ruled by a will through tarion leaders and when former president bakiev was overthrown in

april this year the current she was wrecked in violence. with dozens of people killed and many more injured people here were unhappy with the president's former president's policies that have left many to live in poverty and that was the reason why he was overthrown after he was overthrown the temporary government. has held their referendum during which it was decided to turn the country into a parliamentary state and there were rumors that said these elections might bring even more violence to the streets of kyrgyzstan and other cities to the streets of bishkek in other cities and carry just on especially in southern regions not exactly well to say you go to prison officer right now you're going to talk to me what is the atmosphere like in all sure you are which is being rocked by violence the summer all the city of all national security strong second largest city meaning people you can call it the second capital and this is definitely one of the courses

in the country in need of change and stability the most because it's populated with white curious and was very can nationalize i last june the city saw a huge wave of violence and destruction of one armed gangs who had through and drive around the city destroying businesses and writing up houses and so this violence lasted for several days until the authorities were able to take control of the situation mobilizing the army but unfortunately by that time hundreds of people were killed several thousand people had to flee their homes and so. thousand more people were injured and there were fears that this violence could return with the election as it's it will be held and there have been reports of threats sent via s.m.s. to the local population flyers distributed both here and in other southern cities also calling for more violence however before the polls did open at eight am local time and many people are coming in and casting their votes however the atmosphere

here is still extremely tense. some people wanted to stay home leaflets with various information have been spread people don't know whether they should believe the information and not but some people still want to fulfill their civic duty and cast their ballot. a lot needs to be changed in this country but first and foremost what has to change is people's way of thinking. as you can see the situation is very difficult but hope does that and i guess that's what many of the locals are thinking at the moment just going to the polls and placing their votes just about an italian now tell me how do people of capital feel about this vote do they actually believe in change people here have rather mixed feelings about this election there's a record number of twenty nine political parties registered for their way action and many of them have quite similar agendas political agendas so many people here

are very confused which party to vote for but out of the people that we've spoken to many feel very optimistic and have high hopes that this election will actually bring change and political stability to the country. we're living through a crisis here and. i hope this election will restore order and calm in this country and help its devastating economy it would be better if we do not manage to live up to the real democratic election i wanted to go smoothly that you know i want our leaders to think about people of need and not to feel that we're talking like all previous to. well that was here right now here in bishkek a curious capital is rather quiet but we have heard rumors from the locals that some of the leaders of the political power parties participating in the elections might get attacked however a local authorities have sat that security forces over the country are on full alert for any possible lot of rallies that may take place so you go to the region remains on stable but what's being done to provide security amid concerns of

possible violence security is very tight across the entire country but especially here in the south police officers are present in each one of the eighty two polling stations across the city they're also patrolling the streets accompanied by volunteers i know that around fifteen hundred volunteers have been recruited for the job around five hundred swat like commandos have been flown in to or from the capital and also be authorities. been previously holding various types of the rules to be on guard in case of any emergency of course we'll be monitoring the situation as the continues the polls will call that around eight pm local time and we are expecting to hear the first call in the results at around midnight so of course we'll be reporting more on that as the day continues we're going to is going to write that now central asia expert reinhard croom says it's just too early to make any predictions on how the elections will influence the country the vote won't do

anything at the beginning because that is just a start. after the vote if the vote goes well as we see right now i think we have still seriously problems serious problems concerning the agenda. of the new government has to face i think the major problem all the central asian countries are facing is a power shift and as we have seen twice now in kurdistan the minute the power shifts it's not only the person who goes it's the whole system which gives the president in power will do everything possibly to avoid that and stay in power and that might be a problem initiator of unrest so i won't exclude more unrest in the near future. a ceremony in memory of the plane crash in russia that killed the president of poland and many of its high ranking officials taking place it's been

a six months since the tragedy took the lives of ninety six people near the city of smolensk alice it was there reporting for. ken evers events being held at the request of the victims' families on the tenth of april twenty ten a little before eleven am to two point zero one five full crashed in heavy fog so coming in to land near this airport against the advice of air traffic controllers here all ninety six olympic killed tragically they were of course flying to his hand the on the of us to remark in seventy years since the canteen the massacre in which nearly twenty two finals and polish person of those rules died at the hands of the soviet secret police the russian. government was of course very quick to offer their sympathy declaring the next day a day of mourning and indeed today's commemorative events all being led by the two first ladies. and. today i began with the

delegation looking at the date we've got to explain itself they then moved on to constituents of the cracks one person who is not here is yet a slavic kaczynski the brother of the former president he's been very vocal in his disapproval of the way in which the investigation into the crash has been carried out i mean to me all after the crash president advent of appointed prime minister putin to head up a joint russian investigative committee into the causes of the cross the polish military all successful independent investigation so over the past four months very detailed examinations been taken of the flight logs the flight recording balt side witness accounts etc what's a been confirmed is that hours that played payments land in the morning of the tenth of april air traffic controllers headed to the likes troy so we will look through not to attempt to not have the fall it's also been confirmed that the plane itself was in fine work your day terrorist attack has also been ruled out as well

as any sort of fire explosion having taken place on the plane itself it's also been confirmed that at traffic controllers did. alerts the crew is to alternative as fields in which they could attempt to land crucially had this also been confirmed that two normal crew members were in the cockpit at the time of the crash so the question of whether that crew were put under pressure to try to land the plane in those filthy conditions remains open there were yes courses have been put forward as to the reason the for the crash was the crew properly trained particularly then their ability to relate to direct order that they may have believed to have been wrong also it was the plane sufficiently prepared for the flights stories paul that they discovered and says it's very thankful for the transparency and level of cooperation that's been put forward from the russian side is that joint invest because she say they they have now completed their investigation they've handed over the materials including the flight will go over to the polish government and within just

a few days they'll deliver their final analysis on the report and they will then hound that savior to the polish government to then say that they'll make the results public and in three days polish archaeologists will conduct and it's give a shot of the crash site in which russian archaeologists may also how. this week the u.s. led campaign in afghanistan reached the grim milestone of nine years and there were even more losses of civilian and coalition troops in recent days it's a critical time for the u.s. as it struggles to turn around the fight against the time about ahead of next year's expected withdrawal of international forces afghan officials continue to back the coalition efforts but even bay admit that after all this time there are still no tangible results and as artie's paula reports the online antics of american soldiers are not helping matters. goes up in smoke and with

a justified or not tempers flying in the afghan capital the culprits soldiers who can be heard saying fun test. before posting the clip on the internet. if by burning the house accidentally a copy of the koran is housed that can be easily used as a tactic or as a means of. more. religious history with them to go and joined the taliban and al qaeda and it seems to be working more and more islamic extremist websites are hosting direct links to videos put up on the web by the soldiers themselves in blogs and social networking sites it's the enemy who's now i'm on it helping the taliban fight its cause they can easily be copied by al-qaeda and the taliban they. really make. the us forces fail to be the eclipse you want.

you want to hang. out in some cases the us soldiers videos are prankish and childish other times they're downright criminal or extremely provocative in this clip u.s. soldiers burn the bodies of dead muslims facing mecca today in afghanistan the internet is becoming more and more popular but look around it's no surprise that in a place like this there's still only a few people who have access to us so you'd sometimes home connection is so unreliable that every afternoon he's here watching videos that make him angry one of the only we see hundreds of videos about afghanistan nato and the americans are talking about human rights you can see the proof online it's alone so the. internet cafes or the buzz in downtown kabul hundred have been has managed the small and overcrowded cafe for the past two years and although the connection is

slow it's fast enough to keep people logged on. what they. it's easy for people to watch these videos put up by the american soldiers because the most popular videos are on the first page of you tube also when one guy sees a video he tells his friend to get in the video and less than a decade ago when the taliban was in power home computers were banned there were only three places in kabul that had internet but now the global jihadists understand that sometimes an e-mail might just be myself then the sword. once an e. mail and so the taliban send message by by mobile phone and. make money but a good video clips the word it seems always has a way of getting out of going people not to see this kind of thing in the internet because everything you see is consumed is in the life but the taliban picking up on

a form of communication it once banned but now thoughts on coalition troops to censor themselves point c r t kabul. critics say that what the u.s. started in response to the nine eleven attacks has turned out to be a quagmire like that of the vietnam war brian becker antiwar coalition national coordinator believes that it was draw all of coalition troops from afghanistan will not lead to increased violence. the american government in its propaganda arm just as they did during vietnam tried to paint a picture that there would be a terrible bloodbath if the occupation forces left but if the occupation forces leave that means drone bombing attacks of afghan and pakistan villages will stop it will mean that the level of violence instead of ask a lady in every month with more and more thousands and tens of thousands of foreign troops coming in troops who obviously don't understand the country don't speak the

language don't understand the culture and are largely demonizing the people and have all sorts of racist characters of those forces when they leave the bloodshed will diminish that doesn't mean that we know what will happen in afghanistan but the american presence has escalated the violence the cycle of violence throughout the country and throughout the region. you are with r t we're coming to you live from moscow and still to come later this hour is our t.v. america's enemy as u.s. overseas broadcasting seeks to pump up its influence we explore whether the country's going on an information crusade plus. it was working in dairy queen or it was all but the war over the last year the last. really had that we work together we meet two brothers who said goodbye on the launch pad but who will reunite in orbit in just a few months. earlier just a russian gun runner has appealed against a thai course decision to extradite him to the u.s.

a lawyer for victor boot says there's no evidence against him and insists the judge hear the statements from witnesses but with no indication of whether the court will accept the appeal boots relatives fear for his future and he was already unstable that it's quite possible the extradite him and just look him up on some aircraft carrier and force him to give whatever testimony the u.s. wants him to give i think he'll go as far as it takes to get it and i'm sure everyone understands they're playing to face to do it these days starting with chemical sense psychological pressure. on tuesday the tiny criminal court cleared the way for boots possible extradition after dismissing charges of money laundering and full citing insufficient evidence for his claims have delayed his handover following in august ruling confirming he was to be sent to the us the so-called merchant of death denies accusations of terrorism and supplying arms to the colombian rebels he was arrested in an american led sting operation in march two

thousand and eight in bangkok a former u.n. arms trafficking expert says if it is extradited a u.s. court might not allow all the evidence to be examined. i have concerns about what's the big two will be going back to based on the only other person who in recent times has been convicted on a sting operation involving the fox the colombian rebels is a man called monster all counts who was an arms dealer who strangely also was assistance to the americans on many occasions and when his lawyer sought to bring that into the courts he wasn't allowed to do so or not presidents i think it's unlikely that he's depends teen will be able to bring into evidence the fact that he has all my cajun painted assistance to the pentagon to us and nato countries in providing acra i think it's unlikely that people who want to you know brutally to

harm anyone but i think harm is sometimes done as part of the process but what people may see is getting good getting the truth out of somebody she my concern always has been not the soldiers necessarily innocent of all charges but the sting operation of some he didn't do quite clearly just think operation and he's not the merchant of death which the media portray him as well i would agree he's a merchants of some death. the u.s. might claim to be a pioneer of freedom of speech however it seems that tolerance ends when it comes to news from iran venezuela china or russia to use a gun you can reports on whether america's international broadcaster is going on an information crusade. it's a common belief on capitol hill that the best way to raise money from congress is to scare them walter isaacson the head of a government agency that manages u.s. international broadcasting apparently wants a lot of money the cause to fight america's enemies in the media which he

identifies as he ran venezuela russia and china we can't allow ourselves to be out communicated by our enemies there's that freedom house report that reveals that today's autocratic leaders are investing billions of dollars in media resources to influence the global opinion you've got russia today iran's press t.v. venezuela's telos and of course china as a launching international broadcasting twenty four hour news channels correspondents around the world spence portably set aside six to ten billion dollars we got to go to capitol hill with that number to expand their overseas media operations to me it sounded like a declaration of information war but later mr isaacson backtracked i don't take a russia or artsy as an enemy and certainly did not mean to imply that they're an enemy so that's just not right maybe mr isaacson really did not mean to a fan russia or china it's all

a pitch for more money from congress which he's trying to kind of appeal to by saying that other countries are spending more on international communications gear is really the buzz word that's used to try to generate money for the defense department a cia intelligence agencies and now for international broadcasting but getting the u.s. message across this. there goes that that mr walter isaacson is having is called broadcasting board of governors it includes radio stations voice of america one of them and a fairly unpopular middle eastern t.v. channel on all this the board spends more than seven hundred fifty million dollars and it's way more than the budget of r t iran's press t.v. and as well as their list or combined so maybe money does not really make for global media clout mr isaacson says that it's truthfulness that will make the difference and in the and the truth is on our side and if that's the man that

raised the alert with some freedom of speech advocates somebody who says that truth is always on the united states side is a propagandist and not a. journalist and i think that's bad it's a bad example for other countries when that when they say that because obviously other countries have their perspectives many times u.s. media is slanted toward the united states even the private media and the credibility of the broadcasting board of governors was under even more scrutiny when reports came out about the white house influence on the b.b.c. reporting after iranian presidential election and some experts say american broadcasters that once used to be a powerful voice in the international media are now facing a crisis the problem that they are facing is that the messages they have of how the world is supposed to work is not resonating it's not. getting traction it

seems washington is still getting used to the increasing volume for media voices giving a fresh perspective on world issues kind of chicken or t. washington d.c. . live from the russian capital this is r.t. and let's get to some other international news now in brief and the evacuation of thirty three miners trapped underground in chile for more than two months is due to begin on wednesday engineers have drilled through to the chamber where the miners are sheltering sparking celebrations all across the country the top part of the shaft needs steel casing which would take about a day and a half to assemble engineers now also must test whether the escape path is safe to prevent the risk of. in northwest pakistan at least eight people have been killed in a missile strike reports say oh u.s. drone fired missiles at a compound in north waziristan and several cars were destroyed in the groups have stepped up attacks across the border airstrike killed two pakistani soldiers also

on friday a key border was reopened to nato trucks carrying supplies for coalition forces eleven day blockade. the sun moves north korea's leader kim jong il has made a rare public appearance alongside his son kim jong un it happened during a military parade celebrating the sixty fifth anniversary of the country's ruling party recently appointed a general younger kim is expected to succeed his father as head of the nation appearance is being viewed as a further sign of official confirmation of the succession. a two day journey of the upgraded soyuz spacecraft has ended successfully at the international space station two russian cosmonauts and astronauts will spend the next six months aboard the i assess the newcomers joined another three space men who are presently manning the station since they arrived in june and there will be

a remarkable reunion in february now says scott kelly will be joined at the space station by his twin brother mark another astronauts who will fly a shuttle mission. and watch the brothers say goodbye at the baikonur cosmodrome. twins in space within a few months scott kelly and his brother mark both astronauts will be in orbit together courses as kids growing up we never thought we would be in this. you know unique in privileged position to be able to do this the build up to scott's launch of russia's baikonur cosmodrome on friday was filled with technical questions but there were a human moments to go there yes there were smiles. and goodbye to his when his brother mark joins him on the i assess in february it will be the first time they've worked together for a very long time we have occasionally flown together in the navy as a test pilot but before that i think we always work at

a dairy queen well over twelve years old mopping the floor part of the last jet of the last job we really had that we worked together and then the time came mach said goodbye scott and to the rocket these two russian crewmates everyone went to it's only twenty minutes to go until the launch one brother is on the ground the others preparing for glass so that they'd go for no first time into what they're counting down to not watch his brother fly away into space the trip he'd made three times him self. it's you know it's a credible to watch any rocket launch and all my brothers are bored makes it even more exciting i've seen him launch three times now and it's pretty incredible thing to see when they both meet again on the international space station in a few months time it will become a family space station tuesday but just like his brother mark doesn't want to be too sentimental it's going to be a busy busy fly but you know to get a.