you're watching r t six in the morning here in moscow welcome to the program now russia is on the road to creating a democratic society with fair elections freedom of speech and political flexibility now addressing the nation in his latest video blog president dmitri medvedev said that while the system is not perfect the country is on the right path artie's natalya novikov a has more on his message. in his address russian president dmitry medvedev mainly spoke about the need to modernize russia's political system with the help of gradual but still reforms but also to make sure that a stable political system doesn't mean that it's the naysaying. zelig national political system or we simply want to make our political system more fan more flexible more dynamic and more open to renewal and development he must enjoy the confidence of our lecturing it is no secret that for some time now signs of stagnation have begun to appear in our political life because debility has threatened to turn into stagnation the national president also spoke about the

freedom of speech in the country they need to improve the quality of the work representation have stronger opposition forces and simply have a better political competition and more rights for political minorities. or if the opposition has no chance at all of winning a fair fight it degrades and becomes marginal if the ruling party never loses a single election kate is just coasting a plea ultimately to degrades just like any living organism which remains static for these reasons it's become necessary to raise the degree of political competition with a question president has also said that the ruling party in russia should not act simply as a supplement to the executive power list here a list own bills have been complete that made major amendments to the multi-party political system on a nationwide scale and the key points of those amendments or decreasing the human

factor in those counting oh providing more rights to political minorities and minimizing the risks of elections money relations politician this is still my i hope that our political system has been improved quite significantly as a result of these adjustments i am absolutely sure that it has become more open and flexible because of the. ultimately it is also become more fat and the more points i made. and democracy is imperfect and we are absolutely aware of this but we are still at the beginning of the road the most important thing is that we are not standing still we are going forward. well of course this address comes at a very important sign for washers the electro period is approaching parliamentary elections will take place in december two thousand and eleven and this is when all the amendments that have been introduced this year will be taken to the test. artie's natalia novack of our reporting there and to watch president very full

video blog of russian democracy head to our team dot com in the meantime dimitri probably cause of the ruling united russia party thinks the message shows that there should be input from not only the ruling party but from the opposition as well. i think he was trying to say that actually had a plot this should develop bandwidth relates both to united russia and to opposition parties in united russia that have already started a lot of innovations such as primaries such as the development of the interparty discussion the size of the dissipation the open public debates and so on and so forth i think the same should be done by. ball and says well and that will be very important because as we all know the quality of decision is taken by the authorities depends on the quality of criticism they have so they need to have very good feedback and both united russia and up in the projects should provide this

kind of feedback in order for system to be sustainable thousands of students have flooded the streets of central london in a new wave of protests against government plans to increase tuition fees and cut university budgets and demonstrators wrapped a police van across the boundary of the crowd descended on whitehall students all over the u.k. are staging a sit in protests at universities and attending rallies with even school careful second part of fifteen protesters in a wrestle so far the police are warning of a tougher approach if there's more violence all over adam for the referendum campaign says the student protests over the center of a bad decision making downing street. people angry enough they're actually doing something about doing something about their anger and this fed up with with the government just basically saying you know we've got no choice but to do this no choice but to do that and really what the government is saying actually is we know

better than you and your opinions don't matter and the students who seem through that forum under this sort of thing you know this just me. and other people that at the moment for. sample up unhappy that we're prepared to give billions away to other countries just to kind of try and shore up that credit rating rather than invest it in education and transport and jobs back here perhaps they will start to take to the streets and you know something more will develop from it well what would help the austerity measures of course some people would say would be for example leaving the e.u. spending forty eight million pounds every day in state in the e.u. portugal is almost certainly going to meet bailing out and the big problem of course is playing because it's a huge country so we could seriously be seeing a collapse of the of the euro and a lot of people would say that not before time and why should britain be bailing

out countries that were foolish enough to join the euro in the first place. all other european countries are also suffering from tough austerity measures portugal ground to a halt in a twenty four hour general strike over government imposed pay cuts and tax rises it comes two days before parliament votes on a tough new budget meanwhile our lead which has been severely hit by the debt crisis has unveiled a four year plan to save fifteen billion euros it involves the toughest a sturdy measures one has ever faced including spending cuts as well as tax rises be a saudi plan as a condition for arlen to receive a bailout loan by the e.u. and i.m.f. which will however mean even more debt for the country and at relatively high interest rates but some experts say budget cuts are irrelevant until a new approach to the single currency is implemented. people forget that before

these budget cuts we have other budget cuts we are going to thirds wrong the verge of cuts all of the while ago people were telling us that they had already done the moved up a move through the budget cuts and markets leave the beast so what happens is that you as institutional weaknesses does our witnesses not only of the brief law economists each other very different from the other but difficulties weaknesses of the whole common currency. the rest of the whole. by pinpointing budget cuts in one on all the other government if the interests keep raising well what happens is the budget cuts that we are doing today will be ineffective to morrow and we've seen this movie already so i think that's. a whole new approach is needed. and all the way here on our team our special report of the errol's the slow recovery from one of the worst ever banned me ecological disasters

. after decades of mismanagement the water is in one of the world's largest landlocked these went away and took a gigantic fishing industry but now coming back when the friends join me in the air i'll see in central asia. almost four thousand have taken part in a bad protest march in merrick's demanding the president of bella ruse steps down. yes. leading candidates of next month's presidential election were among those taking part despite the bad current president alexander lukashenko has been in power for three terms spanning sixteen years and the standing once again he's been criticized for suppressing the opposition and the media protestors call for a fairer and more democratic election process with one presidential candidate urging more demonstrations. on. the presidential election on

december the nineteenth we're planning a mass protest it's very likely that he'll do that because he doesn't have enough support to win in the first round safety proclaims victory saying he's gained more than seventy percent of votes which he's already claiming now it means the election was rigged and we're going to have to defend our rights and our voters' rights there's no other way to do that than to stage a protest. a top european security watchdog. has written to the u.s. secretary of state condemning the weekend detention of an r.t. reporter and camera man in america now the body is calling on hillary clinton to investigate police in georgia after an arty crew was arrested while covering a peaceful demonstration the two arrested were filming outside a controversial academy of strings of foreign police forces and it's dubbed the school of assassins by critics both spend thirty two hours in jail before being released on bail but will face charges of disobey greece of taking part in the

illegal gathering and are to talk to an activist who was on the scene about the arrest. i guess they didn't i mean i had my camera strapped around around my and my neck essentially this camera right here had a strap around my neck and my hands were. in the back and when i got in on the i was intending to record anything not just you know also something. what's happening in what i you know i didn't start recording my saying on i me find something to record but no like i saw that killing was actually like a lot of pain and i so with our recording i saw how like you know it was shocking how tight her handcuffs where and how i thought to myself well let me get this because this is for sure you know brutality i thought right then i didn't tell anybody go us in the car and i just you know so i am a camera around i know with my body and i managed to press play and just you know

manage to like you know position my camera in ways that i could record and does how many of us actually have three e.v.a.'s and you do. now for some of last week's nato summit in lisbon there were better things to do than simply talk politics french president nicolas sarkozy found this out the hard way when he was kept away by a rather noisy a raucous party at his hotel it turned out the delegation from georgia which is not a nato member for got invited to be all that was hosting the party which allegedly was also attended by some armenian delegates came to an abrupt end and several other officials complained to hotel staff courting to a portuguese newspaper there were no fewer than eighty prostitutes in attendance the georgian president mikheil saakashvili was at the nato summit it's still unclear whether or not he made it to the party georgia lawmakers are now calling for an investigation. these papers reported an absolutely outrageous front

this is another proof of you think you. did you did the photo it was also noted by local police this is shameful behavior and it needs to be investigated. he will be punished because it has to do with the country's reputation. well let's now have a look at what's right now what are. a record number of american military veterans are taking their own lives after returning from iraq and afghanistan to find out why unemployment and lack of government support are not going. to add that to the books as cost but also doing some last minute that's what they're studying up on the head of their trip into space all that and more online right.

what was once the world's fourth largest lake central asia is now more desert than water the soviet union to grow cotton in the steps so it shrink to a fraction of its size bringing kong or indices story once prosperous region let's have a major effort to see the waters flow once more are bringing hope to thousands hartings lives friends has the details it starts with sun up these men fish in one of the worst manmade environmental disaster areas ever no longer the same just dried out and then a true turn brought the sea back to us. when central asia became the center of the soviet union's plan for cotton cultivation it nearly drunk dried the rivers feeding the erroll see what covered sixty eight thousand square kilometers in one nine hundred sixty around the size of southern california shriveled to a tenth of its size by the mid one nine hundred ninety s.

nearly disappearing by the year two thousand here where the greater and lesser seas split there's just enough left for modern technology to make a stab and regenerating it in two thousand and five the cocoa round dam was constructed to trap what little water still flows into the lesser sea from the searing river locked safely inside the water is growing to witness the results you must drive hours over rough sea that then there it is bright blue the fishing villages might be ghost towns now but groups of men in numbers of about twenty to thirty camped out at the newly rehabilitated beaches and catch these about one hundred kilo's a day until they've earned enough money to survive and they go back home. they live in dugout hats even in the coldest of winter but this new career means food on the table for young ahmad he was born long after commercial fishing had ceased. i've

been fishing for two years my grandfather was a fisherman but he died right now we all work for a month straight living at the shore then have a week off that's when i go home to our ask we don't get a salary we get piece work payment twenty species of fish now wriggle out of the water and into the hands of the grandfathers of this industry still around to pull out the nets once again cart bringing him to hike catfish. more fisherman or returning to their home or foreigner overseas providing us with work and profit again they even say it will come back to our school in around the silent still stands the locals know waves no boats yet there's more after a serve my term in the army i came back and the water was no longer here that was nine hundred seventy three zero people said that it wasn't the first time they will see had gone they say the sea will be back and maybe we will live to see the good

times and life will be even better we do hope. the water has twenty kilometers to go until it's back. it's impossible to restore the entire erroll sea to make it the way it's used to be if it pleases the northern part remains it will help solve many problems in central asia but while the industrial might all the plants can be restored and food. will once again become a bill. it may never be what it once was but the arrow scene now boasts two thousand men who now fish for their living for them that's not been the france archie kazakstan. let's have a look at some international news in greece this hour new zealand officials say it takes weeks and months to recover the bodies of twenty nine miners killed after a second blast underground the workers had been trapped by an earlier explosion at their pick on friday rescuers were prevented from entering the shaft by dangerous

gases while efforts to use robots also failed the tragedy is the country's worst mining accident in a century. the bodies of two civilians have been found in south korea following the shelling of an island by north korea claims chooses attack on the disputed western maritime border was in response to so far in weapons during military drills two south korean marines were also killed in the clash the international community is called for restraint from both sides. the head of the u.s. airport security agency says his organization has prepared to deal with delays after threats by passenger groups to cost disruption over first searches that full body scout's small protests have already taken place in arizona and los angeles and an internet campaign is urging more for thanksgiving day this weekend across the u.s. airport security chief said he's to examine with government officials on how to make

the inspection measures less invasive while keeping them as thorough. one man has died and dozens have been injured as hundreds of christian protesters clashed with police over a neutral construction in cairo police fired tear gas at the rioters stones at officers smashed windows and tried to storm the local governors offices the riots followed earlier scuffles outside the half built after the authorities halted its building a question minority in egypt often complain of discrimination especially over restrictions on church building. now in the wake of voter apathy america has taken on the persona of a violent believe the rest of the world despises according to a cartoonist read roll now ted rall that is now the outspoken war critic is on the road across the u.s. to promote his new book and took time out to speak to our kids and i see your church.

you're going to lose it with. i. sitting down with award winning editorial columnist and cartoonist ted rall ted thank you so much for meeting up with us today thanks for having me let's get right into it right now you're on a tour for your new book which is called the anti-american manifesto clearly that name is bound to tick off some of the political establishment here in the u.s. for our viewers give them a little bit of a sneak peek into the main message of what it's all about it's

a call to arms it is addressing the fact that neither the democrats nor the republicans are able or willing to address the biggest problems facing the united states today which are the economy the environment health care and the wars and now you have to ask yourself as an american do you want to tolerate the system do you want to tolerate a system that is unresponsive and not going to go anywhere or do you want to change it the anti-american manifesto is not anti-american it's anti the american government or more specifically this american government we can do better and that's what we want to that's what i want to do now you're a big critic of america's wars and occupations both in iraq and afghanistan a call to arms really seems like you know an aggressive way to respond to the aggression that the u.s. government is involved in the reason i oppose this particular regime is because it is so in aggressively violent. as the rest of the world knows the united states is always involved in some kind of war of aggression it rarely goes spends an entire

year without invading some for some foreign country and that's only part of the story i mean there's the overall economic system that the united states. presides over that is incredibly violent and unjust so i'm talking about taking on this monolith this violent horrible disgusting system that is is brutal and is willing to do anything you're going up against them you can't fight these guys with one arm tied behind your back you're probably going to lose anyway but you you have to you have to be serious would you say that u.s. military presence across the world is basically the number one priority of american foreign policy well it's certainly the number one. priority of us federal spending fifty four percent of u.s. federal tax dollars go into the military nineteen percent is just paying off the interest on old wars that are over and we're not fighting anymore so what the united states is all about is about invading other countries and exerting foreign

military power whether it's through military bases of which that nobody even knows how many there are if you call the pentagon they can't tell you if it's seven hundred eight hundred nine hundred or a thousand bases they don't know how much or how many people they have under arms somewhere between two and three point five million directly or indirectly using foreign using mercenaries i mean it's a crazy monolithic roman style empire and nobody talks about it including anywhere in the world or here it's not allowed you say in your book that the story of the united states is drawing to a clause close and you call the u.s. is the army empire and especially in the light of the recent elections when we see republicans again enjoying their power it really feels like a circle of republicans democrats republicans democrats where will that change come from that you talk about well it's certainly not going to come within the existing system what we're seeing now that you just referred to this flip flopping the two

parties are so close together on the overall ideological framework from left to right that there there's not enough differentiation. so big swaths of the population are not don't feel represented at all which is why our voter turnout is among the lowest in the industrialized world the change is not going to come from the d's in the r.'s the democrats and the republicans and the fact that people are constantly just voting against the party in power is a symptom of that people are frustrated the message they're sending is not right now we support the republicans nor was it in two thousand and eight we support the democrats the message is we hate them both so we're voting no the story of the united states government as the twentieth century invading bullying imperialistic economic and political empire that is coming to a close it is unhealthy for us and it's obviously terrible for the world but you also claimed that it's very likely that the united states could become

a fascist state and this is clearly a statement that is bound to get many people outraged what do you see these traits well i don't think that we're going to see you know brown shirts and not stepping in the streets but we have elements of proto fascism in the unit in american culture today whether you look at the vague nature of the politics of the tea party where you know vagueness political vagueness and a lack of ideological specificity is a trait of extreme right wing politics the cultural back basis of so many americans particularly in the middle of the country and in the south is centered around extreme forms of right wing christian fundamentalism and that religious force is is very nativist racist bigoted zina phobic and anti-feminist anti-gay it's a very it's very narrow minded all of these attributes not to mention the major

attribute of being so militaristic is our element. that we saw in traditional fascism in germany and italy where there's civilian rule the military is to is not worshiped you know we don't have all this rhetoric about the heroes have fallen another fallen hero this is not to say that we should disrespect the military but americans have especially since nine eleven have come to fetish eyes the military now i want to ask you one of the latest articles of yours is called obama was bad from the start realistically which his promises has he kept in the in these last two years has he kept well that's well that's to be a short short answer well he did promise to escalate the war against afghanistan and he has he did try for health care sort of but health care reform turned out to be really creating a system that even worse than what we have now he hasn't kept many promises i mean

he promised he would close guantanamo that he would end torture that he would end extraordinary renditions that he would ramp down and pull out of iraq all he did was rename the troops who were in iraq from combat troops to something else assistance force as he is he's a very cynical guy i want to ask you about following up on afghanistan do you think it could become the graveyard of the u.s. is an empire like many people are predicting since there's not really an end in sight we know the pentagon has come up with twenty fourteen as the timeline but not a deadline what does that mean decades more i thought two thousand and eleven was supposed to be the deadline and now it's two thousand and fourteen and who knows how long this goes on i mean there are so many threats to america's continued status in the world that it's hard to know exactly what will bring it to an end all we know is that it's unsustainable you know it's kind of the united states is kind

of like a wild man who uses drugs and drinks and commits crimes and beats people up and everyone hate. all you know is it's going to come to a bad end he really can't be sure how but something bad is going to happen ted rall thank you very much for your time thank you. sweet and clean. and fair useful.

radioactive and dangerous. and even dead and desolate. they all keep their unique secrets their bonnets unique lakes on our team.

you're watching r t m here's a recap of our top stories this hour the russian president says his country understands this democracy isn't perfect but that the system saw the wide path of transformation and the latest on line video blog to meet you had better calls for more political competition from lloyd stagnate. british student protests once again turned violent as thousands mobilize against university fee rises and education cuts while anger intensifies in other european union countries over crippling a sturdy measures to save the euro. and are to travel to central asia to look at what's being done to bring back to life the drive out desart which used to be a seat of the soviet union's dream to last for a continent cultivation devastated but was.