center here as well as well as the moscow metro station thousands of police descended upon this area ready for anything that could have taken place and this is all in response to some information that was circulated around the internet calling for people from the northern caucuses to come to this site armed if possible and defend themselves and stand up for their own right now there were some incidents that took place at the mcdonald's it was about three hundred yards behind where i am right now on the other side of the european center it was evacuated on a possible bomb scare at that time there were some smoke grenades that were thrown by people in the crowd at police very acrid smell of smoke still lingering in the air you can still catch with the whiffs of it every now and again but also up to a thousand people arrested here and around the city some of them armed as you mentioned in a quarter made effort of people trying to come to this area between these ethnic groups from the northern caucuses and russian nationalist groups as well very

intense situation but at this moment in time things have calmed down and are back to normal told let's turn to you now there were reports of some minor clashes in different parts of the city center tell us more about them. paul called tourist station behind me was one of them it seems that the the trouble that started it kiev stiring the groups that congregated there when they were dispersed they were they farmed out to different metro stations around the city one of them was sparkle tory and there was a minor clash there earlier reportedly called there was also the trying to gather at smolensk metro station also a central station police there trying to head them off and stop the use as they were leaving the metro station there and confiscate and suspected weapons they had on them also. there of course that there may still be a group of use there blocking entrance to the station and novokuznetsk. are another

central mass metro station there was a group of about two hundred people marching in protest earlier on all this activity brought the traffic in the in the capital to an absolute standstill and that was the situation in in moscow why into a field in russia in the second capital in peter isn't petersburg up to eighty people are reported having been detained there and about a hundred people in the city of samarra east of moscow so activity in in wider russia also in the capital at the moment it's still thought the situation for the moment has largely calmed down thanks to the police's actions that's the current situation around the city ok tom thanks for that back to you know a show on the ready looked actually very well organized so what triggered this demo and why did police react so strongly. for bill and we take you back a little bit more than a week ago last monday in fact there was

a sports game after that game you got a severe heat off shot and killed in a brawl between spartak moscow fans and some people believed to be from the northern caucasus now soft is alleged to be the person who shot and killed. at that time people took to the streets and said they demanded action be taken now that was the start of what has a lead up to the events of tonight later on in the that same week on wednesday in slovakia there was a spartak moscow game. fans took to the pitch in protest against this incident in violent incidents which disrupted the game and even have threatened to cause sanctions against the spartak moscow team since then it is. escalated even further beyond the scope of the sports arena and into just general ethnic tensions now on saturday at red square at a memorial service for you got to be tough there were strong violent actions there it was a surprise to police. in fact huge ethnic clashes at that moment in time and it was

clear at that point that this is become much bigger than it was then circulating around the internet was this note calling on people from the northern caucuses to stand up for themselves and start taking the blame for everything that is happening in russia and calling for people to come here to kiev to this location to have a standoff if you will tonight around six thirty earlier this evening at that moment time police took this information and came down here by the thousands on the orders of president bit of who said that he is going to make sure that the instigators of this ethnic violence are dealt with appropriately and make sure that they get to the bottom of the situation which is why there was such a strong reaction such a strong police presence here tonight to make sure that any of this did not happen to prevent it before it actually took place. thanks very much indeed for that update also told him that both in central moscow. and political analyst dmitri babich from ria novosti news agency says the riots will help the government realize

the issue of racism has been neglected i don't think anything really dramatic will happen because. when there are votes because police prepares itself and russia strong enough as a state to prevent an attack which had been in. spontaneously everything may happen and i think the state now understands that. problem or racism in the country has been neglected for a long time i think you know i hope now the state officials will realize that they do need to combat hate in the internet hate in the press they should stop some people from appearing on television and make an inflammatory speech is there. unfortunately all these things have become part of the mosque culture in the last few years. you're with us here we come to you live from moscow still to come in the

program this hour. the final preparations are being made ahead of the latest expedition to the international space station we'll be having a look at the personal stories behind the cause of the astronauts they'll be blasting off from baikonur. and we bring you live pictures of the u.s. senate debates the ratification of a top priority and that is the nuclear reduction treaty between. washington publicans are threatening a delayed more on that story still to come live here on r.t. . the prime minister of kosovo is accused of having been the boss of a mafia ring involved in the trafficking of drugs and human organs in a draft report from the council of europe touchy who just recently cemented power in the self-proclaimed independent nation is also accused of being behind brutal assassinations the western community comes under far too for allegedly turning a blind eye to the war crimes it has the details. because the vote is reeling from

allegations that its prime minister missed the house and she is the head of a major feel like crime network connected to all aspects of organized crime here in the region including the trafficking of arms people and drugs the most seriously of all is linked to the killing of serbian prisoners both during and after the cost of an war whose organs within harvested to be sold on the but c'mon kids these allegations are made in a draft council of europe reports led by the human rights investigator marty the result of a two year long investigation in that report mr morsi says it hasn't touched links to organized crime date back to well over ten years from when his then miss a group became the dominant faction within the cost of the liberation army or the k l a the other major point to come out of this report is the level of blame that is heaped on the international community and western powers who largely chose to

ignore the actions of the k.l.a. and to not properly investigate the reaction from the international community has already started to come out to this report and the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov has already given this response says the report prepared by the council of europe has very much where it dresher this document must not stay confidential it's necessary to make it as widely available as possible the screams are very serious and if there are confirmed the crimes against humanity. and the serbian foreign minister has also made a statement in response to the allegations made in this draw of a council of europe reports this information is horrifying both russia and serbia have been trying to attract attention to it for some time the report shows what course of really is now and who governs it but many here in cost of a say that the allegations relating to the actions of the k.l.a. that are listed in this report on the. thing new nobody will be surprised except

for the fact that now we also have a sort of connection. that poor report makes between this activism of the prime minister what is new is the official level of blame attached to the international community in this report regarding their lack of action their lack of proper investigation of the actions of senior k l a officials. and his habit reporting on organ trafficking allegations from kosovo and kosovo's government has denied the claims calling them baseless and defamatory but the report to be published in full on thursday has already cause widespread expressions of concern in the bush among each a serbian historian and blogger thinks it's significant that the draft report wasn't published until after touches recent election when. i don't believe in coincidences and this is definitely a. very interesting timing touchy one yes he won because in the

two precincts that are considered his strongholds cows and chickens turned out to vote nobody's knows how many people actually have the right to vote in kosovo and nobody knows how many people actually live there and that the whole vote was being bought with fire wood stoves and indeed eventuality i've heard reports of people actually being offered money to vote so i wouldn't really put much stock in the legitimacy of this election he's been getting away with murder for four years he wasn't nicknamed snake by his compatriots in the kalay because he was a great humanitarian. and he's for the past as ever since one thousand nine hundred eight when he emerged as a caley leader he has had unconditional support from washington and other european capitals which has enabled him to become the so-called prime minister of the so-called independent state. that by the way you can always keep up to date on the old website with the world lead they sneeze and other stories is just some of what's online right now if we had our t.v. don't come but it may not be everyone's idea of a pet to slug it out with on the sofa but one family in northern russia believes

a crocodile is a man's best friend. it's on the website tree cruelty a farm in russia dumps one million baby tickets into the freezing cold leaving them to die in the story on a website called. the european trade union confederation is holding a day of action across the continent against sweeping new austerity measures a fresh national strike has already paralyzed greece meanwhile the leading credit rating agency has warned it may downgrade spanish bonds citing heavy debt refinancing and banking problems and scopus in athens based journalist. who's in spain explain to my colleague rory what's caused the. today's strike is

the seventh general strike this year following tough reforms needed to receive this one hundred billion euro i.m.f. bailout loan now police have said that there were about fifteen thousand people taking place in the march protesters started fire fires at the finance ministry and luxury hotels where outside the parliament building. the protesters attacked former conservative minister course these crowds evacuees they punched him they kicked him and they were shouting that they're going to be all of them i assume they mean the politicians now there are reports in the news there are problems there is rioting going on outside the polytechnic university in central athens so let's turn over to you know spain also braced for strikes now receive some financial news give us the details on that if you are staying with the largest economies in the european union has been hearing reports that moody's rating agency

may downgrade be a country's ratings of course for such a big economy this really has been set in jitters down the in the stock markets all over the world how to address these as such fears the spanish government did impose a new austerity measures just last week the third of december and included in these new measures are cutbacks in key a jobless benefits and this has really hurt the local people they really protested against it because on that day when it was announced air traffic controllers are staging massive walkout and this has resulted in the closing down of airports in spain so this is just the beginning of the massive protest stage for saturday if they're planning to stage it on saturday the eighteenth is expected to be massive these you in measures are in addition to the fifteen billion euro a certain measure already passed in may of this year as well as talks that the country will increase the retirement age from sixty five to sixty seven which is of civil servants have been cut so. a lot of discontent certainly in

a country that used to provide more than half of the jobs in europe it's now dealing with a twenty percent unemployment that's about five million people without jobs here is a lot of discontent and we can expect a big protest on saturday the first of all this is not just a financial crisis this is a social crisis we're talking about high unemployment we're talking about a two tiered justice system feeding that we don't see politicians and bankers being persecuted prosecuted excuse me but we see the people being not only prosecuted but also persecuted. we see. the measures that are being taken are leading to poverty and unemployment and they see no light at the end of the tunnel they see no future for themselves they see no future for their children and they really cannot see how can i say digest of what the leaders are telling them what the officials are telling them it's either this or bankruptcy it certainly seems

that way for the people because they're they're seeing the benefits employee benefits caught they're having to deal with having no jobs and these measures they're saying that it's not their fault and why why is it the ordinary people who have to pay for the fault of what they see as the fault of the banking system of the whole eurozone area the year end may be ending but certainly for european countries across the euro zone including the u.k. they're not seeing an end to this economic crisis just yet so this is a very high price definitely for ordinary people having no jobs not enough money to make ends meet certainly a high price. researcher that talking to a senior who's in spain also ahead and scopus athens based journalist. u.s. senate is set to debate the ratification of a new nuclear arms reduction treaty between moscow and washington the document known as stock faces obstacles from republican senators who are threatening to delay its approval he's going to says they're all moves to get this through before the senate goes on holiday with her the chairman of the senate foreign relations

committee john kerry as you said say the plan they plan on taking out the start for debate within the next few hours we have the head of the senate majority harry reid saying they will get the star done in this congressional session even if it means working until christmas or maybe even beyond the holidays democrats are really racing against the clock here to pass through a number of priorities there are other domestic issues on the agenda of the senate and some republicans are bringing up this lack of time argument to put off the ratification i even heard one senators say they would take up this starts with debating this question but would put off the vote until next year but one can barely understand why this uncertainty considering this tremendous support that the new start has received over the last eight months of meticulous hearings the country's military top officials former president is the president they all said it's a win win treaty and yet it could be bogged down and not in its substance but in

politics of the day behind the scene bargaining on capitol hill which has nothing to do with the content of the treaty some republicans favor it the argument against ratifying the start in this congressional session is is this you know the the old treaty expired almost a year ago and nothing terrible happened we're not in cold war anymore so the treaty can wait that's basically what they're saying president obama and a whole lot of other people have been really going out of their way to explain the significance of the treaty the new start is not just about reducing nuclear arsenals of both countries by a third and sort of showing an example of nonproliferation to the world which in itself is a very is very important but it's also so. as a symbol of trust between the two nuclear superpowers and obama made it clear their further cooperation plans with russia could really go south without these key trading places stressed how important russia's assistance is in of ghana's then have called russia's cooperation was only ran another aspect of the us russia reset

and with the new senate in office in january the desire to undermine obama is going to get even bigger there are going to be more republicans in congress so their recruits are really trying very hard to push it through this session and it is hard surprisingly hard for a deal like the start treaty which which seems to be a win win for everyone. going to talking to me a little. a three person space crew is making fun of preparations for a five month voyage into orbit which in less than an hour from now the soyuz rocket is set to make its way to the international space station carrying a new group of explorers a russian and american and an attorney and all of these peter all of a met them ahead of the mission to discover more of the personal side including one love story. when it comes to space travel clinical accuracy and pinpoint engineering of the norm that these on such as main concerns she's the wife of european space agency astronaut power on this poorly and watches the soyuz rockets that are husband safety depends on absolutely sure that things will be fine and i

am. really glad to see that we will take them to international space station family with space exploration running through their veins the couple met while paolo was training near moscow sasheer was a nurse at the space center and her father is a constant instructor i met my wife in star city actually during training some some years ago and we figured out that nevertheless i will culture are fairly different she is russian i am italian there was a lot of things in common and so we decided to to join together and then went in your life today we have a daughter a year and a half old daughter and we are very happy follow married his russian bride while she was visiting him in houston a spur of the moment decision after the couple realized that they couldn't stand being apart from one another. the italian will spend the next six months on board the i assess what paolo will be able to stay in touch with their young daughter

through phone calls and video links and just because he's working in space doesn't mean every day life back home on earth comes to a halt i asked him how it's going to be when you're up in space eastern time so i'm going to make phone calls and i pay my credit card so it's going to be just just as if he's here standing at one meets in ninety two when it's bully will be the tallest man ever to fly in a soyuz rocket so tall in fact that a special seat had to be made for him. the mission commander is cosmonaut dimitri khandahar chair of it will be this russians first journey into space a very serious and focused individual he plans to use any downtime on board the i assess to train for his black belt in karate not an easy task without gravity help but. i will be restricted of course i won't be doing any fully fledged sessions there are a lot of exercises in karate static ones breathing exercises some of them could be done in a confined space no gravity. now says katherine coleman

makes up the crew this will be her third trip into space and this time should be bringing along a passenger as a reminder of home a son's cuddly tiger everyone needs to go to school and learn to write doesn't know how to write so well were to. taking good look tokens into orbit is one of many traditions associated with launches from baikonur strange that even in the most high tech of environments that the human belief in fate play such a major part moving at a snail's pace so as not to cause any damage to the spacecraft the fully constructed rocket moves its way towards the launch site and even at this stage there are traditions and superstitions at baikonur the placing of koreans on the track in front of the train is supposed to bring good look to the mission on the launch pad and ready to go the soyuz t.m.a. twenty rockets now waits for its crew peacher all over r t baikonur kazakhstan.

you can follow live coverage of the soyuz rocket launch that'll be within the next hour here on r.t. . but to bring us up to take the moment coming up in just a few minutes from now the business update with daniel stay with us for that. in some petersburg he's available in hotels a story. ambassador. hotel petro palace hotel a true sports hotel golden. key business.

welcome to business moscow's my six exchange has started trading as russia and china move to scrap the dollar in bilateral trade the russian boss expects around three million yuan to change hands a day that's about four hundred fifty thousand dollars and my six president told altie who will use the new system. of traders school going to mean. it's going to be exported product producers in my opinion financials you. need to be worth considering but as i hope to raise money you i mean it's going to

be ineffective. for people to get. more so i think the demand will come greater with. direct trade between the yuan and ruble will help both currencies become international reserves but the bunch of car from merrill lynch believes the dollar will stay dominant. from the point of view of russia and china i think this is an important step for them locally and probably did help elevate the status of the of the world but only from a regional perspective as you know very well the trading will be done only a number of a couple of hours during the day and while again i think it's important for this country see regionally i don't think that this will take away from from the shine of the u.s. currency at least over the medium term. for the stock markets now the wall street has thrown off early losses off to strong industrial production figures fears over european debt but general electric is down five percent on that after the industrial jobs said it would buy back more of its shares. after

a topsy turvy day for markets around the world the my six had a late spurt to close in the block itself divestment banks credit suisse and morgan stanley to value the r.t.s. ahead of a potential merger of moscow's two main courses some energy stocks lost further growth today gazprom. almost two percent roys in u.s. fuel stockpiles pushed light sweet eighty eight dollars a barrel. for the second largest bank p.t.b. meanwhile says it could buy a controlling stake in bank of moscow which is the country's fifth largest in the first half of next year the deal will become thirteenth purchase in the last year's . election when used russian industrial production rose six point seven percent in november beating for costs but the economics ministry has cut its full year expectations for g.d.p. growth from four percent to three point eight despite saying it now thinks the average price will be higher than previously thought at seventy seven dollars fifty

cents that's the latest you can always find more stories on our website that's complex business. the. wealthy british style. has moved on to the splits because. of the. markets why not.

find out what's really happening to the global economy cause a report on. the . line to russia would be soo much brighter if you knew about some move from funds to impressions. startups he don't

come. this is from the russian capital twenty four hours a day almost a thousand people detained in central moscow as police attempt to prevent ethnic audience at a protest linked to the murder of a football fan support say some of the crowd. because of his prime minister is accused of having been the boss of a math hearing which dealt in the trafficking of human organs the same drop report from the council of europe blames the west turning a blind eye to alleged crimes by the liberation army. europe prepares for new protests against austerity measures with greece already. seven say that being used to pay for the mistakes of corrupt politicians. but also reporting that the u.s.

senate is set to debate the ratification of a top priority that is the reduction treaty between moscow and washington republicans continue to threaten to delay its approval. of the bout with more developments more news in this and often after the meantime we look at the life of the first ever man in space began and that's in our special report. march twenty seventh one thousand nine hundred sixty. detroit of aircraft in the skies over moscow region. rescuers look for a training jet did it disappeared from radar screens. as soon as they spotted the crash site it was clear nobody could have survived. the aircraft was piloted by flight instructor of like. the first ever made.