it's part of the fate of lexan day in russia and some people have been finding unique ways to make it to the polling base to call thought boy it wasn't a joke before the latest information hit from the heart of the catskills. the war of words between iran and the west players up in washington and the e.u. infuriated by the iranian phase reaction just spreads his bad by choking off oil revenues from. the un human rights commissioner calls for an international intervention in syria sanctions continue to pile up on the massacres over alleged civilian abuses by forces loyal to president bashar al assad. and islamist parties

claim to have won in egypt's first post revolution election and it frustration in the streets as many believe their voices are not heard. it said i am in the russian capital you're watching r t a marina joshie it's a big day for voting in the world's biggest country with people deciding on a fresh board of lawmakers for the lower house of parliament. the main interest in the ruling united russia party and whether it retains its overwhelming support among the population as its rivals pledge to offer up tough competition for now let's cross to al gore sponsor for the late as well as you

sarah so now it's time for people to have their say on which of the political parties managed to get their message across so how does the proces seem to be going so far. well the ballot costing began at eight am local time across russia's many times in some regions of the far east of russia facing south well under way now russia's election committee has said that an attempt to sort of ease concerns about transparency with the voting they have nearly half a million observers for competing parties and of around seven hundred service international observers against be on hand to ensure the naif violations take place . he said but it's no wonder why people are turning out the cost that all important votes and this election says the contacts that the some people are going to be able to call survey using electronic devices and thousands of the polling piece of

equipment with the ballot counting devices from the innovative to the imaginative and so the harder to reach places in russia people have been having to use or imagination to make it to the polling these some people turning up all reindeer and for those who couldn't make it to the polling be so the polling booths came to that close it will probably be switched live it. is to tailor explorers people who wouldn't have otherwise been able to call them in the course who they say it's against be counted later on this evening polling placing at eight pm and that's when the votes will start being counted we're going to bring you the latest nice to other day you can follow a lifelong see four hundred fifty seats in the state seven political parties bustling is how they seize my colleague. taking a close look at some of the political lineups.

this right here is the state duma the lower chamber of the russian parliament where laws are adopted and all bills are first reviewed and the term comes from the russian duma not meaning to think it was founded in one thousand nine hundred six but does survive the one nine hundred seventeen revolution however it did bounce back in one thousand nine hundred three when a new constitution was introduced and the upcoming election and the makeup of the six do much since one thousand nine hundred three. or four hundred fifty seats up for grabs in the duma and the elected deputies will serve for five years well as it stands the state do must be divided between four political parties. currently has three hundred fifteen seats it's the biggest party in the duma it's followed by the communists with fifty seven seats the liberal democrats forty seats and

a fair russia has thirty eight. but let's look at those parties in detail now the ruling united russia party has a constitutional majority in the current parliament and is led by prime minister vladimir putin that would be upcoming election of president dmitri medvedev will be at the top of the party's list of candidates for the party's representation in the duma is not only made up of career politicians but celebrities as well such as one of the most decorated gymnasts of two time olympic medalist. former n.h.l. star the salt as well as the first man to walk in space alexei now the party's platform essentially revolves around modernizing the economy uprooting corruption and add to radicalism however united russia is also often criticized as bureaucratic inefficient and to some extent blamed for political and economic stagnation. and the second of the number of seats is the communist party headed by its own shall and. got off the communist saw the biggest

opposition force in the country constantly in second place and one of the most prominent deputies in this sector of us of federal he's a nobel laureate in physics in two thousand and the communist party promises a not for the first nationalization of key industries they're often criticized for sticking to a platform that caters to an elderly constituency that still dreams of returning to the glory days of the soviet union. or another old timer of the russian the state duma. he's a leader of the liberal democratic party of russia now it's often called a one man party judy dobbs he is widely considered to be a show mad at his over as eccentric behavior and sometimes shocking political views for example he advocated forcibly retaking alaska from the u.s. and openly expressed his hatred of certain ethnic groups from that is it is often turned his words into action while on a lighter note since resting trappin i'm excited to read it was elected as a united russia deputy there's been no more polls in the state.

fair russia is headed by he said again and as the name implies its platform is based on the principles of fairness freedom a solitary calling for the proper functioning of a well first. this is the usual working place of the deputy no bells and whistles just a mike and a device with which to vote but not all deputies are interested in the daily debates over bills last year a huge scandal emerge when it came to light that some deputies consistently missed sessions and simply asked their party called leaves to vote in their absence now only after public criticism from the president if they return to work despite the shortcomings of russia's politicians there are still hopes of the country will be able to put together the kind of polling that it needs to address its people's demands and navigate russia's future so who exactly will be filling these four hundred fifty seats of the state duma it won't be long now to find.

this are silly reporting well the big decision day is in sharp focus here on r t n we'll be bringing you detailed coverage of russia's parliamentary election all the way through to the end and our reporters will broadcast live from the central election committee's office and from major party headquarters later in the day so stay with us for the results reaction and in-depth analysis. campaign closes. the people prepare to speak. to duma election. coverage of has won the hearts and minds of the russian people. still coming up in today's review of the week's news all ties strained to the limit. pulls out of course the u.s. backed talks on the future of afghanistan further winding the rift opened by deadly nato airstrike on pakistan's border. and europe hold its breath as merkel and

sarkozy try to brew up a cure for the walks financial agony while the people of their. protests and protest against austerity. it's been one of the most tense weeks yet in iran's continuing drama as western nations unleash more sanctions greater restrictions and even more rhetoric on the middle east nation it all began with britain's decision to levy fresh measures against iran as punishment for what israel and others believe to be a covert nuclear program at sparked outrage among the iranian public angry students stormed the british embassy in tehran u.k.'s reaction was shut down its diplomatic mission along with other e.u. nations and some twenty four iranian diplomats were expelled from london they returned home as heroes the u.s. has been quiet on the issue either with washington preparing its own crippling sanctions against iran central bank middle east expert and journalists of conscience down believes this is just the start of

a much bigger campaign. the west is not engaged in war preparations just against iran which they have been they've invaded and occupied iran's two neighboring countries that afghanistan on the one side and iraq on the other the west is engaged in a constant project of constant war and domination against all people who resist their domination so iran and syria are definitely on the cards and the conflagration will engulf the whole middle east so this has the potential for growing but that is the agenda right now very clearly they want regime change all across africa libya was the start and look at the pacific and the asia region the new the new troops sent to new u.s. troops already sent to australia listen to clinton she is saying that the critical places for u.s. domination is not iraq and afghanistan but in asia what's emerging right now is a historic time for the next ten fifteen years where britain and america know they're going down economically and militarily and they know china russia merging

so they're really feeling that now is the crisis period to make sure that they can dominate as much as possible through sanctions and war i mean it's all it's all you know it's any means necessary i mean whether they do it through sanctions or war or funding opposition movements it's all the same they want complete domination as soon as possible. the un's high commissioner for human rights has called for an international intervention in syria to protect civilians from president since forces she sided number of protesters and rebel fighters allegedly killed by pro-government forces since the civil conflict began the u.n. also condemned arsons rule but a resolution that could have paved the way for intervention was a blog by russia and china they believe the u.n. continues to ignore reports of atrocities committed by opposition fighters and warned of foreign meddling may worsen the situation meanwhile sanctions continue to be piled on damascus but political analyst dr his fantasy of questions just who the sanctions are aimed at. these sanctions are meaningless actually i think they're

meaningless and on every level on the level on the economic level and on the security level it will not stop the violence western powers particularly the united states now to use these sanctions to use the decisions of the arab league for their own purposes to put pressure on syria to put pressure not for the syrian regime to stop the killing as they put it no they what they want is to weaken the city and to g.m. and to weaken the alliance between syria iran and lebanon i don't think that they. so much for for syrian blood in libya more than one hundred thousand people were killed by nato bombings come through as devastated nobody said any word so i can't actually believe that they're now searching about three thousand syrians when they are not actually what about more than one hundred thousand libyans it has nothing

to do with stopping the violence on the gone through their feeding the violence. and while the west presses harder on arab nations to listen to protesters demands that approach taken to their own demonstrations from london to new york is markedly different defying world cop tactics and a government crackdown the occupy movement shows no signs of slowing down instead it's drawing in a new supporters from the most unlikely places. islamic parties have reportedly taken an overwhelming lead in the opening round of egypt's first parliamentary elections since mubarak's fall the muslim brotherhood's freedom and justice party gained forty percent of the vote with fundamentalist all newer party claiming around twenty five percent however the results aren't final as most parties are set to go through to further election rounds over the next two months but as artists fall asleep reports from cairo many in the streets feel their votes will carry little weight in their troubled country. vote.

and a record turnout a real sign of political interest in a country of dictatorship. the power of the ballot the faces of candidates smiled on the one for the most you the street corner and wanting to persons are excited to be voting in the real mix and these smiles say maybe hold nothing but hold on. iran to boot. i wrote down. there are tens of thousands like miss my mohammed young unemployed and frustrated they think it doesn't matter who they vote for because the military will still make all the important decisions the problem is you know what are they actually going to produce a parliament that cannot appoint ministers that cannot appoint a government whose constitution whatever it turns out to be is going to be guarded by the army many in egypt say they will continue to camp out on talking square the center of the revolution and in front of the parliament building youth movement

leaders like. opportunist and what they see as a vote of no democratic mandate will be you. know you will not go your office. and you have to go and we do. two more rounds of voting still need to take place but the strong showing of the muslim brotherhood leaves little doubt that the islamist parties will have a significant majority in parliament for what it's worth for those claims of a record sixty two percent turnout is already being questioned after a series of. reported the country's only female candidate for the presidency is not surprised even with. monitoring election just took the lead to mistakes and. we have a long way for democracy but the west has been quick to praise the election as an

important step towards change although the americans are beginning to say well no the army must go back to barracks deep down they'll be perfectly happy to keep the army where it is in egypt if you give one point three billion dollars a year to the egyptian army which the americans to you are spirit expected to do what it wants which means little people to get what they want setting the stage for more to hear turmoil are to see. europe is looking forward to another meeting between the german and french leaders set for this monday it could push the eurozone towards fiscal union a possible cure offered by angela merkel this week for the financial agony gripping the continent belgium and greece saw massive strikes as people fought against new measures to bring the current financial rollercoaster to a halt european central bank has been pumping money into the blocks financial institutions to compensate for investors pulling out their funds earlier the e.u. monetary affairs chief warrant the euro zone has no more than ten days to contain

the crisis though the german chancellor insists that the recovery process will take years but economic analyst michael ross says europe has to act much more quickly to revive the single currency. we in fact don't have for years we have only days in order to solve this crisis and with the words of america we can see that the crisis is not sort of every week we have a new emergency meeting every week we have a new every week we have new hopes and nothing happens so this is the prognosis of forecasts also for the next week and under the america as no two euro bonds this means nothing else then no to the euro because you must not be an economist to know that the common currency cannot work with a common bond market sold because of the fact that germany is not permitted to pull out of the euro under the american says we don't want euro bonds and with our

bureau bonds the euro won't work. this week the u.k. saw massive strikes as two million public sector workers took to the streets across the country's major cities over pension cuts unions have cold in the nation's biggest walkout in a generation in london over two thirds of schools were closed while hospitals provided only emergency care anger was barred by steering cars which mean people would have to work longer but get a smaller pancham the prime minister says the measures will drag the country away from a slippery slope to recession but the opposition claims it will have the reverse effect we spoke earlier to alex canny executive member of the national union of teachers who told us more about what stirred up the people's rage. certainly people we didn't play for the crisis we didn't pay for the banking crisis and they bailed out the banks and now working people are being made to play and they won't accept

it so we have an unprecedented thirty three unions taking action money of whom have never taken strike and we will see today just how strongly people feel about it. and in a few minutes we report in a novel way to demonstrate a group of ukrainian women who are europe with a series of protests there in their anger by airing their bodies. ten weeks of exhaustive conover show and sometimes even bloody protests the fruits of a movement that was widely expected to fizzle out in days but far from it the occupy wall street campaign is now bigger than ever to finding a coordinated government crackdown widespread copper tally and meteoritic as artie's more important i discovered the movement's message resonates even with those whose job is to silence it. occupy wall street has become an undeniable american household name. and police crackdowns against the

democratic movement have become something of the norm not so normal is seeing one side endorse the other. retired philadelphia police captain bray lewis became the game changer on nov seventeenth arrested while demonstrating with occupy protesters on the streets of new york city the twenty four year veteran was held in police custody for eleven hours and received one comment from a new york cop nobody talk to me this one individual said that i had the testicles of an elephant although all of america's police force is part of the ninety nine percent captain lewis says cops secretly supporting o.w.m. face dire consequences by going public tremendous fear of losing their job being disciplined being fired and then what do they do everybody in the ninety nine percent figure they're police officers also they cannot risk they have children. what would they do once so far there are no jobs available the nighttime raid on

zuccotti park and subsequent arrest of dozens of journalists covering the story are among many reasons captain lewis says he temporarily transplanted to manhattan that's close to dictatorship when you exclude the media. that's what the papers around the world that is very scary brutal scare tactics such as pepper spray the tongs and flash grenades canisters have been used against occupy camps throughout the u.s. oakland california resembles something of an urban war zone this fall leaving a war vet in critical condition and the eyes of an eighty four year old burning from tear gas oakland police officer fred chavez is the only octave cop who's gone on record with his support like i totally agree with occupy. even to understand what i am a part of the ninety nine percent for the most part people are peaceful and i want to see change many believe the biggest change could calm when or if he was law

enforcement officials stop suppressing the right to assemble and begin supporting it despite his arrest captain lewis is back at zuccotti park showing unwavering support for the occupy movement standing roughly ten or fifteen feet away from him a group of new york city police officers yes they're here securing the area but some are beginning to show little interest for the first time i had an officer break ranks. and introduce himself and if you question do you know the risk you're taking and he was so brave they said this is still america and until a supervisor ordered me back to the line i'm going to talk with you i hope to get mainstream america involved the players involved realizing that world of corporate america and america has got to be stopped. r.t.

new york. and you can follow this in other stories on our website r.t. dot com here's a brief look at what's on the line for you right now the wearer of exploding apple's the i phone and really is the hottest touchscreen on the market there have been two cases of spend twenty a small ball thrown combustion reported within a week. plus antigravity dancing tom break dance stars battle it out in a hip international qantas being held in moscow we've got the video on our team dot com. pakistan has ruled out taking part in a u.s. backed conference on the future of ghana stand next week the decision was just one of islam of odds reactions to a recent nato air strike that killed twenty four pakistani soldiers the air raid brought already tense relations between the u.s. and pakistan to a new low nato supply routes through pakistan were shut off and officials in islamabad said washington must make a man's for its mistakes and win back the people's trust political analyst she says

the u.s. fails to acknowledge pakistan's wild role in afghanistan. bucks any interest will have to be respected of parks and is to participate in take part in any efforts to stabilize of going to and let me just remind you books that has played a major role as you know in the beginning of the war we're talking ten years ago. in our first peace efforts that led to the formation of the government that is headed know the president hamid karzai there's no way that you can have the operation of a country if you will not take that country's interests along unfortunately the international coalition led by the united states and abroad has done has failed to do that locks and has suffered losses in excess of fifty billion dollars over ten years lost opportunities investments that ran away when somewhere else and so forth and of course not to mention the huge psychological damage of course that the pakistani people are suffering from as a result of our role in america's war in afghanistan. painting

a public protest message on their naked bodies has become the trademark for one ukrainian group of activists having made headlines and held for several years where their extravagant and revealing demonstrations they are now said to expose their grievances across europe are just like here chess game it with the ladies who are far from shy about making their point. on a chilly morning in kiev half naked women in racing outfits drink champagne and chant slogans this is how the feminine movement celebrated the resignation of silvio berlusconi several days prior to that the very same ladies were in rome voicing their support to the anti berlusconi protest even do it that we have staged a lot of protests against berlusconi and his sexual adventures here in kiev and we are really happy his political career has finished this inhibition interrupted the next couple somebody who came to the tell an embassy not only to celebrate but to

say that he needs to go on trial for his sexual crimes. for more than a week the ukrainian topless protesters had been making themselves heard across europe on a dedicated road trip to draw attention to the sexual exploitation of women in room one of their activists made a revealing protest against injustice towards women in the catholic church in the vatican right in front of the pope. but. before that they had paris storming former i.m.f. banker dominique strauss kahn this residence. woman from italy came to us in switzerland and said we know that you're coming to rome and will be staging protests again berlusconi and the pope thank you they said for sharing our problems there while drawing free rallies in ukraine have been making international headlines for several years now from protesting aid. it's the alarming rate of

prostitution especially with the upcoming you are twenty twelve book tournament to exposing flaws in ukraine's politics now they're looking even further afield those than we do in within your could understand that classic famine is no longer works it is if you excuse me impotent but what we do brings the desired effect that's why not only ukraine needs us but europe as well who are planning to take over the world. while we see how well you were received in europe remember your colorful actions in ukraine where are you planning to expand now but those are. really good we received lots of letters telling us to continue fighting against religious and justice towards women especially in the muslim states that's where we want to develop we are even ready to go to iran or any other islamic state to stage our topless protests knowing all risks if given tale for us. they started out as a few enthusiastic complainer is now their talk just messages going global.

in ukraine alone they have tens of thousands of supporters the family network has been set up in europe and now stretches as far as the united states still they say they've got a lot of demons to fight at home let's see russia ski altie reporting from kiev ukraine. and just a few minutes and in damp talk on how u.s. pakistani relations will shape up after the latest deadly incident before that though a brief look at the top stories. as

russians pick for parliament who are the main contenders in the race for a do list seats the party's ever present leader vladimir zhirinovsky by far russia's most boisterous and controversial bully politician current campaign slogan we are for russians priorities food housing transport and science biggest success during all ski poles third in russia's first presidential election critics cry over racist remarks personal violence and pop.