great. to. some degree but the. moscow. russians have gone to the polls with a thing taking place in the country's parliament she elections the fake is now whether the current. russia will be able to retain the level of popularity it enjoyed fully if the guy joined us for us especially election coverage. and in other news that shaped the week terror on detention iranian students stormed the british embassy in response to fresh sanctions prompting the u.k. to close its missions and they all iranian diplomats from london. but you would know human rights commission of calls for international intervention in syria but russia and china vote against the resolution saying foreign meddling will only

cause more bloodshed. and egypt's main islamist party is the biggest winner in the opening round of the country's first parliamentary election since february revolution. it is good to have you with us on this day of voting you're watching live from moscow with me rory sushant from. kaliningrad it's decision day for russia millions all across the country's nine time zones have been having to decide the makeup of the lower house of parliament the state.

now fighting house finished in many regions of russia but the people in the western part of the world's biggest nation are still heading to the polls to cost the ballots are the key issue focuses on whether the ruling united russia party will win enough support to remain the major parliamentary force let's get some more details go straight off to sara for standing by in central moscow etc with the election process in the country coming to a close in a couple of hours time what's the latest now on how the vote just. pulled the fighting's continuing here in the capital more than food see a million people have already cost the date across the country russia's election committee saying the mood in forty percent of the hundreds and ten a million registered people have already cost that date of course russia has the nine different times saying since a many of the regions have now seen the polls plays and the face being counted now polls plays ten most get eight pm local time the last area to have their polls

close will be kaliningrad and now be nine pm local time the vote count then beginning and we've seen participation from huge amounts of people no one wanting to miss out and costing not only imports of a we've even seen the two russian cosmonauts of both the i.s.a.'s participating today in costing that date from space and the elections today have be moderated by more than seven hundred international observers they've been keeping an eye i watching for any violations now we have seen for in some of the observers of opposition parties claims of violations they've seen reports of web sites being hacked the ruling parties actually use a claim that is web sites being hacked stay far from the international observers said. b. no reports of major violations but of course they will be keeping their eye on events as the proceedings continue and the faith in continuing into the evening full hundred and fifty seats in the state duma up for grabs seven political parties

battling it out the very thing continuing stay with us because we're going to be bringing me oh the knees and now this is as the evening continues without special election coverage is the first time in russian history the lawmakers will be taking that position of power for five years it's a seven percent threshold that they'll need to get representation of proportional representation in the state duma this election they'll have six percent of the percentage of the votes will get tuesday's five percent will get one seat as we continue into the evening awaiting the outcome of that all important my colleague has also has been taking a closer look at some of the main political parties boii. 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 to mark comes from the russian do much meaning to think it was founded in one thousand nine hundred six but does survive the one nine hundred seventeen revolution whoever it did bounce back in one thousand nine hundred three when a new constitution was introduced and the upcoming election will determine the makeup of the six duma since one thousand nine hundred three. there are four hundred fifty seats up for grabs in the duma and the elected deputies will serve for five years well as it stands to stay do must be divided between four political parties. that are going for currently has two hundred fifteen seats the biggest party in the duma it's followed by the communists with fifty seven seats on the liberal. forty seats and a fair russia has thirty eight. 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 dmitry 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 a 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. to radicalism however united russia is also often criticized as bureaucratic inefficient and to some extent blamed for political and economic stagnation. of the second in the number of seats is the communist party headed by its leader who 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 federal funds a nobel laureate in physics in two thousand and the communist party promises and

not for the first time the 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. well another old timer of the russian a state duma. he's the leader of the liberal democratic party of russia now it's often called a one man party is widely considered to be the show mad and is over as eccentric behavior and sometimes shocking political views for example he advocated forcibly retaking alaska from the us and openly expressed his hatred of certain ethnic groups from that is that in the last two years often turned his words into action on a lighter note since resting chopping the next out of convention was elected as a united russia debt. maybe there's been no more proles in the state to. now fair russia is headed by he said again you don't know and as the name implies its platform is based on the principles of fairness freedom and solidarity calling

for the proper functioning of a welfare state. 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 colleagues to vote in their absence now only after public criticism from the president if they returned to work now despite the shortcomings of russia's politicians there are still hopes that 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 the fight. and we will be joined shortly by one of the observers monitoring russia's parliamentary elections but before that though let's bring you up to date on a developing story a over a dozen people have been arrested in moscow as

a political parties both pro-government opposing it trying to stage rallies on election day morgan across life you want to take a green standing by in central moscow jake i can see you a very very busy area where you are now election day rallies are a breach of the rules so who exactly was rallying and how were they dispersed. around now we saw a lot of money. on the left there's. also. those you know i think russia they all have been. so that. bronze we're here for her and we don't mind we have another process going on the list is that the band organization so a lot of you want to record in the list and with some of them numbers already in

its main line least as you mentioned out there recently means that you can see the band with all sorts of the restoration band on the day of silence and there will be voices heard when those polling stations post later this evening. all right jake agrees there live from central moscow very busy indeed where you are we'll check in with you throughout the evening many thanks. to all our while the election is still underway in some parts of russia we are not allowed to speculate about its outcome or talk about party programs but let's discuss the vote itself with john laughlin from the paris for the institute for prosy and cooperation are joining us now from russia's penza region where you are an observer thank you for coming on the program we're getting reports now from the central election committee that although there's no voter turnout threshold we are getting reports that fifty percent of people have voted at this point what's your view so far and how the election has been organized . well the organization has been absolutely excellent as far as the turnout figures

a concern to the figure you've just given the fifty percent corresponds roughly to what i've seen i would put it not quite at fifty i would say it's in the forty's but obviously i've just observed a few polling stations in a provincial region i think that the results are known as for us turnout is concerned for the far east where of course the polls have already closed and they are indeed the turnout is in the sorties it's not above fifty it's in the forty's so the organization has been excellent the turnout i think is considerably lower than it was for the last elections in two thousand and seven but when you consider a country of at least one hundred ten million people the turnout for your to fifty percent is still a sizeable number when it comes to these parliamentary elections are a joy to have you are witnessed any violations at this point no absolutely not i mean the organizational the election could hardly be better and this corresponds to my experience as an observer in russia and in other post soviet republics in

organizational terms they're absolutely excellent the ladies it's very often ladies who run the election commissions are extremely competent there's a very tranquil atmosphere there's rather a festive atmosphere in fact in most polling stations and as i say the voting was fairly brisk this morning but it seems to have tailed off in the afternoon. how do you assess any reports of violations we've been having here we had r t correspondent jake aggrieved on earlier he was down in red square where they were saying that loud rallies were basically a breach of the rules your assessment on that maybe i mean those we know there is a rule for hitting any sort of campaigning after twenty four hours before the polls begin so that may well be so but i mean ultimately these stories these sorts of stories of rallies being broken up or whatever they are pushed forward generally with a political agenda in other words they decided their signs to creates the impression that opinion is somehow being silenced and russia but that simply isn't true and you know anybody who buys into that timeframe really doesn't understand the country

too. now russia uses say a party list proportional representation system in the duma election which is when a multiple candidates are elected tell us what are the advantages and disadvantages of this system for a country like russia the biggest in the world well there are certainly disadvantages i mean the advantage is that all votes as it were count in the sense that with a purely proportional system you can vote for a party and providing it gets more than seven percent the representation it has in the lower house will correspond to the national percentage of votes cast that's not the case of course with the majority variance system in the majority and majority or in system where candidates elect where electors vote or where voters elect a specific candidate the outcome in terms of the percentage of seats does not correspond to the national total and many people who live in majority countries think that's unfair my own view is that the majority and system is better i am

supporter of the majority and system it's the system that we have in britain and in france and that exists as well as in the united states but you know that's the system russia has chosen and like all electoral systems and indeed like all aspects of democracy it has pros and cons they took you talk about supporting the majority in system but i this is the second and the last time that parties have to break a seven percent threshold to be eligible to win seats in the parliament how does that barrier affect the domestic russian political system. or well i don't know i'm not aware of it having any particular effect at all i mean obviously it excludes marginal parties but that is desirable all states with the fortune of that system even states which don't have fully proportional systems like germany for example which is of mixed system mix majority very mixed proportion they very typically have threshold in germany it's five percent here it's seven percent and the purpose of these threshold is to prevent the political system from being hijacked by tiny

parties that's the. problem in israel. as everybody knows very small parties usually extremist parties can become power brokers in the national coalition and that's generally considered to be undesirable and that's the reason for the seven percent threshold all right john walker lindh from the paris branch of the institute for democracy and cooperation and observer in russia's penza region many thanks to you and i will be bringing you a detailed account of this day of decision in russia throughout the day and into the wee evening hours the first preliminary results expected to be released at five pm g.m.t. shortly before that at four o'clock g.m.t. will begin our special coverage r.t. as correspondents who are port live from the central election committee as well as major party headquarters bringing you all the reaction and analysis that all comes at. closes. the people prepare to speak. in duma election eleven. in-depth coverage of

has won the hearts and minds of the russian people are to. now a quarter past the hour here in moscow you are watching r.t. iranian news agency reports coming in now that the country's forces have shot down an american drone the aircraft is said to have violated the country's airspace along its eastern border last week britain along with the u.s. and. iran with fresh sanctions as punishment for what they believe to be a covert nuclear program as walk outrage among the iranian public and on tuesday angry students storm stormed the british embassy the u.k. shut down its diplomatic mission in response well twenty four iranian diplomats were also expelled from london it comes as washington is preparing its own crippling sanctions against iran central bank but political analyst chris bambery believes that provoking tehran would have disastrous consequences as the. sanctions against iran and there is talk of some military strike against iran over this you

could program we should remember that nationalism runs very deep in people one memories of when for instance britain and america wants to in one thousand nine hundred eighty three to overthrow a democratically elected government which had nationalized american oil interests and installed the shah of iran and the nationalism is runs very deep in. enthusiasm present. many of the mood around against any notion of sanctions against iran or indeed a british american need to straight against the right. of america and britain between them have enough weapons to destroy the world many times over make sure. weapons it does not have. in iraq the americans and the bruce do have plans for eventually. a military strike is whether or not the kind of and i think those people who are committed to peace and don't want to see you know war should be concerned about this and should be whom pressure in washington london paris to stop any talk of for

the sanctions or any talk of a military strike against iran are turning our attention from iran now to syria which as a reportedly accepted the arab league's plan to send a mission of foreign observers into the country and this comes in the wake of sustained foreign pressure on damascus with the un's high commissioner for human rights calling for international intervention she said four thousand people have been killed since the clashes began almost nine months ago however syria's ambassador to the u.n. responded by warning the solution to the crisis cannot come from abroad a resolution that could have paved the way for military intervention in syria was blocked by russia and china they believe the u.n. continues to ignore reports of atrocities committed by opposition fighters and think that foreign meddling would only make the situation worse political analyst dr his questions to the sanctions that have been imposed that are truly aim for. 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 lap and it will not stop the violence western powers particularly the united states now to use these sanctions and rather 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 you know what they want to weaken the syrian regime and to weaken the alliance between syria iran and lebanon i don't think they they. so much for for syrian blood in libya more than one hundred thousand people were killed by nato bombings and the country was devastated that nobody said anyone so i can't actually believe that they're now searching about three thousand syrians when they are not actually what it's about more than one hundred thousand libyans it has

nothing to do with stopping the violence on the contrary they're feeding the bodies we can't expect the syrian government and the syrian army to end the violence if the other if the gangs do not stop atrocities against the syrian armed forces now are twenty minutes past the hour here in the russian capital you with are still ahead for you in the program u.s. police continue to crack down on anti corporate protesters some officers are actually changing sides we meet one of them who explains why he joined the chorus of those unhappy with current economic policy. egypt's state newspaper is reporting islamist parties have taken an overwhelming lead in the opening round of the country's first post revolution parliamentary election the muslim brotherhood freedom and justice party reportedly gained forty percent of the vote with the fundamentalist elnora party thought have claimed twenty five however these results are not final as most parties are set to go through to further

election rounds over the next couple of months but as artie's paulus leer reports from cairo many in the streets feel their votes will carry little weight. long queues vote stained fingers and a record turnout over a sign of political interest in a country where decades of dictatorship has with little appetite for the power of the ballot the faces of candidates smiled down in one must use to point out and wanting to are excited to be voting in a real election. say maybe nothing but false. and then a long run but i just tried. to meet you down down with. you there are tens of thousands like misnomer hammad 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 minister of the counterpoint to 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 top here square the center of the revolution and in front of the parliament building youth movement leaders like ahmed dravot are protesting and what they see as an empty vote offering no democratic mandate and will be. show to make sure we will not go inside your office we have to stop you and you have to go and we do. two more rounds of voting still need to take place but a 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 although claims of a record sixty two percent turnout is already being questioned after a series of irregularities were ported the country's only female candidate for the presidency is not surprised. monitoring the election

just to point out their mistakes and their fraud we have no 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 egypt and if you give one point three billion dollars a year to the egyptian army which the americans do you would you expect it to do what it wants which nice little room for the people to get what they want sitting the state to hear turmoil policy r.t. . and apolo continues to monitor the situation in egypt you can follow updates on twitter and one of her latest tweets as you can see coming up right here she reports on the word circulating around serous square those who attacked female journalists were planted by the regime to make protesters look but you can follow those personal feeds for more updates and insights all just read the reach we are

to underscore. police in riot gear have arrested more than a dozen occupy protesters shutting down their camp in the u.s. city of portland this time police burned overnight stays at parks where tents have been set up but some activists refused to go demonstrators accuse officers of using tough tactics against a peaceful rally pushing people to the ground teenage protester claims the one officer hit him in the face with a riot stick police action came as part of a wave to dismantle occupy headquarters across the u.s. in the past few weeks but as artie's arena portnoy reports the movement's message is beginning to resonate even with those whose job it is to control. 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 indoors the other. retired philadelphia

police captain ray lewis became the game changer on november said. 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 has that fear that police officers also they cannot risk they have children they have one what would they do once you're fired 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. as with dictators around the world go and that is very scary brutal scare tactics such as pepper spray the tons 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 wall street even to understand what i can broker 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 u.s. law enforcement officials stop suppressing the right to assemble and begin

supporting it despite his arrest captain lewis is back at zuccotti park showing on the wavering 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 yesterday at the barricade a white officer named officer mari and he introduced himself and he started asking if you question i said 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 place involved realizing that we're all victims of corporate america and that corporate america has got to be stopped marina port nine r.t. new york and a recap of the headlines coming your way in just a few moments i will see you shortly.

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 here in northeast polled third in russia's first presidential election critics cry over racist remarks personal violence and populist slogans no good for putting them out britain says poisoned ali's underleaf unico on the party list and ensuring his parliamentary protection. the liberal democratic party of russia to the election two thousand to eleven fund r.t. .