brighton if you knew about song from some stupid. stunts on t.v. dot com. now ahead this is on to vote counting is already in russia's growing the tree election . is in the lead winning the majority of seats in the lower house but still losing a big share of its previous support for comment is also second in the race with the democrats also make it to parliament. as global players need to decide the future of afghanistan pakistan his role is key to stability in the region boycott's the

event it's the latest sign of islamabad so relations with washington taking a turn for the was following nato as we said deadly air raid on pakistani border. and egyptians are back at polling stations for the second stage of the country's parliamentary election round of the vote so one overwhelming when the islamists who now have to secure their advantage. syria bennet's talks to one of britain's foremost journalists jonathan steele of the guardian newspaper this take on possible solutions to the country's political crisis. i'm joined by jonathan steele former chief correspondent of the guardian newspaper and now a commentator on international affairs jonathan thanks for speaking to r.t. europe now the recently been approached by the king of jordan to spearhead a diplomatic offensive against assad william hague the foreign secretary is now met

with opposition leaders is this the preamble to another libyan start intervention. it could be i mean we can't be sure and i think it's dangerous it might be i mean they're trying to be hague's message to the opposition is to get your act together unite on a common platform in other words to turn yourself much more like the libyan opposition who the government also talked to and then eventually recognized as the official government of libya so i think it is the first stage to trying to recognize the opposition. there are hints more from france than from britain at the moment that there would be some kind of foreign intervention i mean the french foreign minister and i should pay has just called for humanitarian corridors to be opened into syria with or without the syrian government's permission and damascus when he's asked does that mean who would protect these corridors would that be military protection he said of course so in other words they are thinking of having a limited number of foreign military people moving into syria perhaps against the

will of the government of damascus what must the opposition now do to gain recognition has there militarization made it easier to achieve that well i think the unity thing which was going on about is what they want they want to sort of feel as united platform so they know who they're dealing with they don't want a lot of different competing groups but the question is what will the platform be is it going to be a very hardline platform that keeps repeating that assad must go or would it be a platform that says we need dialogue and and a transition which is peaceful and civil war and armed struggle like in libya so that's very important. the the other thing is is whether they will try the tactic of saying we have to protect civilians you know the benghazi syndrome if they could save the city of hama. needs protection. you know then they could have a no fly zone over that city and then they again with the thin end of the wedge

which would move out to becoming full scale support for. civil war the trouble is of course that hama and homs the two cities that have the most fighting are not on the sea because it was on the coast in libya that made it much easier to have a no fly zone lawmen to start bringing in ships bringing in weapons and supplies and all the rest of it more difficult in syria unless they nominate one of the coastal cities or the mediterranean and the safe zone but it's a bit unlikely at the moment because those cities will to be quiet in this uprising the arab league's already suspended syria and recently issued that three deals made and that's now passed these attempts were portrayed as last ditch a tense that conventional diplomacy but could they not do more to mediate isn't that their role. yes i mean the very keep saying that assad should have dialogue with the opposition but the opposition including the people that hague was meeting in london this week. are getting stuck they just simply say assad must go and

that's also the line of the british government of the french government and the u.s. government i mean they should be putting the same pressure on the opposition to enter a dialogue as they're putting on the government in damascus i mean it's ridiculous to say one side will start talking who's going to talk to if the other side refuses they seem to be siding with the sounds opponents they want why do you think that is well i think they've decided that. it's a lost cause in the sense that they don't like his links to hezbollah in lebanon they don't like the fact that he is sort of in the front line of. opposition to israel you know jordan and egypt have their treaties with with syria's the only country was a sort of long border with israel it is not sort of peace at the moment and so they don't like that. of course syria has quite good relations with iran. so they've

decided i think that it's almost like a proxy war against iran if you can topple assad it's like it's considered to be a sort of proxy of blow against the government in iran so does the fear of iran really outweigh any concern in syria descending into civil war well i'm not even sure it's fear you know are they really afraid of iran i think it's more that they want to undermine the regime in iran and i think i think it's hostility to iran i would say rather than fear of because what is there to be afraid of with iran you know the only thing is this question of nuclear weapons which is still a long way down the line before iran would have a deliverable nuclear weapon it's first got to create the warheads on the weapons if it's building them and then it's got to have the delivery system that could transport these things safely and you know drop them. position and father at the right target which is some way off so there's no reason to be really afraid of iran and anyway there are other ways of dealing with the so-called iranian threat the

military you know where they could be some plant plenty of diplomatic ways of minimizing whatever. worries you you have about iran surely the arab league and western countries have some sort of duty here to to prevent syria from slipping into a full blown civil war i mean it's not the first time middle eastern country with a complex religious and ethnic makeup has has descended into civil war have lessons not been learned well i agree with you i mean i think i think it's quite irresponsible and it's really amazing in a way that these arab neighbors of syria and the other members of the arab league are taking such a hard line but i think it's this cancer of the sunni shia thing which is as i said proxy war between the gulf arabs are mainly sunni against the iranian regime which is causing the cancer and i'm afraid it's been the united states have been pushing this line is the threat of danger we must be afraid of it and we saw a lot of it in iraq of course a sunni shia thing and that created

a near civil war in iraq it's terribly dangerous and one would have thought of course in lebanon also earlier one would have thought that people would say look the last thing we want is another sunni versus shia military civil war going on in one of the major arab countries they should be doing all they can to try and stop it. obviously that assad has made many many mistakes he should have not used for so much at the beginning he should have offered more serious dialogue at the beginning his office but quite flimsy and probably deceptive deliberately and you know he has been very hardline but the other side is now being equally hardline in the situation is becoming polarized the worst case scenario should syria completely collapse into civil war well the worst case scenario is massive. snick cleansing with their lower majority from whom the assad family comes from the ruling elite being forced to flee the christians who brought these ten percent of

the population possibly more in syria are very worried very probably most of them as one understands prefer the assad regime which has been very tolerant to christianity no problem with any kind of religious discrimination and they're more worried about the muslim brotherhood to other main force in the opposition the armed opposition to to than they are and they are certain christians could suffer greatly look what's happened to iraqi christians most of them have had to flee the kurds are in a sort of wobbly position they don't care which side is worse for them is assad worse than the possible sunni arab muslim brotherhood coming in. so i think a lot of the minorities are really worried and i think that's partly why there are these big demonstrations in support of our side in damascus and aleppo they're not all people have been sort of forced out into the streets in some way or other some of them a genuine i think i do obviously we can't do this sort of exact analysis of how many and genuine and how many have come out because they might be government

workers who think that they can lose their jobs if they don't come out but. you can't get so many people out on the street without some of them being genuine on the other hand the prison as sad as certainly committed some terrible atrocities against his own people is that initial crackdown not to blame for the current situation well i think that's why you need mediation i mean assad has made terrible mistakes and a lot of people have been killed by the security forces and obviously the families and friends of those people you know if you explain your anger and they just want to disappear. so you can see why it's difficult but that's why you need mediation just to invite people say come to my office and we'll sit down and we'll talk about things it may be too late for that because there's so much suspicion so that's why the arab league ideally should. the mediators coming in and meeting each side separately pabst initially said what are you willing to give concessions. find a compromise learn some point everybody comes into the room together but may need

outside mediation ideally by the arab league if not by the united nations but i think one of the things that should be on the table is immunity for a certain he's not going to give up power peacefully when he sees what's happened to mubarak put in prison or house arrest in his case hospital arrest because he still trial or the gadhafi precedent which is to be lynched in the street on you tube. you know that's not so you need immunity and actually we've got a very good model in yemen they've agreed to signed a deal which the arabs broke in the saudi arabians brokered whereby president saleh has now given up power in return for immunity for his family and himself under transition to a new elections within the next few months both parliament and for president is very good model now why can't the saudis who did that with yemen do the same thing for syria what have countries like the france america got to gain with syria here

there's no oil wealth is it purely location or is the iran question is the ante rainy and thing and the feeling that the. unreliable on the israeli question. that he's sort of they've had intermittent talks with assad but. they've never reached a peace agreement is not just because of the israeli line is also very are hardened so both sides of where they found it impossible to agree does the international community genuinely not see then the dangers of civil war in syria or is that merely outweighed by the need for influence an intervention in syria well i think very problematic cynical. look at libya we don't know exactly how many people were killed in libya. people say thirty thousand people died six months or so that it took to topple gadhafi and well they're sort of saying well. that's worth it if you

can bring in a different regime which will be obviously more progress than at least initially if it's had western support to topple the regime jonathan steele thank you. i know. it's all designed to keep you close in your own small world as a prison. you know you leave somebody in there for a couple hours like that in a stress positions. you have this fear of the unknown in this stress sort of building and. i've seen interrogations go on ten twelve hours they chose

songs i remember from marilyn manson and metallica slayer the two songs would be angel of death and raining blood to kill the enemy going through war coming up here into iraq i mean look into baghdad. johnny pull the bodies to the floor with just the rock n roll bad it was fitting for the job we were doing. sure is that so much of it was about the feeling that i think i'm going to give it real and be right with full continuity united russia is long gone when it's over the countries of coral politics is set to undergo significant transformation once. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the

world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. say counting is you always do even russia's parliament reelection the united russia party is in the least winning the majority of seats in the lower house but still losing a big share of its previous popular support as the coleman is a second in the race with better ross under the democrats also make me just. as stable as me to decide the future of afghanistan focused on his role as keys as tbilisi the region boycotts the event it's the latest sign of islamabad's relations reports to take a turn for the us following nato recent deadly advaita pompous on the border post.

and egyptians a bank of polling stations for the second stage of the contest parliamentary election the opening round of the votes will enable welling win by the islamic soon to secure their advantage. next little bit as kate. thank you for joining me and here are the big stories in sports this monday night. a league of their own value their golden boys knew no messing and christiane i read all the way out all nominated for the european footballer of the year award. while fans pay tribute to former brazil captain and football legend socrates died on sunday age fifty seven. and sweet victory former world number one tiger woods wins the chevron world challenge with a birdie at the last hole and a two year title drought. turns to football where the league

a trio of lionel messi and cristiano ronaldo have been nominated for the golden ball award for the european player of the year messi is tatted as the slight favorite to make you the trouble of ballon d'or trophies the argentinian passport fifty three goals in all competitions for barcelona since picking up the award last year his tally includes three hat tricks in fifteen games since the start of the current spanish season one team is why do you regard it as one of the best midfielders in the game and finished runner up last time while relatives linchpin right now though like messi has netted fifty three goals the portuguese won the award three years ago while playing for manchester united is then poached or alex ferguson has won twelve jurors are. also heard. all vying for the coaches and. that in the meantime former runner up david back in has once again refused to pledge his future to any particular club the former manchester united and wale

madrid star is currently on a pre-season tour with his l.a. galaxy side in australia and says he'll make the big decision after christmas england's most capped outfield player will be out of contract by december the thirty first and has been repeatedly linked with mega rich french side paris sundra so the good news meanwhile for becks fans is the veteran midfielder has no immediate plans of hanging up his boots. no i don't feel thirty six years old when i'm out there still love train in still love fly and so on continue until i feel differently. now the world of soccer is paying its respects to former brazil captain and midfield legend socrates who died in hospital on sunday age fifty seven following a short illness the former corinthians player had been in a critical condition with an intestinal infection since friday though he'd also been in hospital in august and september with internal bleeding widely regarded as one of the greatest ever midfielders socrates only turned professional when he was

twenty five but went on to play in two world cups winning sixty caps for his country between nine hundred seventy nine and one nine hundred eighty six and scoring twenty two goals in a glittering career while at career was given a fitting tribute by fans of his former club corinthians won the brazilian championship for a first time on sunday regardless of the primary us a minute's silence turned into a vocal appreciation for the great man before kick off the game that followed was a bad tempered affair with a player sent off to from each side but it didn't stop corinthians getting the point they really did change their first national title since two thousand and five of us meanwhile back a genius upon argentina's opportunity i thought that we know when time to banfield it then that silverware three years the planet school twice in the first half.

and then i wonder strike from diego that after the break made sure a victory. lap of allah followed the storm of the bucket biased to the doorframe. meanwhile in england liverpool travel to follow this monday night in the premier league where a win would put kenny dalglish's side level on points with this place asshole and newcastle want follow need a victory as they're currently sixteenth just two points above the drop zone. where another premier league match was a dream come true for tennis legend. going through civics the problem with modern china is a long time supporter of westfall but watch them from the stands for the first time is that the sound is a one one draw at the field on saturday that's even better than that high profile must have been on top and i rubbed shoulders with. that same after the game you can just tell you that's a golf and former world number one tiger woods has won his first title for over two

years after clinching the chevron world challenge in california by a single shot at the final hole from fellow americans that johnson was haven't won since the australian masters in november two thousand and nine which is followed by high profile revelations about his personal life and led to divorce from his wife as well as injuries but he's finally back to winning ways with two alls to go he was trading johnson butt and managed back to back birdies when it mattered the crucial one on the last hole was quite set for the winning pots which england time to sink the relief was obvious finishing on ten and johnson by a single shot the victory also moves words from fifty second to twenty first in the world rankings. i know it's been a while but also for some reason it feels like it has it because when i was coming down the stretch there if i felt so comfortable. i felt comfortable and i was i

took off for what augusta when i put myself there in these positions. it is discomfort as far as making a part and the feeling afterwards. it was you know what i think i was screaming something but it was just i want to go after him and. pull that off with one dollar to go on. to go birdie birdie is going to get. walks of life has called off his next title defense after the heavyweight champion was admitted to hospital on sunday for the second time in two days the thirty five year old ukrainian was due to square off against frenchman more make on december the tense but the younger brother had a kidney stone removed on saturday before being rushed back to a desolate or hospital in germany due to painful inflammation but the man is the reigning w.b. a super champion also called in the w b o and i.b.s. heavyweight belts. tennis now rafael nadal fought back from

a set down to be twenty martin del potro in a struggling force that match to seal spain's fierce davis cup title in eleven years all former u.s. open champion del potro was the fastest out of the blocks argentinian racing through the first set six one as he tries to level his country on twenty country was asked davis cup tie but there's all then found his rhythm winning the second set six. times the match is something for him too much to handle in the surge of the spaniard found another gear one that six one. that also went to a tie break down trees to the point experienced since the davis cup racing in the dark has played his part in that winning twenty singles matches in right. now let's take a look at some spectacular snowboarding pictures as x. games champion travis royce thrilled thousands of fans in moscow where he was promoting a film that's captured breathtaking images of the sport for one cause we have

reports of. why you all mean native travis rice has won two christie just eggs games gold medals in his career and other trials inventing new snowboarding moves in the process but his true passion lies in filmmaking with his latest movie called the art of flight making its final tour stop in moscow we were lucky enough to use some of the most dynamic in creating a film equipment in the world. along with. sound design from. steven spielberg's facility in california that is beautiful so you know this movie was meant to be seen on the big screen. created for blu ray about primarily shot it for the big screen that's why we're here. arsal flight concept was born three years ago following rice's directorial debut on an other cutting edge snowboarding film called that's it that's all the results of his work in bora ship with brain form digital cinema and director curt morgan are widely regarded as

a new breed of action sports film for most people it's a unique opportunity to experience in high definition a one of a kind of venture that sakes that you are through avalanches accidents and unexplored mountains in remote corners of the world trying to strike is obviously not alone in challenging mother nature and popularizing snowboarding as a lifestyle helping him defy the odds and raise the bar on the quality of the video footage describing this brit taking pastime our crew of at least ten people including the star of countless snowboarding videos swiss enthusiastic nicolas miller. this fail message in. brother and then anything else before and everybody talks about it and it's beautiful i've been to huge premieres like here in moscow but also in the small. shop screenings and everybody

is just. stunned and just blown away by the pictures now that snowboarding was basically nonexistent during the soviet period but it has now won over the hearts of millions of russia's youth at least two thousand people have turned up for the premiere of the art of flight in moscow's pushkin cinema and most seem to already be familiar with the concept as well as the stars of the film in the book on the back country snow. boring is old bell do writers so we know about competition this is exactly what these guys have done with this film they sort of united themselves with nature and i don't think there will ever be better writing then what's been demonstrated in this movie there was only one showing of the art of flight in moscow however it confirmed that the demand for adrenalin backed and masterfully edited footage is as high as ever in russia and the audience is already eager to experience what else try this rice or perhaps some other filmmaker will

have to offer as their next no boarding work aboard. her mom called r.t. moscow. and finally all was resident white as scores of scientists hit the slopes at a ski resort in america ahead of the fast approaching christmas holidays in fact some two hundred fifty scans whole plot a scientists thought to an annual charity event dubbed some tests done by a proper outfit plus a modest ten dollar donation is all it took to become part of the downhill extravaganza in maine. who gets to bring your skis also bored waiting. on a sunny day on the flight national tampering with the christmas chair long into the holiday season. and that's always bought bison.