this is our team and vote counting is almost over in russia's parliamentary election the united russia party is in the lead winning the majority of seats in the lower house but still losing a big share of its previous popular support. moscow downgrades diplomatic ties with qatar after the russian ambassador to the country is assaulted by airport security claims the incident could be linked to moscow's position on syria. and its global players make to decide the future of afghanistan pakistan to throw the key is to put it in the region boycott the event of a nato these recent deadly air raid on one of its border posts.

ten pm monday night here in moscow kevin a very good to have you company in our top story the russians about this saying who they want to see in parliament. with almost all ballots counted after sunday's parliamentary election for parties have made it into the country's lower house the state duma the ruling united russia party remains by far the largest group but it's been dealt a significant setback with a sharp fall in support. of his in central moscow. united russia taking the majority of the vote the communists coming in second in third place i fear russia

with the liberal democrats pulled now the rest of the parties that i haven't named there they failed to get the required percent of the vote in order to take a place in the duma united russia currently around forty nine percent of the vote they don't have and passed the all important fifty percent mark that's a psychological barrier to say that half of the country is on side with them now even though they haven't passed the us mark due to the seats from the parties that failed to meet the threshold they were distributed between those four parties united russia actually have over fifty percent of the seats for we're hearing from united russia party leadership is that they are willing to form coalitions during this duma will all parties are making accusations of vote rigging and electoral fraud in this poll these range from people voting more than once to the use of invisible ink on some ballot papers we've seen protests and rallies on election day

around the country though they were in cities like moscow and st petersburg we saw the biggest of these these rallies were. able to particular political party or another others not just against political parties but also against the election as a whole know during these rallies in st petersburg and moscow what we we saw well several several hundreds of arrests now the international observers who are looking at the election. some have suggested that they were violations when it comes to the fairness of the election other international observers have said that those accusations on particularly well founded the o.e.c.d. has a long record of highly politicized election observations and of making politically inflammatory statements it would be very interesting to ask leo and see when they threw out the draft report on. did it as it usually goes drop

a drop or two before the election even took place because that is the usual practice in other words these this statement that we have now on monday morning may not therefore be based on actual observations by its observers president dmitri medvedev has said that any allegations in all our locations of electoral fraud will be investigated by russian law enforcement and anybody found guilty of infringements will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. peter all of our correspondent and number of rallies have taken place all across moscow monday in reaction to russia's parliamentary election and supporters of the ruling united russia party have been praising the way the poll where but rival political groups have been protesting against it and about five thousand activists from smaller opposition parties gathered to protest what they see is an unfair election several dozen people were detained as the amount of people gathered was above approved limits and protesters were blamed for blocking traffic in the busy city center will

be getting plenty of international perspective on the election here in r.t. with united russia having lost the support of ten to twelve million people now some european analysts believe that despite that the party will still be able to ensure stability something that russia's foreign partners are looking for in their relations with the country. both of those things have been positively was sure the search for the bug that has been pressed over the you are still issues that think are going in the direction of people who believe that there are bridges that everything will stay in russia that is the ability you will be there and with their local team your for the next five and that position legend see if he has to deal with russia which we know off hand in support of the force of the two who are all the kind of energy dialogue and you know as with russia or of the european union without getting more than that on the experts importance of gas from outside but service of the recent developments of the interesting her shirt and china or for the e.u.

or us or and some help some assistance and overcoming the crisis of the reach of the european union this now so we have to take a fresh look at the national economy of the possibility of the essence of the show which russia can offer the european union to solve its all crisis and this will be interesting is the human who is the subject of the best of political operation in the couple of months the car. well can you keep your finger on the pulse of developments this kind of continues in the russian parliamentary election you can also keep track of the latest facts figures and what's the analysis on our website to that said r.t. dot com. you . get more news then tonight russia's foreign ministry is downgraded relations with cata after an incident in which the russian ambassador to the country was assaulted

by border security guards the envoys now to leave the country so sean thomas has got the story. down graded relations with qatar this comes after an incident in the doha airport on the twenty ninth of november when the ambassador with two of his colleagues were trying to pass through security with a parcel of diplomatic mail now that parcel is expected to go through without any problems but they tried to x. ray which is against diplomatic normalcy the security forces tried to take this package away from the diplomats which caused harm to the diplomats the ambassador and two of the people traveling with him now the ambassador is in hospital and is expected to make it back to here and soon as he has recovered from the attack. is not happy with what they believe are actions in instigating and antagonizing efforts in the arab spring in fact if you go back. it is along the

position of sergey lavrov the foreign minister here in russia saying is responsible in helping to arm the rebels in libya which is antagonize that situation further currently in syria long been the position of russia that if there are going to be diplomatic sanctions they have to be across the board to both the government and the rebels so there's been a long tension between russia and qatar the latest development is just furthering those tensions. from the independent. reports. tension. because of its. there is no way that something something like that could not have taken place without the people involved having known exactly what they were doing and it really is an egregious affront to all diplomatic relations so one has to imagine that this is a major diplomatic incident and not one that will be smoothed over very easily one

sees in the recent recent events especially over the last several months as cutter has become the head the rotational head of the arab league one has seen them taking on a much more prominent role in the region they were instrumental apparently in getting syria. kicked out of the arab league just as they were instrumental in getting libya kicked out soon shortly before the arab league decided that humanitarian intervention was on order for libya so it is it seems like. qatar has been coming into its own recently and taking on more of an aggressive stance in general and i think we can see this is an extension of the general policy. coming up here on r t this hour british m.p.'s teaming up to make extradition policy with the u.s. and level the playing field. we need to make sure that we are being equal and we all be fair to all citizens and that is not the case of the both outrage for the controversial treaty that allows washington to demanding u.k. hand over any citizen builds up among the british public and politicians of the

more. goals to watch their business president about ten minutes time find out how russia's parliament where election results may affect the country's economy. they're the two most powerful leaders but the share a single nickname murder cozy for the recurring attempts to try and hammer out a eurozone rescue plan between just the pair of the french and german leaders are pushing for a new e.u. treaty at a meeting in paris it could lead to the creation of a fiscal union for euro zone states or even the entire european union the plans already been described as an intervention in country's national budget which would be strictly controlled by brussels let's talk about this with god because he's a member of the european parliament representing yorkshire in northern england and mr bloom good evening to you so they are cozy pushing for this new treaty to punish states which break the rules thirty you assess that measure them well it's so much political posturing as it always is the first people to break the rules i think was in two thousand and three with the french and the germans by breaking the

maastricht treaty sixty percent of g.d.p. rule so they've been breaking the rules everybody's be breaking the rules they continue to break the rules and of course now we have quite against treaty obligations we have the e.c.b. buying sovereign debt in the free market so the whole thing is a complete shambles and they're trying to strap sell it's a pall over it but it's not working the thing is we are now what we're seeing the end game it's over if the euro had been a horse they would have shot it was ok well so. if anything can come from the ashes a little bit this fiscal union being created for all twenty seven members of the i know you don't believe it but do you think countries outside the eurozone like britain would ever agree to it. well i don't think the countries themselves would agree to it there's no democratic remit don't forget for this action this is action between e.c. be an elected bureaucrats to try and save what is a political project

a political currency which has never had the support of the people. and germany that the whole euro project has been the german horse with the french jockey as we see today nobody else has been mentioned the other twenty five countries have been mentioned this is all about germany and france because suddenly people in germany are wising up to the fact that they're the ones permanently putting their hand in the pocket and democratic i don't think it's sustainable. but let's talk about italy we saw the tears of the italian no welfare minister she talked about what her country's having to do more austerity their own veil but of course the interest rate remains at a level that rome many people say simply can't afford to pay what's the future for italy then. well their national debt is a seven percent coupon which is just unsustainable with their economy it's the same with the other economies not not incidentally that the united kingdom is any better

the unit in the united kingdom is a terrible situation as well but they're not want to do the straitjacket of the euro the only way out of this is growth and of course the thing that restricts growth in economy is regulation and taxation and that's exactly of course what the european union want more off they just don't get it the cotton socks they don't get it i give the thing months rather than years now where it seems the u.k. is chancellor george osborne agrees with you partially at least he's been preparing britain for the collapse of the euro i mean how likely and you're saying it's a couple of months away do you really think that he's likely. you're a man convicted he got strong convictions about this year award and a professional economist i've been thirty five years of professional economists this isn't about politics this is be about economics and i've never known in the history of the world politics beat economics water doesn't flow uphill that's a long and short of it forget my politics it doesn't really matter the long and short of it is this project is doomed to failure it was always doomed to failure

and moreover i would have the people responsible i've said this on your program before i would have them arraigned i would have a fiscal crimes tribunal i would like to see some of these people sent to prison. ok thanks for your thoughts scot free blueberry pay for your. tape tonight. future of afghanistan steak at a conference in germany with delegates from key countries attending except one crucial one pakistan is boycotting it in the latest sign of a deepening crisis in its relations with the us it follows the recent deadly nato air raid on a pakistani border post which killed twenty four of its soldiers what he called his can offer ports. some of the key political figures like u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton and russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov are taking part this is the second such conference being held in germany the first one happened exactly ten years ago back then the delegates were working on the rebuilding of ghana stand we storing peace in the country building democratic

institutions and so on and unfortunately ten years later some of these issues still remain and probably one of the most troubling ones is still security especially in light of the alliance's plans to start pulling its forces out in twenty fourteen it's widely believed that afghanistan on its own can provide security and ganesan in general is still very complicated there is the taliban threat the drug trafficking very poor living conditions for the locals who are also increasingly tired and often even angered by foreign military presence pakistan is a very important country in the region is the key partner of washington or at least it used to be it's also right there next to afghanistan and it's not taking part in this conference after an attack by the allied forces on its military post on the pakistani afghani border it's suspended the transit of supplies for the airlines through its territory this ports washington in

a really difficult position since it will have to look for other partners in the region. you know pushed it off their will to discuss the worsening relations between the u.s. and pakistan jeffrey steinberg see you had it through the news magazine executive intelligence review is on the line from our washington studio pretty good evening from the moscow as we were reporting pakistan's boycotting this key conference in afghanistan does that imply that they've completely closed the door to any further discussions with washington is that it. no it's not a complete closing of the door and in fact over the last several days secretary clinton defense secretary panetta everybody who has got a friend in the pakistani hierarchy has been working the phones trying to walk back from something that the pakistanis can't ignore it was a multi hour assault on border positions that were well defined were on all of the

nato and u.s. and afghan government maps and so it's a significant incident but i think it's also indicative of a growing state of asymmetric irregular warfare that's been going on between the united states and pakistan coming in the context of plans as you indicated for a major drawdown of u.s. and nato forces in afghanistan. some time by two thousand and fourteen which means that the transition is already on in the pakistanis have already been through one period where they were left holding the bag after the soviet red army pulled out of afghanistan in the u.s. basically turned their back on track a stand in afghanistan for a decade looking at this site should the parkas times. how far do you think pakistan is willing to push it given the from the receipts from the u.s. . well they have other sources of funding frankly pakistan views

china as the constant friend and ally and america as the fair weather friend they have very good relations with saudi arabia and other countries of the persian gulf so the ability of the united states especially in a period of massive cutbacks in military and foreign aid. the idea that the united states is a crucial factor in keeping the finance flows to pakistan is less true now than it was even a year or two ago so i think that pakistan is considering how to deal with afghanistan following the withdrawal of u.s. and nato they have a constant view of india as a regional rival they don't want india to once again emerge as it did earlier as a kind of dominant factor in afghanistan so it's a very complicated situation so just the united states frankly has made a mess of things for a long time there so just flipping out a question i lost last year rather than who's the bigger loser here in the u.s.

you say. to a very large extent and i think that you've got to really go back and look at a longer period of time where the united states used and abused pakistan during the long period of the afghan war we basically facilitated the emergence of opium production heroin production all kinds of criminalization we supported the rise of islamic fundamentalism i remember in the one nine hundred eighty s. and early ninety's the mujahedeen were called freedom fighters now they're called islamic extremists so we really kind of adopted policies that have contributed mightily to the weakening and destruction of pakistan and now we turn around and act as if we're the victims in the offended parties when it blows

up in our face yeah i think the u.s. can be a big loser in the situation but i also think that this is a region that deserves stability growing economic prosperity and after thirty years of war it's hard to conceive how we're going to get there maybe the bonn conference will be the beginning of some attempt at having a regional solution where russia china india pakistan even iran can play a role in some kind of post u.s. post nato presence where there is a chance of stability and development rather than civil war which is now what's on the horizon jeffrey steinberg senior editor of these magazine executive intelligence review thanks to you on the line from washington. place. pretty sure pays a staging a debate see who can really go see a show of what they see is a biased extradition treaty with the united states agreed in the chaotic aftermath

of nine eleven it allows washington to demand the extradition of any u.k. citizen without evidence of any crime and britain is bound to comply but as i have a bennett reports next from london patience is running low. all take and no give that's the growing feeling in britain's parliament against america's controversial extradition treaty it was signed in two thousand and three in the post nine eleven panic and makes it far easier for the us to take people from the u.k. than the other way around now forty five m.p.'s from the three main parties have crossed the political divide and joined forces they finally forced a debate and parliamentary vote on what they called an injustice was it a mistake in the first place to start history i think it was a mistake it's not a level playing field even with a partner like america we need to make sure that we of being equal and we are being fair to our citizens and that is not the case at the moment britain must present

evidence for any extradition but america doesn't need to a long awaited independent inquiry recently ruled this relationship was balanced but the numbers suggest otherwise one hundred twenty three people have been surrendered to america under the treaty since two thousand and four only fifty four have gone the other way america's ambassador to the u.k. has branded these figures myths and in accuracies but they were figures he's embassy refused to reveal he's even accused m.p.'s of willfully distorting the facts in the run up to this crunch vote in parliament that could shift the balance but m.p.'s aren't backing down joining a battle some have fought since the treaty was signed i think you know seeing how many injustices have been caused because of it it was meant to be for terrorise fences it wasn't meant to be for the ken things they use and no janice's is gary mckinnon a mainstay on america's extradition wish list he was arrested ten years ago after

hacking into pentagon files he says he was merely searching for u.f.o.'s gary has asperger's syndrome and according to his mum. should be tried in the u.k. on medical grounds but america's not giving up on one of their most wanted is so then cheerful is there you think uses some of the arjun is so over the top they left him one is entering it three and a half years after the arrest if gandhi was this latest threat that wouldn't have been done but it's very much i think he embarrassed them and because of that they were very angry at him there are nine cases currently fighting extradition to america richard o'dwyer is the latest he's wanted on copyright charges for creating a search engine for pirated content it's not even considered a crime in the u.k. but at the moment that doesn't matter the us can still get their man the coalition

government promised to change this while in opposition now's the chance to deliver our cabinet r.t. london. to take you through some of the top world news stories in brief barricades have been set up by pro-democracy protesters in syria blocking a roadway leading to turkey say the piles of gravel and burning debris used to show their opposition to the deployment of state security forces in the region it comes as the massacres agreed to an arab league request to allow observers into the country as part of a peace plan that's been a key demand which the league has repeatedly pushed for. wiki leaks founder julian assange has won the right to have his case against extradition to sweden heard by the u.k. supreme court he lost a high court battle last month to hold his removal for questioning over alleged sex offenses and says his case is politically motivated and is linked with the release of thousands of classified u.s. diplomatic cables the whistleblower now is got a fortnight in which to formally lodge an appeal meaning you stay in britain this

stretch into twenty twelve. in japan and it must be one of the most expensive car crashes in history take a look at these pictures of fourteen crumpled super cars including ferrari's missing. these in a lamborghini strewn across a busy highway it amounts to millions of dollars of damage and happened to a group of enthusiasm went for a ride to have a shima witnesses say the cars were reaching speeds close to under miles an hour in the crash ten drivers were hospitalized although the injuries believed to be serious that went badly wrong. a stop to a two year title drought a big day in the world of golf gets a sweeping victory find it we're talking about that in about twenty minutes not in our sports bullet in next so we have got the business for you. thanks kevin and a very warm welcome to the program and as we've been reporting sunday's election has shifted the balance of power in the russian parliament united russia will still

be the biggest party but with a much reduced majority here one very much from very much as this management says this could have a positive impact on russia's investment climate if you have a doomer that is where you have a constitutional majority not only change the laws you can also change the constitution then you have to rely on one person's will and i think no not having the constitutional majority is good gives the first checks and balances good news on the other hand we avoid the situation of the ninety seven ninety s. president yeltsin lost his elections in december ninety three and he could no longer control parliament now united russia still is a majority to pass the laws that are needed but i think this is a last chance i think they must understand within five years if they do not satisfy the intelligentsia the people they need to modernize the country that will be a challenge therefore i'm hopeful that putin to do point all will be aggressive and as reformist as the putin of this first term. let's have a check on the markets oil is trading high all speculation that tensions in the

middle east will curb supplies iran says well could reach two hundred fifty dollars a barrel if it sees more pressure on his nuclear program. the u.s. troops are on the rise with find out she's one of the top performers on the europe moves to fight the crisis and european markets were high as the italian government approved a new package of budgetary measures and the french and german leaders are set to meet later this week for the debt crisis talks. the russian markets finished monday's trading session and the flight both m i six on the r.t. has gained about point eight percent at the close of play let's now have a check on some of the individual share moves and why it's its most oil majors and we're on the rise supported by stronger crude oil gained one point three percent finished time more than one percent the company has finalized a position of belorussian gas pipeline to bell trans gas. rose two percent

from verna capital looks at some of the other highlights of the day sprite. i think the one that was most unexpected for us was that no it was down about three and a half percent another tech is really you know a play on the oil price and the fact that all prices up would seem to notice it was down substantially it was surprising for us. i think another thing that's interesting just to keep in mind is in the banking system in russia you know the banking system is actually quite well insulated from the european grocers and today you see good performance from the two big banks spring can be tb and i think that's driven by the fact that people realize oh you know russia and europe are kind of separate and not really there's no contagion into russia from europe. confinement and economic news the services sector in russia is growing up the boss of space for five months h.s.b.c. is a purchase the messages index came in at fifty four point eight in the expansion as

may have been driven by new or just. that's it for more your day join me in less than fifteen minutes for another business of day it'll get more stories from a website our to talk com slash business. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying.