anythings the title race is between the top two the idea that is difficult for the other because maybe if it was you that unite. all the games i did it is very different you know sixteen games every if you can add also that game and therefore there is the talk about the moment city united. well rivals united could go joint top if they beat stakes at old trafford on signal stumbles or any of the third defeats of the season so placed top notch host rock bottom wigan fourth place chelsea will have to deal with that image of captain john terry as they go to swanzy the last time he wants a home and liverpool could catapult ourselves into the top five should they win it will only wolves with the chance of european football in that top quality. ever we said we've got sixteen league games left. cup final at wembley.

for flying the cup to go home to be brain there's a lot for us to play for the season and. the qualification for the champions league sport is what you saw bestie to do there's more should we possibly can and make is as good a season for everybody as we can. well meanwhile in europe shankar that's gone people alexander who has been found for two years by you a fan after failing a drugs test the twenty four year old tested positive for a credited directly last year following lead much ukranian had been in contention to play for his country at the european championships in june his club described the punishment as extremely harsh and ridiculed they claimed he'd taken the directive to lose weight but hadn't told the club's doctor last year manchester city defender color toure it was handed a six month ban after he admitted taking his wife's water pills. now moving on to tennis novak djokovic has described his australian open victory over rafael nadal as the best win of his career the world number one at last at his rival over five

sets in an epic match lost in just under six hours to become the longest grand slam final in history while the servant came from a set down to clinch the next two and looked in control in the fourth set. a three comeback by the dog so the spaniard in a tight decider and lead for two. however djokovic. ventricular to his first match seven five is still the mouse and match in five hours and fifty three minutes the final score five seven six four six two six seven seven five the titanic task is not only the longest grand slam final also the longest ever match these five open for this is only the first man to win three major titles wrote a twenty four year old also be indicted for six of them matches last year who is in finals but djokovic great this win his best yet won the goal says the moment the serve is untouchable. ylem is right next to this one because it's just.

the tournament that i always dream the winning. but this woman i think. comes out on the top because it's just. the fact that we played on the six hours is incredible incredible i mean it was probably the longest finals. just to hear that fact is. making me cry really. now he's the best of the world. that's how great it is. five grand slams so the history is. there his studies say that. he has a pat on the history today winning winning a lot of one of the world was the way we're here right well dr rich maintained his well top ranking ahead of the doll and roger federer is queen of the court with a fresh encounter spreadin a champion as are into taking the number one spot the twenty two year old becomes

the first belorussian to do so and also the first player to skip the number two ranking even finalist maria sharapova one place to number three. and no move and second caroline wozniacki has plummeted to fourth place the sixty seven long consecutive weeks at the summit. now it will rank as one of the most shocking meltdowns ingolf after american calls stanley was in line to win the farmers insurance open is on their go but threw away a stray shot late at the fall of the hall before going on to lose to brandt snedeker in a play off nerves got the better of stanley and one point seven shots clear off the bat is on the first two holes on the last day and even though compact it's now deka finished his round strongly he was still three shots off the pace despite a birdie here on the last. stanley came to the eighteenth looking set to take his first win on the p.g.a. tour but his approach to the green turned into a nightmare as the ball rolled and rolled and rolled before dropping agonizingly

into the water he that three putted. and that meant you fell into a playoff. where on the second extra hole stanley just missed his putt the hands of the title and the million dollars in prize money. you know really aren't walking out there refocus to really get back in the sunu tournament doesn't matter if it was you know if you're going to back away in a playoff i need to make sure i was ready to play and i did get some great shots made some good parts and just very very fortunate to be where i am for sure. and finally to women's basketball where powerhouse a loss for the first time in the russian championship on saturday and enough for that last group match in the year and on wednesday that winning traditions were established just five years ago by an unintentional character whose life in itself is worthy of a novel cousin to top off reveals all. one here. james

morons in the age of bacon when i get in common they were all spies. born in lutherie any nine hundred forty seven common knowledge immigrated to israel before being unmasked as a spy in one thousand nine hundred seven and sent to jail but one of years later the multinational citizen and speaker of nine languages was released and arrived in moscow where he became a concert promoter organizing shows for michael jackson in lies a military. guard corps and it is surroundings may have been called contrib during his time as a spy. but this was where his real passion lay the former k.g.b. man sponsor different clubs including literary and you really championed shall geary's however he truly established his hardwood employer with moscow region side

sparta before leading the russian women's team to europe in silver so a lifeless ordinary which ended tragically in two thousand and nine the best possible lover and interbrand was murdered as a hail of bullets hit his car in central moscow he died at the scene his killers were never found but the legacy of common knowledge lives own. for us he was like a friend a father mentor there was always a family atmosphere even though we were a professional team we always felt close to the players but the people are. sparta who can establish themselves as a best amaldina still winning all available so when russia and europe over the past five years sitting in a record would force which you really titles and they were getting the twenty ten triumph to comment on as his wife and former clare on that he board carries on his legacy she's now president of the club which plays under the name sports and it

changed its name for copyright reasons but kept the last letter king in memory of their four mona one of the most influential figures in women's basketball he really kind of set the standard for the rest of the world in the way he treated the girls the way he interacted had he not come along and fell in love with women's basketball we would be standing here with an excellent infrastructure and solid rules to sport and are a perennial top flight side and the motivation is to get back on the very top after finally losing last year in their fifth straight year only showpiece yet the club is not only about its senior team it also has a youth academy where hundreds of kids are keen to be. the next generation of stores is now in there he's now building younger players to to get to this point to play professional basketball to hopefully play for your national team one day says a lot about what he's building here exploring kids are currently top of you've seen

the euro and leading their domestic championship they're winning two editions were stablished in the past while the family traditions that make common knowledge form a club special just as important concern about are both forty. cultures that so much different and there's a huge percentage share and find the market crude blockade and the turning off the taps as the united states maybe we can sanction iran iran is also threatening to impose.

substitute. a time like a. village in ruins. thailand where time.

becomes a sea of nothing. the mysterious sounds of russia. as fierce fighting surrounds damascus russia proposes to host peace talks between the syrian government and the opposition. iran could stop supplying oil to some states in response to sanctions against its nuclear program which is currently undergoing a un inspection. broken piece of glass is not broken heads that the police are inflicting on the occupy movement. the heavy handed police response to protests in california is echoed across the british offices are also accused of excessive use of. brussels for the summit this year against the symbolic backdrop of the protests and

a general strike in belgium our top story. international news and comment live from moscow this is. syria is staring at the real possibility of deadly violence taking hold of the very center of the nation's capital rebel fighters have been locked in intensive battles with government forces in the suburbs surrounding damascus and an invitation from russia to host moscow based peace talks between syria's authorities and the opposition has been accepted by the assad government. has the latest now from damascus. but we've seen the situation escalating dramatically over the past couple of days now over the weekend the suburbs were embroiled in a heavy clashes between the two sides in fact in damascus people were waking up

yesterday to the sounds of gunfire and shelling in those areas very very alarming indeed some of the reports that were coming from those areas and certainly the response from the government to the free syrian army taking control of some of those suburbs has been a strong well we've had reports of tanks going into those areas and the death toll on both sides extremely high as well and of course this comes on the back of the arab league monitoring mission saying that they had whole says the mission for the time being is that the remaining observers that are here in the country they hadn't really seems to recover from that decision last week of the gulf states to withdraw their monitors well it's hard to say really exactly what the future of the mission now is there's a little bit of a sense though that it's dead in the water now what we saw at the end of the month of course as they presented their reports i was interesting is the details of that has made note of abuses on both sides that was what had been mentioned and on the

back of that it was discussed possibly increasing the numbers on the ground and making the mission stronger as well is that is the housing what we saw was the decision for the goal say to withdraw them all it is now today russia's foreign ministry has said that it has put forward the offer of using moscow as a place to hold a reconciliation talks between the two sides pursuing some sort of resolution to the situation through dialogue again because what we've seen with the arab league decision to go to the u.s. the says are that there's a real close now international and parents the international involvement. in possibly we could see the conflict get even more violent even more militarized and that's not what anyone wants to see as he said the last few days have been at an escalating situation. well for more on the situation in syria i'm joined by john r. bradley he's a specialist on arab countries and author of the book after the arab spring well

some opposition members of said that they reject any idea of talks with president assad why is that. because they're under huge pressure from outside powers who want these talks to fail even before they begin most obviously nato nato is determined to bring regime to its knees as a prelude to invading iran and also to further marginalizing russia you have the western media which loves wars boost ratings which in turn. to sabotaging revenue and loss but by no means least you have saudi arabia qatar saudi arabia is financially and politically backing the the still very young opposition and has been widely reported to be funding and arming the jihadi rebels who are leading this insurrection now obviously apart from doing nato's dirty work saudi arabia.

hate the syrian regime for the simple reason it's secular this is the only secular country that's left in the middle east now we've seen the overthrow of secular regimes throughout the region during the past year and in their place islamised are often very closely aligned with saudi arabia and qatar if not funded by them have taken their place and so this is the saudi cutlery wahhabi revolution and it's called the nation will be the overthrow of our said regime the death of the final secular state in the arab world and it's obvious who will take their place radical jihadists and counterparts in the muslim brotherhood. you say a little earlier moscow being marginalized but moscow is being very proactive here pushing for those talks we know of course that western arab states are actively pushing for a u.n. resolution which actually seems to imply foreign intervention which is what you say

is likely to happen is that really going to happen next you think in the same way that we saw the intervention in libya. that's the goal. basically syria is the last. opposition to this bizarre political alliance that's trying to take over the arab spring alliance that is formed by america israel and saudi arabia. russia of course has its own vested interests. but we can be absolutely sure that this is nothing to do with human rights when it comes to the west and even more sure when it comes to the concern of saudi arabia this is how preposterous the western media coverage is of this uprising saudi arabia of all the countries and complains of human rights abuses on the part of the us a very team and say things with drawing its monitors because it doesn't want to be

a false witness to human rights abuses i mean saudi arabia has a reputation second perhaps only to north korea in the world for repressing and oppressing and torturing and imprisoning its own people and so the fact the this can be taken seriously by anyone just shows what level of farce the coverage in the western media. fall into russia believes it's actually foreign intervention that would have even more of a destabilizing effect in the region the u.s. state thinks otherwise she's saying that president assad is making peace impossible by attacking the syrian people but that foreign intervention what impact not just in syria itself would that have on a wider basis what is actually concerned about. i mean foreign intervention look what's happened in libya as a result of foreign intervention you have islamic militias. you have

intertribal. warfare you have the imposition of sharia law you have desperate economic circumstances and a country that was actually very economically prosperous and. all this in the name of basically an oil grab of shutting out china from africa so russia are of course has that experience through durand and once bitten twice shy they know that if they support a u.n. resolution even ostensibly is a only protecting civilians it will be used by nato as an excuse to impose a no fly zone while the doctor is in the south is fun jihad is on the ground and so rush sure is essentially crucial in all of this russia absolutely must veto any u.n. resolution. at the behest of the nato allies saudi arabia in the near future because it will just be an excuse for an invasion

and that will lead to a civil war so bloody so ferocious so murderous that it will make what happened in libya look like a high school problem by comparison right thank you so much for your time special arab countries there and also the book after the arab spring thank you for your thoughts and sharing those with us here in r.t. thank. well still ahead for you and just over a month before russia's presidential vote. prime minister. himself as the presidential candidate for widespread economic reform. but still to come and the occupy movement spills on to the streets of london with police accused of going over the top during a crackdown on protesters. after surveying the damage from saturday's

occupy protests in oakland california the mayor wants to kick activists out of the city the latest rally ended with riot police firing tear gas and flash bombs meanwhile in washington a deadline issued by the national park department to break down occupy campuses come and. stand i'm joined by kevin zeese he's director of its economy and he joins me now live in washington the deadline given by the national parks department has now passed where all of the occupiers now. well i just left both of the occupy camp said macpherson square to freedom plaza and there's no sign of any police action there are a lot of people at both camps the people of macpherson have put up a great big blue tent over a statue a war statue and it's called the tent of dreams where we talk about their dreams for free healthcare affordable education taxing the wealthy and the dreams that we all have for a fair economy so at this point the police are acting of course we've seen in other

occupiers around the country that the police will give a deadline a lot of people come out to support the occupy and then a day or two later the please come back when the last people around are in the middle and i come back with those people around when they take the action so people will be vigilant but there's obviously lost support still for the occupy movement and the vision they have for a fair economy and a shrinking wealth divide let's talk about the way the police dealing with this we've seen video of a seemingly innocent protest of being tasered by an officer in the middle of an occupy camp site now the police purposely using excessive force to scare protesters all is actually provoking the protesters into further action. that's a really good question who knows what's going through their head space on that you know when we i watch that video it's available online and it looks like there was no justification for it when i went to make fears in the day to ask about it people said the only thing he was doing was taking down signs around the tents that said no camping and so that was the rationale for tasering him he was dropping about he

was not being threatening looks like a excessive use of force my sense is that it's not going to provoke the macpherson campers that they're more. disciplined than that to fall for that. i think was a mistake on the police part and he gave them bad press attention media attention increased sympathies for the arguing is very key to the argument to stay nonviolent i mean i look back at the growth of this movement it was when pepper spray was used against protesters in new york who were already behind police control and not doing anything to threaten them just spray them in your face and that really explore the movement so when the police act why only if we act nonviolently then i think we get stronger and they get weaker but adamant solve the protest movement has have been violent haven't they yesterday we saw in fact the day before yesterday we saw violence in oakland in california the burning of the american flag the storming of the. official buildings there in oakland i mean surely that sort of approach could

actually undermine the whole occupy movement cause couldn't it. i think that kind of approach is undermining but it's understandable for a couple reasons first of all there's a real anger in this country on the farewell to vie that's been created by government policy politicians who are bought off by the one percent creating laws that you know send money to the top with the false promise of a trickling down we've been seeing that going on now for thirty years in the welter of eyes gotten so extreme that people are very angry and secondly if you if you go on the you tube for example and and search the issue of oakland police infiltration you'll see a video that shows oakland police always infiltrating over here the police chief talking about how infiltrators can get in and direct the movement we can't tell these acts of property damage occur or something like great american fighters where that's actually something instigated by a provocateur or whether it's by a camp or so i think we're going to be very skeptical of those kinds of scenes this is been a movement for the most part i would call those young kids in college at u.c.

davis who are sitting peacefully protesting and the police officer came and went one by one to each person spring pepper spray to their face they were any nonviolent i think this is banal stands for that right this has been going on for some months now has it achieved anything that all the people who this campaign is aimed at actually listening to the cause of the movement but what does the future hold now. no question the cause the movement has had a big impact already it shifted the debate you can see president obama talking like he's an occupier himself sometimes he gave a speech in st louis that sound like he was not part of the occupy movement of course he still has you know citibank as his chief of staff. you know we are seeing the rhetoric change we saw for example in the deficit commission the super committee was making recommendations to go toward cutting social security and medicare they backed off on that they realized that would explode the occupy movements i think gravelly impact the occupy movement in a few months has shifted and shown the american people that if they get mobilized and organized that we have power we can change the direction this country so the

future's going to be an american spring that's going to split out of the sea and become more important the presidential race in two thousand and twelve kevin zeese director of it's our economy and director of come home america a grassroots campaign thank you very much indeed. thank you. police in london have also been accused of excessive force in their efforts to clear out occupy demonstrators protesters stood together last night as officers looked to take over their camps and laura smith has more on the london based battle between occupiers and offices. what we've seen in the last twenty four hours is the first eviction of the occupy movement from a building that they were calling the bank of ideas it was a building that is owned by u.b.s. the bank and it was evicted by a group of bayless anyone who's been up against a bailiff in this country would call them hired thugs basically and what you see on the video that we're showing now is the bailiff essentially driving into

a group of protesters watched on by the police basically he allegedly before this incident took place punched a photographer in the face the police apparently did nothing apart from briefly confiscate the keys of the car keys of the bailiff in question they then gave back his car keys according to the occupy movement and then cleared the way for him to leave the scene so far they've received absolutely no response from the police to this incident a tall. and remember you can always find more news comment and analysis on our website dot com let's take a quick look at what's there right now secrets a lot has been ordered to declassify documents related to f.s.b. officer alexander litvinenko who died of radioactive poisoning in london five years ago you can find out more online plus. the biggest drone in the world is crashed and exploded in israel during a test flight discover the cause of the accident dot com.

iran has vowed to halt on exports to some e.u. countries for up to fifteen years despite his parliament proposing a debate on the complete ban on crude supplies to europe it would be in retaliation to the e.u. imposed embargo on iranian oil due to come into full effect this summer russia's foreign minister says tehran's threat shows how you know natural sanctions can often back. to. russia has firmly held the opinion that in most cases sanctions are not only effective but also counterproductive the current situation yet again confirms the old war to every action there is an equal reaction iran's announcement was made in response to be european union's decision to ban the purchasing of uranium oil by either member states.