so you want to vote for the real thing why not why vote for him pasta romney he's changed his opinion on so many things look at me we're the same about four more years. well i think the president is going to be able to make some very sharp contrasts with with mitt romney i think you have a you have two candidates one candidate you know you have the president who you know put forth has put forward a plan that really do deals directly with the middle class and i think mitt romney there's a perception out there that you know his focus is on you know really the top one percent protecting tax breaks for them for the for corporations he had this huge gaffe yesterday where he said he didn't care about the very poor people he has you know history and casting aspersions here on the private equity world but you know he does have a history there he has accounts in the cayman islands all these things that make him seem a little bit unusual i think to most voters felt grand canyon aspersions on these people and like that ok feel free to write

a lot. i mean along with i think record you know he was forty seventh in job creation in massachusetts so he's going to have a really tough i think a record to explain himself but look the bottom line is we're a very divided country and this campaign is going to play out across you know eighteen twenty two battleground states and i think it's going to be very close and the president needs to be very prepared i think he is but i i do think in the last month or two i think democrats of. you know the the concern about mitt romney has been reduced a bit because we've seen over the course of this primary that you know he's not as he's not as powerful as i think many people thought he would be you know john i get the impression sometimes that obama's not so much worried about someone like me but he's actually more worried about people that he's disillusioned from two thousand and eight to the present a lot of i mean we know that there was a lot of enthusiasm for him. when it when he was elected during the campaign

campaign and i've seen a lot of that enthusiasm dissipate i mean in particular again i have an international audience here obama's foreign policy looks very different very little difference with the bush foreign policy actually even more neo con for again outsiders looking in sure and one of the ironic things about the obama presidency is that people thought he might be fine on domestic policy it would be an absolute nightmare on foreign policy i think most conservatives in the country and a lot of independents would say it's been quite the reverse that they're not happy with obamacare they're not happy with dodd frank which is the financial regulation bill but they've been very pleased with the way he's continued to keep it mopin for the noncombatant detainees or for the combat detainees he's you know he was the one who called the shots going in getting osama bin laden so most independents would probably say that he's done better on foreign policy. one of the groups that you talked about that seem like they've been disillusioned or firm just did

a survey of hispanic registered voters in florida a couple weeks ago with resurgent republic and they in obviously very important state florida typically determines the election forty six percent of hispanic voters who voted overwhelmingly for barack obama fifty seven percent of them supported him in two thousand and eight in florida forty six percent said it was time for someone else forty five percent said he deserves reelection and that's a key group that if he doesn't do better with hispanics i don't see much chance for him winning reelection between if i go to use talk about another candidate could be right his. head and i want to talk about ron paul i was just going to say. just going to say john john's right hispanics are a key group but you have to also remember. barack obama wasn't matched up against mitt romney there and i think mitt romney you know many of the you know the way in which he has been very hostile i think to the hispanic community perceived hostility towards them you know he has no real immigration reform plan that has

that will play a role in the general election the republicans being against the dream act opposing sort of my or you know there are a lot of number of issues that are important to this man a community that when they're pitted when he's pitted against a living breathing human being you know those numbers will i think dissipate he may not do as well as he did in no way as long as they any republican is going to do to well. john you well as if we look back at two thousand and four george w. bush won forty four percent of hispanics now a lot of changed since then but part of the problem for president obama it's not just enough to say well look at me compared to new look at me compared to romney. those people just might stay home and that's a key problem for him if the young people are disillusioned and they stay home and spandex stay home to any significant degree then that puts him in jeopardy even if he still continues to do really well among those who turn out ok when you guys always read the same to georgia you know. i want to do good point everyone agrees with that happens between if i go back to dallas let's look at ron paul here

because i've watched some of the debates on you tube and when he when they introduce him i mean there's a really charged crowd a small but loud ok who's more afraid of ron paul romney or obama. if he goes only runs on money a third party you know an independent. right if he does i mean see i don't think he will because then that would hurt rand paul in the senate so i we can probably be very comfortable that ron paul will not run a third party but his supporters could indeed determine who the actual winner of the primary is if it does go down to the convention and that's very important because his people have been waiting on this day for a very long time they've paved the way to put up ron paul or rand paul and ron paul's place when his when his dad finishes and they have delegates they are the

ones who are going to those caucus states positioning themselves to be delegates so even though rick santorum might have won iowa my i bet you ron paul has the most delegates out there so i think mitt romney should be really worried about ron paul if he decides to throw his delegates to someone else at the convention when you think about the. polls play in the in the in the rest of the campaign here. well it's going to be really important i think if mitt romney becomes the presumptive nominee it's going to be very important how he treats ron paul supporters you know there's a i think you know i look at this contest and i look back to two thousand and four where you had a insurgent candidate howard dean who had a lot of support and love from the grassroots and then you had a kind of a you know you had the kind of the candidate of the of the part of the kind of the party bosses in john kerry and it's very important to you know it was very important how john kerry reached out to at that time to bring them into the fold

i'm not sure if he did a very good job but that's the sort of you know it's an analogy to this time where i think it's going to be very important how mitt romney makes those overtures and there's a chance that they may stay home i mean you know look they clearly have a gender that i don't think really is in line with what mitt romney wants to do and there's not a they don't necessarily go to obama either i think in many of these people or a neighborhood with ron paul his message is a very strong libertarian message and it doesn't really fit with what mitt romney is saying about you know protecting huge tax cuts for you know huge corporations and millionaires and billionaires ok i tend to think that the republicans and democrats. i would like to add to that though. not only that but i think you might see the ron paul people get engaged if mitt romney is the presumptive nominee simply for a couple of reasons the political landscape is very very different and you have had republicans out there campaigning to expand the terrorism the war on terrorism

which is strange if the war is over and the troops are coming home they have passed the bill to legally detain a united states citizens indefinitely and mitt romney said he supported that and i don't know they may come out against him ok john i'm going to give you the last word on this program and maybe you can make some history here we had soccer moms in the past i mean is there a category out there that you are looking at that is coming. and to play you know that you know uncles that drink beer i mean what is there a category out there that you think that can swing things one way or another that is that uncles who drink beer is a pretty broad category out there that it's almost like saying men. one of the interesting things that we found in our polling is we you know we've talked a lot in the past about how union workers people who are part of a union support democrats overwhelmingly. what we've seen in the last year especially through the two thousand and ten cycle now into two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve there's a very distinct difference between the union workers who work for the government

typically teachers oftentimes other government employees versus the private union workers who work for a car company and work in a factory those folks as blue collar folks who are private union employees tend to are more likely to vote republican this year than they have been in the past and i'd say you know the republican nominee probably does very well among that group if they split out between really the right and up on those loans very interesting discussion we'll keep our eye on the campaign many thanks to my guest today in dallas and in washington thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember last time. it. was. my. world. series

technology innovations all the latest developments from around russia we've got this huge earth covered.

live video from cairo where fresh clashes broke out in tear gas was fired at protesters venting their anger against egypt's military rulers in the wake of wednesday's football violence that left seventy four dead. moscow says it can't support a new u.n. resolution on syria saying despite being softened to doesn't address all of the kremlin's concerns. a zoom in on the vote all polling stations across russia get their own digital observer as webcams are installed on the prime minister's orders .

it's midnight in moscow. good to have you with us here on our team our top story fresh clashes in egypt with reports of at least four killed and some four hundred injured across the country as police again fire volleys of tear gas and birdshot to disperse crowds of protesters well looking at a live video from cairo or earlier we showed you a live video from cairo thousands of people were gathered in tahrir square that's the live video we're looking at now on the rest broke out after wednesday's football violence when seventy four people died in post match clashes protesters have been massing entire square seen here and around the interior ministry blaming police for doing nothing to prevent the soccer pitch deaths they're also calling on the military council to step down for more on all of this i'm joined by his. political analyst and editor of beirut based al akbar english newspaper so protesters have come out to demand justice for the victims of the football violence

now the rallies seem to have grown into a kind of nationwide anger against the military leadership do you think there was more than a football rivalry at play behind wednesday's clashes. well i think certainly there were many factors at play let's keep in mind that the ultras the fans have played an important role in the egyptian revolution as some sort of a shock troops that would come in and protest at different points in time and what we've seen is basically a mix of anger a mix of excitement a lack of enough police that was there what the problem is that the way it's been mushrooming since wednesday if you if you recall we don't know exactly what kind of power relationship exists today between the military the military council the government and the elected the newly elected parliament so after what happened there's a lot of blame going around we saw

a very odd scene in the parliament when the governor prime minister appointed by the military rulers was being questioned and spoken to by parliament that's elected from people so what we're seeing on the street is that people are extremely frustrated they don't know who should be responsible they know the police force of course is to blame initially they're going to the ministry of interior but then also who's who's in charge at the ministry he has blamed the police force the muslim brotherhood now that dominating parliament is also blaming the government the government is answerable to who exactly the military or the parliament so what we're seeing is extreme frustration at the fact that since the revolution erupted we have seen little restructuring of the control and command of the police forces and we've also seen an extremely slow process of transfer of power to civilian rule

of the muslim brotherhood plame supporters of the ousted regime from the violence and we had a guest on earlier who claimed that police were actually bussing in people to stir up a crowd and for mental violence who do you think is responsible. i mean i wasn't there myself the reports i've heard from people there and from friends in cairo is that yes there was at least. complicity impassivity on behalf that's the least we can say on the police force i was in cairo maybe seven years ago and i was watching a match actually not and the back then there was no revolution there was no security and i remember that each block of seats the entire rows of chairs the rows of chairs surrounding it were actually seated by police force so there must have been an extremely lower police force present or as you've heard from other people on your show. they were really for mentoring it so it's very likely that this is happened but i think more dangerous than this is the fact that nothing has been done yet nothing substantial to kind of tell people that we things are under

control i think this is a surface when we say that police were doing this what's more important is that you know there's no political system in place to actually deal with things like that we don't we don't know exactly who is actually issuing these commands words it where it's coming from. severe it in political analyst and editor of akbar english newspaper thanks for your insight. well tell us what you think about the latest clashes in egypt. dot com today we ask you why you think calm has failed to return to the country after egypt's revolution last year so far most think it's because it's the same officials who were in power under mubarak that are running the country now little less than a quarter think that continuing on arrest plays into the interests of radical groups seventeen percent says the unrest continues because high unemployment is persisting and if you were of that believes that every revolution creates its own

downfall that's how the figures stack up right now you can log on and have your say at our team dot com. and you can also find the events going on firsthand as they unfold on the streets of cairo streaming that video of the protests on our web site r.t. dot com so you can check that out as well. moscow says it's not ready to support a new draft resolution on syria although the text has been softened to overcome some of russia's objections the kremlin says it's still short falls short of addressing their main concerns are important as the latest from new york. as the security council enters its for its fourth day of negotiations major powers are still divided over how this resolution should be drafted and what wording should be used now the russian foreign ministry said that moscow is still committed to talks and these talks are continuing but no vote is planned for the coming days now as we've been reporting the resolution the draft resolution that was first

introduced to the council back on tuesday has been revised and updated to meet some of russia's concerns you know some of those revisions reportedly and include the fact that the text no longer is spelling out plans for syrian president bashar al assad to step aside or to relinquish its power it also reportedly deletes a paragraph demanded that u.n. member states prevent the flow of arms to syria but at this point we still do not know what are the sticking points we do know that moscow opposes any language that would open the door for regime change in syria russia russian officials have acknowledged that the tax has softened but still does not meet moscow's major concerns now why the wording is so important is because of what has taken place in libya russia china many other countries believe that western powers misinterpreted

the text of the resolution that was passed for libya that allowed for a no fly zone and circumvented the attacks and and took advantage of what the security council wanted and that's why you have all these member states going through the text word for word and debating word for word because many countries do not want to leave the door open for misinterpretation by western powers some of which want to see a regime change in syria with libya's new government accused of abuse from the country's detention centers it's been revealed about one fifth. former senior official could have fallen victim to torture by a militia libya's former ambassador to france has died in custody twenty four hours after being detained by an armed group for some insight on this i'm joined by sue khan shandon middle east expert and journalist who joins us live from london so human rights groups say the torture and killing of detainees is an ongoing problem in libya do you think the militia responsible for it will be held to account. i

don't think the militia responsible for the the likely torturing to death or miss the will be held account but there's a lot of interesting political games going on in libya if you use a step back and look at what's happening with this latest development something interesting arises why is it that mr bush is killing has been fingered at the tiny militia when we know that the permanent representative to the united nations under the gadhafi regime. has been tortured by a militia in tripoli has been visited by the red crescent and now it disappeared in in the hands of another militia in tripoli so i've been looking through the human rights watch website i've been looking through the amnesty web site and there's not one mention of mr boredom but here but here pops up the torching of the estimates the rubbish now what it seems to be very clearly is that why this focus now on this in tiny militia is because there's an tiny militia there's entirely people holding

saif al islam and the west especially the i.c.c. are very fearful about what this one tiny militia are going to do with saif al islam saif al islam hasn't had access to us the list as far as i know and he hasn't said anything publicly so i think for this entire knees that saif al islam in their in their custody is the biggest power play that they've got to use in libya so i think this is the great agenda of what's going on right now with this latest development but nonetheless mr bush does seem to have been tortured to death was the former ambassador front all right just for our viewers information saif al islam being the one of the surviving sons of moammar gadhafi who is in custody now doctors without borders has recently suspended its mission in misrata saying it's treated patients for injuries sustained during interrogation what do you make of that. i think i think doctors without front is like human rights watch like amnesty they can't suddenly feign surprise about what's actually come to pass in

libya because there's a pattern here i'm urging isn't that so-called human rights organization who obviously have a western centric view a century coloration on everything they seem to provide the quote unquote human rights justification for western. policies or foreign aggression then once these countries are to stabilize and it's a failed states by the nato or you know natural western the military aggression then they suddenly are surprised. but they all along have been used and perhaps allowing themselves to be used in actually. in justifying a human rights so-called foreign intervention and then feigning surprise but i think it's interesting what they've said and it's quite clear what's going on is that they've doctors without borders has said very clearly that we are being used by the libyan rebels to basically to make better those detainees that have been

tortured so they can be tortured again so the torch a state which libya has now developed which which you know just good off his regime pales into you know just it was a much better human rights situation by any real standards now doctors a. finding surprised but frankly they are being used in this way and they're allowing themselves at the time really. that the people across the world see these so-called human rights organizations for they are the basically the trojan horses or western foreign policy all right one last question when i first toss in here we only have a few seconds left but how long do you see it before there is stability and peace in libya. is the stability peace today in afghanistan is there stability and peace today in iraq as long as those people who are able to actually maintain some semblance of state stability and human rights i thought all regime as long as they kept out of the current status quo this will be the situation ongoing all right so you can chairman journalist a middle east expert live for us in london thanks for that. live

pictures from every polling station in a russian said to go online with help of a new web site that launched friday thousands of web cameras are being installed across the country ahead of next month's presidential election the move was introduced by the current prime minister and candidate for president vladimir putin as a step toward stopping fraud during the vote or he has the details inch after inch mile after mile big brother is preparing to cast his eyes on polling stations as the massive campaign to install web cameras is in full swing across the entire nation but actually something at least but i think. central electoral commission which is to install web cameras at all polling stations across the country so that everyone can watch online what's happening there twenty four hours a day. early. the idea was put forward following the biggest protests in russia since the collapse of the u.s.s.r.

with tens of thousands demanding fair elections so wiring up over ninety thousand polling stations is the scale and around a half of a billion us dollars is the price tag. coming into the system is not be made only for one day we help this project want only develop elections acknowledges but will also help modernize telecommunications infrastructure across the entire country so when they all cameras will be feeding the videos they threw them to local digital storage facilities after computer processing will be then sent to seven large storage and distribution centers via cable radio and satellite these centers will then broadcast the information to several web portals it's estimated that all together the cameras will film and broadcast four hundred and ninety years of video information in good quality however there is still down to this technology will help make the vote more transparent. i'm sure the observers will be able to check

to advance if these cameras work will not then the. everyone knows about cameras in supermarkets but these still doesn't stop robberies from happening so it's. books will be monitored by two cameras one with the general view and another with a close up of this lot there are many ways to rig it and the cameras don't provide one hundred percent guarantee against that but using that should still make it much more difficult to stuff boxes course there's no easy way ever. using them to monitor elections on such a scale is a first for any nation and regardless of the success of the idea everyone will be able to monitor the vote online not to mention no one is against having more real life observers on the spot the war is going on moscow. all voting

video is an online just yet but there is a lot streaming right now and you can check it all out at r.t. dot com the anonymous hacker group unveils secret correspondence revealing details of a massacre of iraqi civilians allegedly by u.s. troops in two thousand and five plus. the international space station crew members will be stuck in orbit for an extra forty five days find out what's behind the delay. train out of some other stories making headlines across the globe at least thirty seven people have been killed in a shootout between rival police forces in south sudan dozens more were hospitalized with gunshot wounds fighting erupted at a peace meeting to resolve local disputes about stolen cattle so sudan that declared independence last year is play with ethnic tension and violent cattle raids and rebel attacks. a cold snap has already claimed one hundred sixty four lives in eastern europe as countries continue to struggle with her. record low

temperatures heavy snows have led to widespread transport chaos and power outages the extreme cold even caused the black sea to freeze off ukraine's coast in that country alone more than one hundred people have died after temperatures plummeted to minus thirty degrees centigrade most of the victims were homeless people. rescue teams continue to battle heavy seas in the strong winds searching for survivors after a ferry sank off papua new guinea with three hundred fifty passengers and crew aboard almost two hundred fifty have been plucked from the waters but many are still missing the ship's operator said the vessel sent out of the stress call thursday but then lost all contact most of the passengers were college students and teachers in training. the hours mean news here on r t moscow are coming your way next stay with us.