guess. we're done for the laughter for the presidential elections here in russia tens of thousands have come out on the streets calling for fair and free elections and change on the streets. of. syria.

from the heart of the russian capital. more than one hundred thousand people have braved freezing temperatures and. fair elections others were rallying in support of the current leadership becomes exactly a month before russia's presidential vote. but. the opposition has gathered a car and it's extremely cold there presuming that's had some kind. effect on crowd

numbers. well despite the better of bone chilling cold temperatures here on bolotnaya square reports of some twenty thousand people have come out and this is actually the third sanctioned to protest that has occurred since the december fourth parliamentary elections except the only difference being the best one was a marching protest where protesters took out onto the city center streets and marched all the way to bolotnaya square where i am currently standing now the government does approve of these protests they do want the people to voice their opinions however they have deployed some nine thousand believe the police officers here on jubilant last square and throughout the city center to just make sure that it isn't back to peaceful protests and it actually has been it's been very quiet we've seen a number of flags but again these temperatures will have to of course that agenda of the actual protest you're on bolotnaya square down to just an hour because it is

really so cold what about the opposition the one who was the most prominent figures and although the rally as far as you know. well there isn't fact a lot of opposition you have the nationalists you have the leftists there are calls for a sort of so are a style leader however there isn't really one leader leading this protest movement towards fair and free elections you do have me called procrit of who was here today have followed by a square although he did not speak he was not going to speak as well as goody. but you have excuse me who was the head of the party he was set to make a speech although he did not with him you have amidst of speculations and also his current bid for presidency where he wanted to run for president but was shot down because something like twenty c. . percent of his signature is of the two million needed for that presidential run

were claimed as being falsified so he was supposed to be you're going to go to you did not speak however and you do have also alex in the violent a very a popular amongst the bloggers and very activist a very well known activist and not so well known however for his nationalist movement is that claim that russia is for russians so to speak or us stop feeding the call kisses but for the moment those are the amana leaders here a ball of mystery did have again. showing his face and europeans who did not speak . korean we can see some of those protests as a behind you is the government ready to meet the dimona what's been the kremlin reaction to all this. well in terms of what's been done since the december fourth parliamentary elections actually a lot you know prime minister putin has promised to put webcams in polling stations

and he's followed through on that the website has been launched it is ready and you can check it out where you will be seeing those a live feeds not to mention the facts the independent league of electors who will be heading out to the polling stations when the party when the presidential elections happen in march to assure that the same sort of fraud in the ballot box stuffing won't take place again you have that league a sad list not to mention the prime minister putin who has been criticized for showing his face a little too much in the media he's promised just flashes air time and not participate in any of those public presidential debates however he will continue to keep on writing his articles the third one which is set to be out sometime next week now aside from that you do have president made today dave who had his state of the union address and did up. put together

a sort of long list of reforms that have presented to the by february some point during february and approved they will be in place for the presidential elections in march now those reforms being the presidential signature is currently you need two million signatures in order to run for president and they would like that number drop down to about three hundred thousand not to mention the fact that the governors are currently appointed by the president if these are foreigners you take place they will somehow be elected although how that election will take place it's not quite clear yet you also have the fact political parties at the moment you need about ten thousand signatures for a political party to join forces and if these reforms you take place then the green light will go ahead for only of five hundred signatures needed and therefore is seeing more political parties in the masses so those are the reforms at the moment that are currently proposed to the. russian government have not yet been approved

but we'll have to wait and see what will go on with that ok i'll be reporting from the square thank you for that. well another rally this time in support of the kremlin has been taking place. people there are critical of the protests. crane style orange revolution happening in russia. that pro has been arrested as numbers have exceeded the next moment. there. i think. most of the. latest makes a lot down so knowing dows. now they're pretty cool that didn't take me a lot of revelation a demo to live in a game i found like there are such wrinkles already there but that's

a reference to be hard for a minute to place in ukraine it's two thousand five hundred to a presidential frerotte something they don't want to see those in attendance hate they very have experience in russia of the hardships of the revolution of the soviet now it seems as a result but it's not something they want to be or may say but if i came here to support russia to support only still actions i wanted to have a bright future and i want to is to choose that future or sounds. like i don't know who exactly gather to vote in a square but i think it's perfectly fine that they did it it's democracy and they are the opposition. to come hey snake fictionally was a really really good guys. never write. us a dollars in a tennis thing say showing some prime minister vladimir putin. he

has been waning but there's just never the full do or elections been allegations. of fraud. poses like pushing about fifteen percent of virgin voting some late result. of it covers a lot according to what we're saying right now i think. for the. reporting there will work closely following the pre-election developments in russia online latest updates head to our twitter feed watch the pictures on the protests tarty dot com you can also get the background on the presidential candidates and analysis from moscow. here's what else you can find on our website right now. you know tourists hacktivist group anonymous has found

out what it's about the leaks that all get recorded online listening to water said but also much. also online america's first lady gives everyone an impromptu lesson to keep fit during an appearance on the top. perhaps the video at r.t. dot com. the u.n. security council is to meet later on saturday with a vote expected on the draft resolution on syria but moscow says the text needs changing and it will use its veto power if the draft is brought to the table in its current form russia's foreign minister stressed it makes too few demands of the armed opposition and could prejudge the outcome of a national dialogue in syria draft also contains elements that the kremlin so

there's loopholes are possible for intervention but it comes amid reports from syria a new crackdown in the city of homs hundreds of interesting dead massacres claims the killings were carried out by terrorists seeking to influence and when vote no point none has more now from new york. or russia china and many other countries have vocalized the fact that the security council should not be used as a tool to impose regime change in any country around the world in this case in particular to syria it should be the security council should be new moving towards . coming to our peaceful solution where both parties in part in a conflict should come together as russia has its mean concerns in the aftermath of what took place in libya it is not going to see repeated circumstances in syria in the meantime there have been reports from opposition groups in syria there are roughly two hundred people have been killed in renewed violence in the city of homs

according to the syrian observatory for human rights the army is shelling the city now fresh ashes in other cities throughout syria how also been reported clearly this violent conflict is garnering attention from all parts of the world as the international community continues to find a way to to reach some type of consensus on how to garner and lead to a peaceful solution in syria. marty report there reporting from new york and you can keep up with the latest on the u.n. vote on syria not our twitter feed that's r.t. underscore. but we're joined in the studio now by correspondent sara firth just returned from syria and give us a firsthand accounts of what's been going on there thank you for joining us here so now according to unconfirmed reports from the city of homs hundreds of people were killed last night by the authorities but damascus is blaming terrorists for this

what's really happening what you could see well i mean it's extremely hard to sort of corporation verify these reports i think like anyone i was following the sort of twitter updates in trying to get in touch with people on the ground there yesterday when these reports were coming through from homs i mean just devastating reports in the numbers the sort of everywhere very very high numbers reported to have been killed it sounded like those certainly a very very heavy crackdown happening there in homs but of course you know even when we were in the country. it's extremely hard to really get to the bottom of what's happening to get to these areas. to see it with your own two eyes and to be able to verify the information and so certainly i mean i've been speaking to people again today that we were in contact with in some of these areas and the most the phones are out of reception at the moment there's sort of reports of electricity being down in many of these areas and in the center of damascus the people that we were working with the saying that you know at the moment they're waiting for

information to be so it's exceptionally hard to sort of gauge exactly what's going on at the moment is that difficult then to see all these places to find out what's actually going on so what about this arab league observer mission then they've been going to certain areas but what are they managed to see all do then there has been a waste of time you know one of the benefits of the arab league observers mission being there was that it did give an opportunity certainly for the media to access some of these various hotspots areas to travel to cells would have been very very dangerous and they'd sort of become no go areas so the big sort of open the doors a little bit and allowed a bit more of an information flow to get out from these places certainly that was one of the benefits to let you know right from the beginning these guys really had the odds stacked against them we spent you know over a week sort of following them around they today from the beginning where they set off from the hotel and you know they they really they were doing their best with what they had but these are people who were necessarily trained for this sort of

work they were ill equipped i mean they really didn't have much on them sort of the basics a camera and a pen and paper and so they really met with the same obstacles that a lot of the journalists who were following the met that they you know they found it very hard as well to sort of understand what exactly was happening and what they were seeing the syrian regime says it's really fighting a foreign funded insurgency from what you could see there was really truth. of course you know we we came across ourselves the armed groups the free syrian army the armed terrorist whatever you want to call the they exist there are groups in there they say that they're protecting the civilians in these different towns and villages we spent a lot of time with the free syrian army we spoke to a lot of them some of them were army defectors he returned the locals to these areas returned to protect their families some of them were civilians he had sort of got hold of arms and joined that group as well it's really hard to say no in syria at the moment there's

a very strong jule narrative that's come out and it's part of what makes it so hard to figure out what's going on you don't envy the security council at the moment the decision that they're going to have to make because you simply even when you are there find it very difficult you know what i know is what i saw with my own two eyes and it's very easy to believe what you're being told doesn't exist until you see it and say you know we saw. but we also saw tanks security force tanks around the tons of villages despite that being part of the peace plan for them to be removed we saw bullet holes we sure saw heavy artillery marks in the buildings and you know there are these armed groups but there are also a huge number of people civilians families children who are in these areas he are trying to protest who are coming out of the protests are very scared about the risks are taking doing that and feel that they're being denied their rights to voice their political views for talking about those civilians and how much support does president hold amongst those be. again i mean the situation in the country

right now very divided it's very concerning to see those divisions the sort of every level of this conflict that exists you have areas where it's very strongly providian you have areas where it's very strongly anti we've obviously seen the pockets moving closer towards the center of resistance in these different towns and villages certainly very divided very divisive situation i mean it's hard to get a gauge of what's happening and you know it's very sad to see the failure to a large extent of the arab league mission because right now you don't have anything anyone working to try and bridge these gaps that is widening every single day and these people feel very alone i mean we can cooperate of verify the reports are coming through from places like homs but you know you can see and hear from a lot of these people in the videos that are coming through they really feel that they're out there on their own at the moment and so right now the situation stands the features not looking great there doesn't seem any way to work towards bridging

these gaps just back from soon those first time reports thanks very much indeed for . well meanwhile in egypt clashes between police and protesters have resumed on saturday offices used tear gas and fired shots at demonstrators overnight tried to storm interior ministry building for a second time seven people have been confirmed dead as a violence grips cairo and several other cities to a spot twenty seven to times died after that clash two days ago that is accuse the police of failing to prevent a tragedy thousands of demonstrators in cairo also called the ruling to tell so to really push the middle east analyst on the fires as egyptians a furious that many of us to most of the banks generals are still in place. in maine recipient of criticism now in egypt is the military council because it is really have all the powers and they are demanding the door will be transferred quickly either to

a government or to an elected president and the military council is still very hesitant and i link this to something that happened a couple weeks ago when the military council ordered security forces to go and shut down democracy agencies both education n.g.o.s and international n.g.o.s u.s. based n.g.o.s all of that indicates that the military council is very hasn't been in transferring power to democracy forces they want to cut the deal with a force which most likely will be the muslim brotherhood there is something very odd about the fact that egypt brought down here in a leader and yet some of its agencies are acting as if the other again regime is going to rock what is happening right now is that large segments of civil society specifically the youth of egypt who began their overall and their hope was taken away by other political parties including the muslim brotherhood in the south as those youth are angry at the government because they don't want the military council to transfer power to them or actually to their representatives and they

fear that egypt is moving towards another of the repair and regime. well as humanitarian groups accuse libya's new government of abuse in the country's detention centers it's been revealed that a former senior official may have been the latest victim of torture libya's x. some bastards of france died in custody twenty four hours are detained by militia group reports claim that photos of a sixty two year old british show evidence of bruising and other woman's rights groups say that torture executions of become commonplace in prisons run by former rebels middle east experts and journalists. death is in the spotlight because the same militia that allegedly killed him is also duffy's son custody. i don't think the militia responsible for 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 it seems to me very clearly is that why this focus now on this entire new militia is because there's an tiny

militia there's entirely people are 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 a solicitor as far as i know and he hasn't said anything publicly so i think for this entirely is that saif al islam 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 who is the former ambassador to france protests have been raging across europe against last week's signing of the new copyright treaty which in force is intellectual property law on the internet opponents say the international actor documenting forces censorship is a violation of human rights and its artie's tone bottom reports now more demonstrations are expected over the weekend. the streets may be snowy but here in

sweden the heat is being turned up in that most modern of political debates surrounding internet freedom protests have been called here in the capital as part of a wider reaction in europe and the u.s. against laws perceived to infringe on the public's back cess to the internet but i'll get this time back to the anti counterfeiting trade agreement signed by countries around the world the people behind the law point out that it's important to try and protect the copyrights of the people who make music to make video and distribute it around the world if you say world everything should be free world perhaps no one will write any books produce music or fields etc. because it's not often those against it say it's a wolf in sheep's clothing a way for governments to control their access to the internet and that it was held

in secret but it was designed to be very punitive to those found breaching copyright rules the next generation has grown up with the ability to say anything to anybody else on the planet today dia's battle it out for themselves to have a freedom of speech never before imagined we don't need to ask anybody's permission to present new ideas and. all of a sudden corporations want to take that away because it inconveniences them and millions of young people are rising up in anger at the formation of pirate parties not just here in sweden but elsewhere in europe is evidence of how high the status of those internet freedom campaign is has risen and there's politics not just in the european parliament but also on the streets internet freedom campaigners are urging people to put their views across before the european parliament votes on

this in june to try and stop the legislation before it's made whether it's done in parliament and in political boardrooms or on the street few expect this to be a calm debate. reporting that well some well news in brief for you now this hour. iran's supreme leader has issued a warning about retaliating against the west over sanctions that include an oil embargo creasing threats the speech came as a response to the statement from the u.s. defense secretary panetta who said israel is right you can bomb in months the u.s. and the e.u. have imposed a number of financial and oil sanctions against iran over its disputed nuclear program which they suspect used to make weapons. at least thirty seven people have been killed in south sudan during a shoot out with a peace meeting gunmen in trucks arrived and began shooting indiscriminately after a fight broke out at the gallery meeting was designed to bring an end to recent violence have a stolen livestock. killed in recent weeks as

a result of the disputes. europe's worst cold snap in decades has now claimed the lives of one hundred seventy five people one hundred have died in ukraine alone many from frostbite and hypothermia extreme temperatures even cause the black sea to freeze on the coast of mania but it is in remote areas have been cut off shocks able to transport supplies. to the closure of schools and ports across europe. well as the u.s. presidential election hots up the contenders are competing hard to make it to the white house next to online journalist laurie halfassed went to find out what people in new york think about the race for the oval office. in the u.s. republican presidential hopefuls are duking it out with the gloves are off what does the world's make of these candidates this week let's talk about that do you

think there's any difference between mitt and newt. no i think to both. church who are sort of exclusionary and don't think a lot about the people they're supposed to serve and their big difference between mitt romney and newt gingrich of which is there's no difference ron paul's republican think there's a difference with him that i really doubt the same for the much. better business room. he's done a lot into a somewhat copies of the pierced yeah but he's also like gotten a lot of people out of jobs with his business he's been a little bit ruthless in his business and so you've got so much more to so why would you trust him to represent you in represent the common man oh i don't trust him at all gingrich i don't like either. he's a little funny or his rhetoric is funny to watch entertaining is that important in a presidential candidate. i'm not going to vote for either one of them so it doesn't matter if you had to choose someone to run the u.s. who would you choose. the wrong person to ask i really like any of the candidates.

but we got a big why didn't we get it two zero zero zero am i really right now are high honestly dying good luck to us raise good luck do you think the rest of the world should care about the who becomes the next president thanks to you by just by some of the remarks of global superpower to figure out what should feel as what's going on have you seen any coverage at all in scotland or yes but so news. and when you see it what do you think. will. good luck to you. yeah right of to talking heads. so it seems like here in times square today people have mixed emotions about who should be the next u.s. president let's see what u.s. citizens have to say about it come november. our spotlight is just ahead of the headlines coming your way next stay with us.

old means of protection can be used. when global supremacy isn't stage. between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine the u.s. has spent fifteen billion dollars in the price to pay for the entire program that

we are dealing with right now here in two thousand and eleven is another hundred fifty billion dollars that's larger than many country's entire military budgets when all things becomes the best form of defense. a soulless substance. cannot touch like a well trained army. villages in ruins. thailand where time stands still. all becomes a sea of nothingness. the mysterious sons of russia. are.