breaking news on our t.v. russia and china vetoed the u.n. security council's resolution on syria voting in new york this is live pictures you're looking at it from the security council chambers at the u.n. . more than two hundred thousand people braved russia's bitter subzero cold to ensure their views on national politics are heard. we've seen people out on the streets demanding free elections in support of the code government join me for more than a few moments. europeans

demand a free internet as people flood the streets in protest against an anti-piracy act being signed it crossed the continent. nine pm in moscow i'm mad trezeguet good to have you with us here on r t as we deliver our breaking news russia and china having veto the u.n. security council resolution on syria we're going to get a little later an update from marty's a marine important in new york but first we go to our guest who is standing by the security council meeting comes amid reports of syria from syria of a new crackdown in the city of homes with hundreds reportedly killed for more on this i'm joined by dr ali mohamed editor in chief of the syria tribune website who joins us from dubai thanks for joining us so a veto has been placed on the resolution what happens next. whether the.

nation. that claim that this resolution will not be in preparation for any military action are now required to prove what they claim. their actions were not happy the chinese were not happy about that is a mission they eat or do it and that is something that can solve the problem initiated by the russian government to holes talks between the between the different ideas in syria and i think it is up to the to those nations to prove that they want the welfare for syria and that and they want this year and people to live in prosperity and therefore they have to push for accepting this negotiation. activists in syria claim this is the worst of violence since the anti-government protests started damascus says the killings were carried out by terrorists to influence the un's decision which do you think it is. well it is still

a little bit early to tell which one it is but i mean there were it's not believing the syrian army waited ten months and then just the night before the u.n. security council meeting it decided to start bombarding homes this too which in homs that's been difficult for the syrian. regime supporters for such a long time and i don't see why the army would choose such critical timing to just start it's a vicious cracked down at this thrive the key word is what you say it's the out of only planes and just two weeks ago we had the arab league observers who could have gone there and investigated but unfortunately they were pulled out for a little good reason and therefore there are only claims from this i. was it's claims from their side we cannot treat it with what's going on but i don't think that the army wants surely it's it's not like the syrian army this is number one and james like that happened before in fact just

a short and the opposition was not able to prove any of these claims over the past and months thanks very much for your insight and perspective we're going to keep talking with you in a little bit but first i'm going to step away now so we can talk with our correspondent in new york marina portnoy who is standing by at the u.n. so moscow has made its position very clear and they have voted against this resolution marina also with china tell us more about this. that's right that's right it took about four minutes after the meeting finally began where the head of this security council how many countries support the resolution and how many don't support it and that's when russia and china cast their veto once again this was a repeat circumstance we saw this happen back in october and now russia has been saying all week long and raising its concerns over the draft text that was put together on the resolution of syria and russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said

that russia did make some amendments wanted some amendments to this draft resolution being pushed by the west and the arab league and according to russian foreign minister sergei lavrov they were not excessive measures he said that a u.n. resolution on syria would be possible if a constructive approach would be taken now while the text of this resolution over the week has softened a bit to meet russia's demands such as dropping a push for an arms embargo that would still language in this text that we're going to russian officials could have been interpreted as regime change and pushing for foreign intervention the term consider further measures still in this resolution now russian foreign minister sergei lavrov believes that internal conflicts in sovereign states should not be dealt with this in this way such as using the security council as a tool to intervene in in conflicts on the contrary russia's position on china's

position and other countries believe that the security council should try to be. a peaceful approach not taking sides. also addressed his concerns his specific concerns about the draft resolution saying that it's very one sided it does not indicate that the opposition groups are using arms and also contributing to the violence he made his statement while attending a security conference in. let's take a listen to the first. completion of the government is completely much. groups. for the state institutions. the government receives. it has to do no demur and so that is through the lobby groups except for the government the much more specific. russia's foreign minister will be heading to

a damascus on tuesday to meet with syrian president bashar al assad in the meantime u.s. president barack obama did issue a statement this morning at the end of the statement he said that it's time for the assad government to go paraphrasing what he said because it was a page long statement but basically the u.s. is clearly calling for regime change we heard and saw those similar calls being made right before the military intervention took place in libya when the u.s. president said it's time for could da feed to go so clearly this is a narrative that is being repeated but it's a narrative that russia and china are not going along with. all right artie's marine important ally from the united nations with that report thanks for that update. more than two hundred thousand people came onto the streets of moscow on saturday for

a day of protest the largest seen in the capital so far one group was demanding pharaoh actions others rally to support the current leadership our correspondent peter all of our saw both gatherings you were ports. well saturday was a day of demonstrations here in the russian capital we saw a march and a rally by opposition supporters a large group of them meeting in the center of the city and marching here to block my a square which block my has really become the central focus point for opposition protesters here in moscow this is the second time that opposition protesters have taken to the last night a square far fewer there this time than last but of course the the weather a big deciding factor in not cripplingly mo temperatures here in the russian capital in fact the organizers of the protest here shortened the events that were going to be happening just to make it more comfortable for people who had come out in the cold minus twenty times on saturday here in moscow. so they came out to to

voice their opinions to reveal what i can here because i'm tired of the government which doesn't do what promises mari's and wants this to carry on for years if you. change their elections and normal life you. might go through and want to come here and shoot now talk about some of those groups that we've seen come here they really come from all across the russian political straw answer we've seen far right groups far left groups and everybody in between. all coming out coming here to pull off the square to demonstrate we didn't hear from. the presidential candidate the independent presidential candidate because he's drawn a lot of support from some of the groups that have come here to protest he said he would attend but he wouldn't give a speech this wasn't the only demonstration there was taking place on saturday

there's also being gatherings of people who are in favor of the government pro-government supporters and. who been campaigning saying that they want a revolution in russia using the example of the the orange revolution in ukraine in the chaos which country found itself in after the us saying that they don't need not in russia they were stability and not the revolution saying that russia had had its times of instability and they didn't want to return to the dark days of the ninety's now the good news for everybody concerned is just how peacefully everything is being carried off on saturday but the opposition and the pro-government protests going off well relatively without a hitch however one of the putin rallies we did see the leader of that rally take it into custody by police now this is because the it was a sanctioned dryly and it was sanctioned to have a certain amount of people the amount of people who turned up far exceeded that we

saw a lot of police in cities they did say say protesters must remain within the law and they did do that and everything going off very peacefully is stuff today becomes the day of demonstrations. from our perspective on this i'm joined by martin mccauley an expert on russia at the university of london so you've been closely monitoring these protests what's your view of today's rallies. very interesting if you like politics has come alive you get you get groups from the far right you could only because you could comment on the left even left the communist nubile and so on and that is a good sign. they all want to a ticket data point of view but nobody wants revolution except perhaps here only because what the vast majority want is a better standard of living and to participate in the how the country develops they would like to have a say in the course and direction that russia takes in the near future but may's

gatherings been the largest so far with the presidential election just around the corner do you think we're likely to see even more people rallying in the days to come. well the. very large rallies promised for the eleventh of march in other words a week after the presidential election and presumably that would be larger than this one the result of the election of course with very very important because what these demonstrators want is if you like a clean election an absence of fraud and so on and it's up to the authorities to ensure that there will be cameras there and so on and therefore it's probably will be a fairly clearly election but what is important is that it seemed to be fair and that these people have no cause to claim that the election on the fourth of march with the president vladimir putin wins of the first round not that has to be seen to be fair and to be clean otherwise would be tremendous protests on the eleventh of february on the eleventh of march. now the opposition wants and says they are

calling for an honest election with thousands of these webcams being installed at every polling station do you think that answers their demands. that's part of it because stalin months it isn't about it doesn't matter how you vote it depends on the person who comes to the votes and therefore what is needed is in fact an independent monitoring of. country and as the votes are brought in and so on so there supervised and so people can actually see that election count is in fact fair and it's not fraudulent that's very very important. now we save the opposition in normally when we refer to them we refer to a kind of this gallery of usual suspects the communist party the l.d.p. are the party and there's a dark horse candidate and do you think any of them is capable of becoming russia's next viable leader. nobody yet has emerged because if you look at the protests you

have the the league of voters who claim that the don't want to work with any politician and then use the citizens of other groups and so on and they have they are like minded people and so on the opposition will not come together maybe something russian maybe something russian if they don't want to come they don't want to. arrive at a single candidate the only way they go to defeat. on the fourth of march just a single candidate who is accepted by the whole opposition and there's no likelihood of this it looks as if it could not easily gone that the company is going to do would come up second as he always does in the. make up second to third or fourth and so on and me how it broke or of would bring up the rest because he is there really only to appeal to the middle class voters. are right russia expert at university of london martin mccauley thanks for your insights. they.

are going to return to our breaking news this hour russia and china vetoing the u.n. security council resolution on syria and we're going to go back to the guess that we had at the top of the hour dr ali mohamed editor in chief of the syria tribune website discussing the implications of this vote. thanks for staying with us here again so russia says the current draft includes measures against president president assad's government but not against the armed opposition groups in the country why do you think western countries are falling short of condemning both sides in this conflict. well i think it's difficult to not to guess why you don't believe they are working for the best interest of the syrian people and the libyan example if it hasn't been so long ago to be the claim to do were to stand by the libyan people but it turned out that they were supporting one. side that was actually armed and under

a billion against the rest of the people and so the same is happening in syria. this question is a very important one that there is a call for me go for talks why not support this call the clean their president i said lost legitimacy first nuts and months ago a very important survey that was done by qatar foundation qatar foundation on which you think the words cut or to show that the president as i see it have the support of i mean i'm a fifty five percent of the syrians why are the glory is this fifty five percent and at the scene times to solve the problem between syrians syrians need to tuck not just support one for one side to be supported against the other. now what do you think we can expect next after this what do you think will finally see a draft that satisfies all sides. because there was a really good chance this week to to find that their act. let's fight all the

science but unfortunately this was not supported by the western countries i think what's what we come next. will be decided by the actions of the syrian army in areas such as homs we all we are all waiting for what the syrian government promised to do which is. to take rid of militia men in major cities and i think now after the veto that happened earlier time things couldn't be better for the syrian regime to do that i think what would happen in the state of the starts right now are president obama has called for bashar assad to step down immediately with international rhetoric hardening against the assad regime do you think the security council is getting anywhere near a peaceful solution to the conflict i don't see this happening anytime soon not not by the security council anyway. and we've heard the same calls from washington and its allies for libya's colonel gadhafi to go do you think ousting assad would put

an end to the crisis or do you think it could open doors to more instability afterward. this is the immediate issue here the arab league initiative supported by the security council now. the ones to two or three and image where the problem is between us and the syrian people but this is not the end it is the problem is between going to the syrian people and the other point that is not a person who stands a little and he has the support of the many syrians they don't want to go into numbers but they can go to the foundation found out this is the five percent to see if the court has said so how do we. go to sort of the problem we still have the fifty five percent of the syrian people according to got their foundation. do not want him to go and will not. support anything that you wanted him to go immediately why not drop to each other form of the national unity cabinets and then go

into elections this is the only reasonable thing to do at this moment all right dr ali mohamed editor in chief of syria tribune website speaking with us live from dubai thanks for your insights thank you very much or remember r t dot com has got you covered online with plenty of other stories a click away right now april may or june that's when israel could launch an attack on iran's nuclear facilities according to some officials in washington plus. russia over the moon as it unveils its space ambitions there's some plenty more stories a click away at our t dot com. campaigners for online freedom are out in force in sweden protesting against a new copyright treaty signed by governments across europe the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement or act has yet to be ratified though by the european parliament that's what activists want to prevent saying the new law would in danger free speech and net privacy artie's tom barton reports from stockholm. this is the

frontline in the most modern of political battles that over internet freedom these crowds have gathered in central stockholm in sweden bill riginal home of the pirate parties that have sprung up all over europe and beyond here to protest against the anti counterfeiting trade agreements it all revolves around unseen piracy laws that are trying to be pushed through in many countries this agreement tries to standardize the enforcement of those laws in the e.u. and in america and further around the world these people say it's not an innocent agreement it's not simple it's insulting almost internet freedom and it's a way for governments to monitor them and to stop them from having a free exchange of information on the internet and we heard earlier from people on both sides of the argument about how different views are here on this issue if you say world everything should be free well perhaps no one will write any books or

produce music or films etc or anyway it would disappear but he writes less because it's not often. the next generation has grown up with the ability to say anything to anybody else on the planet today ideas 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 and the success of the growth of pirate parties close here in sweden and elsewhere around the world is evidence of how high the status of internet freedom complainers has risen on the signing of the act so agreement a few days ago huge protests broke out in poland they were so out of it and so

angry that the government there has suspended its director agreement that they want the same to happen here although the debates are going to go on until june when the e.u. parliament votes on this internet freedom complaint as urging people to get their view across before that vote this debate is going to go on it's not finished yet and it seems it's going to be anything but home. fresh clashes in egypt's interior ministry as police again fire volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds who throw rocks in response at least twelve people have been killed more than two thousand injured in the protests across the country earlier several government buildings were reportedly set on fire people have been venting their anger at police for three days for failing to prevent wednesday's football violence and ports which killed seventy four people demonstrators are demanding the military council step down accusing the rulers of hijacking the revolution middle east expert says egyptians are furious that many of the ousted president mubarak's

generals are still in charge in egypt. the main recipient of criticism now in egypt is the military council because it is really have only powers and they are demanding that. will be transferred quickly either to a government or to an elected president and the military council is still very hesitant and i limited to something that happened a couple weeks ago when the military council ordered security forces to go and shut down. because the agencies both and gyptian n.g.o.s and international n.g.o.s u.s. based n.g.o.s a little bit indicates that the military council is very hasn't been in transferring power to democracy forces they want to deal with a force which most likely will be the muslim brotherhood there is something very odd about the fact that egypt broke down in a pretty good and leader and yet some of its agencies are acting as if they're again as you mentioned in iraq what is happening right now is that large segments of civil society specifically the youth of egypt who began to revolt and that

revolt was taken away by other political parties including the muslim brotherhood and to some of his those youth are angry at the government because they want the military council to transfer power to them or actually to their representatives and they fear that egypt is moving towards another what they would get in regime turning out of some other stories making headlines across the globe police in washington d.c. of cracking down on the occupy protesters camp in the city center of arresting at least four people several tents and personal belongings were cleared away in the raid which activists said was basically an eviction washington cap is one of the last remaining offshoots of the movement that started in new york last september against corporate greed. more than three thousand afghans were killed in two thousand and eleven making last year the deadliest on record for the country's civilians according to a un report most of the casualties caused by militants with fourteen percent by international and local troops meanwhile nato is preparing to pull out by two

thousand and fourteen leaving afghan security forces to take charge of fighting the insurgency. europe's week long cold snap has now claimed two hundred twenty lives as a nation struggle with a record low temperatures ukraine hit the hardest as more than one hundred died when temperatures plummeted to minus thirty degrees centigrade most of the victims were homeless people heavy snowfalls also cause widespread transport chaos and power outages. with libya's new government accused of abuse in the country's detention center it's been revealed that one former senior official could have fallen victim to torture libya's former ambassador to france died in custody twenty four hours after being detained by armed militia group souk at shandon middle east expert in journalist said the same people who allegedly killed the former diplomat may also be holding colonel gadhafi son in custody i don't think the militia responsible for the the likely tortured to death of his the will be held account

but there's a lot of you know interesting political games going on in libya it seems to me very clearly is that why this focus now on the on the 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 islam hasn't had access to a sinister 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 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 being tortured to death who is the former boss of the fronts. back with the rick up of our top stories in a few minutes stay with us here on r.t. .

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