for. it's. all eyes on russia's people vote for the next president who takes the reins for up to six here. the battle for the kremlin continues with more than a third of russians have already cast their ballots in what could potentially become the most transparent election in russia's history join me live for all the latest updates from the red square in just one minute. looking back at the week's top stories calls for a serious cease fire grow but reports of more arms smuggling and the arrest of more than one hundred foreign mercenaries spiked fears of international interference. at all but two e.u. leaders signed a new pact on tough budget controls while people across europe unite against cuts

to their wages and pensions. five pm in moscow i matras are bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r t millions of russians today picking the man who will be president for an unprecedented six year term polling closes in just under four hours and we're bringing you comprehensive coverage from the heart of moscow. well today's turnout is thought to be high with russian voters showing a huge level of political activity leading up to this vote authorities making every effort to make the poll as transparent as possible and hundreds of thousands of

independent observers are spread nationwide and every ballot box under the watchful eye of webcams which anyone can click on line and watch archie's alexei years live in red square he's bringing us the latest so i'd say. yes indeed it's a very interesting day for us here in russia with election going on and to talk about the opinions and basically how this election is going we're joined live here at the red square with. she it works for the public opinion research sense it was the biggest one you know judging only opinions in russia and my first question to you how have the opinions political if he has changed in russia in the run up to the election and what are the changes for the students shifts i can tell you that's in the latest three months we have observed the rice and supports all opposition leaders some of them running for the elections this time some of them which were to claim the right so it's wrong for the elections. supports both sides candidate is michael progress for example has a reason. to run

a slightly went down well but in general we see much bigger interest always the elections right now especially on the younger completion usually a youth has been staying at home thinking well they have other things to do they didn't have much interest in participating in the elections in these times this year two thousand and twelve you see the young population growth in the big cities and in the villages and the small little areas willing to pursue peace much more actively both coaching and observing the elections well it's not a secret to anyone that has been a massive rise in public awareness political awareness that activity is ever since . jane in december do you think this is just connected to this particular election or will this manifest itself more solidly well if you're speaking of all the protests activity as well which we have observed recently everybody i think conserving out only people residing in the capitals yes i think that after the elections for certain period of time there still will be some pretty succeeded observance of in the into largest cities however dependent on how those stories

would be dealing with the protest and we will see where they too will continue to to go on or whether it will go down slightly i think that right now this awareness this interest or was the political base of a shrewd political life in russia in general is showing that we are all unique team to this certainly at different periods of time in russian history much more interest and much more feeling that something depends on you something different something from the things that you do in the choice and the neocons sufficiently because mom told it's more than twenty years since the soviet union collapsed you have a different country now surely. but still we have the communist leader zyuganov running for presidency possibly a second place candidate we have the communist party second largest in parliament one of the reasons for that in your opinion well. we're judging here to a large extent from the parliamentary elections of december two thousand and seven

alchemies party has gained a bigger support than had before and the largely through to the protests will take many people who do find their leaders to support they went to the election booth and supported couldn't these cards you know just because they were supporting communist ideas so much but rather they were thinking that this party is being much more position than the other ones are true position however and this is you gonna. to some extent does have problems with the part of his personal image i would see there is more people communists oriented i mean could. saidee is really into this support economist by she wrote them deleting sound for himself that's even though he's quite sporty listy it with a very few of the others but there's clearly other candidates which are coming quite close to him and the lady who will seize i think in the future elections as well thank you very much this was coming from a russian political from russian public opinion research center the company which

will certainly bring us to the exit poll results when they come out at about nine pm mosco time. so alexei how is the voting going so far and what are we hearing about the turnout server as i have to say. but we understand that the voter turnout has been already higher than at the very same moment four years ago during the previous presidential vote so we understand that more than one third of russians have already cast their ballots there have been reports certainly of some irregularities at the polling stations but when just down the massive presence of the independent observers there so the people have managed to sort out these irregularities at this sport so some regions of russia have reported a very high voter turnout up to seventy percent and this is certainly higher than the same sign four years ago old the. old presidential candidates have already crossed their ballots as well and we are just waiting when the polling stations close in about four hours from now and we'll be able certainly to bring you the

latest i suppose results straight after nine o'clock pm mosco time and most of our casual viewers watching your putin's but certainly grabbing most of the headlines in this race and most pre-election polls do set him as the front runner but he's running against four other candidates so tell us more about some of that. indeed putting is still seen as the front runner he has the likely winner of this presidential vote even though his support has clearly diminished ever since two thousand and four and back then it was about seventy percent but the question is the biggest intrigue of this election is in fact whether there will be a second round. march twenty fifth in order to avoid the second one run up in the bill in order to get the picture in the first round let me know which it has to get fifty percent plus one vote in the first round clearly he has some serious challenge in the face of the night he's gone of the communist party leader we just talked about with olga he is. he's a veteran of the presidential campaigns and russia running for the fifth time it

was only once that he had skipped running for president for the highest job in russia we also have a tycoon mikhail broker who in some way represents the middle class he is the dark horse of this election certainly if you come at the politics first time presidential candidate. the also have other two candidates the ever present leader of the liberal liberal democratic party but the visual steve very eccentric man though he stands very little chance of making it into the potential second round runoff and also we have the leader of the fair russia party subpoenaed all of the former head of the author of house of the russian parliament also standing very little chance according to many experts in the service of making it into the second round a runoff so definitely an interesting race and we have following every step as it goes across the country i'm slowly artie's like sarah show for us in red square thanks for that update. millions of people across russia now fulfilling their civic duty casting their ballots for their chosen candidate for the first time anyone can

watch the democracy in action live nearly every single polling station equipped with a webcam transmitting live and that's what you're watching now at this polling station in sochi on the black sea coast where the twenty fourteen winter olympics will be held the web cam network prime minister who denies idea to ensure maximum transparency in response to allegations of rigging the vote and during the state duma elections in december if you want to check it out yourself the address is in the lower right hand corner of your screen there where you can register using your social media account if you don't want to register and we're also showing a selection of the web streams on our t. dot com where you can find extensive analysis of the election and the latest updates. our g.'s a catarina groucho bill was checking out the web cam installation any other preparations to make the vote as open as possible. yes ok. we won't forget and we won't forgive this is what the opposition promised the

kremlin after december's parliamentary elections they claimed the vote had been raked in response the authorities decided web cameras at all ninety eight thousand polling stations not solve that problem it's cost russian taxpayers over three hundred million dollars doubling the initial cost of the vote now it's officially the most transparent and the most expensive in the nation's history but not everyone's convinced. the cameras won't change anything there will always be discontent it was honest before it without cameras. i don't think it will make the vote more transparent it's only made to please the opposition. there was no sense installing them too many people are voting and there are too many polling stations it will make things more complicated. one of the main concerns about the c.c.t.v. system is whether it can serve a country as vast as russia hacker attacks on the website in charge of broadcasting

shortly before the vote only added to concerns but these young people claim they came up with a strong alternative if the phone and tablet application older geale was created mostly for observers it allows them to upload pictures report on the turnout and give the final results and register any violations the data would be processed and published on the website immediately when we realise our website might be attacked on the x. by hackers which were ready for any attack on our servers are capable of dealing with serious traffic they're based in data centers in europe so we'll cope with processing information from observers and regular users to. all drug deal is independent from the central election committee and its founders promise to come up with reports just as and a condiment meanwhile it all dive candidates had quarters it's been mostly about training observers this election also has set a record number of watchdogs almost

a million including seven hundred international observers here. i was invited to this election doors open day it was good training for everyone we could see firsthand how c.c.t.v. systems work to see transparent ballot boxes it will be the first presidential election in russia which not only will be filmed on hundreds of thousands of cameras which has been rehearsed to a couple of days before the actual vote those who wish to take part were invited to cast their ballots not for candidates of today but from history including the great winston churchill and. you know he included a great twenty six year olds it's only hours before russia's next piece of the great is named but even before the ballots have been counted many warned of a new wave of protests. protesters in december demonstrated not against the results of the vote but the fact an advantage when putin was swapping seats irritated them

was that putin was trying to return to the top job so regardless of how transparent the vote is if putin gets slightly more than fifty percent protesters will claim he added that up and self to avoid a second round seventy no one will believe the result the first ads that polls will be released one voting in the westernmost city of kaliningrad comes to an end the question them will any of the candidates have that much needed fifty percent to avoid a second round exit in the factual r t. stay with us here for up to the minute coverage of russia's election from the heart of moscow hours of odds are cast and carol. turning now to some of the week's other top stories fears of a foreign role in the syrian violence escalated this week government forces say

they've arrested more than one hundred murcer mercenaries mostly arabs even some europeans attempts to smuggle weapons into the country also reportedly being stepped up or he's very if an ocean has more. but the borders goes and we do estate despite international isolation syria's borders have remained opened and easy to pass through and that may have played a crucial role in the militarization of the country's conflict almost immediately after the crisis began here last march there were reports of preference been smuggled through to arm president al assad's opponents one thousand dollars for a truck full of weapons capable of delivering wholesale destruction and that's how marshall kind of paid to smugglers usually iraqi a lebanese driver is according to ziad ismail chief of the customs series on the border with lebanon. these people bring the women here to destroy our nation to try to kill syrian people on the syrian territory. of. syria has more than two

thousand kilometers of front year with five states israel iraq jordan turkey and lebanon the syrian cities where the most violent clashes have taken place homes and there are all over the in an hour of the border is a fact that some believe has determined their fate or destiny is this is one of three checkpoints on the three hundred fifty kilometer syrian lebanese border in the last year as we've been told here there were only three attempts to smuggle weapons across the offices confiscated thousands of dollars dozens of guns and hundreds of kilograms i have little metal pieces like this one used to may well be a source is main concern and that political pros like this one part of the border where there isn't any security at all but here look at this in the middle of nowhere there is nothing only one road across the road right now and at the same

time are crossing the border and i'm already in lebanon on. and further south see remains extremely vulnerable the city of cairo the cradle of the syrian uprising. it all started here and it continues to play a role in the country's crisis with what i was doing just several kilometers away from here and numerous reports suggesting that foreign weapons and troops going to is only flow through it that are has become one of the weakest points in the country's security the city has become for scene of fierce and bloody clashes at least twice in the conflicts twelve month history the authorities have claimed that many of the so-called free syrian army have in fact come from across the border. they appear shoot and kill and then they disappear immediately they arrive from abroad but they are not from jordan they use this country's border but many of them are from africa. we are showing the weapons allegedly seized in military operations

now you are in the army we don't have weapons from israel and america sniper guns and night vision binoculars advanced developed weapons we don't have it in syria this what we confiscated was killing innocent people and kill even more. while the international community condemns the al assad regime and supports its opponents and many believe all sides in the conflict should be held responsible for violence across syria and with so many foreign weapons involved it's clear that the crisis threshers far beyond these borders regional shin r.t. reporting from syria. rebel forces withdrew from a key district in the deceived city of homs this week with government troops moving in to tackle the remaining resistance damascus as it's gradually purging the city of armed terrorists but activists say it's a massacre and claim repression is are happening international red cross is boosting efforts to get aid to the city residents are without electricity and low

on food and water i mean fierce fighting between rebels and troops one eyewitness tells our key people are hiding indoors afraid of being shot by masked gunmen who are thought to be foreign mercenaries her firsthand account of vailable on r.t. dot com. on the diplomatic front the u.s. and some of its allies say the syrian president can be considered a war criminal this despite the latest round of democratic reforms by damascus as a new constitution was put in place after gaining public support last week in a referendum but u.s. based political analyst rick rose off things the regime change lobby abroad cares little for the opinions of the syrian people. arrested or the murder with interest or at least. the conflict with syria where we want to one side and. we depose of the government they want to ensure regimes that. were made by the government in damascus to cede power very very. very the more one per.

person for example to reach an agreement where. there's an. amount of violence in the country learned some sort of national reconciliation is in the world. we cross paths. and bring about a reconciliation in syria are not going to be aided by the sort of gregory either prime minister. nouri. in syria or. last year with your syria now. the world. who is agreeing with them are rumors. and the. words will stay with us here on our t.v. still ahead this hour to strike or not to strike president obama gets an ultimatum from israel which is calling for a military attack on iran over its nuclear program. but first all except nations

have signed onto a tougher new budget rules to stop countries from running up huge debts britain and the czech republic stay out of a deal which must now be ratified by the twelve euro zone members or he's brussels correspondent tests are so it has more. it's been talked about for months claimed as a solution to europe's crisis fiscal compact described talk to new fiscal rules after another two day summit this fiscal stability compact is signed sealed and delivered . most e.u. leaders have agreed to give it the go ahead and it's expected to be ratified by at least twelve years old nations this pact comes with tight budgetary rules that must be strictly it here too or else face automatic sanctions. member states must maintain a balanced budget or have a surplus keep a budget deficit of three percent or less and shrine the balanced budget rule it is national legislation with it one year preferred we have in the constitution if

budgetary targets are not met they killed the nation could be brought to the european court of justice and be obliged to make penalty payments the reins of strict budgetary oversight will be in brussels hands now we've in europe in brussels we've got our first saw and it's a good start but he's going to police all the bridges all the member states and these member states will lose sovereignty in the field of budgetary policy. what is the population going to accept this. population that's already been forced to accept one tough austerity measure after another good economist knows that if you are doing austerity everywhere you go towards crisis everybody is no tackling probably because if we are keeping expenses everywhere then you crash in the bodies consuming nobody is interesting but this is according to this treaty is a continuation of pure. so we are exactly going back to

what we have done in the last fifteen years. e.u. leaders see the budgetary discipline this fiscal stability pact is expected to bring as a step closer to solving the result structural imbalances and help crisis that countries ease their way out of their predicament but it's a one size fits all approach that has some worried about the impact it could have on healthier economies you put lead to huge fiscal consolidation bias. even those countries that has your fiscal situation. because we don't have to score accounts which can depress coming. at a time when banks face problems and they want to you want to lend not a desirable severe. when the new buzzwords are gross and employment tests are cilia r t brussels. we saw protests in several european countries this week ahead of

friday's e.u. summit hundreds of demonstrators demanded drastic action from leaders in front of the european union headquarters in brussels in spain thousands of students held more rallies against education cuts in athens trade unions went on a three hour stoppage of marching against changes to pension salaries and benefits greece under immense pressure from brussels and the international monetary fund to impose austerity to secure our one hundred thirty billion euro balance. turned out of some other stories making headlines across the globe libya's muslim brotherhood has formed an official political party it'll be had by mohamed so ron who spent eight years as a political prisoner under the khadafi regime the brotherhood expected to be a leading political force in upcoming june. islamize groups had a presence in the times people more than sixty years but many of its leaders were jailed or exiled under the khadafi regime. china's defense spending will rise above the hundred billion dollar mark for the first time this year the country is

developing a new aircraft carrier a stealth fighter jet and missiles that can shoot down satellites beijing's military budgets risen each year for the last twenty making it the world's second biggest just behind the u.s. tension between them grew last year after the u.s. promised to boost its military presence in the pacific. tens of thousands of north koreans gathered for a show of strength against the south for an courses during the rally the country's military chief said the chance of world with their neighbor was greater than ever the north has been angered by joining the u.s. south korean military drills that are set to run until april. the train crash in southern poland has left fifteen people dead and fifty others injured two express trains collided head on the road traveling opposite directions on. same track not yet clear how the trains managed to end up on the wrong track although made new lows being carried out in the area poland's prime minister described it as the most tragic train catastrophe in many years. israel warning washington it may press

ahead with an attack on iran unless the u.s. pledges to use military force to keep from acquiring a nuclear bomb and this ahead of monday's meeting between prime minister netanyahu and president obama who came out against a preemptive strike tel aviv and washington suspect iran of developing atomic weapons which it denies claiming it's generating peaceful energy only u.n. inspectors visited iraq last month but they can't confirm the absence of weapons because tehran is failing to cooperate but iran's envoy to the i.a.e.a. tells r.t. in an exclusive interview he doubts the agency's impartiality. we are warning a couple of countries including united states is trying to run day agency so that they can dictate from washington what a d.n.r. should do and that is why we don't not permit such a thing to occur and that is the whole issue that the agency as a professional technical organization should do its work and that is why you see

they make meet so many noses here and there they do not let the agency to do its work and that is why we want expect all countries including russia and others and i'm very pleased that last meeting in fact russia and china in bass of those along with hundred counties of nominal movement all together questioned what had to happen in fact namely the least of confidential information that that we need the mobilization of member states to prevent something happening in vienna. way these agency from me says actually. the full interview with iran's envoy to the u.n. nuclear watchdog is waiting for you right now at r.t. dot com stay with us as we bring you more of our in-depth coverage of today's news the russian presidential election as our updates continue throughout the day.

and coming up we explore how art and culture can be effective weapons in the battle for justice and peace across the world that's after the headlines in a few moments. on . the.

culture is that so much of. which of course you write on it will be a morning for the future in two days' time russians will go to the polls to look the next president what is the nature of russia's political system how we see change.