sarkozy slips the french president falce to convince enough voters now are losing to a socialist arch rival the pair now go head to head in a second round. israel warns its peace treaty with egypt is in danger after cairo says it's trying to native a gas exports deal over payment and prices. and syria's opposition keeps the calls for military intervention despite the u.n. troops observing mission there please finding little public sympathy within the country. from our studios in central moscow you're watching archie with me and use the now it's good to have you with us four pm here in the russian capital two pm in paris

and there's a tight fight for france's top job with president sarkozy narrowly losing in the first round to his socialist rival francois hollande they now have two weeks to win over voters before the runoff polls close are silly a is across the election in the french capital. right now if you look at the numbers it is certainly neck and neck of the a difference between at the top two candidates is very small the right now it's a one point the differences so the question that people be asking is which way will the voters who had voted for the other candidates how will they vote in the second round will be will it be all and will it be psycho's enough for nicolas sarkozy he will have to try to get the voters of money in the pen who is on the far right from the national front she had managed to get seventeen point nine percent of the votes according to the exit polls about half of her voters may go to nicolas sarkozy but again these are just estimates and as far as a lot is concerned he will have to get a john dickman on shore from the left from his voters who have been very very

creating a lot of noise towards the end of this campaign while ninety percent of voters from that side say they will vote on a lot but still there are a lot of factors that could affect and swaying the votes at in the second round and not least of all the pessimism and the lack of enthusiasm of the french people they may have come out to vote for the for in the first round at eighty percent but that doesn't necessarily mean bill do the same in the second round another factor to be considered but let's get more insight now are from our guest today mr john locklear from the institute of democracy and cooperation thanks very much after being with us today with regard to the the higher numbers that money and a pair of the far right have gone there's a lot of reaction here from the french press that this is a surprise to them what significance is this hold and how will the voters of marina kind of you think voters it's an absolutely incredible result and it's definitely the biggest story of this of this election how will the voters behave we don't know that is the big question marie le pen has said she will announce her choice on the first of may but. boyfriend the head of the fullness of the of the number two in

the furnace you know who we are you said he will he will cost a blank votes on the first of may what does that mean though in ideology and what it means is that there is no certainty a tool that the fullness of the voters will vote for the right wing candidate nicolas sarkozy on the country one. the main reasons why the independents done so well is that that electorate hates nicolas sarkozy for various reasons not least because they felt betrayed by him after having voted for him in two thousand and seven when i'd like to follow up on again is the the campaign ideology that is that has been put forward how will the next president whoever he is be able to meet all the demands from the far right who are anti immigration antihero and on the left who are anti capitalists and you know so all of these ideologies the striking thing about this campaign has been precisely the extent to which money look and has run a leftwing campaign and he capitalist anti free market in favor of protectionism

and so on most of her voters are young people and people from the working classes this is not a classic right wing or at least bush electorate. on the immigration yes there is a right wing discourse i agree lauren older is also a right wing issue but her appeal goes way beyond the simple left right prism. might be able to reassure those as it were left wing from the sort of voters while sarkozy might be able to seduce the as it were right wing ones but we'll have to see. thanks very much service a lot and for joining us well there you have it still a lot of topics issues it to be put it the political debate all on the sarkozy will have a one two one and this could also sway the voters depending on how they do want that debate so we're looking forward certainly to the second round of the presidential race now playing on immigration is a key tactic by the candidates in their campaigns later are to hear is from

france's socialist party which says it's an issue that needs care not exploitation . this is quite honestly immigration being an economic and social problem is primarily a political problem it will reach the point where a great number of anglo-saxon newspapers can no longer see the difference between what marina and nicolas sarkozy so you about islamic immigration. this is a major setback for france to see the president today find inspiration in the program of france's far right this is a very grave step back and we don't want to make immigration an issue used to divide and frighten the french this is a serious matter that must be treated as such and must be subject to political economic and social responses would be should not be a subject used by nicolas sarkozy will appear to win votes and raise racism in france.

but more on how the socialist party sees france's troubles and prospects later this hour here on r.t. . middle east peace is taking another battering this time as egypt terminates its twenty year gas i four deal with israel both countries and this is just a business dispute but observers in israel warn it's putting their peace treaty on the line for a firth as in carro. well the head of egypt's state and gas company has said that this is a trade not a political issue and that the terminations of the deal with over some form of payment this and others also reportedly coming from egypt but it seems some people in israel have interpreted that as a possible violation of the can't they do peace treaty that was signed between the two countries in the one israeli opposition figures come out and want a crisis in relations between egypt and israel and called on the u.s.

who is the sponsor of the gas deal between the neighboring countries to intervene and i was going to be said that there was a very controversial here in egypt a very unpopular amongst the egyptian people who view it as a deal which denied egypt a fair market price on gas provided to israel and also very much seen as representative of the not so warm relations between israel and egypt that were formed under the former president hosni mubarak said not a popular little it's certainly been a target for resentment recently for the first time egyptians have being to dating egypt's relations with israel quite publicly now the current dollars and the islamists in parliament have vowed that they're going to uphold international relations because i think it's been a feeling here in cairo months a lot of people that you could buy a house in the run up to the elections be about to be a rocky a period in relations between the two countries those three front men currently for

that presidential spot have placed it they're going to respect the peace deal of the nearly every single one of them has said that they're going to be looking very closely at the fairness and appropriateness of this very unpopular guest. but israeli journalists are more. gastro as a consequence of the troubled revolution. he's right now is in flux it's in frances and nobody knows exactly where and how the new order in egypt will emerge we need geo political patients in this regard what we're witnessing right now in egypt and the sinai peninsula is a microcosm of this we're witnessing it i think we're witnessing a political twilight we understand what we were parting with we do not know what were approaching. and this is truly how the americans view the situation in egypt. many in washington today as far as we understand regret the haste with which america helped. barak and his regime leave the scene but that is of

course going water under the bridge egypt turned itself from an emerging markets economy one where no foreign investor can assume with signs and written statement on the part of an egyptian interlocutor is worth more than that with which it is signed. also had for you this hour the war games held in a more than sensitive region as russia and china hold their first joint naval exercises in a yellow sea plane what their political plans are selling torts. and the second episode of whistleblower julian assange just hard hitting interview show airs here on tuesday a look ahead to what's in store in just a moment. but first quite a record increase in the use of prescribed antidepressants by u.s. soldiers military officers see no reason for panic seen as

a way to help service personnel survive the brutality of war there's concern that drugs nearly mask the deep psychological damage suffered by troops in combat or she's going to camp reports. a record number of american troops are on antidepressants according to the u.s. army surgeon general. more than one hundred and ten thousand active duty service men and women are taking push clients narcotics sedatives and anti-anxiety drugs that's an eight fold increase in two thousand and five michael brown served as a marine in iraq up until two thousand and six he started taking antidepressants after he returned from war when i was on the i had a question i. make a rational. and my brain was so crowded that almost every artist was doing. when mike was wondering and breeders and points during the middle.

i mean i couldn't i wouldn't be able to make a decision on whether i'm. a person that caring about and in front of me. wearing it at me or anywhere. just there in the direction michael says while in iraq he could see about a third of his fellow servicemen taking psychotropic bills to get through the day. some suggest the current increase in suicides and homicides in the u.s. military is not a coincidence although the link with the use of drugs has been proven in court only in a handful of cases american soldier david lawrence was charged with murdering a detainee he was guarding in afghanistan his sentence was reduced to ten years it was proved that the psychotropic medication that he was prescribed made his mental condition worse the fact that our military is saying oh if you just take these pills you'll be fine and go on back out there and give these people gonz this is

crazy and now we're seeing this terrible combination and reaction of these these medications next scene and and a lot of the soldiers self medicate with alcohol and those don't mix military official see no reason to panic saying the use of psychiatric drugs is comparable to civilian use if you were a civilian. spoke to a psychiatrist and said i have trouble sleeping and i have anxiety problems and i have post-traumatic stress disorder. they wouldn't give you a good and send you out you know to face danger and i mean this was to drive if you're taking some of these medications michael says when he complained of depression he was given drugs before he even had the chance to talk to a doctor i was handed over. want to consider. it seemed. kind of person or persons and then. you have

everything else second prior to the iraq war soldiers could not go into combat and psychiatric drugs but the stress of combat took its toll on three in order to keep the ranks or maybe less depressed the u.s. army started manning out more pills but what seemed like an easy solution has become a part of all of its own i'm going to check our reporting from washington harvey. well very remorse tori's you can always have to are to guard calmly go find a swedish online piracy religion seeking official recognition in the us if you get a vase create of the so-called compliments has already been officially recognized in the scandinavian country and now wants to go on a world wide mission. and moscow joined cities across the globe from our international earth day as thousands of lanterns candle lit candles a night sky sign a light on this and other news at our t.v.

. the un's bolstering its observer mission syria as multiple reports continue with that the teetering cease fire is being violated by both sides the rebels political leaders still want a un backed military intervention but as a clown a boycott reports from damascus the public have no appetite for foreign intervention. almost everyone in syria these days is in opposition to something ready to lash out at opponents at any moment and seventy six year old my feet mohammad is in opposition to that he says syrians are so worked up about politics that it's become difficult to make people smile but he found the way. i like dancing in the streets and i like the reaction it produces in people i feel free this way. even if he can stay away from politics when i ask him about his biggest

concern is sas syria should not dance to somebody else's tune. when hold. we don't need any countries meddling in our. nato here. while the prospect of a leader style intervention seems ever less likely than militarized the position and their supporters are still asking for arms. and. monday at all no one from an under presidents of other countries is that they support us now cause we the rebels wants to get armed. all the rebels may have caused all the media attention the syrian opposition speaks with many voices. it's often faulted for being disorganized and fragmented but there is a surprising unity when it comes to the issue of military intervention. is the basic position activists are he was detained and mistreated by the security

services and while he's calling on bashar assad to leave serious political scene he says the armed groups should do the same. like him abdul aziz is not afraid to go public refusing just return back from moscow where the opposition's relegation tried to persuade the russians of the regions to put more pressure on their side regime he says not all powers mediating the syria crisis are really out. you know all the world nazis that we are supporting and i was. well we know that some of the states are but supporters. and some are probably through some sort of pressure. if it comes. and did not succeed well.

they're going to dark. people will suffer too much. chaos the country will be a civil war no one knows what. with lead the end in iraq just across the border imported democracies are not held in high regard here even among the opposition. while syrians remain highly polarized across political lines most of them agree that this illusion to the current crisis should be worked out within the country even for the opposition dougall be no still better than the demons that now haunt neighboring countries it's unavoidable artsy damascus syria. and when the first episode of julie massages show premiered here on r t it certainly caused a media stir it produced strong reactions ranging from praise to hostile criticism across the atlantic a few commentators remaining indifferent on tuesday our tears the next episode and

nor am it now because us some details. so tomorrow the second episode is airing we did see a lot of backlash from the first episode but this new program features two people last night is talking to two different people one of them's the slovenians level which is a who's a philosopher a fool who are anti communist distance and now turned communist and also david horowitz who's a former left wing radical is to do some fundraising for the black panthers back in the day and is now a radical right wing zionist so from two completely different sides of the fence and when i went to talk to us on preschool this program was broadcast he said this was one of the most heated at the states that he films during filming he tried to talk about other stuff talk about a range of issues but the two them kept on coming back to the jewish question they kept on talking about israel and palestine he had to drag it away from that repeatedly and in fact at one point he says had to be physically restrained even

know david horowitz wasn't even in the room he was in fact on the telephone so it's an extraordinary piece of television in the final cut they want to understand that they do talk about a range of issues they they do talk about palestinians in the nazis they talk about the black panthers and the israelis and they also talk about the american presidential race part of the conversation also goes into europe and specifically what happens in europe after the second world war say the creation of this sort of social welfare state all three of them seem to agree that the welfare state was created in europe is dead now and that in fact it is not all that it's supposed to be european welfare. if you'll permit me to european love more of them i think even united states getting. maybe unique here you're in few months after. so many people live in shark the. three dogs and you're warm don't make too much

fun. do you think it's always was a disastrous spirit europe europe is a cultural theme park in significant that's what happened that's what your welfare state it just took us out of the i have had personal experience with a socialist paradise or sweden and i can tell you it is nothing like the other party when it's also it's about his personal experience this week and of course he's talking about the expected result of his extradition hearing sweden's trying to extradite him on allegations of sexual assault that results is still pending so we still don't know whether our songs will get the experience of sweets and. more of the world's news for you now sudanese warplanes carried out airstrikes on south sudan on monday killing three people near a southern oil town ventoux that's just on a day after new fighting erupted on the border between the two countries if you

found troops were pulling out of the disputed border town has great ginny's officials say up to four hundred of their soldiers were killed during the battle region became independent from the north last year probably a long running civil war which led to nearly two million deaths. clashes over the demolition obvious in the filipino capital have killed one person and left dozens injured authorities want to build houses on the side of a flea market hundreds of squatters blocked a queue road and through rocks at security forces which responded with tear gas about a third of manila's residents live in such and they're forced generation often results in deadly conflicts. where we've been extremist anders breivik has sorry to some of his victims' families during the final day of his testimony apologized for those killed when the bombs in oslo government building but not for the massacre of

mostly young people on the toy i live you call them legitimate targets and the nonce criminal guilt if judges decide breivik was saying during the murders he faces a maximum twenty one year sentence otherwise it will be indefinite psychiatric treatment . and that's prime minister mark reuss. to make his resignation after the collapse of his government over austerity measures his coalition partners and the right wing freedom party refuse to agree to cause and state pensions meaning elections will follow the talks which have been going on for a month aimed at slashing the country's budget by sixteen billion euro to meet rules ratings agency fitch has warned that the netherlands may lose its aaa rating one of the few remaining states to hold the top rank. russia and china are holding their first ever joint naval drills taking place in the yellow senior

korean peninsula thousands of sailors will take part in exercises rich will simulate the rescue of hijacked vessels and the submarine operations these the last key is aboard one of the ships taking part. i'm standing on board the russian destroyer of middle vinogradov and we are now in the chinese who are talking about it took us nearly a week to reach the starting point for the joint russian chinese when you were called mabel corp in two thousand and twelve the russian convoy consists of four big warships armed with conventional weapons three destroyers and the flagship missile cruiser but they are basically what we are going to see here in the next few days is an exercise in cooper ration between russian and chinese naval forces for the first time were four key areas anti-terrorist missions protection of marine lines of communication guarding of civilian vassals and joint supply operations the exercises are the fact building on what both forces have been doing in the past

couple of years in the gulf of aden to counter piracy both chinese and russian warships of course the civilian convoys the coast of somalia and now they'll be learning to make it a joint effort most of the chinese ships we've seen here in the harbor look brand new princes right across the pier you can see the guided missile destroyer harbin which will take part in the joint exercises in the yellow sea both sides stress that the war games are not directed against any particular country or military blog but there's in the creasing concern and both moscow and beijing about the u.s. naval build up in the asian pacific and that's not to mention japanese and south korean forces to close allies with the u.s. we've seen signs of japanese and south korea on our way to china with our convoy was frequently followed. greta reconnaissance planes the sewers and submarines hundreds of port of both sides supported by planes and helicopters.

bush aircraft what's happening in the world of finance katie joins us and investors concerned guy about what's happening in france reduced having in effect a market absolutely i mean as far as the markets are concerned and easter is the main dominating theme today that's all because of the victory of course of the socialist cancer that francois hollande and that's the first round and investors are firmly on the edge of their states now rather national journal caps also said mr hollande is less likely to support your starting measures of game favor as a solution to europe's debt problems. we've seen a lot of political change as a result of the european crisis and if he was to become president probably the biggest change seen so far so far the germans in particular the french germs in particular have been pushing austerity on the part of the world is facing already some very difficult economic years i think if. becomes president it will be

more of a shift towards. a more spending as a way to get out of the european crisis. ok well run the software let's go to the first scene is x. now as you can see sharp losses today look at the dots that over two and a half percentage points down now if we talk about the french course as well the cac is down nearly three percent today investors the not happy are there this instability and i don't like here this kind of sort of you or i will see the last also suffering and then others also drama in the level loans and he's time now you spoke about it as well the government there with our function administration our government fell saturday and around the country spending cuts as you can see that got the ruble and make so it is hard to see a u.s. dollar and move into the russian markets then all starry much but even though we've got a sharp losses here we got the r.t.s. m i six both in the percentage point down ok and moving on let's have a look at which stocks are really suffering we've got a loophole down spilling one of their deposits in the arctic is a concern with

a reported well over two thousand tonnes of crude because down as well nearly two and a half percent now the company's hard times asian program could be on its rise early as often that's according to the first ever see a prime minister who got magnates up over ever so slightly just point one percent though the retailer of course is an almost three fold jump in net profit for the first quarter so it's not all bad news let's get over to the well as see how the prices are doing on this very much explains why the russian markets are down this hour with a drop paying that's from the highs close in three days also reports. consumption growth is slowing that really had a domino effect on the markets today that kate said hold off i thought about how the markets at this hour and i thought about for about fifteen minutes with well all right ken you're looking forward to it and coming on here in our tour we have more on the french presidential election we hear from the french socialist researcher on the steel to march on. march on nicolas sarkozy and we get the

party's thoughts on the upcoming second round of the election stay with us a short break now and i'm back with.

there hasn't been anything yet she. used to get the maximum political impact. the material is one hopes the journalism one of we. we want to visit. something else. science technology innovation.