workers of the world you know it it's labor day. here in moscow. it's the coldest protest against the presidential vote as a boy previously but. it's the sixth all the details coming up shortly. in america the occupy movement banks on using may day to stage a big comeback and prove it's staying power. but the may day rallies turn violent in italy with police striking protesters who are voicing their anger at the severe cuts imposed by the unelected leaders our top stories this hour.

online on screen around the world this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day moscow's streets have been brimming with people this may day with most celebrating and some demonstrating trade unions marched under the labor day flag to demand better working conditions and even russia's ruling turned and took to spearheading a crowd of their supporters. early in the going to. more than one hundred twenty thousand people out want to stop it right this is one of the main thoroughfares in the russian town tell me they mean they have to look at what the amount to make ultimately about. having a rather good solid knowledge of the labor unions the things that matter to since the work that they're calling for the retirement age is not to be raised and for

better conditions for workers overall the labor day to get older and i know. the area to go insult planned out workers organized labor unions and went on strike new order to demand better award conditions from the united states is a manhole throughout europe middle class incomes across a new possibilities and solidity and the big names are marked the labor unions riots over the last seventy or eighty years we also have a more serious political movement and parties on the street nameplates well as the students now this day is also being marked in the rest of the world now to listen to some came from the united states up the wall street movement is also taking part in this they can sleep on a sort of a. more or less. situation over the last six months so this time on this labor day they're coming back with the band in iraq that this seems to get more of

a reason or more of a day to celebrate spraying it and then and to protest anything. opposition members were also out to get their message across among them the country's second largest party which still refuses to accept last year's parliamentary election results and is unhappy about the enemy of putin's return to the kremlin jacob graves reports from amid a sea of red flags is running the held annually for the communist party on media carries a certain amount of symbolism for them as they stand to represent workers in russia was a steep isn't history when it comes the days of the soviet union masquerades which are held then when you take a look at the crowd you really get a sense for that this down among some of the just fronts for the soviet union images of the controversial joseph stalin for instance being held up fine for their leader gennady zyuganov now he has proven quite crucial a very critical of president elect vladimir putin he was main opposition in the presidential elections they still refuse the results that sort of claim to have

occurred amidst allegations of electoral fraud they are the only ones standing out in force they have numbered in about over ten thousand people even though it's an aging support base i think still drum up a lot of followers for this cause but also the third and fourth largest factions in the state duma respectively they've also be represented today that is a just russia party and liberal democrats now one notable absentee from proceedings in central moscow today has been the white ribbon movement those calling for free and fair elections it garnered a lot of media attention on the back of december's parliamentary elections initially called for a protest be held today but since countered it is there they want to plug together pulls together for may this thick a day before president elects volunteer proteins and nor go ration on may the seventh they wanted to make a stronger show of it then now as for those in attendance today fundamentally many

of them coming from state duma parties or others also being represented such as nationalists choosing this day to march. well known to corporate occupy protesters are reemerging in new york and other american cities in a bid to surge back into the headlines there's going to update from our correspondent marina port au prince in the big apple when activists want a nationwide strike on may day it's early in the day where you are marina what does it look like they'll make an impact today. well the crowd is getting our progress as there are thousands gathering in bryant park here in new york city and hundreds more picketing outside of banks in the offices of corporate and multinational headquarters here in new york city just about a half hour ago madison avenue was shut down in manhattan when hundreds stormed the

street disrupting traffic occupy wall street movement is say many are saying this is sort of a resurgence of it this marks a day where the activists that began their grassroots effort in the fall of two thousand and eleven a movement that blazed throughout the u.s. center around the globe is now coming to light again what the activists movement is is asking is for all of the ninety nine percent in the u.s. to refrain from going to work or purchasing anything throughout the day they say that only through. their labor and their purchasing power will the one percent understand that their wealth depends on the ninety nine percent of americans many of whom are struggling right now still in a very dismal workforce here in the u.s. now in just a few hours all the activists are going to be taking to the streets marching from bryant park down to union square where many. students scholars will be

joining the crowd the n.y.p.d. has said that it has increased its manpower for today research fishel say that they are expecting many organized illegal activities to take place and they say they are prepared to arrest who violates the law our viewers may remember the images that were seen in the fall of two thousand and eleven just last year when police used tear gas pepper spray but tongs and heavy handed tactics against activists in. oakland california and boston and new york's new york and many other cities throughout the u.s. and the destructions that are being planned for today are carried out we may in fact see clashes once again between police and unarmed protesters here in the u.s. . well we've been seeing some live pictures of the events there where you are in new york it's only been a turbulent eight months for the movement but has it actually achieved oving so far

. oh i think it has achieved a much gained an understanding i guess of many would say not throughout the u.s. but. people together around the world because there's a common frustration that's being shared and the fact that internationally the phrase occupy wall street is known says a lot you know this this group was marginalized in the very beginning by mainstream media kucing this group of being you know unemployed students lazy people but as we saw in the movement grow we saw activist scholars well known authors well known prominent figures join this movement that is expressing outrage over several issues including income inequality corporate influence over u.s. halid six student debt under health care many underestimated.

many scholars one including said that moving forward. will grow when anybody that underestimates it will be wrong to take a listen to what dr west had to say. the spirit inside of the activists in the occupy movement didn't dampen just because the snow fail that the fire is still there it just takes a different form and it's going to bounce back really in the next few weeks and months in a very powerful way that democratic awakening around poor people working people critiques capitalism imperialism sexism racism homophobia and. most of the bigotry it's going to it's going to live. dr cornel west just four years ago was travelling the us campaigning for us president obama and it's interesting how four years later he's joining this movement occupy wall street and many former obama supporters are actually out. here in the crowd

one man was holding a sign earlier today saying obama promised change and then changed his promises that gives an indication of the frustrations that are being felt by the activists coming out to the streets today. thanks very much indeed for that live update artie's live there from new york where the first is also being marked with mass labor day marches worldwide in europe several large nationwide demos are underway in italy demonstrations of turn violent as rob police beat protesters in france where it's election week supporters of incumbent leader nicolas sarkozy and the country's far right civil tenuously hit the streets of paris five days before the crucial presidential vote in spain where the euro crisis has seen the country plunge into a double dip recession people their voice their anger at the ongoing stringent cuts and unemployment and in greece crowds marched outside the parliament building in athens and through the city in

a sturdy protest analysis on the situation in europe now from. the founder of crisis planning for s p g dot com joining us in paris where we talk about what's happening in france where you are in just a moment but first as we're reporting here naughty things are turning ugly in italy with demonstrators being beaten by police now should the levels of anger have been dissipated there and what effect will heavy handed policing have. yes it should have been anticipated because these austerity measures inevitably start to squeeze the people and you start seeing rising levels and of unemployment and general economic discontent you know it konami discontent of course becomes political discontent and if that political discontent cannot find expression in the ballot box you start seeing people demonstrating in the streets and so i would expect to see more protests in italy during the coming weeks as spring becomes summer and not only in italy but in the rest of europe and the way we're seeing not

just in italy but we've seen in the past very heavy handed work by the police on protests is this a sign perhaps that european governments perhaps turning against democratic values or not allowing people the freedom of speech and expression. yes i would say so the problem with the euro zone idea and the european community it's a never been a democratic ideal whenever the european constitution has been up for a vote it's a has lost in every referendum popular referendum that's been out there and now you are having the problem of this economic crisis which is becoming worse and worse what you have is the european union and the european central bank demanding that the national governments cut spending and go into these austerity programs rather than devalue the euro and try to inflate their way out of this problem so it's basically helping the bondholders at the expense of the people now the people of course eventually if you keep on squeezing them and economic problem becomes a political problem and you start seeing massive discontent which you're seeing

italy i think that you're going to start seeing more and more of it in france and i think that in particular we should look at the election results in france as of late because it seems to me that the establishment politicians of both the left on the right that is sarkozy and hollande are not responding to the general popular discontent we can see this in the comparison between the elections of two thousand and seven in france and two thousand and twelve in two thousand and seven the far right and far left between the both of them garnered barely fourteen percent of the popular vote in the first round of the election two thousand and seven but in two thousand and twelve they literally doubled their vote getting they've both added up to about twenty eight percent you know when you have one third of the population approximately that is severely unhappy with the way that the establishment politicians are running the show then you have to start we evaluate and adjusting but the problem is that the current mainstream leadership of sarkozy and now who seems to like to do wins in the next sunday's election they do not seem to be

responding to the popular discontent they seem to be responding to the quote unquote technocrats who insist on austerity and what we've seen in spain will be seen in greece. what we've seen in the u.k. austerity measures do not seem to be working to fix the economy and a swathe of this popular discontent so i would say that during the next few weeks we're going to see more and more of that in a way you would think that this would be a perfect opportunity for the likes of so cozy in holy land to to listen to people's concerns and react to them on this may day but some would say they're just using the for electioneering and actually hijacking the purpose the tradition of the day which of course is for workers to express their views the marches in in support of the unions in the workers exactly i mean may day is the workers' day now the politicians the mainstream workers just as you said they're hijacking it for political gain but the people recognize it props they are not able

to articulate it one of the great criticisms of the occupy movement that you mentioned previously was that they the occupy movement has never been able to articulate their discontent and their unhappiness is and what they want but that general unease unhappiness is finding expression not only in the occupy movement but in the other protest movements that are we are beginning to see throughout europe so i would expect that during this next spring and summer and especially in the fall you're going to see a lot more popular discontent a lot more writing because the situation is deteriorating across the continent so that it only creates more popular discontent and political consultant thanks very much indeed for your thoughts gonzalo lira founder of lear f.p.g. dot com website joining us live there in paris could he thoughts. to the middle east now where israel is taking new steps to shield itself from its arab neighbors having already walled off the palestinian side of the of snell seeking to do the same with the lebanese. has the latest from israel. well the

israeli army says it is building this a seven metre high cement wall between israel and lebanon to prevent firing from lebanon into northern israel now over the past year and a half there have been and number of incidents just last week a man crossed over the border with his two children from lebanon but a much more deadly example was last year when a number of people were killed during commemorations when they came too close to the border from the lebanese side and to now there has been an electrified fence along the one kilometer israeli lebanon border and this is monitored by unifil the united nations interim force in lebanon and in fact israel and lebanon while being take the war they always do meet under the auspices of uniform and this wall is being constructed in conjunction with the uniform of the israeli army as well as the lebanese army but in addition israel is also in the midst of building a wall along its southern border with egypt

a war that it says it hopes to finish by the end of the year according to the israelis the want in the south is to stop militant activity there and also to prevent smuggling and then there's another war very very controversial war that israel has built since two thousand and two in the palestinian waistband and it's controversial because very often it's built on private palestinian land and cuts through villages and it has caused outrage in the international community but the israel has cited security concerns as the reason for that particular area is what is becoming more isolated as tensions increase in the region and here we only need to look at recent developments between cairo and television. is the egyptian presidential front runner said recently that the camp david accords which was signed between israel and egypt back in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight i did and buried and in addition to that just a few days ago stopped it's a longstanding agreement to supply gas to israel in addition to that we have the

situation with iran and here. we are now asking cracks between the israeli political and military leadership over whether or not to go ahead with preparation for war whether or not they said continue talking about a war there's a lot of confusion around there too so certain tensions in the region are increasing. journalist zone has already exposed some of the world's most shocking secrets and his search for the truth is not over yet the third edition of judean series airs today here on r.t. he's already tackled the head of hezbollah aren't two opponents from very different political extremes both shows got viewers and the media fired up when in today's program he meets the new president of tunisia a human rights activist who was swept to power at the start of the arab spring wave of revolt we can learn more about his challenges views and future in the next hour here on here's what's ahead. i just spent spent four months in solitary confinement so but i did early which the prime minister in tunisia spent more than ten years in

sort of confinement and i always admired him and it's i live in the how he could you know survive through this kind of experience but because after just four months i was just talking to myself you know i really crazy i want crazy because you know when you have just to talk to yourself to be. to be alone with yourself for all this time you it's terrible experience this is why i think it's a kind of far. side to say psychological torture and so many people said look you have never been tortured in prison and i used to say no i was under torture but it was another kind of torture and probably one of the worst when you know this when you know that you are fighting for your human rights for good values then you can have enough resistance you know to tackle the situation.

so you can watch the next edition of the journey in the same series in the next hour here in r.t. syria now where dozens of reportedly been killed in ongoing clashes between government and rebel forces opposition activists claim the expanding u.n. observer mission is having little to no effect the world body is expected to have around fifty monitors in syria by friday and hundreds more over the coming weeks and missions designed to oversee a cease fire which he says is not being implemented that's because claims of foreign funded insurgency for the bloodshed and just days ago neighboring lebanon seized a huge cache of smuggled weapons meant for the syrian rebels. foreign meddling is plunging the region into chaos. the struggle of weapon hasn't stopped from the day one and it's all we know that's how these been funded by by syrian live ensued

uribe and we know the money is coming from saudi arabia and from qatar and from other entities and they're coming through lebanon one of the route is through lebanon and this is this one ship ben actually but there are a lot of ben that have been used and smuggle into syria and that tell you the real story when the foreign minister of judea arabia say we have to arm the opposition that he's saying let's keep the killing continue and the terrorism taking place hold on syria even the american the western eyes the western world know that there is a lot of terrorism taking place in syria al qaeda been moved into syria from out of country funded by some government in the arab countries this is going to be devastating not only for syria this is going to bring a regional war that nobody want at the now or in the future. you know and some of

the world's news for you the other news making the headlines for the people demonstrated in the southern afghan town accusing nato troops of killing four children during a gunfight with insurgents protesters blocked a major highway carrying the bodies of the children aged eight to twelve for more than a decade the war in afghanistan is taking the lives of thousands of civilians putting a strain of relations between kabul and the u.s. . a gun fire and a series of explosions have struck nigeria's main northern city of cairo at least one person was killed as government forces raided the suspected hideout for the militant group the violence comes just days after government of technocrats worshipers of a university campus and church leaving twenty one dead. the reports of gunfire mali's capital after a second day of clashes between the ruling military junta and soldiers loyal to the former government. says it's still in control of the capital despite soldiers taking over the state broadcaster and attacking the airport were forced to flee the

chaos and electricity to some neighborhoods is cut off it seized power in march and anger at the government's handling of rebellion in the. migration agency in sudan says it won't be able to meet a deadline to trade up to fifteen thousand sudanese by may the international organization for migration says thousands lack the means to leave the sudanese town of course millions fled from the south to the north during the twenty two year war that led to the south getting independence last july that found themselves stranded in the aftermath. the u.s. is promising to help the philippines boost its maritime security just a week after joint military exercises but it's angering china which has a territorial dispute over a group of islands in the south china sea. but not today's from the new patriotic alliance says america is using the philippines as a pawn for its own geopolitical game. the start of the year we we saw the u.s.

announcements of their new defense strategy rebalancing towards. putting more troops in this region to secure its economic and security interests and that includes placing more u.s. troops here in the philippines and transforming the entire country into some sort of military outpost for the united states troops and i believe that the projection of power of the projection of military power is aimed toward such rivals of the us like china and it becomes very convenient now that the us stands to exploit the territorial disputes between the philippines and china so that it can justify further putting more troops in our territory in violation of our national sovereignty the us is not really going to go all out in china it's playing a very shrewd game often circle and containment but it will not.

get the feeling. that that's the double talk that the u.s. . to deceive the philippine government and tell us that we should we should have the u.s. intervene as an ally in this territory of this meet with china. dot com a website is where to go to get more on all our stories and your fun reports and shows ready to go on you tube channel here's what we've got on line for you at the moment. preparing for the worst nato chicago summit is still weeks away but security is already working on how to evacuate the entire city in an attack. also a lot of girls very best friends to go to the hammer some of these this centuries old diamond but once belonged to queen marie de mint the cheap is expected to fetch over four million dollars. the live here in moscow on the way for how the occupy movement set to prove it still got far in the belly that's after i recap today's top stories for you very shortly this is r.t.

life in moscow. leaves keep this inside g. to green room. to.

me to feel. civilization notice their absence. but is there. life outside civilization possible. to a substantial degree and one farm or another socialism has spread the shadow of human regimentation over most of the nations of europe and the shadow is encroaching upon all the. leave early twenty first century military bases the network of military bases all around the forms legal empire that the united states is trying to do it's astonishing most americans have no idea there are more than a quarter of a million or more than two hundred fifty thousand u.s. troops stationed on these bases all around the world. we don't have power bases in

america we don't have any british base we don't have any korean base we don't have any french bases or you know we just all american bases in our bases of one of the noises our northeast of doesn't bother us at all because they're our bases but for other people it's almost like a cancer here for these people. since the into world war two the spaces i've been. working here to provide a safe and secure environment for everybody. the questions being a thing else to get everything you needed. join

me on a journey to the heart of the problem to a place is hidden from the tourist you're going to meet some real crime insiders although they may not be the usual news makers you see on t.v. .