the top stories incumbent nicolas sarkozy and rival alone face off in france's presidential election in the pits a battle that could redefine the country's role on the world stage. a leading human rights activist from bahrain is arrested days before he is to interview with julian is sanjay in which he spoke of a violent crackdown on protesters in his home country. and opposition protesters occupy central moscow just a day before a pledge to mr putin's inauguration the movement dubbed a march of millions despite turnout proving scarce. more headlines from us in the week increased violence in egypt with more deaths in violent clashes at rallies

less than a month before the presidential election. plus more than a dozen dead in a double terrorist bomb attack in russia's republic of dagestan with over one hundred also injured in the blast. watching the weekly with me kevin owen here on r.t. and surrounded by the day's made news on the top stories from us for the past seven days and first instinct day in france is tightest the most acrimonious presidential election in recent history millions accusing of polling stations across the country to decide between incumbent nicolas sarkozy and his socialist rival. our correspondent there is in paris. there's a lot of variables out there that could swing the the results one way or the other i'll just give you some early numbers according to the interior ministry at around

noon thirty point six percent of of french voters have already turned out to cast their ballots now that is two percentage points higher than the first round however it is still much lower than the outcome of the two thousand and seven presidential elections again a very close a lot has been leading us throughout much of the campaign his lead between four and seven percent or whatever there is still that question of who are the voters that have voted for money look ahead of the national front or centrist francois bayrou who are they going to choose for this round also the question of how many people in total at the end of the day will come out and cast their ballots now there's one on lawn who was presenting himself as a president who's going to unite france a cycle is he for his part is saying he is a president with a strong leadership skill but a lot has been supported by this is a wide anti a stair the sentiment sweeping much of europe with ten e.u. governments already swept from power since the crisis had started well let's get a bit more analysis on what's going on now from my nabila ramdani she's a journalist as well as a political analyst a thank you very much for joining us today now if alanda does win which the polls

say he's favored to win he says the first thing is going to do is talk to angela merkel what is your reading on the impact this will have in europe yes indeed he will have a huge impact indeed because as we know for so long has a completely different take on european matters as indeed presidents all crews who is very close to angela merkel and the two of them so. kohl worked extremely hard to negotiate a deal out of the way out of the european crisis and for so long has a completely different take he wants to renegotiate the e.u. pact and introduce a new chapter on growth creation now that's going to be really difficult to achieve because if he reopens the goshi asians as he promises he will do he will means the twenty seven member states will again engage in a discussion and each state will of course. would like to have its priorities taken into account he has made it abundantly clear that he's main priority will be to

withdraw the french french troops from afghanistan as early as twenty twelve now that the end of the year that he's now that seems pretty unrealistic because basically it will take an awful lot of time to to achieve that so we're more realistically looking at eighteen if not later he also said he would like to pull out of nato to satisfy the left and that includes defiler left additionally who will be a major part of his of his parliamentary block indeed all right thank you very much for your thoughts there so there you have it still again a very tight race too early to tell who will actually come out as a winner although the polls you suggest are large might take at this a victory but we will have the early results at eight pm paris time it will keep you updated once that comes out. the full coverage here hope you stay with us. from france and the vote progress is with plenty of analysis and opinion on the crucial of what it means for the country. police in bahrain have detained ahead of the country's center for human rights without explanation now bill roggio known for his

firm opposition to the ruling regime was arrested days before interview with the world's top whistleblower julian assange studio where the program here on r.t. the civil rights leader was allegedly facing charges of participating in protests against the government it was returning to bahrain for a sunday court hearing let's talk about this he's a visiting professor of international relations of bill cake university in turkey. now bill roger obscene as a as a key figure in the of the bahrain uprising what do you think's in store for him now and indeed how's it likely to affect the movement. well it's really a big challenge to the government of bahrain to her so. caught by the police where it was. that they were going to school. yet. arresting. somebody has problems with this not just in bahrain but around the world with connections to the rights groups in america and so on really the

spotlight on them it's rather odd decision in a way because in some ways they had survived the crisis the former was criticism of that was going to carry forward and more michael probably would have wanted to keep quiet at least. and i wonder what the international reaction is going to be here and he's also affiliated isn't it with international human rights groups like human rights watch what sort of your reaction we're likely to expect from abroad research that although the u.s. government and. our cameraman charge your sources that it's the bahraini regime that emphasized it was moved to place us maybe just of course this is iran because . she has these connections with. american and european human rights groups because he has an international i think this risk story is in the boring variation in way that it's actually all below the radar for most people the arab spring has really been focused for the average western on what's been happening in syria more

recently but all the attention is egypt and libya and the suppression of opposition in bahrain have gone largely unnoticed you mostly it's interesting you say that the u.s. the u.s. been quick to condemn the syrian regime's crackdown on protests as for instance but why are we hearing the same about bahrain as you say it's kind of slipped under the radar isn't it went to great extent although bahrain a small arab state to tell a very rich and powerful friends not recently arabia and the saudis will send troops to help. last year the saudis that are very nice and some of their sympathizers and who are spending a lot of money on her relations campaign bringing in friendly people to see how nice it is how little most over the war was and so on and in a sense trying to drone critical voices which until now really haven't had much traction in the western media because if you don't how will your campaign we don't have a sense of the new government. in the west you know great difficulty really going to you know this arrest of course could actually ironically be counterproductive

when other side to this is one of the rajah pointed out in his interview just telling our viewers about julian assange on his interview show you and i spoke to him days on tuesday on r.t. but. you pointed out that even the arab world the bahrain uprising is getting little or no coverage in the media why they're not well you see one thing is it's there's a sectarian element come down to. the public in bahrain is majority of. by the sunni family. to the west to twelve being hostile to shiite iran. so there is a kind of sectarian lack of interest in the greater shiites you know people call for human rights turn a blind eye to the human rights of really thinkers food. and ironically the one problem for very very promising just across the sea from cattle because cattle the al-jazeera channel has begun to report. on the news with castro.

so we were given we can exhibit a split in the gulf. of this. international complications which i think united states. would go for all interest me very. very fearful thank you thought somebody on the program mark i'm a visiting professor of international relations there bill kent university in turkey thank you. and just to remind you again you got a chance to see julian sanchez exclusive interview with bill choose day two days ants here on r.t. . i speak to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain where the revolution failed was of egypt where the revolution is now in turmoil what makes a revolution and where is the arab spring going to go. people gathering in central moscow for

a demonstration dubbed by russian opposition activists is the march of millions they're protesting against vladimir putin's return to the criminal leave no gration tomorrow with our correspondent in the midst of it all down then. we will be watching for the last two hours and so the pictures come in but from our cameras. we can see there's a crowd there at the mall but is it a mob of a million or somewhat less. certainly not a million people here in moscow or any in any cities across the country it was a nationwide movement calling millions of people onto the streets it began out in the far east some fifty people according to officials numbers turned out but here there actually seems to be more people than were even expected what was really expected were around five. official numbers are at something like eight thousand opposition numbers are always a bit higher than official they're somewhere between ten between ten and minds heroes and what happened was protesters gathered on october sky which is about

a kilometer away from where we are and made their way here you can probably see over my shoulder some of those red flags up on the bridge to bubble up my ass square which was the scene of the first really big protests that we saw back in december after basque claims of vote fraud but according to opposition members experts and analysts i does seem that the opposition at least in moscow and st petersburg seems to be losing some steam. opposition is depressed the opposition thinks that. from what i'm getting reading their blogs there twitters is that there is no sense of unification that was this winter right now the left are going to the left the right are going to the right and we don't really see this one big force that made the government. so paranoid back then. so thousands of people making their way to follow up list somewhere like i said

when these protests began back in december they were really about fair and free elections and really today it seems to be a gathering just anti-productive sentiment head of the inauguration which is of course tomorrow they have a couple of hours or so into their permits loosely perhaps more people will show up but certainly a mood that at the numbers that we're seeing here today at least a mosque our not a good sign for the future or any kind of development in terms of the opposition absolutely ok thanks for that would become a little bit later in the program this now that. most of the call is a russia specialist to the university of london he says putin will need to show a new strategy in his next to reach out to those who feel neglected. putin challenge is to define himself as a new leader to provide a vision for the future because he's coming in as a third term president and many young people would say why a third term why not somebody new we need somebody new the new challenges and so on and we'd like to see a new vision and

a new face so his challenge is really to say to people i've got a new vision. and this is the way we're going to go forward and the key to it of course is the economy the distribution of wealth reduction of corruption and he has to look at the established elites the very powerful economic elites which don't want anything to change they want to keep their wealth and so on but the the new rising middle class the professionals and so on would like to participate and his challenge is really to reach out to the people outside the elites he's got to be if you like very dominating but also a charismatic leader doesn't this mention then as i mentioned as well we will bring you more live reports from the opposition rally in the center of the russian capital throughout the day without a camera teams and correspondents down there also you can catch the live stream online on our web site r.t. dot com to get. media pictures of what's happening there as well it's a busy day as well because of this happening on the inauguration of putin it's

a big day tomorrow a lot of coverage to bring you that tomorrow special coverage of putin's inauguration starts at seven thirty in the morning g.m.t. time for the magnificent splendor of the kremlin all. the syrian government granted amnesty to two hundred sixty five rebels ahead of monday's multi-party parliamentary vote the first such election in decades

a series of blasts in the capital damascus and in the northern city of aleppo has killed at least three civilians on saturday and it's up to sara first reports people are police placing increasing hope now on the u.n. observer mission monitoring the frequently breached ceasefire. in the heart of damascus thousands come out to mourn the dead at the funerals of people killed during clashes in the capital once again drew into focus the very precarious situation the country now finds itself in before the bodies of the that they carried through the streets of damascus the rules the people who were killed under the station they just the story you've got the military the security watching this is at the same time as the u.n. observers are supposed to be here overseeing the peace plan and not only in the day we've joined the u.n. observers on one of the daily tours to flashpoint areas. this have been traveling

to some of the areas where the focus is by things being breaking out and you can see on the ground small slow steps are being taken in the observers are really going to be one thing over the coming period the building on the observers are also based full time in some cities like homs and it led many have felt that their presence there has bought some calm in team and we have little time between stops to speak to the people who live here we did talk to tell us that the last few days have been quiet but they don't know how long that will last long in a situation is much calmer there's not much happening here now about i saw people running tanks and then i saw people shooting at our bread away i don't know exactly what was happening we're here at the checkpoints on the device that the dean of the u.n. has just done a tour through the area it's been a very very fun. they've literally driven through stopping at some of the military checkpoints around to speak to some of the people but no more than five ten minutes

at a time to give you barely enough time to speak to some of the people in the area and get a feel for exactly what's been happening here well the observers presence here does seem to have made some small in rights situation in the country is far from stable tension in the capital of damascus is palpable explosions here a regular occurrence now and security everywhere is tight firefighters rushed to the scene after a demonstration servers themselves have admitted a resolution won't happen even night and it will have to come in large parts from the syrian people themselves but with parliamentary elections next week and with the if the mission under close scrutiny seems like this would do anything to raise hopes that this mission will be a success but they will say show the very real and urgent need for it to be say so . damascus and for common almost you know next we speak with or sort of war

correspondent chris hedges who thinks there's no point in trying to push for the toppling of syria's president assad when there's no organized opposition in the country. i don't think anyone in the muslim world thinks that we care much about human rights or democracy we have since the first gulf war planted military base some the size of small cities i think there is at this point absolutely no credibility i'm talking about within the middle east when the united states claims that it would like to bring liberty or democracy to syria my feeling is that everything should be pushed through to create some kind of a ceasefire rather than pass a resolution that calls for assad removal or resolution. calls for intervention or anything else there's no real formal. opposition you know it's a sort of a mess and they just went through this in libya.

search in egypt just last week with demonstrations against the acting military rulers and yet more bloodshed the country is preparing for its first post revolution presidential election would intensify instability under the general's interim regime at least nine were killed earlier wednesday when are known assailants of talk to a group of ultra conservative islamist protesting against their candidates disqualification from the oh well he blamed the military for staging the assault but by those protesters hope provoke it their weekly friday rally with mostly islamists taking part led to hundreds of arrests and one death police use water counted tear gas and live ammunition of one point to disperse the protesters who tried to break through. the fence but history analysts point to the benefit though the military move was made gains rest time to elections. there are serious doubts within the egyptian public out. even before the clashes have started and currently

as collating that the elections might be postponed the same or the same concerns have been voiced recently by political different political groups and parliamentarians with even rumors seeing that scout has asked for it to postpone the elections due to the current unrest scouse nonetheless have said that this is a good these are rumors and the elections will happen in july it's important to mention in this context that during the previously before the parliamentary elections last november there are similar clashes that started in mohamed mahmoud and so it's particularly interesting if we are to compare how certain you are clashes erupt immediately immediately before elections a couple of months or a couple of weeks before elections the alleged mastermind behind the nine eleven attacks appeared in front of a guantanamo bill a tree tribunal on saturday on child. the could see in this for a compass is face the death penalty khalid shaikh mohammed is one of five men

pledged with planning the atrocities in which almost three thousand people were killed during the thirteen hour hearing the accused refused to answer questions or enter a plea as some relatives of nine eleven victims watched on his in fact the second time the u.s. has tried to prosecute the man from the attempt to try them in america failed three years ago because of a public backlash american lawyer erik one tell that leaves the timing and planning that with the trial is a question one has to wonder why now you know within twenty four hours of president obama taking office issued an executive order to close guantanamo bay is the most powerful leader in the world and that did not occur for what reason i have no idea of the three years later on that you've got another election i think what they're trying to do is take that issue off the table and say well we're at least trying to proceed in an orderly fashion but i think it's a fairly sin bill and people will be able to see through it does a tremendous injustice to the memory of those victims are not

a little bit and i think it does a tremendous injustice to the thing that we call the justice system in america they have no plan and it's taken three years to get to this particular point and this is going to be another tremendous and sad waste of us resources on a matter that can be resolved in a number of different ways and they're just certain not to do so. and if we're to follow the story but we've got extensive coverage of it on our website r.t. dot com as well of course is plenty of other stories like these today how an ad using the face of a mass killer leads to red faces all right the norwegian anders breivik currently on trial accused of killing over seventy people some are rather used to appear on a finnish hockey team billboard apparently because he was mistakenly included in the club's found list rather have that happen most embarrassing online and artsy dot com land mass distribution of free copies of the qur'an in berlin it's a story brought in the weekend five described as freedom of religious expression by

those behind it but there's a fear in the involvement of radical muslim extremists you could make a minor point that at r.t. dot com. in russia to the threat of islamist terror turned this week into horrific reality double terror of last just twenty minutes apart on thursday in the republic of dagestan killed thirteen and wounded more than one hundred two vans packed with explosives detonated on the outskirts of the capital much cooler. talk to the relatives of those who gave their own lives to save others. national mourning dagestan under muslim tradition three days after the funerals family and friends come to the symmetry twice a day to pray and to paris packed to their loved ones over. two massive car bombs hit the capital on thursday claiming more than a dozen lives this freshly dug grave is the final resting place of twenty nine year old police officer. back of his name is hendrik now here. says he feels lost

without his brother who'd acted as the head of the family since their dad passed away years ago. when the first blast happened i tried to call him but it vague that he called me back saying he was around to go into the sea to help he said all was fine with him but the scene is a mess and he has to stay out to help i could hear cries of sobbing through his phone he said i'm going to call you in five to ten minutes ok. but he never called back the next time she would see his brother would be in a morgue. a piece of metal that had been placed around the bar and did his chin it came out through his neck. the symmetries keeper says at least this family had a body many others received only body parts in plastic bags it's a sad fact that the recent attacks on the police and authorities in dagestan

a merely the latest incident in a long running history of violence in russia's volatile caucasus region but thursday's tragedy has already become the most devastating in months the first explosion took off here when officers from this police post stopped the call for documents checked apparently the driver was a suicide bomber minutes later as many police cars and i'm real and stains and emergency crews and fire brigades reach the area the second last occurred it was much more powerful you can. see the crater was huge one some reports say the second last had a force of one hundred kilos into intake overland and it claimed the most victims of the double attack one walmart or another is a tactic commonly used by international terrorist organizations such as and qaeda in places like iraq and afghanistan is designed to kill as many people as possible if their right jihadi networks around the region is hosting dreaming is even

funding some of the activities of you know terrorist in russia in an instant lives were snuffed out families left devastated. women again under the rules of islam don't go to cemeteries they grieve at home the mother along with the wife say he never liked cameras and they have to console themselves with a few pictures they have. left in the morning and then came back you forgot something i told him this is a bad luck oh will be fine mom tried to calm me but. i don't know how long i'm gonna live but i'll live for the. leaves behind two little girls. when you will i'll tell them to be their father is watching us i will tell them to be proud of him because he was a brave man he want to help and died he was the best father in the world i'll tell

than. brief interruption our t. in russia's biggest town. so sad story that and reveled in front rise in the wake isn't it a come out going to special report here looking at the spreading network of american military bases across the world why it's happening that softer a recap of our top stories and our news review of the week with me kevin no it's no twenty seven just after twenty seven minutes past five moscow time.

to a substantial degree and one form or another socialism has spread the shadow of human regimentation over most of the nations of europe. and the shadow is i'm approaching up on hold of an. early early twenty first century military bases a network of military bases all around the former sleepy empire that the united states is trying to build that's astonishing most americans have no idea there are more than a quarter of a million a 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 are fine or the noise is our noise and 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 end of world war two the spaces i've been . working here are to provide a safe and secure environment for everybody. the questions they have thing else you get everything you needed. down the official on t.v. application to go on the phone all i pod touch from the. life on the go. video on demand oxys minefield costs an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your.