bomb attack in russia's republic of dagestan with over one hundred also injured in the blast. fellow malcolm you're watching the weekly with me kevin irwin here on r t it's all round up of the day's may news on the top stories from us for the past seven days and first it's d.-day in france is tightest the most that commodious presidential election in recent history millions of killing a polling stations across the country to decide between incumbent nicolas sarkozy and his socialist rival france or allowed a correspondent tessera said 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 the 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's cycles he for his part is saying he is a president with a strong leadership scale but a lot has been supported by this is a wide and stared 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 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 presence on crews who is very close to angela merkel and the two of them so small couzin merkel 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 who she 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 got it seems pretty unrealistic to think 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 men on shore who will be a major part of his of his parliamentary block and right thank you very much for your thoughts there so there you have it still again very tight race too early to tell who will actually come out as a winner although the polls you suggest are large might it take at this a victory but we will have the early results at eight pm kerry simon we'll keep you updated once that comes out silly full coverage here hope you stay with this. for 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 that's today 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 kagan versed in turkey i know bill rajab seen 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 he had well it's really a big challenge to the government of bahrain to her so the various acts of violence and quarter by the police were mistakes. that they were going to. 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 decision in a way because in some ways they had survived a crisis in the former war criticism of what was going to carry forward and more michael they would have wanted to keep him quiet at least. 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. are commonly in charge of u.s. forces that it's the bahraini regime and emphasized it was moved to place us maybe just across the sea iran because. she has these connections with. american and european human rights groups because he has an international profile i think this risk raised in the boring ratio in the way that it's actually all below the radar most people the arab spring has really been focused. western on what's been happening in syria more recently but all the attention is egypt in 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

while we're hearing the same about bahrain as you say it's kind of slipped under the radar as it were to a great extent although bahrain a small arab state to tell a very rich and powerful friends not least saudi arabia and the saudis will send troops to help. last year the saudis that are very nice and some of the sympathizers in the rich states are spending a lot of money on a public relations campaign bringing in friendly people to see how nice it is how little most over the walls and so on i did a sense trying to trying to manage critical voices which until now really haven't had much traction in the western media because if we don't who will be our campaign we don't have the sympathy of government. in the west you know great difficulty really getting into the media you know where this arrest of course could actually ironically be counterproductive to another side to this is one of the rajah pointed out in his interviews is telling our viewers about julian assange on his interview show you and i spoke to him days on tuesday on r.t. but. roger 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 the shiite majority of held under by the sunni families. to the west to twelve hours being hostile to shiite iran. so there is a kind of sectarian lack of interest in the greater shiites people call for human rights bill through turn a blind eye to the human rights if you really think as food. and ironically the one problem all very very promising just across the sea from cattle because qatar al-jazeera channel has begun to report a move to cancel. so we may be given we can exhibit a split in the gulf emirates of this. international complications which i think united states. would go for more interest and

a very hostile to iran are very fearful. things you thought somebody on the program mark i'm a visiting professor of international relations that built university in turkey. 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. . a speech to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain where the revolution failed was that egypt where the revolution is now into the world what makes a revolution and where is the arab spring going to go. people are gathering in central moscow for a demonstration dubbed by russian opposition activists is the march of millions they are protesting against vladimir putin's return to the criminal leave. tomorrow with our correspondent in the midst of the missing now

a high and. we will be watching for loss to us and so the pictures come in but from our cameras. we can see there's a crowd there at the march but is it a march 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 and 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 something like eight thousand opposition numbers are always a bit higher than official they're somewhere between ten between time and ninety pounds and then 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 both my ass square

which was the scene of the first really big protests that we saw back in december after 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 their twitter 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. thousands of people making their way to follow where like i said when these protests began back in december they were really about fair and free elections and really today it seems big gathering just some type of sentiment head of the inauguration which 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. most mccall is a russia specialist at university of london he says putin will need to show a new strategy in his next to reach out to those who feel neglected. put in 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 their 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 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. as in this mention there 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's a big day tomorrow a lot of coverage to bring you that tomorrow special coverage of lady putin's inauguration starts at seven thirty in the morning g.m.t.

time from magnificent splendor the kremlin all. so. 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 maybe 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 all to syria first reports

people are 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 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 dead they carried through the streets of damascus as the funerals for the people who were killed on that the station day here's the story you've got the military the security watching that this is at the same time as the u.n. observers are supposed to be here overseeing the peace plan you know early in the day we've joined the un observers on one of the daily to is to flash point areas. this have been traveling to some of the areas where the this 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. 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 in a situation is much calmer there's not much happening here now while i'm 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 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 the observers presence here does seem

to have made some small in raids the situation in the country is unstable 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 part from the syrian people themselves but with parliamentary elections next week and with the it's the mission under close scrutiny seems like this would do anything to raise hate that this mission will be a success but they will say show the very real and urgent need for it to be say. 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 they just went through this in libya. violence surgery jitters 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 our know the silence of talk to a group of ultraconservative business protesting against their candidates disqualification from the many blamed the military for staging the assault but others said armed protesters helped provoke it then a 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 militaru as they gave my breast 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 who were there 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 certainly large clashes erupt immediately immediately before elections a couple of months or a couple of weeks before elections the ledge master won't go on the nine eleven attacks appeared in front of a guantanamo bill a tree tribunal on saturday on charges that could see him in this forum. this 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 tent to try them in america failed three years ago because of a public backlash american lawyer eric one tell that leaves the timing and planning that with the trial is 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 as the most powerful leader in the world and that did not occur for what reason i have no idea so three years later on the eve of 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 want 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 on earth using the face of a mass killer leads to red faces all right. norwegian anders breivik currently on trial accused of killing over seventy people some of them used to appear on a finnish hockey team billboard apparently because he was mistakenly included in the club's file list father have that happen most embarrassing online and artsy dot com land mass distribution of free copies of the grand in berlin story brought in the weekend five's 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 them other forms of 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. and a muslim tradition three days after the funerals of family and friends come to the symmetry twice a day to pray and to paris packed to their loved ones. to 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 hendry can you hear. me he says he feels lost without his brother who 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 was very

good he called me back saying he was around to go into the sea to help he said all those fine with him but the scene is a mess and he has to. stay out to help i could hear cries 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 ball into his chin it came out through his day. 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 car 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 is huge one some reports say the second last had a force of one hundred kilos into intake roland and it claimed the most victims of the double attack one more after 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 variety of 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 and the mother along with the wife say he never liked cameras and they have to. so themselves with a few pictures they have. been left in the morning and then came back you forgot something i told him this is a bad luck oh will be fine mom she tried to calm me but. she i don't know how long i'm going to live but i'll live for value only. leaves behind two little girls. stay where 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 wanted help and died he was the best father in the world i'll tell than. brief interruption r t in russia's degassed on. so sad story that an unraveling from horizon away isn't it

a come out going to 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 and 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 as i'm approaching a whole different. early twenty first century military bases the network of military bases all around the former sleepy empire that the united states is trying to build 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 are fine there are the noises our noise of those bother us at all because they're all basics but

for other people it's almost like a cancer here for these people. since the end of world war two these spaces have been for. we're here to provide a safe and secure environment for everybody. the questions they have thing else to get everything you need. down the official on t.v. application to go on the phone on pod touch from the top still. life on the go. video on demand oxys minefield costs and already feeds now in the palm of your. question on all t.v. dot com.

presidential election. could redefine the country's role of. course in the coming hours also human rights. days before r t two interview with julian assange in which he spoke of the violent crackdown on protesters in his home country. on the eve of.