opposition protesters occupied central moscow with the sit in just the day before vladimir putin's inauguration day is among reports of scuffles with riot police joining me and he's now at live central moscow. where the latest pictures we're getting there are no other stories we're covering incumbent nicolas sarkozy and rival from the face off in france's presidential election the end of a bitter battle it could redefine the country's role on the world stage. a leading human rights activist from bahrain's arrested days before r.t. is to where is interview with julia sanji when she spoke of

a violent crackdown on protesters in his home country. and in some of the top stories from the waking creased violence in egypt with more deaths in violent clashes of rallies less than a month before the presidential election. and 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 blasts. there this is r.t. from moscow you're watching the weekly with me kevin i mean the day's top stories on the headlines of the past seven days and developing news this afternoon what is now just one minute after a six pm moscow time people gathering in central moscow for a demonstration dubbed by russian opposition activists as the march of the millions these are the latest live pictures or let you look at those that they're protesting

. returned to the kremlin only evolve his inauguration notice and now he's done amongst the listening things certainly appear to have heated up and got a lot busier since when i last spoke to an hour ago bring us up to date with what you were saying at least around you right now. well certainly kevin not a million people on the streets of moscow but in the last hour things not heated up the well known opposition activists an anti corruption blogger election of my and some of his i know my name and some of his fellow opposition leaders have decided to start a sit in the city and we're just across from the kremlin really not very far away like you said a day before pledging their putin's an r.q. ration they're saying and calling on the crowds of people who are here on where to stay and sit in with them until putin leaves we are seeing a bit of scuffles with riot police a couple of people have broken through the lines that are surrounding this bridge

as you see behind me originally protesters were going to make their way on to both my us where we saw protests back in december never leading up to these protests business analysts and experts who said that they thought that the opposition was swinging. with. the opposition is the press that the opposition thinks that. from what i'm getting reading their blogs their twitter see 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. now despite that really being the sentiment that the opposition is is not united really quite a big turnout of course not the millions that organizers were hoping for but it was

originally thought that only five. elsinore so people would show up official numbers are somewhere around eight thousand the opposition puts it somewhere between ten and twenty basically we're going to be here throughout the evening monitoring the situation mike i said bits of scuffles here and there we have this scene in happening a little bit of confusion as to what's happening because a lot of people are kind of just standing around and sort of looking around waiting to see what happens when we hear the same at our change here monitoring the situation might just be you really the latest of what's happening in central moscow again just a day before vladimir putin takes over again in the coming year and this is just reminding our viewers as well the we're going to keep streaming those pictures on our website as well from my camera gautrain on what some of the viewers brestovac what's happening there at that particular rally they can see you don't call this being streamed on the lovely told ok it's not the only event that so that's going

on by the elsewhere in moscow supporters of the government and political establishment of marking the anniversary of the popular front room when that was created by the putin last year has got across that side of the story a correspondent covering that for us. she joins us live as well what's the atmosphere like on the hill there were you are with the celebrations are taking place but more about what exactly is popular for a movement is as well please remind us. well that this is a celebration and so we have a concert we have people with all sorts of little festive balloons and. flags here and now the popular front that was created here a goal. they sensually on by what to who was thinking to gather people who were not so much interested in politics but still maybe wanted to make a political statement at least one day i think that they gathered lars larssen number of people under one umbrella. the organizers of this particular rallies.

celebration. and no way is supposed to draw attention away from the opposition rally which is going. here again there's a concert going on very fast and. the people basically are just reminding. our members of the popular front that they are returning here although they did grant promise to bring out at least fifty thousand people a year. but it doesn't really look like we have that number of people here have to remember that this is that we can debate night celebrations a lot of people actually not in moscow but it's elsewhere preparing for the celebration. thanks for that will be of course bring our viewers live coverage throughout the coming hours on both sides of that if i let's now go back to this. let's now go back to she's outside the kremlin as we saw a bit earlier on very close to the square there she's with the anti putin if you

like rally. that's for a new series we're actually just taking these latest live pictures there just to give you a flavor of what is happening. being told by the police maybe eight to ten thousand people are gathered there the organizers saying it's more like twenty. two there is been some trouble there the police saying that some of the organizers haven't gone to the correct quite the correct area where they should be where they have what you're seeing there at the moment i'm seeing the same time you're saying you can make your own judgment the police. cordoning the people there doesn't look like to be any trouble at the moment earlier on we did see some scuffles we did see a little smoke going into the air couldn't tell you what that was so waiting for the news was to feedback from some of this is what we've what we've gone through there but we will keep those shots coming she online as well of course that dot com

is in someone's living room and it will bring you more in just a little bit here on our very much across of course. it's d.-day in france's titers the most acrimonious presidential election in history millions of queuing at polling stations across the country to decide between incumbent nicolo cause sarkozy and his socialist rival francois land across the pond across that story today test she's 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 for as a cycle as he for his part is saying he is a president with a strong leadership skill but a lot has been supported by this a wide manteo 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 a thank you very much for joining us today 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 and 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 on cruise 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 the 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 now that seems pretty unrealistic because. it will take an awful lot of time to to achieve that so we're more realistically looking for thirteen if not later he also said he would like to pull out of nato to satisfy the left and that includes the far left additionally who will be

a major part of his of the of he's a parliamentary bloc 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 paris time and will keep you updated once that comes out so the world source of our europe correspondent there more coverage to come from france as the voting progresses have plenty of analysis and opinion on the crucial outcome in the coming hours and what is going to mean for the country. this is artsy for moscow always someone who's a close twenty four seven on our website r t don't call me the people gathered in central moscow to be reporting for a demonstration by russian opposition activists is the march of the millions they're protesting against but didn't appeal to you to the kremlin on the eve of this inauguration we're talking to and this is from r.t. just a minute ago let's catch up there again now and they. are speaking to us we're taking

a look at these pictures that we're seeing from. a security camera thing just an ordinary vantage camera and the best quality to certainly the disappeared again. we were taking. we were seeing the pictures there from square just explain john this reading and again they get interrupted by two chaps that are actually talking about it was be taking a feed from the television channel so we don't have those pictures for a minute but it did look like there were a good few thousand people correct me if i'm wrong it was the organizer the saying about maybe up to twenty thousand and nationally about an hour ago the police say between eight and ten thousand school now what are people saying. with a number of remains the same officially eight thousand or so opposition saying someone with an entire time and twenty thousand what really is the issue now is the scuffles that are happening between riot police and some of the protesters very well known of actually not violent has called for

a sit in to begin i just on that bridge which you can see behind me of course the day before vladimir putin's inauguration and we're hearing that a security officials here aren't really prepared for any kind of provocations we're also not far from the n.t.v. channel satellite this where people are gathering and really kind of calling shame on them so there's a whole bunch of little kind of. through bolognese square we're hearing that there's different kinds of things happening the shots you know coming from one side and how it's really not clear what's happening but i have to say the mood is kind. if you get a sense that sort of anything can happen right now we are hearing that in terms of riot police and security force is the key here they're not really prepared for any kind of public disorder so the mood is quite tense again like i said just the day before vladimir putin heads back to the kremlin of course this is why these protests are here they're there and they're out to show their kind of anti putin sentiment if they're coming back for a third time of going to line is

a new one for most of the opposition they decided to stage a provocation as they put it refusing to go to the agreed venue of the rally does that ring true with what you're seeing i don't you can see exactly where they've gone from where you are. what i understand at least from where i'm standing what happened was the bridge i hope you can see it behind my left shoulder and that's the beginning of the bridge that was where the rally was scheduled for so what you had was these some of the thousands of people coming towards polo player square and then you have these messages coming from oh and of widely and other opposition leaders for people to leave the planned rally here and make their way back to the bridge to come join the sit in with them so that might be what those officials are talking about in terms of people leaving and we did see police in fact open this bridge where we're standing here work crew is standing and kind of let people out because people were making their way to the main stage and then all the sudden once we saw those messages on twitter from the minute it started making their way back

to that bridge behind me so we'll have to see how it plays out plays out oh it sounds like that's what officials are talking about kevin just want to use a mobile phone footage shows you're talking they're all. very clear but you certainly get the message to quite a few people out on the streets that. it's mobile phone footage taken just explain to our viewers some of the in the protest march today ok well we got a lot of feeds coming back to us and i was trying to get the pictures coming through we'll come back to you through my later as well and they said to get a fuller picture of what's happening there in the coming thirty minutes or so thanks for that. more of the day's news no police in bahrain of detained the head of the country's center for human rights without explanation not known for his firm opposition to the ruling regime was arrested days before an interview with the world's top whistleblower julian assange engines jew on here on r t the civil rights leader was already facing charges of participating in protests against the government and was returning to bahrain for

a sunday court hearing the uprising has been going on now for fourteen months with the predominantly shiite population protesting against the sunni ruling dynasty i spoke to mark colvin he's visiting professor of international relations a built in turkey he says the arrests may ruin the bahrain rulers p.r. efforts. in a small arab state to tell a very rich with. the saudis will send troops to help suppress their position last year. but are very nice and some of us and. relations. bring you friendly people see how nice it is how with all the wars and so on the in a sense trying to critical voices which until now really haven't had much traction in the west because if you don't have a. new government in the west you know great difficulty really getting into a new way this arrest of course could actually ironically be counterproductive.

and just provide the chance to see julian assange his exclusive interview with bill rajab here on r t on tuesday. a speech to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain where the revolution failed was the egypt where the revolution is now in turmoil for makes a revolution and where is the arab spring going to go. the syrian government granted an amnesty to two hundred sixty five rebels ahead of monday's multi-party parliamentary vote the first such election in decades meanwhile a series of blasts in the capital damascus and the northern city of aleppo has killed at least three civilians on saturday as r.t. syria furthur imports people are placing increasing hope on the un observer mission monitoring the frequently reached ceasefire. in the heart of damascus thousands come out at the funerals of people killed during clashes in the

capital once again jewett i think is a very precarious situation the country now finds itself before the bodies of the that they carried through the streets of damascus a few rules the people who were killed under the station they just the story you've got the military the security watching and this is at the same time as the u.n. observers are supposed to be here overseeing the peace plan and you know early in the day we've joined the u.n. observers one of the daily to is to flash point areas if service of been traveling to some of the areas where the focus is by things being right and you can see on the ground smooth slow steps are being taken in the observers are really going to be one thing over the coming period the fielding on some 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 those we do 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 some of those people . are still people shooting and i ran away i don't know exactly what was happening we're here at the checkpoints on the device because of the danger the u.n. has just done a tour through the area it's been a very very fast trip 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 was 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 happened even night and it will have to come in large parts from the syrian people themselves but with the holiday cheer elections next week and with the it's their mission under close scrutiny scenes like this won't do anything to raise hate that this mission will be a success but they all say show the very real and urgent need for it to be say so r.t. damascus. the syrian opposition proportionally sending militants to kosovo for training who thought to be heading for guerrilla camps formerly used by the kosovo liberation army which was for years seen as a terrorist force by america britain and france so you have coverage from the us space chronicles magazine told me that all good can come from that carol a was singularly unsuccessful in its rebellion against the serbian security forces until

a major bombing and even then they were not engaging in town but they were going to give us marauders and quickly cleansing normal brain needs now this should be a huge wake up call all those syrians who are not supporting. the opposition especially the minorities even the syrian rebels. that means there will be a bloodbath part of the of the fall of assad and there will be no room for anyone but the majority group which should describe. its extremist credo whether it is there to greater role brainier in kosovo or. muslim brotherhood offshoot of syria. and in some fifty minutes in our interview with the author and war correspondent chris hedges lined up for you he thinks there's no point in pushing for the toppling of syria's president of when there's no organized opposition in the country right now. 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's removal or resolution. that 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. all right well now back to the developing story we've got the. latest live pictures we got from the center of moscow. that's looking pretty quiet at the moment you see

some being carried off there by the. riot police who that was just taking random pictures coming through it at the moment but what you're seeing are pictures from my square in the center of moscow where anti-government demonstration is taking place these are latest live pictures from a camera as you see it's got a better vantage point now there's quite a lot of scuffling going on there with. the left side the police and the other side the protesters the rally organizers call it the march of the millions. the scene of russia's first major protests across the square back in december now they took place right after the country's parliamentary elections at the time which the opposition attacked as fraudulent this is all been kicking off since then today's march is come of course the day before president elect putin returns to the kremlin we're hearing from across. now earlier on about alexina valmy one of the leaders

here is that he has been still to be confirmed this. so this is not confirmed for me but we are saying that it appears. the way he may have been arrested after trying to start some sort of sit in their place their part saying that the demonstrators that are out here some of the middle east haven't gone to the place where they were sanctioned to go must remember here in moscow when you hold a rally. here it kind of has to start and finish and take place in the area where it's been a great you need permission for all rallies here in russia and if it doesn't happen then the police have got blanche to step in and what he's saying here i'm watching this you're watching it there is some violence on the on the front line is that when those barricades you can see the protesters trying to push that line forward towards. police on the left side they're responding with battens. it's not the

clearest of shots if you no idea of the kind of aggression down there is the police are trying to get a hand of it and the protesters trying to make their voice heard as well if you just joined us you're watching these live shots here on. you watching pictures of what's happening just outside the kremlin in a place called square if you're not familiar with moscow it's not too far from the kremlin and of the said it is the scene of russia's first major protest back in december over the disquiet about the country's parliamentary elections then when a lot of people from the opposition said that it was fortunate this day they had been expecting for a long time of course the day before putin was expected back back in the kremlin for his inauguration of a half weeks tomorrow morning we've got coverage of that for you from seven thirty am g.m.t. still staying these pictures watching where the police. making a move to try and get the protesters back then there's a bit of

a say. missing small going up into the eyes to say what that is. whether it's some sort of tear gas i don't know. i'm watching the news wires here much idea what that is as you have at the moment i'm sure we will hear from our correspondent there on the scene there very shortly in this and now she's there. and these are the latest pictures we got coming through the opposition march of millions on the eve of putin's return to the kremlin the police there doing their best to. break it up my getting some news wires through. a mention there alexina valmy and. his colleague mr self as well here and they have both been arrested i can confirm that the latest we have. alexina valmy and his fellow protesters have been arrested. and that she was sitting on the screen we're replaying this is on a live pictures that we just broke in to really wanted you to see what we're

looking at you saw the tail end of it yes well we're seeing that in for a very i saw i think we can say there goes a mist in the valley as well. after he tried. to get the crowd to sit in with him to sit in till goes i think was what they were trying to to get the rest of the crowd to say so we can confirm that because we saw with a very eyes their backs those live pictures the place the demonstrated still scuffling as the meeting. will bring you more of course we're following the story very closely here on c.n.n. also streaming those pictures will continue to take this live feed you seeing now if another television channels every now and again it breaks into two chaps talking in russian analyzing what's happening but if you want to see that live feed broken it's on our web site c dot com.

hoping stay with us more coverage of the ongoing events here in moscow today that also the election in france coming up as well got a close saw but in the coming hours i'm kevin i will update you on those headlines just two minutes from now. right fifty two meters. away more than a thousand tongues. skin thickness thirty centimeters a guinness record holder commemorating the battle of stalingrad. the mother then called. on our team.

he.