clashes day in moscow as up as the same protesters began as they did not far from the kremlin just a day before the inauguration of lights in your new tent police say a peaceful protest was hijacked by provocation to join me and now i live from the. we are also focusing on france as well incumbent nicolas sarkozy and rival francois facing off in france's presidential election the end of a bitter battle that could redefine the country's role on the world stage called report on this. and a leading human rights activist from bahrain is arrested just days before adds he is his interview with julian assange which he spoke of

a violent crackdown on protesters in his home country. well over a good afternoon you're watching the weekly with me kevin owen you're an r.t. it's around over the top stories in the headlines of the last seven days and breaking news to start this hour as you know if we watching over the last hour or two opposition activists have clashed with police in central moscow as demonstrators refused to move to be authorized location for the rally the anti-government protest the march of millions comes on the eve of the team of putin's presidential inauguration of course these are the latest pictures we've got coming through from the square also down there as well or at least very close by our correspondent and this is now a let's catch up with her get a flavor of the latest that's happening there and things. rather heated to say the

least an hour ago what's the position where you are. well it seems like there's spurts of moderate clashes between mostly opposition leaders and not by police you certainly seem like they weren't prepared for any kind of provocation today our we are hearing reports though within the last hour of. tear gas and other kinds of ways of dealing with crowds what we heard from officials there that they were afraid of some kind of stampede again i just want to warn you there's a lot of different versions passed through what went down here and followed by a square first the scene of a major protest that we saw back in december all timidly it was supposed to be a relatively peaceful protest about what happened because at least from from where i'm standing was people were meant to make their way across this bridge into boldness square which now is very empty a lot of people are saying back on that bridge what happened was that leaders like alexis and of are they were calling people to come back to the bridge to begin

a sit in with them nowhere near as well as bodies themselves has been around have been arrested for hearing they're going to get fifteen days or so and they through social networks like twitter especially election about in telling people to remain in the center and that's basically what we've seen over the past hour as you can see i'm not sure how much fun barrier i know you have live pictures coming from our cameras which are stationed throughout the crowd most of the crowd is staying on that bridge taxable below them a square which we saw full in december is pretty much empty so the venue the original venue where this rally was supposed to take place is empty you have a lot of people on this bridge where i am kind of just looking around waiting to see what happens in again kevin a lot of different stories about how this all happened in part of course of sharp objects being crowned by smoke bombs from me to how to make sure is clearly opposition leaders and some protesters trying to break police lines and that's really what it seems like and when it seems like this kind of. really standoff

between riot police in these protesters at least some of them it. he said a lot of people just watching on peacefully some of them clashing with police here . and getting some news line seriously focusing on those pictures i'm hearing reports that the police saying four officers were injured in these clashes as you were saying two hundred of the protesters have been arrested after police officially saying it didn't use any tear gas or in like that we did see some smoke earlier on but we are hearing the protesters were throwing small smoke bombs and as you're also saying the other headline here three arrested election about only. softens well they're in a police station at the moment they charged with this. they could place fifteen days detention which of course is not new to them i guess they'll be looking at it as well thinking that it's published it in saying this publicity but the flip side i was just talking about there and these are the pictures from a little bit earlier on this is the moment when certainly two of the election.

of arrested were taken away by police the. latest we've heard through in the last half hour about that as i just mentioned is that they've been charged with disobedience which means they could face up to fifteen detention that would be the studio close a political commentator as well of course host of crosstalk there both here to be watching these pictures very closely. with who wants to pitch in for. the show you would if you always do. the police say the street demonstrations. where they were supposed to be held there was room for these protesters this is the police line the police saying that the square was available for the majority of these protesters but they didn't want to go they were being awkward what they read

into that so have to understand that. for instance he's a professional revolutionary his grand grandfather was a prominent trashers evolutionary who literally love the millennium and in most coolest reaches the end of the grandfather you know as well as lucian and how to organize these are not his people and i think this is one of the interesting things about this protest movement he wants to hijack it and other radicals want to hijack it i'm sorry gentlemen this is called the million man william million person march there's up to and i'll be generous to twenty thousand people here and you're not only not a million ok what i'd like to stress to our viewers looking at these pictures here to say these are the same people that have been marching since the since a parliamentary election in december the same people but these numbers are not growing they're getting smaller gentlemen they're getting smaller and i would posit right here kevin real quick is that someone needs a provocation to keep this movement alive because which think gentlemen logically

speaking this is the last thing bottom your putin wants the world to see the day before he's inaugurated kevin and i'll be sitting here tomorrow doing the inauguration so it really makes perfect sense to me connect all the dots it's very simple actually just a personal story of these pictures very very sad but in news it just comes through it is yet to be confirmed we're hearing there's been a death. in the photographer i'm hearing this is to be confirmed by something from a balcony. in st capturing the opposition march apparently died instantly. thoughts of course him and his family of course the will start with the blame game here look at these pictures right here these pictures are not people looking for peaceful change here you see people that want to cause trouble they want as much media coverage as possible i met some western journalists i won't mention their name they were going there today to see exactly this time doing this is what

they're producers want it to be should we organize. couldn't you sleep did the million man march but that was cross the whole of russia not just to moscow where they were saying now do we know anything about the if it came and i mean it is moscow and st petersburg right here right and and i want to make sure of my viewers understand that i am for a protest peacefully in the right place to get a permit you know protesting in russia is nothing new in what didn't start after the parliamentary election of last year ok there's been protests here since the start of the russian federation this is nothing new people are exploiting. election of around the block a well known anti corruption blogger. and national remember that we are going to go with this do you think hugo have got to carry this on first i would like to say that the people who came to my lot in a square those are not the same people who came half the year in december because in december there were a lot of people. whose agenda had nothing to do with policy change in russia those

are people scammed by real people who are dissatisfied absolutely different problems away from social and political agenda and. try to capitalize on them a safe yes here we can see how many people are dissatisfied with the regime and regime change and people understood their presence is being used to. me and i'm trying to channel them. some kind of you know the under saddam it is really media going to see even the numbers even drop more because this is not the kind of thing people want to be involved with this is not the kind of executive authority democracy or whatever term you want to use that people want to be part of the i know many people very very close friends that sympathize with protesting and wanting change but they don't want this this is not what they want to be involved with this is going to this is a provocation that will backfire eventually so i was going to say you kind of

answered was going to say the but will this be noted in the kremlin less than twenty four hours from the organ race. i mean haven't they been noticing this since it started ok we've seen this time and again every single major speech that we've had from the authorities to be recognize we acted to knowledge did find their radical forces out there there are nationalists out there there are radical socialist out there putting together gentlemen national socialists ok these people want why they have to understand that. this is maybe the last chance to organize such a crowd and there's one to try to take most advantage of the trite now for them of the last time and violence is the best. of it to be getting the obviously the newsline to start coming through now just to bring our viewers up today we're hearing six people have been hospitalized after the protest as you already know. need to take full provocation. could face up to twelve fifteen days arrest and also to just remind our viewers as well the very sad news we heard that

it's yet to be confirmed the photographer looks like while he's covering this these protests today. but we hear he died instantly we'll get more and. again let's make a very clear to our viewers here there were protests after the parliamentary election for alleged violations i think there were obviously in this election of this scale was it large enough to change the outcome absolutely not but one of the interesting things is of the protest movement energized base for the presidential election now we're going to see putin's base again energized because people get a look at this and say oh this is not what we bought into with mr putin because this was the one nine hundred ninety s. this is the one nine hundred ninety s. people don't want to go back there putin will comment on it tomorrow for people think you have so much we're talking about putin's base there thank you gentlemen let's head to a little area of that his supporters. in one area of moscow

where. let's catch up with her of course he created the popular front movement that's what people are celebrating i guess that's what he called it earlier on is it celebrations going on and you get a problem here hell. yes that's right this is nothing sort of a celebration as a matter of fact they have had a concert going on here for the last two hours now with and supporters of course are pro primarily those who are comprising the popular front which is liberating it's one hears that a verse three today the organization was formed on the initiative of muslim puts in an order to bring together all those who are not participating in any political parties were not members of any political parties but so one just at one point maybe to make a sort of a political statement those people were all gathered under the umbrella of the popular front and a lot of the word here today is a matter of fact the event is actually already here wrapping up but at their worst some of them for their work quite

a few are here today they were hoping to gather around fifty thousand people but it looked like around ten people ten thousand people showed up still they did have flags and there they do have some posters there saying victory and puts in together you have to remember they are celebrating victory day in russia this is a very large holiday weekend so a lot of the festivities and these are festivities which are taking place here are also very good it's a victory day of course we do not see any tension or any of the mayhem or any of the confrontation that is going on in another part of moscow because people here are primarily those who support the government and everything that is happening in the country right now at the moment but thanks for that will become such a course of throughout the course on the eve. of this mortal t. dot com as well let me bring in life features especially mentioned earlier on all of the cameras trained on square and also where a reader is as well let's take a look some of the news now she waves the day him from his titles the most not for

no use acrimonious presidential election in recent history mainly in queuing up polling stations across the country to decide between incumbents nicolas sarkozy and his socialist rival from the correspondent tesser sellers in paris for us. 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 nude 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 as 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 the she's a journalist as well as political analyst a thank you very much for joining us today though if olanda 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 on coups he was 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 who she is as he promises he will do he will means that 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 it seems pretty unrealistic because. it will take an awful lot of time to to achieve that so we're more realistically looking for eighteen if not later he also said he would like to pull out of nato to satisfy the left and that includes to far left additionally who will be a major part of his of of these 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

a large might it 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 but i know some will be hedging his bets there's going to bit more financial perspective on what today's results could mean for france's future their sort of purply executive director investment advisory firm d.v. advisors patrick good afternoon so good up front seems deeply divided in this election that's been well catalogued reflected in there the candidates vying to be president we saw that very heated debate on t.v. just how different are their policies especially the cannot make words for your concern or will do something actually i have to say that ultimately i mean the economic policies that have been put forward by all of the candidates in the french presidential election even in the first round were all based upon the most juvenile understanding about cannot mix that we've ever seen i mean france is at a crossroads it simply does not understand that the french economy is in fact to be a command economy that government spends fifty six percent of the entire economic

activity in the nation and you can't afford to do that since nine hundred seventy four the french have been basically borrowing money so back in the days when mr brady was and power and actually frankly some of the economic policies that we've. today such as those by mr mellon shaw whose votes are now mostly going to mr along probably would have fallen quite nicely with mr brashness world view or perhaps even made him blush well then of course also mentally we see the sort of ridiculous concept of right versus left and it's not there mr sarkozy has been a failure as president he's ultimately taxed towards the center of the center left economically and therefore you have two politicians neither of whom realistically have got a chance of putting france on the right economic truck. is going to be very popular i guess seven he's going to reverse all the stereotype that sarkozy put in place reverse the pension age increase and so reduce wealth inequality sounds lovely can it be delivered on in the real world oh my goodness it's kind of silly delightful

it's the sort of thing that bloggers love and you always see at the bottom end of the comments pages amongst all of the the teenage people who love to use those sorts of things on the internet but is it realistic of course it isn't and actually i think while we're on hold what we have to understand is that of course he says all of these amazing things that he's going to have seventy five percent tax rate first of all it's only going to be on those people who earn more than a million euros a year what does that mean well it means that french accountants are in for a bunty because of course everybody's going to be trying to avoid any sort of income above a million euros and we already know that actually in london and also for example in brussels they have been inundated with a number of extremely wealthy french people who are looking to my grit at the earliest possible opportunity can he turn round the whole ship of what has been the pigmy achievements of the poison dwarf of the elites say no of course he can't and ultimately what's going to happen with these european relationship well of course everybody's trying to make it as if it's going to be some sort of huge controversy

but let's remember only a couple of years ago mrs merkel and mr sarkozy couldn't stand the sight of each other and therefore were left with you know a ridiculous state of play kevin the question. now. well i would say how do you think of this a law is going to get on with it then you kind of took the words out of my mouth do you think they'll be friends so you know i have to say i just listen to your correspondent ultimately i cannot possibly say that i think she's more wrong i'm sure mr hall is going to change things slightly but we've been here before mr jasper became prime minister not president many years ago we were in the middle of negotiating another e.u. treaty he came forward we got some sort of bump sure sedition all charter that said blah blah blah blah blah blah better economy blah blah blah help the workers he said through everything is change everything will be better and you know what we got but we got the same old friends we've always got ultimately the crime in this election is actually against the people runs hearts and hard on unemployment before a little resurgence in the course of the last almost what you don't get it

somewhere around like twelve percent we have a lost generation in france and they are being talked mistreated regardless of whether we get the current field policies of mr sarkozy or indeed see an end of his look at unix systems and mr hollande comes in it's still on for she going to be a disaster watch for france becoming argentina about nine hundred seventy five that's my breath that's my prediction for today you're on a roll there. is actually director of the investment advisory firm david visors always good to have you on the program thank you thank you right now we'll be bringing you more coverage from france of course as the voting progress is with plenty of analysis and opinion on the crucial what it's going to mean for the country of course here on r.t. . police in bahrain of detained the head of the country center for human rights without explanation known for his firm opposition to the ruling regime was arrested days before an interview with the world's top whistleblower julian sands is due to wear on this channel the civil rights leader was already facing charges of

participating in protests against the government and was returning to bahrain indeed for a sunday court hearing the uprisings bigger going on there for fourteen months with the predominantly shiite population protesting against the so. the ruling didn't estate market almost visiting professor of international relations a bill can university in turkey i spoke to but early says the arrest may ruin the bahrain rulers p.r. efforts. in a small arab state to tell very rich with friends not recently arabia and the saudis will send troops to help suppress the opposition last year the saudis that are very nice and some of us are persons in the states are spending a lot of money on public relations. bringing friendly people currency how nice it is how with all the wars and so on and in a sense trying to critical voices which until now really haven't had much traction with the western media because if we don't. don't have a simple government in the west with you know great difficulty really getting into

a new way this arrest of course could actually ironically be counterproductive. and reminds you get a chance to see during this sunday's exclusive interview with. here on our to choose date next. speak to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain where the revolution failed was really egypt where the revolution is now in turmoil what 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 meantime a series of blasts in the capital damascus and also in the northern city of aleppo killed at least three civilians on saturday and as r.t. syria first reports next people are placing increasing hope therefore on the u.n. observer mission monitoring that frequently breached cease fire.

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 that they carried through the streets of damascus the funerals the people who were killed under the station they just the story you've got the military the security watching and this is the same time as the un observers are supposed to be here overseeing the peace plan you know early in the day we joined the un observers on one of the daily tours to flashpoint areas if service had been traveling to some of the areas where the this is by things being breaking out and you can see on the ground smooth slow steps are being taken in the observers are really going to be wanting over the coming period be fielding all night observers are also based full

time in some cities like homs and it led to 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 do talk to tell us that the last few days have been quiet but they don't know how long that will last situation's much calmer there's not much happening here now woman about people running so there are so people shooting and i ran away i don't know exactly what was happening over here at the checkpoints on the diversity of the day you know 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 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 observer mission under close scrutiny scenes like this won't do anything to raise hopes that this mission will be a success but they also show the very real and urgent need for it to be say. r.t. damascus. the alleged mastermind behind the nine eleven attacks appeared in front of a guantanamo military tribunal on saturday on charges that could see him and his four accomplices face the death penalty khalid shaikh mohammed is one of five men charged 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 years some relatives of nine eleven victims watched on it is of course the second time the u.s. has tried to prosecute the man after an attempt to try them in america failed three years ago because of a public backlash american lawyer believes the timing of planning of the trial is questionable. one has to wonder why now you know within twenty four hours of president obama taking office issued 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 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 thin veil and people will be able to see through it does a tremendous injustice to the memory of those victims are not a libyan 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 just sudden not to do so. all right well let's go back again to central central moscow tonight's big story for us to see live pictures from the russian capital where the anti-government demonstrations been taking place over the last. official deadline for the protests to end is just about running out in just under two minutes time in fact seven thirty moscow time people are now leaving the scene. we're hearing that two other people been arrested there today we're also hearing as well it's not confirmed yet a photographer died after trying to capture is going on apparently slipped and died instantly the photographers on the fifth floor taking pictures of a rally for a magazine and slipped his film because tonight also arrested.

the leaders if you like of. this campaign. saying eight thousand people there the opposition saying one hundred thousand people that's a news line we just got through that is the latest it looks like things are a bit quieter now we'll of course bring you more throughout the course of we've got correspondents and cameras down there more coverage of the ongoing events in here in moscow to come and also of course the outcome of the election in france in the coming hours i'll be back in fifty seconds with the headlines.