oh and thanks for joining r.t. with me karen tara we've got the latest for you a lavish celebration has taken place at the kremlin where vladimir putin has become the first russian president to be sworn in for a third term is now set to stay on for an unprecedented six years as putin took the oath he appealed for unity and reform to carve a stronger russia in what he called a new stage of national development thousands of guests and later join the president at a private banquet here are the details of the inauguration from our very own aleksey at a chef ski who was in the midst of events the whole process the whole ceremony took just less than an hour of first we saw live on the huge plaza screens everywhere in the in the in the george and george hall the very beautiful aerial shots of the motorcade traveling from the government building from the white house to the kremlin certainly something unprecedented and normal too for the way this

integration has been televised in russia so far then put on arrived he went in walked past us in the u. sand georgia boss two thousand odd guests to guess we have it they're greeted with a lot of the load of a should and certainly the people who were there were really happy to see you know human being reinstated as russia present for the third term now. then he calmly and collectedly where it went into the main hall where the whole integration was to take place took the oath a very short oath only thirty three words. as i fulfill the duties of the president of the russian federation i swear to protect and guarantee the rights and freedoms of both citizens to observe and protect the constitution of the russian federation to protect the sovereignty independence and territorial integrity of all state of its people faithfully as he was leaving in fact it sent george's whole he shook hands with most of the crowd who was standing up on the first line loud ovation

again people very happy for him then we heard from the open windows the echo of the of the old to reach shots just meters away from the kremlin which is clear symbol that the presidential term avoiding the question has kicked off in russia the greatest of russia were there not only from russia in fact some former leaders of world countries were there like me telling prime minister silvio berlusconi former german chancellor gerhard schroeder we're all there as well the last soviet leader mikhail gorbachev the widow of the first president of russia in the even the likes of football stars the former everton football player. who was there it's interesting that even the leader of the biggest biker back in the moscow the night wolves was there and he's called the surgeon a very famous guy and he was the only one not wearing a tie and suit like most of the guests he was wearing black leather jacket like all bikers do so differently in mixed crowd but just twenty minutes after the finished

. the pool where we stood there st george's hall was empty because all of those guests went to dinner some speculate that this is going to cost about a million dollars so it's a speculation maybe but i never had a chance to go there but my insiders from the dinner told me that there were black caviar on the menu fried scallops even. a couple chino made of cocoa milk was there along with expensive champagne wine and definitely was a big party to remember when i was going to the kremlin on my way there in the morning it struck me that the. the city is completely deserted only the policemen who were there no traffic no anything just have been certainly unprecedented for integrations in russia but this is not something we should be surprised about i remember these scenes from the united states four years back when obama was inaugurated in washington and as many as sixty five thousand policemen servicemen military were ensuring the safety in moscow there were only twenty thousand so it was three times as less than that in the united states also i remember in the

united states there were helicopters and even fighter jets hovering about washington d.c. to provide security in fact the security measures during obama's obama's inauguration were so serious that special service almost a year to prepare themselves for for the process over for the ceremony of integration the same basically security measures apply to all the g. eight and g. twenty summits across the world just points is the latest g. twenty summit in france more than ten thousand policemen were securing the particular point five thousand cameras installed and twenty million euros invested into the security at this during this event so the measures security measures moscow was certainly unprecedented but on the general scale nothing unusual at all now strange after his inauguration president putin signed into force some of his promised reforms and you decree is designed to make the government apparatus more effective and transparent artie's peter oliver has the details. generally to

improve the services the federal government. we're going to see waiting times in government offices cut. fifteen minutes anybody having to wait in queues there are also going to see the internet being used to increase the transparency of the russian government this is something that was started by. this is going to be continued by vladimir putin and his. russian president vladimir putin also saying that he will raise the education of russia's bureaucrats. to do the jobs that they're doing. have to declare all of their incomes and. corruption in the country also we're going to see a system developed that will allow online feedback to be given to the police and security services so that anybody who has

a particular grievance with law enforcement can voice their opinions in. terms of the legal system in general what we are going to be seeing is more accessible both physically. we're going to be seeing web cams in court rooms that. the court proceedings from investigation has been launched into what happened during sunday's riots in moscow that saw many people several people injured the police officers wounded in the clashes with protesters on sunday still remain in the hospital the authorities say that they were under orders not to react to provocations and that they only moved in the right place only moved in once they realized that bystanders were actually in the line of fire seen one hundred twenty people detained. on inauguration day despite coming back into power there still has. a few shadows to

me is day in the sun on his inauguration however as my colleague in the said no way looks we can see what he hopes to achieve in the next term. he's back for an unprecedented third term after a break as prime minister and many say russia will need to see putin two point zero any leader who's been in power for five six seven years in a difficult position because people get used to him and the taken for granted he has to then reinvent himself putin has made a promise ahead of the cold he proposed vast reforms from a major crackdown on corruption to diversifying the economy and raising living standards it's delicious it'll be students next term will be the one that forms his legacy as a politician in russian history and i'm sure it will be a positive one. but the people to be convinced most are the opposition gathered in the largest numbers russia has seen for decades after claims

a vast front in december's duma vote and clashed with riot police on the eve of the new and you're a suit. needs to set out for reform and not a reform on paper but something real something that both the opposition and you know the regular people not just in moscow but all throughout russia can see that this is really putin two point zero the most popular politician no doubt has a majority of support across russia and it's credited with extraordinary development in the country and putin leaves few people in different home and abroad it usually comes down to love or hate but i don't think that everything that putin has done is defensible or by a by a very wide stretch but there are some people who argue and such transparent bad faith that it's and you know it's impossible not to notice that it's just it's a person it's a personality thing in. who wants to seen as harsher than me especially on foreign

policy which could prove to be a challenge on issues like the reset with the us and pushes for intervention in the middle east but on the economic front analysts have already in these times do change at least three key issues to entry profit as asian investment climate reform we see. putin changing his. emphasis and direction on particular issues in a way which corresponds with a political shift a shift that is most evident on the web russians have never been more active in politics more of a long twitter facebook or something putin will have to embrace if he wants to stay in touch you have to participate otherwise you'd be excluded and you would have the other russia which talks its own language and the president will talk his language leaving the question now that he's back can put him through forward this time he'll

have six years to try to deliver on reforms and change which could make or break prudence presidency and he's now a r.t. moscow. let's get more perspective now on plotting out of putin's return to the political main stage and i'm joined by marcus pulp also editor of politics first magazine marcus so the western media has been largely critical of the idea of putin's return to power parenting might stifle political and economic reform do you think this is a likely scenario. well i think it's important to note that states are hugely symbolic day for russia and the and the well which i mean from a domestic points of view it means that we do know the russians are going to continue to enjoy stability and security which they didn't experience during the one nine hundred ninety s. as a result of the collapse of the soviet union but i think internationally what it means is that russia will continue to recruit asli to shew foreign policy objectives as

any country has the want to do the fact that a lot of western governments and in particular western media. is very critical of them a person simply because of what he represents he doesn't represents the russia of the nineteen nineties when it was weak subservience to the west reliance from the i.m.f. under flood to make profits in russia's close much of this last. status so that is that's the great to see in the eyes of many in western governments and also in western media and i should add that vladimir putin used to have some powerful friends in europe but now most of them are gone from office do you think you'll have to rethink his approach to european affairs. although you know i mean some commentators are saying there's going to be approaching two approaching three if'n that's going to be the case i think it's going to be a continuation of what flood them a part of the make routine started in two thousand when he took office he would be

able to build constructive meaningful relationships with governments across the european union but it would be done this time on a level footing and not compared to what happens in the one nine hundred ninety s. when russia was on its knees now after the presidential campaign in the u.s. is officially underway if obama does get reelected what kind of relations could we see between russia and the u.s. . i don't believe it ever really matters if it's a democrat or republican that's in the white house in america automatically the president of america will continue to pursue american foreign policy objectives which are made in the pentagon cia and the state departments so once again. we will not back off to point a missile defense system in eastern europe and russia which is a huge problem for russia because it does france and russians and you kill

a strategic tournaments however there already is where russia and america can work together for example afghanistan and also prevents in other countries around the world from developing weapons of mass destruction but. if obama is reelected i don't think we should see any any alteration in his course. because in russia all right mark i spoke with locals that's all the time we have from politics first magazine thank you. thank you. well you can follow more news in stories by logging on to our website r t dot com here's what else we have waiting for you there right now. moscow braced for a victory day a fourth and final rehearsal of the military parade has taken place in the heart of the russian capital massive celebrations are scheduled to take place across moscow on may ninth. also blow the whistle and pay the price learn where reporting misconduct could lead to you if you serve in the u.s.

military. and germany is shifting to green energy it's highly anticipated by some but dreaded by others you could read that story in our party dot com. socialist francois. in the french presidential runoff making nicolas sarkozy the latest leader to be swept aside by the crippling debt crisis the president elect has promised to fight against german led european all stare to drive and has already spoken to chancellor angela merkel the first foreign leader all and will visit us are silly reports from paris. first of all and in his acceptance speech yesterday did talk a lot about unity which is which has been much of the theme of his entire campaign he said he's the one who's going to bring about solidarity and unity criticizing this divisive presidency but of course the unity he's talking about does hinge on his ability to bring about the promises that he had made particularly the practical promises of jobs and employment and this is

a no easy feat given the the economic circumstances of france said again the first thing he wanted to do is to talk to german chancellor angela merkel to push for this growth or yet that approach and he has a lot of supporters on this approach however even the supporters are skeptical as to how much he can really do given the constraints i mean france is a part of the euro zone there are sixteen other nations who are using this currency there are a lot of rules to be followed and so they're looking at how much maneuver room he really has on it comes to international dealings there's going to be the nato summit and he had said that he wants to pull out french troops from afghanistan a year earlier than planned he will have to and he's expected to present this blood to president barack obama and the the rest of the nato alliance and also when it comes to issues like syria and iran observers are saying that we may expect a less aggressive france wherever this observation is based on the rhetoric so far so of course we have to see the actions that this new president will be taking now french people at the end of the day said that they voted for change but let's not

forget that when nicolas sarkozy was voted in two thousand and seven they also voted for change so it's for us all and does have a lot of work to do ahead of him and prove that he does the service presidency author and journalist barry a land-o. says the new president a lot francois hollande is on the back foot with huge challenges in both france and the. if you look at the scene from the bus the last night on your television and you saw the red flags and even the hammer and sickle people cheering in the place still you would think it was that the french revolution all her again but that's not all it is about it's a much more modern kind of guy a much more of a social democrat he's talking about balancing the budget in five years how he's going to deal with france's norma's economic problems is still a mystery to many by foot not just as far as germany is concerned but as far as the conditions in france too i mean the economy here has been hollowed out over the

last year is the. price of the workers place of work in france is among the highest in europe and it's gone up tremendously psycho's he is the only one live and heads of state who have been voted out of office over the last four years since the crisis more of a miracle he had won and. so it's it's more of the economic situation. pleasure response whether or not london is going to be doing it will take care of the crisis is another question and another vinyl european election greek voters have protested against the country's major parties but have not left any group with enough support to govern alone athens may be forced to hold another of election party leaders can't strike a coalition deal soon attorney and professor of constitutional law george gamow also says the election results are reaction to greece's harsh austerity measures. i

think this is the other side of the coin of the. us via luck of course and i think we do not see only the collapse of the political system that we see also a massive failure of a social experiment of an experiment of trying to impose a utopian people or state the measures we thought any hope. that with massive mobilization i think that the v.a.'s social experiment of a new liberation has failed i think that the lab route has escaped there is not any possibility of renewal of the old political system of your political system because collapse we need something completely new it is true that the old is dead now but the new is not here and board i think that we may see that in the new elections that we are going to come in i don't think not more than one month from now because there's not any possibility to form a coalition government with the various arts we have through the present elections

. bahrain authorities have arrested the country's most prominent human rights activist and harsh critic of the state's ruling family now be over jop was detained just three days before his appearance on julian assange right here on r.t. and the program which airs on tuesday the whistleblower gets an insight from him and a fellow egyptians activist and to the uprisings and the arab states parties are bennett reports. well the author a teaser said is that now bill run job is being suspected of committing a number of crimes punishable by law and he's now being held on charges of inciting and taking part in a legal demonstrations and should be remembered though that now be all right jobs position has landed him in a number of made in the target even of the bahraini authorities before because he is a highly prominent activist there and also one of the most vocal outspoken critics of the country's ruling family and that's really what makes this next episode into

enough time to show so significant it was thought to be. last interview before his latest arrest now is considered one of the heroes of the first protests that place in bahrain last february he's now got over one hundred forty thousand followers on twitter disease the head of the bahrain youth center for human rights and he's really the driving force behind the mass demonstrations that we're still seeing in the streets of bahrain despite a government ban on on public protests since it became known that he was appearing on sanjay and that's that's what he elaborates on in this next episode when i said in my twitter account that i'm going to meet julian assange and i'm going to. t.v. program my house was surrounded by almost one hundred policemen and. machine guns and i did realize that i was not at home just to. you to tell me to come to depopulation prosecutor today at four o'clock where i am here so the very

day that he was summoned by the public prosecutor's office in bahrain he actually chose instead to appear on our sanchez talk show and and appear on t.v. using the platform as an international platform even to criticize the regime in bahrain and it's for this reason that you now standage things why he's being arrested basically by peering on the. rush hour would indeed. be risking a great deal but even so. he would be willing to pay any consequences that come of it because he says he would be fighting in the name of democracy this is what he had to say. but this is the struggle this is the freedom disses democracy that we are fighting for as of course. we have to be a discourse and of course it might be very expensive as we have been caused by willing to bid for the changes that we are fighting for now one of the other guests this week. is another prominent activist in the in the arab spring his name is our

abdel fattah he was a he was a highly influential figure in the uprising in egypt last year in tahrir square that like roger too has become a target of your thora tease of the fact that you know sound is leaking to the very people who are making lethal things happen in these countries and are willing to face the consequences as we've seen with now with his arrest this weekend well that really that's what makes this next episode really one that's not to be missed and you can see here marty being so now eleven thirty g.m.t. this tuesday. a speech to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain where the revolution failed was really egypt where the revolution is now in turmoil for makes a revolution and where is the arab spring going to go. earlier we also spoke with patrick having added our of the website in four star column

about the arrest of not be over a trial he blames leverage of differs from other activists for not being afraid to openly criticized bahrain's allies. mr rajab is significant figure in the human rights movement globally no bill has been arrested in the past has been detained has been beaten possibly tortured so this should come as no surprise now with the western press is out of the country there's less of an opportunity for them to to really zero in on some of the human rights abuses that the bahraini government has become very well known for you can also tell a legitimate human rights worker or human rights organization from a manipulative one if they're criticizing a u.s. or british how why they're more likely to be a legitimate human rights organization and not manipulated going through mr rajab because i believe he is guys finger on the pulse of genuine human rights situation in bahrain when you're criticizing a u.s. ally like bahrain if you're in the press you're not going to be given the air time

syrians are voting today for a new parliament election takes place amid a shaky cease fire between the opposition and the country's ruling regime president assad house trying to ease the crisis hinting at reform that the opposition remains unconvinced artists are for three ports from damascus. well there is no election fever head by any stretch of the imagination that being said there has been a steady stream of people here in damascus since the polls they pinned at seven am this morning and i think t.v. is already reporting that it's a ten out of his high population and syria around twenty four million forty million people are actually eligible to participate in these parliamentary elections the muskets can often head fill a bit like a parallel universe in other cities that have seen this infighting and indeed very close to damascus in some of the suburbs is

a very different story the opposition point calls it the vote over together they've called it a shot the opposition should have participated troops have requested some sort of money touring money tuning in order to. scrutinize addictions and sort of addictions this is not. it is one of the mistakes of the position that they did not persecute which is one of the mistakes if you go it does not encourage your position against that backdrop really there is a sense that the actual impact of the serious change to serious political landscape won't be hugely affected by these face but nonetheless they are going ahead and you are seeing very small steps now being taken towards this political reform. all right let's take a look at some world news in brief sour a nato airstrike cast killed fourteen civilians and injured six others in afghanistan police say the strike happened in the country's northwestern of

baghdad's province nato also claimed three of its service members were killed in a separate incident earlier today one hundred forty two coalition members have done enough gonna stand since the start of the year. u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton has urged india to buy less oil from iran it comes as america increases its pressure on over its nuclear program but you're on insists it is solely for peaceful purposes india receives around nine percent of its oil from iran though officials say it's reduced its dependence seen in recent months delhi could face u.s. sanctions if it doesn't make significant cuts to iranian fuel imports. and studying may not be the only way to exile on those and of the year exams that's according to one chinese high school that's reportedly giving its students an academic edge by injecting them with an intravenous substance state t.v. it shows the pupils i hope to up to i.v.

drips allegedly filled with amino acid right ahead of their college entrance tests bringing a whole new meaning to a healthy mind healthy body. all right in a few moments i'll update you with our main story stay with us.

tonight fifty two meters. more than a thousand tons of. skin thickness thirty centimeters a guinness record. commemorating the battle of stalingrad. the motherland call. the big.

oh thanks for joining our ticket how to pass the hour i'm karen and i've got your headlines to the kremlin blood seemed to poison becomes the first russian president to step in for a third term as he's inaugurated during a lavish ceremony he said to lead the country for an unprecedented six years promising to make russia a stronger and more united. front swallow lounder wins the french presidency as he promises a growth instead of austerity. falls under the weight of france's mounting debt and it's straight to business for alarmed as he plans to fight against german measures . offering a thorough.