thanks for joining our team with me karen taraji while a very lavish celebration has taken place at the kremlin and 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 to the oath he appealed for unity and reform to forge a stronger russia and what he called a new stage of national development thousands of guests later join the president at a private banquet here are the details of the inauguration from our very own alex into chefs who is in the midst of events. the whole process the whole ceremony 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 sand georgists old boss two thousand odd guests be guests who 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 the human being reinstated as russia's present for the third term now . then he calmly and collectedly where it went into the main hall where the old integration was to take place took the old 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 our 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 ascii 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 of ation 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 of the dominican 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 for me telling prime minister silvio berlusconi former german chancellor gerhard schroeder were 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 he scored the surgeon a very famous guy 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 a mixed crowd but just twenty minutes after the inauguration finished. the hall

where we stood there said george hall was empty because all of those guests went to dinner some speculate that this dinna cost about a million dollars it's a speculation maybe but i never had a chance to go there but my insight is from the dealer 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 this. it 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's just the times it's 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 took special service almost a year to prepare themselves for for the process of for the ceremony of integration the same basically the 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 the moscow was certainly unprecedented but on the general scale nothing unusual at all now straight after his argumentation president putin signed into force some of his promised reforms and there's a curry is designed to make the government apparatus more effective and transparent artie's peter oliver has more. putin is hit the ground running and. as president

of the russian federation he's signed to strategic. o.p.c. the improvements to the services provided by both federal and local governments now one of these is the maximum waiting time of fifteen minutes for anybody going to a government office something to be put in place following what had been complaints about the length of time in the length of queues that people have to wait we're also going to see the internet used in order to make the government transparent this was something that was put into place by dimitri made in his time as president and it seems that vladimir putin wants to take that further in terms of the bureaucrats in the government wants to increase their qualifications and also to root out anybody who may not be really doing the job that they're there to do and remove them from their positions now bureaucrats will also have to reveal all of

their income and attempt to stamp out corruption in l. levels of we're also going to see a system developed that will allow people to get feedback to the police and security services so anybody with any complaints about law enforcement could go to this online forum and put forward their grievances we're also going to see the legal system in russia made more accessible now this is going to be made more accessible both physically and in the online media i'm going to see web cams put into courtrooms so this at the trials can be to be streamed over the internet. has been launched into the events of sunday night's riots here in moscow several of the police officers that were injured during that right still remain in the hospital now the. the police have said that they were under orders not to respond

to provocations but they only moved in loans they realized that the the projectiles bottles rocks and the like they were being thrown and towards them were actually also heading towards passes by we saw the protests for the demonstrations on monday on the day of the inauguration around three hundred people have been detained in various sites across the city and the opposition leaders have said that they will continue holding these type of demonstrations in plan to do that throughout shoes day well to me a putin and nor grated as president for the stood time the expectations that will be on him and what people expect to achieve to achieve over the over the six years of this term as now looked us by my colleague and. 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 data has been in power for five six seven years in a difficult position because people get used to him and taken for granted he has to then reinvent himself putin has made the promise ahead of the cold he proposed vast reforms from a major crackdown on corruption to diversifying the economy and raising living standards to this is still just putting this 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 don't know if you're a city. 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 to point out the most popular politician no doubt has a majority of support across russia and it's credited with extraordinary development in the country but putin leaves few people in different at 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 in 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 the west he's seen as harsher than me specially on foreign policy which could prove to be a challenge on issues like the reset with the u.s. and pushes for intervention in the middle east. but on the economic front analysts have already sense to change at least three key issues entry privatization

investment climate reform we see. putin changing his. emphasis and direction on particular issues in a way which corresponds with the political shift a shift that is most evident on the web russians have never been more active in politics blocs 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 don't 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 move 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 there now r.t. moscow and just a few hours into his role as president vladimir putin wasted no time and putting

his skates on but this time he swapped the political arena for the hockey rink where the leader took to the audience he took up the stick to slug it out and a friendly match between his team up so-called amateur players and the legends of the sport here in russia that experience failed to hold back the team as the president first scored it during normal time and then netted the winning any penalty shoot out a final score six five all in a day's work for the leader. socialist francois hollande has won the french presidential runoff making it the latest e.u. leader to be swept aside by a crippling debt crises now the proud the president elect tal's promise to fight against the german led european austerity drive and has already spoken to chancellor angela merkel the first foreign leader all around will visit artists are silly reports from paris. presell and it is 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 cycles is 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 he is 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 these supporters are skeptical as to how much she 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 a it 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 lando says the new president elect francois hollande is on me back with huge challenges in both france and. if you look at the scene from the bus to you last night on your television and you saw the red flags and even the hammer and sickle that people cheering in the place feel 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 is on the back 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 few years the. price of the workers place of work in france is among the highest in europe and it's gone up tremendously psychos he is only one live and heads of state been voted out of office over the last four years since the crisis really with more of a miracle he had won and stayed in so it's more a vote on the economic situation so he's really only partially responsible for whether or not it is going to be doing it will take care of that crisis is another question. and authorities have arrested the country's most prominent human rights

activist and harsh critic of the state's ruling family now bill we're told was detained just days before his apparent song show here on our team in the program which does are on tuesday the whistleblower gets an insight from him and a fellow egyptian activist into the uprising in the arab states are just over bennett reports. well the author a teaser said is that now bill rajab 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 illegal demonstrations and should be remembered 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 step so you enough times it so significant because this is thought to be. last interview before his latest arrest now is considered one of the heroes of the first protests

that took place in bahrain last february he's now got over one hundred forty thousand followers on twitter 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 there 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 do realize that i was not at home didn't they just to. be 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 as sanjay's talk show and and appear r.t.

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 this. russia 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 it's not the first but this is the struggle this is the freedom disses democracy that we are fighting for tens of course and we have to be a discourse and of course it might be very expensive as we have a course in bahrain willing to bid for the changes that we are fighting for now one of the other guests this week on doing that sanjay's show is another prominent activists in the in the arab spring his name is alan abdel fattah he was a he was a highly influential figure in the uprising in egypt last year in tahrir square

that like right up to has become a target of the author or tease of the fact that you know sound is seeking 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 he'll ride out with his arrest this weekend well that really what that's what makes this next episode really one that's not to be missed and you can catch it here or marty is being shown at eleven thirty g.m.t. this tuesday. to speak to two leading revolutionaries one from bahrain for 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. all right if you're just joining r.t. it's nineteen minutes past the hour and polling stations have now closed in syria where people have been voting for him new parliament the vote took place amid a shaky cease fire between the opposition and on the country's ruling regime let's

get the latest from our sara first to moscow for us sorrow so you've been there the entire day did the vote go off without incident. well it all seemed to go off without a hitch here in damascus the polls eight and seven am they claim. and we saw of months of polling stations that we visited it is quite hard to judge the numbers sound you had a steady stream of people the seem to be much less a. twenty four million people roughly the population of syria they felt he million people where eligible to vote today of course amongst those one of the criticisms of this they going ahead is that you've got huge chunks of the population that a company displaced the got a large number that are now refugees having been forced to flee the violence so there really is a sense when you hear of this sort of parallel realities you know up in damascus

you see a lot of the very thing going ahead to other cities that you gayety the much stronger opposition areas that have seen much face the fighting and it's really a very different story than some of those places that we visited people were dismissing this fate almost completely for the very thing has gone ahead today and we were talking to a lot of the bases who were telling up at the polling stations who a car thing that ballots i knew they were really very serious about helping that this would be even if it is just a small step something towards political reform the mikes eventually lead fits them genuine political change or a member that is needed fifteen months of the conflict now and as well as the devastating human calls this is really had a very severe economic impact is where the. a lot of the people we were speaking to that was really at the forefront of their minds things like job creation as we said the vase going ahead at the moment as you've got the u.n. observers on the ground a good thing the implementation of the peace plan and so the parliamentary

elections in the voting going ahead against this backdrop of continued violence in the country now it's the first such election and almost half a century in syria how is it being viewed in the country what's the mood on the ground whether it's being billed by the government is the really serious keith step in president decides who are full this comes three months of the you had the constitutional form that was meant to create the formation of new political parties you know there are steps being taken here there is definitely movement towards more freedom of expression more freedom of the political movements in the variations of the parties the problem is that with this you have the opposition dismissing it they boycotted the vote oh together actually that's really dented the credibility of the voter and called into question just how democratic these elections were going to be without the participation of different elements in fact some people

actually criticizing the opposition groups and making that decision saying that really this could have been an opportunity to maybe push for change and say really choosing to distance themselves in the lights of being a missed opportunity and all right archie sour first reporting from damascus thank you sara. well u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton has urged india to buy from iran delhi could be facing u.s. sanctions if it doesn't make significant costs to feel imports as america aims to increase its pressure on iran over its nuclear program for more almost we are joined by fellow for a geo politics at the top. institute paddock home live from new york this you're proud to call it the u.s. and other western nations have been erosion op pressure on iran's nuclear program for a long time now but why you bring in india into it right now. well for the last

five or ten years or so india and indian companies have been increasing their presence in the iranian energy sector so much so that a number of the indian refineries the oil refineries are particular specifically. designed to refine. iran's particular blend of crude oil and so as a result of this in gauging. india as india has become along with china one of the largest investors in iran's energy sector and one of its largest importers of crude oil so if there's going to be any dent to. into iran's energy sector it's going to have to involve countries like india and china and others that invest heavily in it what do you think it will mean for india if the u.s. doesn't fact hit new delhi with these sanctions. i'm not sure if if new delhi

itself would be directly hit but its energy companies certainly would be sanctioned . but the challenge is that. it wouldn't be easy all that easy to switch from iran from iranian crude to other other sources in part because as i mentioned these. the refineries in india are particularly geared to refine iranian crude and would take a pretty difficult and expensive retrofitting process to be able to do that but at the same time it's not just a matter of of energy dependence because pakistan has not allowed india to access. afghanistan through its through its borders and across its territory in has been sort of forced to look a little further abroad so it developed a very strategic link between the child port in eastern europe on the gulf of oman that connects to western afghanistan and this road not only takes away pakistan's

monopoly on afghanistan's maritime trade but it also gives india some very strategically important access to afghanistan and to central asia in general so sanctions would be. a little more complicated than then than just withdrawing from the energy sector and in addition to that we know that in the past india publicly rejected sanctions on iran but now they're reducing their iranian oil dependency so what is their stance on. and. india sort of been facing a dilemma because on one hand it depends on iran not only for energy and other trade but also for strategic access to central asia and for other strategic ties so on one hand it can't entirely dump or drop drop iran also for fear that if it drops

iran beijing and china would would pick up the pieces especially on preferential financial terms but at the same time it can't entirely reject. the united states this position because of course india is america's sort of burgeoning strategic ally they have tremendous amounts of trade they share strategic interests elsewhere in the world so i guess for the last five years and continuing into it and it continues india has been trying to sort of balance and juggle the relations between between iran and the united states neal i'm sorry to interrupt but usually i'm trying to convince time and i do want to get this last question in what is the alternative alternative with india's economy and population continuing to grow it has an obvious need for oil but it's not producing oil as a nation so what is the alternative. well as it's been

doing for the last few years it's been looking for a sort of creative means to engage with iran economically that involves creating new corporate entities that were outside of the realm of western financial sanctions and even by buying iranian crude with through rupees or with with gold and other goods so it is sort of reverted to a barter system so that's one method of. continuing to engage with iran economically i'm sorry to interrupt you again but yet that is all the time we have unfortunately live from new york that was a fellow for geopolitics at the situation thank you neal. perfect i'll be back with a recap of our main story shortly with our.

all right thanks for joining our to. take you on a tour of our headlines back to the kremlin we go where blood in the putin becomes the first russian president to step in for a third term as he's an all going to during a lavish ceremony he said to leave the country for no other president at sixty years promising to make russia a stronger and more united. front swallow and wins the french presidency as he promises growth instead of austerity while nicolas sarkozy falls under the weight of france's mounting debt and it is straight to business for a long as he plans to fight against german led austerity measures for europe.