online on screen this is r.t. live from moscow with twenty four hours a day so russia has a new prime minister dmitri medvedev who will now form a cabinet before getting down to business and newly inaugurated president putin is already dishing out directions regarding changes to the country's policies. breaks down premier medvedev except in a speech. changes to the upper echelons of russian political system also to continue with what he sees as his efforts to multan the right political system in russia highlights unique call me a major point that he wants to to push saying that he wants to increase investment into russia's economy an increase in investment from a brule as well also you saying its full membership of the w t o is a must and something that he will push as hard as he can doing his time in the role

of prime minister and in terms of the military he wants to see a industrial military complex see making sure that russia's armed forces can remain amongst the best in the world for more reaction to the fight you may get it is now the prime minister of russia i'm joined by michael the editor in chief of gigi russia thanks very much for talking to you so what is your reaction to the election all for. his prime minister well i think has just about any observer of russian politics over the last few years i guess the proper reaction would be a complete and utter lack of surprise i think. that's been something that could have been easily predicted and especially you know yesterday's pageantry. indicated that the tandem as we know it is still very much alive or at least by outward appearances dmitri medvedev said that one of his proudest achievements presidents

was that he believed he didn't like the political discourse in russia now. prime minister of course he's going to be have a lot more input his input is going to be with domestic politics do you think we could see an increase in widening of the discourse in terms of local politics in russia with mitt get his prime minister i think so i'm not sure exactly how much credit for this i would describe to the bit of but it's undeniable that the discourse has widened. you know things have gotten much more interesting much more volatile in a few places. i think that focusing on municipal and local politics is a smart thing for everyone right now because a lot can be a lot to accomplish absolutely. thank you very much the editor in chief of g.q. russia well to me a putin is the president and he's been delivering some strategic hold is highlighting what he wants to achieve while he's in power he amongst those who have

been foreign policy decisions revolving around the proposed u.s. missile defense shield in eastern europe now the president of. the foreign ministry in russia to address the united states demands from washington a clear written commitment that they will not target russia with any of those missile sites placed in eastern europe a put you closer to home he's also said that he wants to cripple corruption in russia by forcing all bureaucrats to declare their incomes and to work to more transparency in russian politics using technology using the internet to do that of course that was something that dmitri medvedev had put in place had started to do during his time as president now as prime minister he's going to have to work very very closely with blood in me a putin if they're to be able to live up to some of the promises of what some people who couldn't two point zero is the loss of key economic decisions to be made and both

a prime minister. going to be closely to and those promises. putin gets busy in his new role as president some people are taking to the streets of central moscow showing their discontent with his return to office police being deployed to disperse activists who've been trying to hold marches against putin's inauguration a correspondent reports from central moscow. what we're seeing right now is that several small groups of opposition activists mostly youths are still on the city's streets in the center of moscow in different parts of the city center pretty much walking around they themselves see that they are taking protests walks and many of them have been doing this throughout the entire day from time to time they did gather for unsanctioned rallies which were blocked by the police which actually have also been sort of following them around the city center trying to prevent

these unsanctioned rallies from happening authorities say they've detained around thirty people for the out the day including opposition activist and blogger i could see another one there and social identity falls senior. there were also peaceful protests rallies like the one on one of moscow's boulevards where several hundred protesters gathered and saying saw some even spent the night on this board since the big gathering or the rally began late on monday but now also because of the rain it sees that it seems their activity is dropping although started. following the parliamentary election amid accusations of ballot fraud and it was really a huge boost in the broadest movement in the whole general feeling among the public and we did see huge roll just rallies probably the biggest ones since the early ninety's in russia but the. the throttle the force of this moment definitely

dropped a few months after that now it's sort of regaining momentum but because there is still no clear leader within the opposition and in fact the opposition itself consists of totally different movements and organizations which often don't share the same political views the only thing that it seems totally unites them. is there are calls for new elections and that the don't want to see. being the president of russia. he would have his head of the in central moscow well for more analysis of developments in the russian opposition movement and its character i'm not joined by every week so he's a political analyst at the website stop the imperialism dot com eric despite the have parent lack of unity we perhaps see the formation of a civil position here in russia any time soon. i think a cohesive opposition is unlikely primarily because in order to have

a real opposition a political opposition with some political force behind it there has to be something that unites the movement in particular here i'm thinking of some sort of economic program economic demands an idea of what future russia would look like and in fact the opposition that we see in moscow and in other parts of russia the only thing that i see that's really a knighting them is a universal hatred of putin and so if you were to ask your average russian they would ask what the opposition has planned for the future the answer is very very little and it's because of that the opposition really is only able to make legitimate headlines at the inauguration when they're united in their interest what is interesting is that we have seen over the last five months or so russian authorities permitting many public protests to take place open in most going to other parts of the country yes there have been arrests because some protesters have been in breach of the mall but what does this tolerance tennis is it a fact that russia now is a real democracy perhaps in the making. well democracy is

a difficult word to sort of wrap our heads around i think that what it tells us is that the putin government is willing to allow dissent it's willing to allow a voice to the people in so far as that voice is able to follow the law here in the united states we've seen a level of police violence related to occupy wall street that is in fact i would argue much higher and to a much more extreme degree than what is being what is being seen on the streets of moscow and elsewhere in russia and moreover to characterize the opposition as a pro-democracy opposition i think is is not exactly accurate simply because the opposition doesn't have a unified political voice you know there in the states in new york interesting to hear that washington has already condemned the actions of moscow's police but health there is that criticism when the u.s. itself has been criticized very heavily for the policing of the occupy protests well it's just another example of the double standard of the authorities here in

the united states anything that falls in line with the political line that they want to put out there of course they will support it they will talk about election fraud in russia despite the fact that there were something like two hundred fifty thousand election monitors throughout the country an election that was more democratic and more open than anything we have here in the united states so again it's you don't want to read too much into what the u.s. authorities have to say simply because they have no legitimate ground to stand on putin is welcome the emergence so this vocal opposition saying it is a son of democracy he just said that very recently what would you expect to happen to the opposition movement putin's new presidency. well it's likely that the opposition would be allowed to continue to mobilize continue to organize unfortunately as i said it's unlikely that it will continue to far into putin's term simply because the opposition has very little that unites them and once putin is now that he's back in office and one. the business of managing russia is moving

forward i can see the opposition dissipating into factions in fact one faction led by nam so one faction led by and of only one can see this going into a movement that is really just exists in memory eric draitser interesting here thoughts to political analyst from stopping terrorism dot com thank you very much for your time thank you so much well and he said now he now takes a closer look at what drives the anti putin campaign and that issue of beautification just how united is it really. who is the russian opposition well of course it depends who you ask but also if you take a look for yourself what you'll see most often are a lot of different colors organizations and parties well to help us kind of decipher who's who in this i think we can call it modern russian opposition is to me three bob which he's a political analyst for voice of russia radio thanks for being with us i want to start with alexina widely and surrogate self just because they're the most well

known at the moment they're constantly getting arrested and being released just briefly tell us who they are and why they've become the prominent leaders of our name is not a typical leftist populist like well does he use them more into corruption and nationalist. but let's focus on the flanks for a bit looking at this video this is this is sunday's protest which for the first time turned really ugly you see these there are certain so and the left front it's called what what are the main focus of that party it's a flag we saw a lot of on sunday you see there these are red flags with the red star so this is an image abroad people might think it's you know a communist party because they read russian communists so we'll be right because it will do so for recently because. he. left for. all of the communist party a russian federation human being chronically ill participate in all these actions get him constantly arrested that's his style but it's like is that

there. is the traditional. russian i guess what does that mean in terms of these there are several groups which do not i why themselves with a laugh or with the communist party job if you go on sunday i was there and there were clearly some people who were trying to provoke violence a lot of these so-called anarchists you can see here basically were running into the riot police and also were wearing a lot of these masks. let's talk a little bit more about the nationalist fight that we see sometimes i believe we don't have pictures here yet but it's. white there it is what's this is it means someone you know all of the groups all the nationalist groups are strongly opposed to the current government strong of course white. and proud. but who would not like to be associated with communists or leftists what does it mean that. when we see tens of thousands of people on the streets of moscow as opposed to small groups

like we see here which we saw after the inauguration sit ins trying to happen why don't we see the thousands of people the masses do we see so many different flanks if they are so anti putin can't they just get under that banner all these groups have a mutually exclusive view they're not simply i think in histogram not simply contradictory that's just including school of the nationalistic he was put in of being a liberal the liberal secular would have been a nationalist the leftist take us in the soviet social system is the liberal secular splintering of reviving the soviet imperialist so they can't agree on anything the only thing that they can agree on is that they don't like what they want the current russian state to collapse that's about it to me through bob rich political analyst from wastes of russia radio thank you very much for trying to help us understand what's happening with the opposition in russia because certainly people in the country have never been more involved in politics. the u.n. envoy to syria warns that his peace plan is the last chance for the country to

avoid civil war because you know it was also accused of massacres of failing to implement the road map saying civilians are still coming under attack or he's got a gun has the details of syria's response. purred the syrian ambassador to the united nations say that a number of regional powers are sponsoring terror in syria to undermine kofi annan . he said the syrian government remains committed to the plan but it faces a surge of terrorist attacks including. d.v.d. and said it has the confessions of dozens of individuals involved in terrorist activities upon the order of thirty countries here's what he said these terrorists did not come into syria. by using. they came into syria through the syrian borders with the neighboring countries so it's not a secret anymore who is behind these groups the. who are giving orders

and try to work through these terrorist. leave. he also accused turkey of harboring armed groups which are infiltrating syria committing crimes and returning back to turkey because syrian ambassador said what also undermines kofi annan plan is the inflow of arms into syria now both the syrian ambassador to the u.n. and even the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. noted that there has been a decrease of violence in syria but the international envoy kofi annan said there is still a profound concern that syria is descending into full on civil war up to one hundred international observers are already working there the only said the number will reach three hundred by the end of the month so there's going to be more eyes on the ground as of now he said and i'm going to i'm going to quote here there have been worrying episodes of violence by the government but we have also seen attacks against government forces troops and installations it's very interesting how the

u.s. ambassador susan rice responded to the claims made by the syrian ambassador she brushed off the question about terrorists and then she went on talking about those who took up arms stepped down to fight for their rights a very dubious question arises here is that in a campaign to justify violence on one side while. the other being exclusively the syrian government susan rice confirmed it in a way with her latest statement by putting all responsibility in the hands of the syrian government and never not once mentioning the armed groups in the opposition with this regard and that despite the fact that the u.s. has accepted kofi annan plan which addresses all sides of the conflict not just the syrian government. well from syria to libya now in the office of libya's interim prime minister has been attacked by gunmen in tripoli leaving at least two security officials dead and several others injured the premier wasn't present when the shooting happened wolf reaction to this i'm not sure detroit b.o.b.

as a kiwi he's editor of the pan-african news wire well the prime minister's office is is no stranger to go this being the second attack of its kind in two months one of those behind the attacks trying to achieve. well it's really not surprising there was a lot of problems that exist when they had the national transitional council inside of libya problems associated with missing money to the tune of tens of billions of dollars there's also problems with the arabian gulf all corporation which has been closed down at least part of this production over the last several weeks due to problems associated with missing money the t.c. rebels were promised compensation for their participation in the revolt against move last year about a month ago payments to many of them were suspended. because they claimed that

there were a lot of irregularities in regard to who actually were entitled to these payments and what the payments were actually for apparently people who were dead were receiving payments people who reportedly never fought on the side of the n t c doing the rebellion against market daffy were being compensated people were taking trips abroad poorly for medical treatment who were not wounded or who had had no physical difficulties so these are some of the problems that have been associated with the m.t.c. government also there's a serious problem involving the libyan investment authority in relationship to their involvement with the treasury as well as the all ministries it's reported that some two point five billion dollars have gone missing from the libyan investment authority and this this money is not they have not been accounted for on the part of the oil ministry or the national treasury of libya also the question of

foreign assets reported last year to libya had one hundred sixty billion dollars in foreign assets abroad now they're claiming that there's. no documented proof that these assets exist or where they are and what for and in what form they exist so these are some of the problems that exist with the n t c and and the problems existing they're suggesting because the m.d.c. really hasn't got a awful lot of control over the country at the moment particular when we see the prime minister's office being attacked by militia just how then can this government interim government achieve security in the country without the foreign support the put in power in the first place it needs help doesn't it. while they were put in power socially by the pentagon and nato if it had not been for the air power the naval blockade the intelligence sharing on the part of the

united states government and the various or european governments there's no way that the m.t.c. could have defeated the libyan army last year so these are the dilemmas that the government is facing right now so it actually is creating a situation where there will be a rationale for possible u.s. or nato direct military intervention on the ground in order to poorly stabilize the situation inside the country are also we have to look at the fact. as we were hearing of time just briefly that in this libyan scenario what does it provide in terms of lessons for those who might seek regime change in syria just briefly. well we see the deterioration of the situation in syria we have terrorist bombings against the government there are there's also the problem associated with financing these opposition organizations who are totally irresponsible and of course there's

corruption as well among those who are providing the funding and we think this is a major problem in regard to the oil companies particularly out of italy. which have been doing our business deals with the libyan government there's been a lot of misappropriation of funds and this of course is causing a lot of tension and a lot of animosity among the various factions inside the sea in libya of every as editor of the pan-african newswire joining us live in detroit thank you for your time this is r.t. and i'll be back with a recap of your top stories in about eight minutes from now in the meantime one of president putin's first acts in office was to order the foreign ministry to obtain clear guarantees that america's missile defense shield in europe is not a threat to russia when in a few moments we'll be talking to nato his deputy secretary general on the future of cooperation between moscow and the united states with.

alexander vershbow deputy secretary general great to have you with us sir good to be here so last night was something you probably never heard before russia is greatly concerned about nato anti-missile defense system in hero will be able to shoot down its nuclear missiles that's upsetting the balance in the region that the negotiation on this topic has started two years ago in two thousand and ten why do you think that. still haven't been able to person rush out of the opposite well it's not something that. is very satisfying and we want to continue to work on this dialogue with russia but it is a serious difference of opinion that we have to overcome of course. it's really about the facts about the science about the capabilities of the system that nato is developing with the strong contribution from the united states we remain convinced that there is no danger to the russian strategic nuclear force not today not ten

years from now and that the russian analysis is based on a series of worst case to some sions and and unrealistic assumptions that creates an image of a threat which really doesn't exist but is worried that maybe in five six seven years time the european anti missile defense system will be able to shoot down for example specifically its concern about the modifications of the s m three interceptor that can travel fast enough to actually shoot down russia's missiles and sent a key issue it's a very technical issue but it's a very fundamental issue is that in a nato system can't fire. today system in the system we might have ten years from now it cannot fire until they are totally i.c.b.m. that it's targeting has finished its powered flight until the engine burns out and only then is it going in a ballistic trajectory by the time that happens. if this we're talking about a russian system it will be too far to the north nato will it might fire but it

will be chasing the tail of that missile all the way till it crashes into the arctic sea in that case why can't america or nato legally bound and guarantees that's a complicated question relating in part to politics and in part to the nature of the problem the cooperation itself we think is the best guarantee come inside the structure participate in the planning learn more about the system we could agree to exchange information about what we're going to have not just tomorrow but five years from now ten years from now there's lots of ways to increase predictability which is really what russia is looking for a guarantee. as we saw with the a.b.m. treaty it's just a piece of paper can be torn up and abandoned just took six months for president george w. bush to abandon maybe i'm truly president obama when he saw the ratification of the

new start treaty made some very specific commitments to the senate to get that treaty through he said the united states will accept no limits on its ballistic missile capabilities i know president veggie have had to make similar deals to get it through the duma. but political leaders need to. understand that no one has the ability to override the will of their of their parliaments i understand but in this case in this particular case america needs this to sound system much more than russia because it's. it's a topic of concern for russia so it's the only thing that's coming in the way of sealing the deal is the legal legal guarantee why not just give it because of the commitments that have been made it would be rejected by our senator we had a worse situation so i just don't think that's the answer i think political guarantees transparency predictability. and the benefits that come from cooperation. in which nato would be helping russia protect its territory just as

much as russia would be helping nato i think all that leads to the kind of confidence that. both necessary and sufficient to move forward well from what we're told they say european missile defense system is really directed against iranian threat and it will be fully operational in two thousand and eighteen there are numerous ways right now to contain iran u.s. is building bases around it israel has kept abilities international sanctions are in place it really doesn't look like in the nearest future for another five six years see iran will be representing a real threats to nato so why so what is the purpose of this whole european anti-missile system if iran is contained well there's a. i think a legitimate debate that we could have maybe if we had more time about can iran a regime that has a radical ideology that has pledged to wipe country not far from its borders off the map whether it could really be contained but yes the threat today is not as bad

as we think it will be five ten years ago ten ten years from now so we do have time to work this out right now the threat is concentrated mainly in the southeastern part of europe and southern part of russia if you look at the circles on the map. but we've also seen iran conduct tests of a new generation missiles that are even longer range that can begin to threaten central europe by the end of the decade they'll be threatening northern europe will they actually attack. who knows from the russian perspective the whole missile defense is break or make as far as break deal as far as nature relations go present advance of has stated more than one step at a new arms race could be in place if the two sides don't come to agreement but is it really as important to nato as it is to russia i would hope that at the end of the day it would be equally important to both parties because we're talking about our security at the same time we take the russian concerns very seriously so we have to address the concerns about strategic stability i think we can then i think

we can really be thinking about nato russia relations in a totally new way we're still not yet free of the hostility and the suspicions of the cold war and it's our mutual obligation to try to work together to overcome. nato deputy secretary thank you very much. pleasure.

exactly how this is a. top stories this hour the. prime minister russian lawmakers the new government began as president putin has already begun to usher in his own correction of the country's political course. riot police in central morgue. preventing hundreds of activists from holding protests rallies against putin's return to office some of them are in camping out overnight after police made around four hundred arrests for violent clashes on the evolve in organization. plus un envoy to syria kofi annan blames damascus for the ongoing violence warning to syria is slipping into civil war but the government claims it's fighting to protect its people from foreign funded insurgency saying death squads are on the loose. and that's it for me in.