which brightened. from plans to. start on t.v. dot com. the week's top stories on our team for the dem approach in is back in russia's presidential saddle with all eyes now on his plans and policies following the latest wave of discontent with the retaking the top. radical islamists say they carried out a deadly bombing in the syrian capital in response to the actions of government troops confirming fears the terror groups of fighting on the rebel side. austerity protests continue in spain after hundreds of thousands demanded an end to cuts on saturday while fresh turmoil in greece puts a question mark over the fate of the euro. and russian rescue teams join the search for answers in indonesia at the site of the su hoy's super jet crash which killed

all forty five on board and. ten pm sunday night here in moscow welcome if you just joined us here watching the weekly here on r t with me kevin owen is a roundup of the top stories of the last seven days and first a new president but a familiar face with him a putin was sworn into office this last week in a lavish culmination of russia's tumultuous election period with opposition activism earth and the story of high the focus is no one how putin will deal with the huge challenges faced at home and abroad. reports. for the third time vladimir putin took the thirty three word oath to become russia's president with an air of ease and calm. as i fulfill the gigi's 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 our state to serve its people faithfully. but the toss case taken on could be more like an uphill right back sports believe any leader who's been in power. 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 international challenges have changed greatly since his two previous terms while russia's new president faces an absolutely different situation at home the country has become more politically active and with so many reforms promised by putin during his campaign he has no choice but to start fulfilling them needs the 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 eyes of the world are also on what putin's foreign policy will be many believe it's likely to stay close to that of me that individual however statements on foreign policy have given a hint that we may see something new off to roll first he insisted russia will firmly defend its interests over american missile defense plans in europe he also said he would not be going to the next g. eight summit in the united states it has already made some analysts speculate that the relationship between moscow and washington would not be so rosy the return of putin to the presidency. heralds a. drawn not a decisive shift but a strong shift in emphasis away from the failed reset policy that hillary clinton offered when video first the people and its president and i think it's been clear that the reset has brought nothing positive for security or stability in russia it

was a time bind measure on the part of washington simply to allow it to build more of its ballistic missile defense installations and put more pressure on russia's security situation the next few months say experts will be instrumental in defining putin's long term strategy the question is whether russia and the world will see and you putin willing and able to face difficult challenges. moscow. return to the kremlin seeing people turning out on the streets on mass with major anti-government rallies happening in moscow some of the most recent protests descended into clashes and hundreds of arrests and here in this in our political analysts to me looking more closely at the aims and ambitions of the opposition movement. 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 through bob which he's a political analyst for voice of russia radio thanks for being with us i want to start with alexis in the widely and surrogate so 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 not. a typical leftist protest like why does he use the morning to take corruption and nationalist. 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's so and the left front it's called what what are the main focus of about party it's a flag we saw a lot of on sunday you see the 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 russia communist so what they write because it

would also friesen to declare that he's. left wrong the reason why all the communist party of russian federation human being chronically ill but dissipating all these actions get him constantly arrested that's his style but so i guess that they're on i kissed rather than blair is the traditional color for russia and i guess what does that mean in terms of there are several groups that want to live themselves with the left front with the communist party job to go on the 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 you see sometimes i believe it's white there it is. what's this right it means someone you know all of the groups all the nationalist groups that are strongly opposed to the current government want

to pull white. 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 that thousands of the masses to be since 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 include exclude the nationalistic use put in of being a liberal liberal secular which you know going in national the leftist accuse. the saudi social system is a liberal secular sporting 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 pollution and they want the current russian state to collapse that's about to meet their bob rich political analyst from west 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 but isn't this an hour when they were the latest series of anti putin demos has also seen an ongoing and definite city that one of moscow's central square is gathering it's already been labeled occupied by from the name of the poet whose monument dorm is the square indeed how many people have been taking part just a few dozen but there are some surprising visit to this one from a police three protest he's got some serious beef apparent over russia join the world trade organization it was an eye opener for muscovites used to livestock on the streets but police say so long as it's on a leash no laws are broken meantime around two thousand opposition activists were marching through central moscow today sunday in what they dubbed a controlled war. participants say they want to check how the police would respond to the mass rally no one was stood in the way and the end of the march passed off peacefully. is

a mystic stream ists have claimed responsibility for the twin bombings in the syrian capital on thursday which killed fifty five and injured four hundred others it was the worst terror attack in the country since the start of the uprising there last year the group called the affronts thought to share al-qaeda is jihad the study ology it says the suicide bombings were in response to attacks on residential areas by president assad's forces my claim seems to confirm fears that al-qaeda linked extremists have joined the anti regime fight r.t. sara first met syrians have been living through more than a year now of violence and whose last hopes rest with the un observers. the sound of gunfire and heavy artillery brings out. all with the un observers in it let in there's been some pretty heavy gunfire. throughout the night. now also government seemingly has very tight control of the century area in the area. and

the fierce fighting is continuing there's not a ceasefire here both sides we're told of violating the peace plan we've followed the un into it on the way passing through homes that have other areas monitors that based there is that it's seen some of the base destructive fighting as we passed three homes we have a brief animation of conversation with the president after. his safety. we would want people who still about the fighting that happened to see. the tis he tries hard not to show perfectly encapsulate the level of devastation that has been on people's lives here throughout the course of the conflict is on to it live on a stretch of road this name to being extremely dangerous it's a journey that would have been never possible without the u.n. presence with the volatile situation criminal gangs thoughts operate in this area.

we find it live under siege like conditions a quiet and intimidated city i don't know since a year and a half ago no one knows what's happening we go to sleep and wake up with fear some say it's the government and other states armed groups we don't know who's doing that we lost to get a chance to meet it let's governor and ask him about the situation here. even if there is a little unrest in some areas here in a few spots it's due to people who are breaking the. checkpoint after checkpoint then we enter into an area outside of government control and it's a unique chance to see the u.n. monitors in action almost a month into the peace plan and your monitors on making small steps on the ground it is going to be a slow process throughout the course of the conflict it's been hard to come to some of the areas where the fiercest fighting is happening and get a gauge of exactly what the situation is on the ground the u.n.

observers traveling to some of these areas have given some access to what we see is a frightened population and the city the symbol is the olive branch the symbol of peace right now a city at civil war sara for. it larry. the turmoil in syria spark clashes in neighboring lebanon two were a soldier and two civilians were reportedly killed on sunday gunfire broke out in the city of tripoli in the north of the country most of the fighting took place between a neighborhood primarily populated by sunni muslims who oppose syria's president assad and alawite support him your country share multiple religious and political traits and there are deep rifts in lebanese society over the cheats towards assad right now. in bahrain anti-government protesters have stepped up their rallies demanding the release of the country's top human rights activist now bill was arrested a week ago for allegedly organizing and taking part in protests days before that

he'd spoken to wiki leaks founder julian assange an interview aired here on r.t. on tuesday now raja himself believes that is what prompted his arrest when i said in my twitter account that i'm going to meet julian assange and i'm going to speak to me t.v. program my house was surrounded by almost one hundred policemen and. machine guns. and they realized that i was not at home just. to tell me to come to the public prosecutor today at four o'clock where i am here what are you going to do or i'm going to go back i mean i have to face. journalist a middle east affairs expert afshin rattansi believes raw jobs arrest exposes the west selective approach in dealing with the arab uprisings. so there is no case against in the cases against the british and american and european governments that are backing bahrain i don't know i don't know how long julian assange has been under house arrest here in this country without charge but they obviously seem to

think that they can now arrest his interviewees very disturbing what's happened to the president of the bahrain center for human rights is not just him more worryingly of course is the. longest drag i understand his daughter who is also being in custody you know they are killing people fifty dead in a country that small equates to a lot of people this is an apartheid state being backed by the obama administration in the years two thousand and nine two thousand and ten as if seeing what was about to happen in bahrain the obama administration stepped up sales which include equipment used by the authorities in bahrain to suppress the protest and to this is ongoing and they know journalists that the government. and the next edition of julie the sunday shows airing here on r.t. on choose day if you missed a program that allegedly triggered not be allowed to rest you can catch it on our website still streaming there and did you catch all the stations so far and a son just told r.t. dot com. speak to two leading revolutionaries

one from bahrain where the revolution was an egypt where the revolution is now in turmoil what makes a revolution and where is the arab spring going to go. now the big story from the wake recovery teams need an easier reportedly focusing the search now i want to reveal as they try to track down the flight data recorders from that seepage at the crashed on wednesday that has been put on hold overnight but it will begin again adorns all forty five on board were killed when the newly designed russian plane slammed into a mountain pretty straight as the story. it was the demo flight that ended in disaster rescuers in indonesia have attempted this week to scale the treacherous terrain outside jakarta at the site of the crash of the russian sukhoi superjet one hundred forty five people were on board and authorities say there are no signs of survivors ever since the plane disappeared on wednesday family members of those who

were on the plane have been gathering here at the airport hoping for any word from authorities about what could have happened to the plane they've also been putting up memorials like this one to remember the lives that were lost that day the med had no idea his wife was on board the jet that took off for the second time on wednesday for a thirty minute demonstration for potential customers an airline executives his wife was heading the cabin crew that day. she was not supposed to fly because shouldn't tell me i was in the forms of the normally when she flies she would tell me while authorities are still continuing the search an investigation into exactly what happened many believe that the poor visibility and fog that day contributed to the plane crashing into a nearby mountain. the sukhoi superjet was on a tour of five asian countries demonstrations had already taken place in kazakhstan pakistan and me and maher the multibillion dollar plane is the first commercial

aircraft built in russia since the end of the soviet union and already had one hundred seventy orders placed for its part just around the world it's not yet clear if the crash will affect the jets future as well as sukhoi for a beautician but some aviation experts say it won't this is going to have a temporary impact. very much depends on the accident report of course. through the primary called the crash was we have to remember of course the cause of the jet li's thought implying here in commercial of a very new aircraft the very moment russian rescue teams will work alongside indonesian search teams until the investigation is concluded hoping that family members like they can get some answers but the bit that i just want to find out what happened to her preassure either our teacher carda indonesia.

you're watching r.t. now coming up a look at how the mighty have fallen for trade as our goods and divisive which other nicolas sarkozy lost his presidential reelection bid in the socialist to the socialist francois long but can the winner reverse france's fortunes we try and gauge that fear a bit later also to talking about the russian businessman vig to boot ing out of the u.s. justice system describing his cases on which out of jail for twenty five years he speaks exclusively to us at r.t. . well it's been a truly for the violent anti austerity demos and political deadlock again casting doubts over the future of the euro in spain as many as hundreds of thousands marched in nationwide protests they chanted slogans and waved banners demanding an end to cut some painful austerity and it's lead to violent clashes erupted in the city of naples after yet another suicide apparently caused by an aggressive

government taxation program but above all that it is of course the political will in greece that's a huge problem there a last ditch effort to form a coalition is all but collapsed over differences on a stereotype. the country now looks like the stage new elections well for more on what lies ahead for greece and the implications for the e.u. let's cross live to us and sure there hopefully panicky artists or tourists journalists a lecture on social and political philosophy at the university of a-g. and mr pena give us your live on r.t. international thanks but on the program it's kevin owen here talking to you tonight so i guess the big question is it all over as you see it all hopes for a coalition go on. well there are still in negotiations and there's also modest forms of luck made from the part of the so-called stroy of the european union the international monetary fund and the european central bank. that. there's going this is the danger or by default if

a government is knox. and the same time greece went through a political as quick in last election and austerity policies where totally rejected in what has been the biggest loss of mainstream parties in recent history so that's the problem or the on hand both the greek political establishment and the european union want a continuation of the stare at it at the same time it's not possible to actually have a legitimate and legitimized government that would continue austerity that's the real cuts so new elections aren't going to solve the problem they're going to they're going to prolong it i guess yeah. well i think the only way to solve the problem is to have a radical change in policy austerity cannot continue if you no way it is a choice between austerity and democracy the people have rejected the terms of the

bailout agreements they have rejected the terms of the loan agreements they want a radically different policy that's that's the problem because germany's been been one of the main the countries handing out money thus far germany's most influential magazine to speak is now listing reasons why greece your country should leave the eurozone while you're a crowd say the euro would survive greece's exit be talked about for a while on this channel what rather vacations might be how likely is it tonight do you think that greece is any closer to an exit. well i think that the question is not whether or when greece is going to exit but how i think that was different and an exit from the euro zone are now practically inevitable so the question is on which terms i think it's must better it's much better if i default and an exit from the euro zone takes place in democratic and suffering way at least according to the

will of the people and zora attains of policy and not in the sense that i think that certain circles in the european union are karen lee thinking that is i should have exit from the euro zone as if you know a way to punish people for rejecting austerity you're going to prison i mean isn't this a choice but what about the warnings that your country will be jumping from the some call frying pan into the fire by doing that well we're into the fire i mean how worse can it get we're in the fifth year of a recession we have unemployment over twenty one twenty two percent there's no exit exit strategy and people are in despair and this is what's happened in the last election this was was expressed this social divest ation took a political front so i think it's much better to actually think about a radical change in policy but as you say there's no president believe in what kind of political consequences could greece face. well i think that. it's going to be

difficult. they're going to try the whole transition period and that that's brings forward the question of what kind of government. and what kind of policy is this this exit from the eurozone is going to be associated with i think what we need is a government of this that must be based on a broad pickle's movement of all those people who have struggled in the past few years and doing their support not simply in the name of an economic policy but also in the name of of a radically different social situation that means according to people to actually reconstruct this country in line is totally different from karen's aggressive new liberalism and it sounds great i can see it's what the people have asked for in france is well you're not alone in your country but can you make the sums out up

can you make it any better at the end of the day. well i'll just give you one point . here in philly most of the most of the fun stuff to come from according to the terms of the bailout packages i've been used to big back taxes so this is obvious your circle we are in still even after the so-called beside we're still within that this huge circle of debt i understand so i think that a default on our own terms that is an immediate stop it's a mistake if article a different policy in taxation. emphasis not on the markets but on public sector involvement. and the collective efforts to reconstruct our collective productive recoverability is is a difficult but but much more helpful way for this country because otherwise we're going to face social disaster one way or another either within the euro or outside

the europe without a different radically different policy it's going to be sort of that was the sincerest thanks your thoughts on taking the time to go on the program to terrorists guilty as they journalist lecture on social and political philosophy at the university of the g. and thank you. to leave the euro zone came this week not only from the struggling south but also for a more prosperous north of mentioned just now french president elect from saul and has vowed to renegotiate europe's debt limiting agreements on member nations now that may begin soon as choose day when he meets german chancellor angela merkel test for a sell and i reports that on the man elected to lead france and whether he can really deliver. out with the old. in with the new. the. press was allowed to ask a victory in the french presidential elections the people here are saying that france is once again peaceful event here they have voted for change but the

question is how soon are they going to see that change and what kind of crabs are they really going to have and the world is asking precisely the same question a laundry allies is that people rejected talk is it when then france would also cite france for many reasons one of them was is based on arrogance so we can hope that in foreign policy is going to move in the right direction that is less arrogant. be it arrogance or something else there was no hiding nicolas sarkozy's eagerness to lead the libyan intervention sending french warplanes in first he of course betrayed himself all along as deliberate of libya but he kept that extremely quiet. allegations kept coming out about his relationship with gadhafi you know the march thirty second scene has created an overall image of france we don't want divisions within the french society we don't want the bombing of arab countries we are friends of the arabs yet it is not. a lot is being branded

france's new hope or gas one task ahead of him to sort through the euro crisis and clean up an image which many think is no longer in line with what's traditionally french while foreign policy took a backseat during the campaign a lot of did throughout two moves one go head to head with germany's angela merkel on really go sharing the e.u. fiscal pact believe me he will experience in the coming month the negotiation power of america because america will face an election in one year and will not be willing to compromise we said was a french president and to withdraw for. troops from afghanistan a year earlier than planned it's a sign that i think you want to scale down foreign policy but i would guess that is going to be. considered to what is happening in the in the rest of the world and will focus on economic issues within europe at the end of the day all the french

really want our jobs and leadership to truly represents them both at home and abroad. tesser cilia are to pass. away a child that so russian business moving to boot jailed for twenty five years in the u.s. from his trafficking branded the case against him he still insists he's innocent it was decided will be housed in a supermax security prison in colorado now among the country's most dangerous and violent criminals those despite the trial judge recommending medium security confinement currently in the new york prison boots talked exclusively to our society giving his first interview to the english language channel since extradition to the u.s. from thailand gave his views about washington's case against. what is happening to me as a pure political case and kind of trial it was very you know. do you know how we charge trial. where you know your mom. can kind of let you know bad things. that look how i know i don't committed any

crime. to have that punished. when i was a major crime these crimes would never exist unless the government would not give rather a crime i better luck with this conspiracy rooftop label. decision to kill american richard thank you like a magic bullet war profiteer of. the full version of the exclusive interview coming up in a couple of minutes here on r.t. after a recap of this week's top stories very shortly.