syria's battles creep closer to president also its doorstep and the foreign pressure mounts while russia and other mediators push for peace through diplomacy. france looks laughed president obama's socialist still march in round one of the parliamentary election giving a powerful boost to his anti cuts mandate. football hooligans and political activists threatened to mar the euro twenty twelve championships in poland and ukraine just four days into the tournament.

it's three pm here in moscow this is r.t. coming to you live with our top story and as you want observers struggle to make a difference in conflicts torrent torn syria international calls for military intervention are growing louder with israel now joining in to mass cases on the defensive as nationwide fighting rolls into the city state media claims that terrorists are preparing new plots to provoke regime change or if an ocean has the latest from the syrian capital. hughes we've been receiving in the last few days indicate that the rivals are gaining on the syrian regime we've been hearing here in damascus explosions and gunfire between oppositions and governmental forces and it's been much much more frequent than ever before but violence has not only is collated here in the capital but everywhere across the country over the weekend the local media have also been reporting that the rebels are now in perception of

chemical weapons and smuggled in from libya and they're planning a chemical weapon and terror attack to blame it on damascus well we've seen indeed the rebels been recently aggressive and active recently and of course these accusations may sound groundless but we've all seen just recently how the rebels may have framed people just last week a from a british journalist alex thompson from channel four has said that while working here in syria he and his crew were set up by the rebels to be killed by the syrian army he said that they were deliberately led into a death trap and he thinks that he opposition wanted them to be killed by the governmental forces to blame it on damascus meanwhile the u.n. monitors who work here on the ground trying to do their best to investigate what's going on. right now they're trying to establish exactly what happened during last week's massacre in the central province to province of how much how many people

were killed and who's to blame but this is extremely hard to do and the details of very hard to very far. because there is a lot of confusion and the main reason is that the many many sides been involved in this conflict here in syria not just governmental forces all. of rebels rebel fighters but the results of the police third part. it may include. the jihad is whose goal is to topple the regime here in syria and all of these toys involved in this conflict may be responsible for the killing and that also could be a provocation so it makes. the work call for u.n. . mission here on the ground extremely complicated we've also recently been hearing another lot mean indicate the syrian national council the turkey based

opposition group has elected a new leader and he is a kurd curry's the largest ethnic minority here in syria and they haven't been anyhow involved in this crisis here in the country we haven't heard any problem from the area in north east of the country where the leaves so this nomination fear is a growing that the rebels are trying to involve as much people as possible and even involve this group and that may lead to even more violence escalations here in syria. the syrian national council has been at odds with some opposition groups inside the country and the new absence head splurging rapprochement asia times correspondent pepe escobar says the man and the council are two disconnected from the front line. sida goes after birth but homegirl yan is a very shady character he has very good kurdish corrections of course so many

connections as well but he has also tried to play to the christian and so they although i say look if there is. the government or rejean or we're not going to touch it nobody believes him insights in fact did jim brail of the opposition umbrella is disgruntled matter in fact you know they don't get along with each other in the air and you feel treated on the ground by people who are actually doing a lot of these killings in fact and these people they are mercenaries imported from libya by the way via qatar where i am at the moment and this is a blue subject to be discussed here in qatar i can find anybody here who would discuss with me crane clearly what the cats are it intelligence services are actually doing on the ground in syria but this is part of the qatari foreign policy they are financing and weaponize and do really hardcore arm of the syrian

opposition and i'm not sure mr sieda the new ahead of the syrians or council not what's really going on the ground. u.s. senator john mccain confirms that armed rebels in syria are being directly supplied with weapons by some regional countries including saudi arabia are two reports online for you the southerner insists the u.s. should follow their lead despite concerns over extremist forces among the anti outside groups. in the montreal may have police tear gas and pepper spray student protesters but they refuse to given over to wish if you rises the video analysis and reaction r t v dot com. french president francois long socialist party and its left its allies stand to take control of parliament following a triumphant first round they and their allies secured more than forty six percent giving a powerful boost to our brand but it but in excuse me but the lurch to the left

means germany is losing its right hand man in pushing for cuts across europe artists are silly as the latest from paris the results of the first round certainly is a very good moral boost for the socialist party in trying to get a majority of the lower house of parliament however nothing is a certain definitely there's no time for complacency they can't just sit around and expect the same results in the second round there are still the un people already the conservatives still trying to rally whatever support they can get most of dissipated a policy the first all along is the one that he's speaking about quite a lot during his campaign which is more growth for friends not for the stereotype that's on the one hand and how this translates for the french people is that more jobs and taxing the rich it's this tax and spend policy that he wants to france as much as seventy five percent tax for the rich certainly not something that

conservatives wanted so if he wants to get this a policy like that through he will need the support of the lower house let's remember the socialists already have the support of the senate so it will be much easier to get things. you also promise about sixty thousand teaching jobs in the next five years as well as retirement age bringing it down to sixty. from sixty two this is against the stair and driven path that the rest of europe is taking so france will be taking a very different approach to. the approach if you will also of course you want to draw french troops a year earlier than planned from afghanistan and he needs the support of both houses to get this through so france will a lot gunning for a majority in the parliament and let's not forget that it's necessary but he provides concrete results for the french people the patience is very low what this point and nicolas sarkozy became deeply unpopular for coming in with promises and not fulfilling any of those promises it's what got him out of the end he's

a free if we remember. can you grow from the foundation for strategic research says the potential victory of the french socialists reflects the call for change around europe. french pretty. interesting because they're not always go with the cycle in europe when we do see certainly the rise of those nationalist culture is all over the board in europe and this is clearly the case you. were in your and this is a phenomenon that is happening across the board. when it comes to the rise of socialism. with the recent elections in europe of the. parties in power about the tendency to lose election that don't happen in greece in . spain you need to be so this is a situation where incumbents are in trouble. coming up later in the program equal

work but unequal pay brains don't match the bank balance in the u.s. we explain why a for every dollar a man earns a woman gets just seventy seven cents. there's been an explosion in the ukrainian city of net put up with petrovsky injuring at least eight people reports vary hours to the cause some witnesses say a smoker an aide was thrown aside a tram others suggest gunpowder being carried by a passenger ignited in the heat of the city suffered attacks before at least thirty one people were hurt in a series of explosions in april which police are still investigating ukraine of course is currently co-hosting the euro twenty twelve football championships although there are no games taking place in near perth petrofsky the tournament got its own problems though. and not just on the pitch with aggressive fans and politics threatening to overshadow the event police in poland have

a rest in fourteen people involved in a brawl between polish and croatian supporters just before the croatia are than game on sunday it's the latest incident in a string of clashes that has already seen a number of teams warned over their fans behavior over in ukraine the fans are not shying away from politics either as our correspondent alexei yourself now reports. ukraine's capital kiev is joining in with the feast of football that is certainly the euro twenty twelve football championship with the national side to play a swedish national side here on the monday evening out suddenly flans fans are flocking into the city with at least twenty five thousand arriving here on sunday alone so joining the huge army of swedish fans and fans from all over europe who have come here to witness this tournament now study from the organizational point of view everything has been smooth so far and certainly the tournament is all about sports it's all about football but to some extent you are twenty twelve is being overshadowed by politics now we certainly remember that some leaders of the

european states of the european union member states decided to boycott the championship because of what they describe as a mistreatment of ukraine's prime minister yulia timoshenko who is serving seven years in prison for the abuse of power and now we understand that some of the members some of the leaders of the member states of the e.u. member states have solved in their stance somehow it was transferred to a hospital in the city of one of the host cities of the euro twenty two a football championship nevertheless you can witness right here in a central kiev what it's all about you can see the entrance to the found zone and just meters away from the entrance to the fans on we see the tent camp of the opposition those who are supporting the protesting her imprisonment they've been here and back for almost a year now and they decided against removing their town with the euro twenty twelve coming to the ukrainian capital now. certainly there are still demanding that you must be freed and everyone all the tourists coming here can observe the posters

they hang out in english demanding the political prisoner you don't much like as they describe or to be released immediately certainly the e.u. leaders have soft in their stand some of them will be coming to witness the football here in ukraine but we understand that angela merkel the german chancellor who always attends german matches when the national side plays decided against coming to ukraine at least during the group stage should germany qualify from the group stage then maybe it will decide to come here and witness her side play some other side in the quarterfinals but for now i understand that she decided against coming here as well as almost all of the members of the dutch government they only send the minister of sport here to ukraine to attend the dutch games but other members who always attend such games when they play during the euros decided against coming here i also understand that the dutch supporters ahead of their game against denmark in the city of try to get marched the streets of this ukrainian city wearing t. shirts saying free so you can see for yourself that this story is being closely

connected to politics closely connected to the pressure from the european union on ukraine to release you will see certainly in the coming weeks how this situation will unfold for now it's been very peaceful here and everyone certainly enjoys the great game of football which we seeing every night from both poland and ukraine. course there's lots of drama on the pages and we've got the details in our team sport with paul coming up yes coming up around often around ninety minutes time we'll preview monday's action is co-host ukraine kick off their campaign against sweden also in group d. it's the battle of the heavyweight is england take on frons we'll see how reigning champion spain began the defense of that title plus the latest from roland garros to his rafael nadal and novak djokovic continued their french open final that's a more than around ninety minutes time. in other news the police in moscow are searching the homes of opposition leader alexei in the valley apartments of other

prominent opposition figures are also under investigation and they will be questioned further on tuesday the searches come ahead of tuesday's planned millions march in moscow scheduled to coincide with a holiday marking the foundation of modern russia but he said the search is in relation to street protests that were held on may the sixth there were hundreds of arrests where the rally turned violent with some demonstrators throwing stones and glass at officers that protest was over putin returning to power and came a day before his inauguration ceremony. oh economists fear the hundred billion euro loan that the euro zone's agreed to give spain might not be enough by lending the cash to spain where one in four people are out of work ministers want to reassure investors and erect a crisis fire wall spanish banks were left with billions of euros of bad loans after the property bubble burst sending the country into a deep recession spoke to the man who is often called the euro's founding father

next hour former european commission president romano prodi says the ears troubles began with lack of control. when the euro was born it was clear that we needed political links come on fiscal policy i advised the programme of and now the tories to comb through the behavior of besting in two thousand and three i rise in the program again and france germany and italy they told that this was again they severely need then i ask it at least a radical control by the eurostar and they said no and so that we could cheat everything but look kelly for their budget is much more than blue but nobody attacks california because of the greek government cheated they're no doubt and

they have it was six seven current high levels of the day so it's not it's not to be state it is about doing it you know so you have to admit no totally to pieces of it alls. looking out some other news making headlines around the world police and meander are recovering bodies from the breeze of burnt homes after some of the country's deadliest deadliest sectarian bloodshed in years buddhists and muslims clashed in the western iraq time region killing at least seven people and wounding seventeen others the government sees the muslims in the area as illegal immigrants and doesn't recognize them as a minority it's also reported that u.n. officials have begun leaving me anymore due to the worsening situation there. in the capital of chile it was sparked by a t.v. documentary which praised the country's former dictator augusto pinochet police had

to use tear gas and water cannons to break up the angry crowds in santiago and as to made it three thousand people were killed during pinochet's heart hardline seventeen year rule of thousands more were arrested or forced into exile. militants from nigeria's radical islamist group boko haram have attacked two churches this two people were wounded by a suicide bomber in the city of joss a blast triggered street protests in which six people died in a separate attack gunmen opened fire on worshippers in borno killing one person and injuring three others boko haram has carried out a number of church attacks in its attempts to impose sharia law across nigeria. america's women are now top of the class over men when it comes to getting advanced degrees there's a stigma tell though their salaries still lag far behind their male counterparts what's worse is that conservatives are blocking legislation to get fair pay as

miniport i explain. these studied landscape of america's professional force has undergone major reconstruction over the duckies women now make up fifty percent of the nation's labor force sixty percent of the voting population and they've surpassed men in earning advanced college. degrees but when it comes to salary the land of opportunity remains a land of inequality for women full time working women in the u.s. just seventy seven cents for every dollar made by a man according to recent statistics men earn higher salaries in nearly all occupations including nursing teaching and even secretarial work but experts say the pay gap has less to do with all of the cations and much more to do with stereotypes surrounding gender united states definitely definitely has a lot of cases where women are bluntly discriminated and where they are just

discriminated based based on sex the u.s. government says that the current earnings gap will cost the average full time working woman at least four hundred thousand dollars by the time she's sixty five years old we keep going for higher and higher degrees you know with the double master's and i'm going to go for my ph d. man doesn't have to do that so this means if you feel that you know you need to be paid more you need to like put it with don and say that i need to be paid more this sort of raises and that's so sexism i feel like there's a men feel they have a higher power a woman just any sort of sense even the workplace socially it just doesn't make sense to me according to the institute for women's policy research females working on wall street or in real estate face the largest earnings gaps making as much as forty percent less than their male counterpart financial to patients in those occupations women like louis b. which have some is in part because it's hard to access that few others like the old

boys' network and i don't remember me or could be your best friend or your worst enemy america's old boys' network of the one nine hundred sixty s. depicted in the show mad men who put a man in there so they take it seriously seems to still permeate in most corporations today less than sixteen. percent of fortune five hundred companies reportedly have a woman on the board. facebook has none facebook is a company whose success is really due to the participation of women on its platform more than sixty percent of the people who participate in facebook are very many maybe even more importantly than that when seventy percent of the actual sharing the stuff that drives ad revenue and the stuff that makes facebook as dynamic a platform as it is being done and the question by women and yet they went public without a single woman on their board of directors inside the boardroom of america's lawmakers republicans recently block legislation aimed at strengthening equal pay for women

the paycheck fairness act would require employers to prove that differences in pay are based on qualifications not gender and why did the window of time for filing discrimination lawsuit decades after breaking through the glass ceiling america's working women represent professional muscle but are still fighting for genuine equality. r.t. new york. privacy is all but a thing of the past with savvy technology is tracking and collecting details of our every move but there's an invisible war being fought by the cypherpunks movement to keep our data private and they're on the latest edition of the julian assange show on tuesday here on r.t. . when you say let's let the actors decide what the police you will be i can answer you from the perspective of what was the internet in the last fifteen years where innovation was so-called bottom up where new practice is emerged out of nothing

were couple of guys in a garage invented a technology that spread like. everything. thing everything everything that happened on the internet just after being unknown a few months of you few years before so you cannot predict what will be the next innovation my point here is that it's. policy has to adapt to society and not the other way around we have the impression with the copyright wars that. legislator tries to make the whole society change to adapt to a framework that is defined by hollywood say ok what you're doing when you or your new cultural practice is just morally wrong so if you don't want to stop it then we'll design legal tools to make you stop doing what you think is good this is not

the way to make good policy so i'm convinced that when you enable the most powerful industrial actors to decide what policy should be you don't go that way. now to join katie on the business just show a mystery man is paying an eighty one year old american investment banker for a lunch. hey maybe there is a warren buffett can still come on three and a haul of a billion dollars of for a better lot million dollars i suspect you are ahead of myself. this mystery hasn't thought that out and it's remarkable really really is some hope it's going to get in some of the dinner table some more on that later on i want to turn our attentions to spain now because that's really what the markets are talking about today it's been aracely in the markets over the last few weeks even months now over

the weekend we have a government requesting the one hundred twenty six billion euro is to really help out the ailing banking sector it was left with billions of euros of bad loans following the collapse of the property boom the subsequent recession now recent wiggs is the boring cause that have really got people worried because they've reached euro era ha is that is the concern now in the official statement by the spanish economy minutes a he says the loan will cover estimated capital requirements with an additional safety margin that's important because the movement in spain now has a foil wall and that if greek should so if agree he should leave the euro zone of course you've got the election coming up this weekend on the seventh and market turmoil is expected if they do indeed. so that's the situation will see the stocks as well see the actual official figures for the on the dax is they are indeed

gaining one of much of the i but it's as well the spanish falls out of around four percent still optimism is optimism in the years and we also see that the asian markets as well they were reacting to the news. this morning in the session they're now closed as you can see investors were told to mystic and not just because of the news spread they too have some export data coming out of china and actually believe expectations jumping by fifteen percent last year for their exports that was twice as much as anticipated for china. in just two output also retail sales did she come in the low expectations as it was an easy go now alison now saying that the chinese authorities will continue with their measures to stimulate the ground to keep it pumping on thursday last thursday the country's central bank causes interest rates for the first time in more than three

years old war is of a slowdown that was hoping to really boost the economy all right let's get back to the markets i will have a look at how wall street closed up on friday because investors were demonstrating their confidence ahead of the spain announcement they was expected and it will be interesting to see how they how they gather later on today and about three hours time and i can tell you that futures all pointing upwards for now if you look at the russian markets though they were open on saturday and us because today and tomorrow is actually a public holiday here in brussels to the markets are closed as i say they were open on saturday and they were really feeling the love because of the oil prices which we're getting now if we look at the exchange rates we'll see how the ruble performed over how did mixed. performance against the bars here cars is that you can see that there is it is the u.s. dollar a lot of stuck to the euro if you look at the euro dollar right there we got it one twenty five fifty five so it is jumping and that's all because of the momentum and

it is for its highest gain against the greenback in eight months with three or prices now they say they are indeed dana as you can see that yeah. they did let me down i tell you we got them nearly eighty five dollars per barrel for the light sweet and over one hundred for the brand there's obviously great for the russian market imo so because china is indeed very early pumping up the demand for oil not to talk about warren buffett three at all three million dollars cap loves with the eighty one year old billionaire who underscore jim by top shelves of out of focus dogs and really holds an options benefit a homeless charity only when it can invite up to seven of their friends to share the mail and have a chat with the legendary investor now interestingly buffett says most of the questions he gets at such launches all not about investing but i'm sure there must be one question about investing and i gave you thanks for that update

a recap of our top stories is coming up here in our team stay with us. there hasn't been anything good on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before the source material is what helps keep journalism.