first up in syria blasts in the city of homs with flames and black smoke rising from buildings. a lift for the french left president hollande socialists and their allies secure a majority in the first round of the parliamentary vote paving a path for reform. police searched the homes of prominent russian opposition figures in connection with clashes at a major rally last month which left both protesters and officers injured.

around the clock around the world international news and comment live from our team a series of explosions have rocked the central city of homs with clouds of smoke seen rising above the city's skyline this is un observers struggle to make a difference in the conflict torn country while international calls for military action growing louder. as the latest from syria. the opposition activists have been accusing the syrian army of shell in the residential areas in the town and something the government denies since the beginning of the uprising here in syria last march they've been insisting on shelling on targeting only the places where terrorists and militant groups are based we've also been receiving video from homestead shows indeed explosions and shelling so you can see and hear them but again it's very hard to very far use targeting who we have been able to speak to the spokes person of the u.n. supervision mission here in damascus they've confirmed to have been fighting in

homes they confirm the use of heavy artillery machine guns and they've also been reporting about shellings from helicopter we're also hearing that they've been a large number of civilians trapped inside the fighting and also the u.n. mission spokes person has told us that they have the information about a number of syrian army officers being captured they also expressed their concern about this is collation about this file and the country here is a growing that peace plan peaceful solution for the syrian crisis is now serious in fact and we've just been hearing from newly elected president of the syrian national council of the opposition group. calling for military intervention and they are not alone in that we know that many nations headed by you as have also been calling for military intervention even violate an international

law this is something opposing the more committed. peace plan saying there is no alternative and they also have been calling for an international contact group to mediate the syrian crisis. if notion of the. and the new syrian opposition leaders also urged mass defections from the regime and promised support for the rebels this is u.s. senator john mccain has said that and he said fight is a directly supplied with weapons from arab gulf states and wants washington to follow that lead international relations professor mark almond says the u.s. will remain true to its idea of regime change the united states or britain and france have made strategic decision by a long haul are there as a way of putting pressure on iran changing the whole. order of the middle east and therefore if they can achieve that through syrian domestic horses deniable or other

arab special courses and. supplies of weapons on order that ultimately i think they will not wish to accept a defeat in assad's regime survived it would be a huge geopolitical so for the whole of our relations between our states and its allies in syria and iran are overwhelmingly ultimately in favor of the western states but of course to go in on the ground i could be in kosovo in one hundred nine against serbia is a big risk for them you know the could be casualties on our side it's not clear western public opinion is also committed to regime change other crisis of their own soldiers and so what have you no no rock still a very one sided international call. but of course one wanted to become a multi sided conflict that were extremely dangerous and though the risk of course of an explosion. r.t. live from our new city here in moscow top stories still to come but still ahead is there a way to secure your online privacy in the sand quizzes members of

a cyber movement who debate whether there's such a thing as private data. also still to come this hour the same job but different pay we explore the ongoing gulf in salary in the u.s. depending on whether you're a man or a woman. but first france a socialist president has been boosted after left wing party secured a majority in the first round of the parliamentary election the forty six percent women could see on and secure the lower house and receive a powerful mandate for his reform plans. is in 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 or they can 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 that is the one that he's speaking about quite

a lot during his campaign which is one group of friends for the spirity that's on the one hand and how this translates for the french people is that more jobs taxing the rich it's tax and spend policy that would not limited. as much as seventy five percent tax for the rich certainly not something that conservatives wanted so if you want to get this a policy like that through he will need the support of the lower house just remember the socialists already have the support of the senate so it will be much easier to get things through you also promise about sixty thousand jobs in the next five years as well as retirement age bringing it down to sixty. from sixty two this is against the. driven pattern of the rest of europe france will be taking a very different approach as the approach if you will also of course we 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 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 but this point and the 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 m.d.c. if we if we remember. let's not talk to political writer donna johnston she joins me now from paris as well it looks like the socialist in the left wing parties are heading for a majority after the second round still to come what you think large behind the success well there was a tension so you can say that there was a very much into the ism for this election people are a little tired of it but it also shows i think the growth of this sort of two party system despite the fact is possibilities of voting for a range of color is because. the chunk of the party did

rather better than he did in some ways and in the socialist are under way possibly to have them a majority of their own without having to depend. on their children who show on the left front. so it's been very much yeah it is since the president is a socialist well let's go along with that party it's a very much of a party kind of. victory on land promised when he got the presidency and it looks look like that he's going to be able to push these reforms ahead challenge and one thing that was of course he's added to towards the brussels and berlin metal sturdy drive how far do you think he will go with that in effect going against as a start you measure them pushing for growth. then that's a difficulty because really. good the as pointed out probably a lot and he was always around acting acting acting as if he was going to produce

miracles and of course there's good lorch and so the choice of alone is somewhat more mothers and his problems so he may not disappoint people as they're magically is quickly because he isn't programmed thing that much and of course they quote question here is and the left is president doing anything really drastic friend over and basically these are made by the european union and that is the critical question right now when tb letting his supporters down if he doesn't push with those stars he measures and challenge brussels and on and. who is and he will challenge but that doesn't mean that he'll get there in much he will get a little bit because. the mood clearly now is to put a little bit of sugar and in the positive. thing there are just too bitter

all over the place but there's still the question of what happened where and for in all the money now into st which is being poured in to save. the european bank as well as the spanish banks. own rattling. the banks it is not over yet. really oh it is going to do something. drastic they wait and see any drastic changes then in foreign policy like his predecessor we perhaps see less support put nato interventions we know what he's attitude is towards afghanistan and the big changes then. i think he is not. the enthusiastic. pro western a pro nato president sarkozy was but he is still in the tradition of the

socialist party being very atlanticist very much more so if there is a nato it really depends on how much there are in washington home much we love to is there to purse to war into is far is a run in washington now if there is opposition to war in washington it may be that france this time will be on the side quietly of those who are reluctant to go to war rather than pushing them pushing them pushing them and being on the war party as sarkozy was but it really of course is washington that the sun donna thank you so it's great to hear from you donna johnson political writer joining us live in paris. russian investigators of such the flats of several prominent opposition figures include them in for questioning the search was ordered by a court in connection with the case of the clashes an anti government run in last month when the protest as police were injured not eaten but has the details. police

have been searching a number of properties those of opposition leaders including the blogger alexei novell me. and the t.v. presenter are sending a sob check they took away items such as computer disks and clothes the searches were ordered by a moscow court as part of a criminal investigation into a protest on may the sixth that protest was unlike those many before it and that it got violent and descended into fighting yvel ne an order of soft core among hundreds arrested amid widespread accusations of excessive violence both from protesters and from police a new law massively increases the fines for violations in protests from the old to total of around one hundred twenty euros maximum up to around seven thousand euros it was furiously debated opposition leaders saying that it was simply too much for

many protesters to forward president vladimir putin defended the law though saying that it was in line with the european standards in france fines can go even higher as high as forty five thousand euros opposition leaders have been asked to come in for questioning tomorrow regarding the searches that is also the planned date of another protest it is thought that some of the leaders in questioning may not be able to attend including your sub chack police also reportedly found one and a half million euros in her apartment which was confiscated but after the passing of this new law and the search is the latest development in the long saga of this protest movement many people will be watching to see exactly what does happen tomorrow. reporting there from moscow just four days into the euro football championship and things are beginning to hold up in poland and ukraine and it's not

just on the pitch police in poland of arrested fourteen people involved in a brutal three polish and croatian supporters just before sunday's game between croatia and on and it's the latest incident in the string of clashes that have already seen a number of teams wound over there fans behavior but the problems surrounding euro twenty twelve don't in the parties and is in ukraine's capital kiev. well unlike poland said so far has been pretty much perfect in ukraine from the organizational point of view would have been no fights only minor bar brawls have been reported but there was a serious complication with the ukrainian biggest airline delaying about thirty flights in particular to the host city of donetsk where england to play france this tournament has received some political overtones even before it had started with several leaders saying they will boycott the championship because of the situation with a great storm a prime minister yulia timoshenko who is serving seven years in prison for the use of power right next to the fan zone here in central kiev is the tent camp of the

opposition which has been here for year they decided not to remove it for the euro two thousand and twelve period moreover they put on banners in english explaining the situation with you it's my sankoh calling her a political prisoner and demanding her to be released immediately certainly all the fans all the tourists coming here can see that and have their own impression of that but we also understand that angela merkel the german chancellor has always been attending the german national the national team's games when they were played at the u.s. or world cups decided to gainst coming to ukraine in reaction to the units mustn't go prison and her treatment in the heart of the prison also we understand that the dutch government has decided not to come here only the minister of sport has arrived and the dutch fans when they had their game in the city of magic of they marched the streets of the city wearing t. shirts saying free junia so we'll see certainly in the coming weeks how this situation unfolds 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. well for the latest scores join pour in about half an hour from now with our sports update here on r.t. . you can't do much online or with your phone without someone somewhere knowing what you're doing but there's one group on your side they're called these cypherpunks movement and they're on julian assange to show here in r.t. to talk about their plans to keep your private data private. when we talk about internet censorship it is about centralizing power to determine what people are maybe able to access or not and whether it's government censorship or also private on censorship they're changing the architecture of the internet from one universal network to a bulk and ization of small networks but what we are discussing since the beginning are all global issues whether we're talking of the the financial system going henri

whether we're talking of corruption whether we are talking of geopolitics or energy or environment or i don't know all of these are global problems that mankind is facing today and we have one still one global tool between our hands that enables better communication better sharing of knowledge better participation in political and democratic process what i feel what i suspect is that global universal internet is the only tool we still have between our hands to. those global issues and this is why this is a central fight that we have to fight and that we all have a responsibility here to do to fight. this edition of joining us on your show as all choose day eleven thirty g.m.t. and remember you can watch all the previous programs any time at r.t. dot com also on line for you harry situation new york police department fathers

a jewish officer refused to trim his beard sparking a lawsuit for religious discrimination. and saudi arabia's got talent but not a musical one term there is not in its own entertainment show but no singing or dancing is allowed and women are banned from taking part the full story at r.t. dot com. military warehouses that store old explosives of course far in russia's southern orenburg region blasts have been heard prompting concern that fire could spread to the forest the japanese are situated some fourteen kilometers from a small village one person has been injured and the process of evacuating people from the area is already under way. some world news in brief for you now in our world update at the very nearly nineteen minutes past the hour a bomb struck a bus in southwest pakistan killing six people on board an enduring dozens others explosives were planted on a motorbike and detonated by remote control when the vehicle was passing by groups

that claimed responsibility in a region blighted by sectarian violence. to earthquakes have shaken northern pakistan i should say afghanistan triggering landslides in a mountainous region three people have been killed and many others were injured it's feared casualties will rise as up to one hundred villagers have been trapped in rubble after around twenty houses collapsed reports say the tremors from the quakes could be felt in the capital kabul. egypt's interior ministry has backtracked on his previous statement the former leader hosni mubarak was in a coma despite this his condition is said to have deteriorated as the eighty four year old's heart stopped twice and doctors have to revive him barack is now in a car a prison hospital serving a life term for his role in the killing of some one hundred eight hundred fifty protesters during last year's uprising. clashes erupted in chile's capital as demonstrators protested against the screening of a documentary praising the former dictator augusto pinochet police had to use tear

gas and water cannon to break up the angry crowds in the argo estimated three thousand people were killed during pinochet's hardline rule well thousands more were arrested or forced into exile. georgia's opposition leader has been fined almost one hundred million dollars in two separate lawsuits billionaire tycoon bits in philly is in hot water after giving out t.v. antennas to voters subsidizing party members with cheap cars. authorities say it's a violation of the country's law and political parties and the way they're funded but ivanishvili believes it's an attempt by the authorities to damage the opposition head of parliamentary elections later this year his georgian dream group is expected to provide the main challenge to the ruling party of president saakashvili tens of thousands have been gathering in georgia's main cities for peaceful rallies in support of the opposition america's women often perform

in many spheres there's a sting in the tail though their salary still lags far behind their male colleagues report nar explores why the p gap still exists and why recent political moves to change that the failed. these medical and scape of america's professional force has undergone major reconstruction over the decades 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 qualifications 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 masters and i'm going to go for my ph d. man doesn't have to do that so this move 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 there's so brazen that so sexism i feel like there's a met 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 occupations in those occupations women like really big wage gap some is in part because it's hard to access that few others like the old boys. then we're going to remember we're going to 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 to put a man in their salute to get serious when it 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 women and maybe even more importantly than that and seventy percent of the actual sharing the stuff that drives ad revenue and 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 lawsuits 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. the beach is next in our business center russian markets close for a public holiday but what else is going on elsewhere in the world of finance so basically global markets are now discussing the impact that the bailout for spain will have on the markets there was an initial rally on monday pretty much all over the globe but then investors started to basically realize that this bailout package

of around one hundred twenty five billion dollars that spain will be getting to rescue it's a banking sector could be harmful to the the values of state bonds in spain and the yields have already gone up now just to remind over the weekend official statement by the spanish economic minister he said the loan will cover estimates of capital requirements with an additional safety margin so that in mind the move means spain now has basically a fire wall should the greek election on sunday unleash a fresh round of market turmoil. but the perfect illustration is these figures on the european markets basically the foot sea even descending into the red at the end of the session on the back of a basically these worries about the state in spain their value has already been going up the yields have been going up as they might be rendered inferior by the bonds which will be issued within this bailout program this spanish index also was

up the ibex was up five percent or one point it's down three percent at the. in the united states we're also seeing a basically flat to negative picture with the michaud rally facebook is up around one percent on the nasdaq and that's very good news for the company which has seen three consecutive weeks of losses. over on the commodities market also worries persist about the state of global demand given that you know there's no solution to the european crisis on the horizon at least in light sweet and brant of the climbing around half a dollar per barrel over here in russia as bill you mentioned the russian markets are closed on monday and on tuesday they were open on a saturday with the working saturdays of people could have three days off in a row and the r.t.s. gained more than one percent of making one of the biggest weekly gains since february in russia we will see more trade of course on a wednesday same applies to the russian ruble which lost

a lot of value on saturday to the euro but again just a knowledge versus the dollar whereas the euro right now on these worries about spanish bonds is going down in value. also an anonymous bidder is paying a record three and a half billion dollars have lunch with warren buffett the eighty one year old billionaire who earned his fortune by cashing in two out of favor stocks family holds such an auction to benefit a homeless charity where they can invite up to seven of its friends to share a meal and have a chat with the legendary investor interestingly. buffett says most of the questions he gets such lunches are not about investing i charge three times less through a half million dollars for lunch the waiter should get a good tip at least enough to retire and imagine dmitri thanks a lot for that. report in the far reaching ramifications of america's capital punishment which spreads beyond death row just before that a recap of today's top stories.

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 honest we thought.

we wanted to present. something else. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are all today .