breaking news this hour on r t a suicide blast reportedly kills dozens of government troops in syria one of the largest terror attacks the country has witnessed in months. and deaths involved crane as five homemade devices go off in amman nama further rocking a country that's been engulfed in opposition protests for more than twenty months now. the dark horse candidates for the american presidency prepare to make their last pitch to voters here on our team bypassing a longstanding media and margot. bus greece is set for a week's free says workers across the board kick off strikes against austerity while lawmakers vote on new cuts to satisfy international lenders.

and welcome to our team this monday with me karen taraji now straight to our breaking news this hour at least fifty syrian soldiers have reportedly been killed in a suicide bombing in the flashpoint city of hama activists suggest the target was an army checkpoint artie's middle east correspondent paula slayer joins us live now with more details paula the attack is one of the largest in recent months give us more details us what happened. well we don't have last information at this stage what we can tell you is that this suicide car bomb attack happened in central syria in the province of hama and according to all reports at least fifty soldiers have been killed we understand that it took place not far from a military checkpoint and human rights groups say that it has the fingerprints of al qaida now it comes amid increasing levels of violence in syria we also received

reports of a number of lost in the central part of damascus just yesterday at least eleven people were. injured in the central part of the city when explosions took place near a heavily guarded military and government buildings they also took place not far from a hotel that is frequented by foreigners no one has it came to sponsibility any of these attacks or with the latest there are policies on the fifty army troops that have been killed in syria thank you paula. now russia says western efforts tonight syria's fragmented opposition are doomed to failure because they're based on warmongering foreign minister sergey lavrov believes the bloody battle is being encouraged deliberately to create conditions for regime change more on russia's latest assessment of the syrian crisis from marty's lucy confidant. sergey lavrov is on a middle east tour after a tenuous cease fire in syria broke down during a tragically so during the holiday of aid but on the very same day as russia is

trying to restart diplomatic efforts to come to some sort of diplomatic solution to the syria crisis members of the fractured syrian opposition groups are meeting in qatar under u.s. backed efforts to bring together a new opposition leadership a government this is something that people have interpreted to mean a splintering of the international community on how to resolve the syrian crisis that has earned the title quite harsh remarks from the foreign minister he had urged and comments to the press for folks to stick together to the agreements that the international community had come to in june that in the geneva declaration which are called among other things for the creation of a transitional governing body he also inner furring to this u.s. backed effort sensually accuse the west for giving up on their commitments by refusing to work with the syrian government on this issue working only with the

opposition which he says is a path quote a path to a very dire situation now let's take a listen to what the foreign minister said in his own words. in geneva four months ago we all agreed to count was we'll say the same to the warring sides in syria. this is exactly what russia is doing saying this to both the government and opposition groups some other nations both western and regional telling the opposition go game for eating your cause is great you will win it's up to you to decide whose position is creating the danger of more and more deaths in syria. well there you have it circa a lover of lashing out at western efforts to essentially create a government and then exile russia's position has of course been to to come. some sort of a diplomatic non military solution to this tragic crisis which unfortunately continues to unfold a day by day weather more tragedies more casualties reported on

a nearly daily basis. the u.s. has suggested the new border the opposition should be expanded from just the syrian national council which enjoyed america's backing in the past and also revealed plans to bring some militants fighting on the front line into the fold dr ali mohammed editor in chief of the syria tribunal says washington is meddling too much in syria's internal affairs. it definitely will make it worse with the only thing that can make things better in syria is for everybody to. put pressure on the rebels to put down their weapons and stop a negotiation process and it's funny that the u.s. should call for. an opposition body one of the syrian people i mean if those people whom claim that they have support in syria would have been should have come from the same person who a year ago described the syrian national council as it leaving the legitimate representative or syria looking for freedom the same person now saying that the free

a wave of at least five explosions has swept to bahrain's capital manama the bombs which exploded in different parts of the city were all homemade at least two people were killed in what the government say were terrorist attacks it comes amid the kind of regular provers form opposition marches that often end up with riot police resorting to violence for deeper insight into the story are now joined by geo political analyst from the u.k. colum website patrick can excel. good to have you on our team now it looks like the blast targeted civilians which is unusual for bahrain who could actually be behind the attack. this is a break from the normal protests in the normal anti regime uprisings we've seen over the last year in bahrain so it doesn't fit the modus operandi of the reform movement in bahrain this hasn't been done before and also by looking at the victims and the locations it doesn't fit standard terrorist bombing so this just leads

us to speculate that other forces might be involved which will detail in a minute now do you think you just said this is the first time we've seen something of this nature do you think the blast could be the first step to radicalizing the unrest taking it to a new level. well if their protest movement was behind the bombings or if a so-called anti-government terrorist operation was beyond actually behind these bombings they would have targeted government facilities police facilities to make more of a statement so this this type of bombing actually looks very similar to. other bombings we've seen in places like syria so one should ask that maybe this is a false flag bombing whereby. parts of the government security agencies or mercenaries hired by them have set off the bomb in order to radicalize the protest movement but also to give the judge government justification for a heavy crackdown against the pro reform movements in bahrain and also u.s.

intelligence is active in bahrain as is british intelligence and they have been involved in the past history can show in false flag attacks so we need to look at this possibility as well and the timing of those might add also is very questionable i mean the blast come shortly after the government introduced a public gatherings ban claiming that it would improve security do you think that the blast would prompt maybe a further sort of tightening of the screeners. definitely the government will utilize it so the government is the one who's benefiting from these blasts and not the protest movement so who benefits keep bono as they say in latin to look at the sonora oh but the other possibility karen is that this bomb could have been a targeted one of them at least could have been targeted assassinations of people so by further investigation into the identities of the victims or the residents or inhabitants of the buildings that were targeted one might find more evidence as to

maybe at some targeted tickets so the government couldn't go out and shoot people they wanted to get rid of in bahrain they might use a bombing scenario to do so so i would look at all possibilities when investigating the actual who is behind these bombings and who are the intended targets and now briefly we've seen opposition research has become a common trend in some gulf countries yet no opposition movement has received sustained attention or help why is that. well the opposition uprisings in places like kuwait and buffer rain. or i believe there are genuine arab spring uprisings and use a sort of equation really if you look at the sort of masquerading that's going on in libya and syria where the west are heavily involved in all sides of the conflict i believe that these because buck reign in kuwait are staunch western allies and specially because bahrain is such a strategically important piece on the chessboard housing the u.s.

fifth fleet and also right across the persian gulf from iran. if if they're u.s. allies if they're staunch u.s. allies and you see an uprising then there's a high probability that there are genuine uprisings therefore the west will not cover this in the mainstream media and already c.n.n. really should have its broadcast license pulled for trying to keep amber lines is a piece in bahrain from airing in fact offering money and all sorts of corruption going on at c.n.n. clearly see it is tony the foreign policy line of washington in a very hardcore fashion all right and that's you i'm so sorry for that patrick that's all the time we have geo political analyst from the u.k. colum website patrick henningsen thank you. grace is about to go into a halt during a week of nationwide strikes against austerity the government has those ng support as it gets ready to vote on a new set of tax hikes and spending cuts and our national lenders object minding

the measures before the handover marbella cash arches peter all of ours in athens. well it's been rather ominous lee called the devils we kid some parts of the greek media not stoop to the fact that nobody really knows what state greece is going to emerge from the coming days worth of protests strikes and potentially crippling austerity measures now the first strike is have walked out we've seen top two drivers some journalists and others walking out on monday the main strikes though taking place on tuesday and wednesday that's when the main labor unions get involved taking industrial action and be out on the streets of athens as well as other cities around greece to protest against what they see as unfair measures being taken by the greek of greek government as the government looks to save thirteen point five billion euros the reason that greece is having to do this is that they've been told to do this by their main creditors the so-called troika on

sunday opposition politicians put it to mr summers why didn't you negotiate the terms of this next round of austerity measures with our creditors and he said well we didn't negotiate because it wasn't open for negotiation this was dictated to him by greece's lenders this prompted the opposition to say that they wanted to see new elections in greece and they called on the greek people to use the demonstrations coming up over the next few days to rise up peacefully and take back their country . now while greece is cutting to the bone elsewhere in europe lawmakers are splashing the cash british m.p.'s are caught out spending thousands on luxury as business trips all around the globe that is coming up. also hundreds gathered to demand a recount after the parliamentary election in ukraine opposition parties say they are ready to renounce their seats completely to protest all that had followed

that's after a break. usually the police and occupy protesters are like oil and water but in atlanta they've come together to save the house of a former detective jacqueline barber unfortunately ms barber lost a lot of money battling cancer and was facing eviction which she turned to occupy homes for help so far she's managed to stay in her home despite it being sold out from under her feet but the main thing is that her fight to stay in her home has become like a bridge between two groups who are usually at each other's throats the police and occupiers the thing is the cruel economic practices can affect us all even retired police like ms barber i know there are some irresponsible people who buy things they can't pay for a year the police have to do something about them but they shouldn't throw you out

of your home that you've paid for for years just for getting cancer no one should have to live with the constant fear that their home will be taken away after years and years of payment just because they got sick and america i thought we believed in private property not eternally renting from big banks but that's just my opinion . well. it's technology innovations all the developments around russia we've got this huge earth covered. culture is that so much going to do you think it's a minute more when i'm obviously remove the export of a universal set of values or the means to change to control the beauty of water twenty years after the.

welcome back to our almost thirty million americans have already cast their votes for president queuing for hours at an early polling stations across the country although too soon to tell which way the vote is swinging barack obama and mitt romney are locked together according to most polls but lost in the rivalry between republican and democrat are the alternatives that many americans have been pining for. here it is the venue for the next presidential debate with the alternative candidates in this election our studio in washington d.c.

though it's not very big as you can see it will make sure there is lots of room for discussion on issues that some hope don't fit into the mainstream media discourse here alternatives to obama and romney have effectively been pushed out of the major national debates we ask how and why. pushed out and quite literally jule styne presidential nominee from the green party was arrested on the day of the second presidential debate between mitt romney and barack obama in mid october right outside the venue where it took place she was there protesting her exclusion from the debate we were tightly bound with plastic restraints and tied to chairs for eight hours for daring to stand up and demand open debates will turn out if presidential candidates had their own debate in chicago they brought up issues which the big party candidates never came close to discussing like the legislation signed by president obama which allows the government to indefinitely detain american citizens without charge or due process and incredible the trail of our

civil liberties on foreign policy the alternative candidates argue there's practically no difference between mitt romney and barack obama regardless of whether or not romney gets elected or obama gets elected three things are going to happen we're going to find ourselves with a continued heightened police state in this country we're going to find ourselves continuing to militarily intervene in the world which results has resulted in hundreds of millions of enemies to this country that wouldn't otherwise exist the similarity of views that president obama and mitt romney showed during their foreign policy debate became a matter of numerous jokes on foreign policy it appears that all that's left for the presidential race is this one model. i mean at least we still get our choice of kohler but. the us mainstream media are entirely focused on the two party

race the majority of americans know very little if anything about alternatives jill stein of the green party who i set down with before her arrest is not going to be represented on ballot papers in every state the american system is designed to eliminate political opposition like some of the. dictatorships that we criticize that have rigged political systems in many ways the american system has also read but in ways that are not as straightforward and with the like of interest from the mainstream media small the party see the deck stacked against them in a national vote but not only are americans stuck with a two word phrase but they're also not guaranteed to get the president to the majority cast their votes for in a us presidential election a candidate can win the majority of the popular vote and still lose the election because it's not the popular vote but the electoral college that decides the outcome of the presidential election here so how does it work every state but maine

and nebraska give the candidate a certain number of points and the winner has to collect the magic number two hundred seventy points even if a candidate loses a state by just say three votes they get zero points that's how george w. bush won the election in the year two thousand although he lost in the popular vote he won due to the tricky state to stay score system according to a gallup poll a record forty percent of americans now identify themselves as independents the chief of the federal election commission under george w. bush michael toner told me in the u.s. electoral system they don't have much choice if you move away from a winner take all electoral system and once a proportional representation i think you would have far more successful political parties here in the states because there are a large number of americans actually the most. most of the biggest share biggest increase in voter registration today in america is not democrats it's not republicans it's independents if you look at the states large numbers of people now

are identifying it as an independent now they often will vote pretty reliably republican or democrat but that's a pretty good indication that there is a million tens of millions of people who if they had their choice might pick another party but one group that stands to win from the lack of choice by the corporations that contribute lavishly to political campaigns trying to buy support for their companies what we have in this country in many respects is covert corruption legalise corruption in the political system itself being held hostage by special interests there's a form of corruption each candidate on the republican and democratic side now spend nearly a billion dollars each in order to get to the white house i mean i think our founding fathers would be spinning it in their graves if they could see this while in office mr toner oversaw

a campaign finance of the elections the most sophisticated companies what they do is they're in good shape no matter who wins right they hire lobbyists on both sides of the aisle they often make political contributions both sides of the aisle this is called hedging your bets here in america as you would say in las vegas. and in vegas as they say no matter how you play it the house always wins speaking of us selections one could say no matter how you vote business as usual wins it won't be business as usual during the alternative candidate is the break this monday night the candidates will be here in this studio were chosen by online voters as the winners of the last third party debate held in chicago about two weeks ago we broadcast that debate live no mainstream us news channel did so an important point to make here is that by giving a media platform to these candidates does not mean that we're indorsing their views it's an honor for us to host the event. we're trying to show what others don't and we also think it's going to get a lot of viewers you're welcome to be one of them by certainly well from our debate

ready or almost radio studio here in washington i'm going to. be sure to tune in for the third party candidate debate here on r t had nine pm eastern or two am g.m.t. . will two parties keep us politics a woman way street. or will new voices disrupt the power of power that. wasn't the american changes try. this election let's go right monday november fifth on our team. protesters gathered in ukraine's capital kiev and they want a recount of votes from the parliamentary election counting is dragging on slowed down by reported violations opposition parties say the ruling party has blatantly rigged the vote arches an exodus of skiis and here. politics in ukraine are back to being a boiling point only a week after the parliamentary election now we understand that the vote counting still continues with more than ninety nine percent of the votes have been counted so far and as it stands it seems that the ruling party will be winning this

election and will be gaining the majority in parliament once again but the opposition is believing that this result has been falsified that it's been rigged and on a number of occasions on certain polling stations where the votes were counted there have been fist fights and confrontations between between the authorities between the police and the members of the opposition would believe the results of those particular polling stations were falsified now a thousand around the thousand people have gathered in central kiev near the central election commission to protest against what they believe to be a poll supplied result and we understand that protests will continue this is only the first action where we can call the official results from the center actually commission to come out and certainly the protests are likely to intensify as the date of the official announcement draws closer the situation is certainly getting more and more tense with calls in the opposition are getting more and more vocal to hand over the mandates to lay down their seats in parliament and thus cancel the

result of this election and cause a revote but if if the official results if the final result will stand a definitely we're in for a very turbulent new parliament in ukraine because about ten percent of the votes were guarded by the radical right wing nationalist party and this already has causing lots of controversy in ukraine this party openly supports the insurgent army of one thousand forty's which many believe in ukraine to be nazi collaborators and definitely in the country which suffered greatly from the nazi invasion things like having this party in parliament would definitely cause lots of controllers and we'll probably see more fights in parliament and more heated debates inside the ukraine's ties with the body as britain grapples with the e.u. over how much it pays for membership cash appears to be leaking in another direction it's been revealed that some politicians are spending tens of thousands of pounds flying to exotic holiday spots on so-called fact finding mission. reports . china miami we might all dream of jetting off to

some exotic destination but unfortunately in the middle of a double dip recession with thirty measures by eating we're being kept to ground. for some lucky and peace even just think of the some of those far flung destinations of fact finding missions one fact that has been found is that these trips costing millions in taxpayers' pounds so take a look at the figures they regularly come in at more than forty thousand pounds per trip one ship singapore in china cost a whopping seventy two thousand pounds something has clearly gone wrong when you have a coach trip costing eight to ten thousand pounds per member of parliament on the trip there either. staying in luxury hotels when they could look at more modest accommodation or they're using business class travel when they could travel most of the rest of us not surprisingly the public's not impressed i certainly think it's

excessive and i think they i can't say taking the piss but they're taking advantage there's absolutely no question. that because i find a good place if you have the patience to look on the right side and if the m.p.'s need some advice on how to save the pennies the public has a symbol for the advice for the. central meeting you know yet ok thank you that was we'd all love to just fall into the sunset to help us deal with the economic crisis those excessive expenditures are going to leave many m.p.'s looking like they simply got their heads in the clouds so artsy london. keep it here sports with kids coming up in a few moments. a

sacred place rising out of the waters of the lake the lawn ministry is home to one hundred fifty orthodox monks mostly younger than thirty five and they've come from many different places and backgrounds to live in isolation here spiritual life it takes up many hours on the road to becoming a monk requires both hard work and religious tele cation. back salem's to become and herds cattle as part of this preparation. however these beasts get a musical company. they can remember sound secrets as you know they react to the sound signals the flutes the herders had in the old days they needed them it wasn't just a fun thing but these matters didn't come naturally requiring decades of composting to bring the soil up to farming standard this island is mostly rock. the soil

here is very thin and the monks can't just get more of it because they're surrounded by the lake so they have to work very hard in order to provide whatever food they need. they grow their own crops farm their own fish and repair their own churches. but the central purpose of alarm has always been religious the main ministry surrounded by smaller priories spread through the many archipelago the monks here know their existence is a little different from that of of them on the streets here we are out of the way. we do have. rooms and so on times tourists as well as. away. from cricket to use this card. this is the. combination of high religion and down to earth hard work that motivates these men.

hello welcome to the artist for round up thank you for joining me kate partridge and these are the week's top stories marching on the discuss score an injury time to snatch a two one win over look at the teeth in a more scared to go top of the russian premier league they have all weekend action . while top gear as the battle to win this year's formula one title guys down to the wild we look at a young russian aims to make his mark among motorsports elite. and fast and furious at russia's battle as they call out another big scalp this collection as the kick boxing champion knocked out and got zero draw go in the first round. all.