a suicide blast reportedly kills dozens of government troops in syria one of the largest terror attacks the country has witnessed in months. the dark horse candidates for the american presidency prepare to make their last pitch to voters here on r t bypassing a longstanding medium bargo. clause greece is set for a week's freeze as workers across the board kick off strikes against austerity ball lawmakers a vote on a new cuts to satisfy international lenders. hello

and thank you for joining me karen taraji here on r t this monday we go now to a developing story a least fifty syrian soldiers have reportedly been killed in a suicide bombing in the flashpoint city of hamas 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 details as to what happened. will be the mission we have is that as sort of a side car bomb explosion took place near a military post in the central syrian government of hama now the authorities say that two people were killed although we hearing from the syrian opposite of a treat for human rights that at least fifty soldiers and progress fight has died at the post where this happened is near the center for rule development is the largest gathering place for troops and pro regime militia men fall in the region we are also hearing reports that up to one ton of explosives was used it comes as

a six foot attack which takes place in the capital city of damascus now in that incident three women and excuse me heat children and. women were killed when they was hit by a mortar the show and this just yesterday even as people were injured in central damascus heavily guarded military and government buildings they came under fire when explosions took place over there now no one as of yet has came to sponsibility for any of these attacks but certainly the situation within syria is intensifying and intensifying edge and the long range. all right paula slay of our all live on developments in syria thank you paula. now russia says western efforts to syria's fragmented opposition are giunta failure because they're based on warmongering foreign minister sergey lavrov believes the bloody battle is being encouraged to liberate they to create conditions for regime change mark russia's latest assessment of the syrian crisis from artie's lucy confident of. 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 and 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 in the inner furring to this u.s. backed effort 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 that let's take a listen to what the foreign minister said in his own words. in geneva four months ago we all agreed to 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 fighting great you will when. you decide whose position is creating the danger of more and more deaths in syria. well there you have a turk a loud prov lashing out at western efforts to essentially create a government in the exile russian position have the force been to to come. and sort

of a diplomatic non military solution to this tragic crisis which unfortunately continues to unfold a day by day whether more tragedies more casualties reported on a nearly daily basis from our analysts violence in syria and diplomatic terms to prevent it by a london based journalist santer writer neil clark macare he'll good to have you here on our team now reports of terra blasts are appearing on a daily basis what makes them terrorist attacks not just one side in a civil war targeting another well i don't think we've got a civil war going on in syria to go into the market with actually that the way to use it is a proxy war what we've got is we've got violent groups now being backed by foreign powers who are desperate to see regime change in syria we haven't got a civil war and so it's very important that point because i think the whole show that a large percentage of the population do support president assad what a sizeable percentage and the trouble is being caused by groups who have been outside forces with weapons and arms coming in from outside these are terrorist

attacks by any objective assessment but of course they're not being condemned as such by the western powers the hypocrisy agrarian just imagine karen if these sort of bomb attacks were going off in reality saudi routed through intel of the even is rather we have william hague and hillary clinton within seconds coming out condemning them they're not doing this we had a bomb outside a nursery school a few weeks ago we have the appalling mood of this we can have a famous syrian actor who was killed he's his only crime was of course supporting the government in syria. and so we've got terrorist attacks taking place on a daily basis to not be there by the west and i think we all know why well neal no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but rebel groups say they were behind similar acts of violence in the past wires or to such methods are getting desperate more more desperate because the fact is they haven't got majority public support in syria i think we had a rebel commander saying a few months ago that in the big cities the trouble was that about seventy percent of the people support the government in syria and i think as the violence goes on more and more people in syria who. many of that sort of undecided early on say in

twenty eleven hours after the government was or appalled by the violence and the killing for example after you know just imagine when mary colgan who was the western reporter was quite right there was condemnation about syria we had the condemnation from the west when they're now you know targeting members of the public in syria who don't you cry used to support the government it's took the fall and what do you think you think the the international community should be changing its approach to syria if terrorism becomes the main tactic. i certainly think the u.s. in the west has got to change its approach i mean you know let's face it be blunt i think that the western powers and their allies in the region saudi arabia qatar turkey got blood on their hands here because this we could have a peaceful solution to the internal problems in syria back in february there was a vote on a new constitution and over the syrians voted for a new constitution which ended the bath party monopoly on power nine your party before elections were health so there was it was a democratic peaceful way to solve the internal problems here the western powers

want that they deliberately did what they could have told the rebel groups back in february lay down your arms go down the democratic path they didn't want that why did it want that because of course they want a violent regime change in syria do you think it's fair to accuse these arab and western partners of encouraging violence i mean we've seen america's latest initiative to consolidate syrians opposition isn't that sort of a step aimed at bringing the worst sides closer to the negotiations i don't fret i'm cynical but i think it's all about the u.s. trying to cherry pick the opposition the u.s. wants to get this right the best you wish time and energy into trying to regain change in syria today and get a post a sad government that doesn't do what the u.s. wants it to do and i think what's going on in qatar this weekend is all about the u.s. trying to cherry pick the opposition to make sure that they know the script that if and when. your back pocket is removed from power then the new government will do what the west wants which is of course namely to productize the economy to western

. nationals local economy and also very what we would what this is all about is to change the foreign policy. or to break with hezbollah great with iraq with the us want to be clear that anybody that is backing you know is going to sign up to that all right joining me live the man based journalist and writer neil clark thank you . very scared. and coming up deaths in bahrain as five homemade devices go off in manila we bring you one expert's opinion on who could profit from further destabilizing a country that's been engulfed in opposition protests for more than twenty months now. 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 a legit fraud that's ahead. almost thirty million americans have already cast their votes for president curing for hours at 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 also 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 somehow 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 they. 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 it's an 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 color but it's just. us mainstream media are entirely focused on the two party race the majority of americans know very little if anything about alternatives jule styne of the green party why sit 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 you know dictatorships that we criticize that have rigged political systems in many ways the american system is also rigged but in ways that are not as straightforward and with the like of interest from the mainstream media smaller parties 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 made in nebraska gives 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 trickiest they to stay score system according to 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 us electoral system they don't have much choice

if you moved away from a winner take all electoral system and once or 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's 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 are 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 is 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 right they often make political contributions both sides of the aisle this is called hedging your bets here in america as you would say in los vegas. and in vegas as they say no matter how you play 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 debate 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 brought has that debate live no mainstream us news channel that 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 i certainly well from our debate ready for almost ready studio here in washington i'm going to. be sure to tune in for the third party candidate debate here on r.t.l. nine pm easter or two m.g.m.t. . two parties keep us politics a one way street. or will new voices disrupt the power of power. because if america changes try. this election please god monday november fifth on our team.

in the glow of russia's no phone away from civilization and history are one helicopter treat from the nearest village. they still don't family have been living here for a long time in tents made of reindeer skins. lodging runs in a signal and minutes they also grew up in the but left it at the age of six and never returned they now live in the c. t.

in apartment building but still remember their regions. want to know is a dancing teacher. was. still his den says he tells the stories about his mother around. laws in europe to now has a one thousand strong reindeer herd when the any moment saw the lichen and marks around bruges gather the turns and move to another pole sure they travel hundreds of kilometers in winter we men and children for them. the two families have less of a chance to come across each other they belong to different worlds in their new songs a similar. welcome

back to our team live from moscow i'm karen tower well wave of at least five explosions has swept bahrain's capital manama the bombs which exploded in different parts of the city were all homemade at least two people were killed on what the government say were terrorist attacks it comes amid the kind of regular pro-forma opposition marches that often end up with riot police resorting to violence. political analysts from the u.k. column website patrick henningsen believes the monarchy will use these attacks as a pretext to suppress opposition. to a law that doesn't fit the modus operandi of the reform movement in bahrain this says and been done before and also by looking at the victims and the locations it

doesn't fit standard terrorist bombing so the government is the one who's benefiting from these blasts and not the protest movement one should ask that maybe this is a false flag bombing whereby the 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 heavy crackdown against pro reform movements in bahrain uprisings in places like kuwait in bulk rain. or i believe their genuine arab spring uprisings 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 there for the west will not cover this. more stars are available for you on r t dot com including big business big game read the story of one supermodel and her billionaire husband planning to

stage and elephant polo mats to mark the tycoons fiftieth birthday. plus a painted black and orange this creepy lobster apparently also wanted to take part in the hollowing festivities choosing a perfectly colored costume. greece is about to grind to a halt during a week of nationwide strikes against austerity the government is losing support as it gets ready to vote on a new set of tax hikes and spending cuts international lenders are demanding the measures before they hand over more bailout cash parties peter oliver is anathema. 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 the potentially crippling austerity measures now the first strikers have walked there we've seen taxi 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 greece gover creek government as the government looks to say team 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 didn't negotiate it because it wasn't 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. and one

greece is cutting to the bone elsewhere in europe lawmakers are splashing they catch british m.p.'s are caught out spending thousands on luxuries business trips all around the globe that's coming on. protesters gathered in ukraine's capital kiev and want a recount of votes from the parliamentary election counting is dragging on slowed down by reported violations opposition party said the ruling party has blatantly rank the vote archies alexander. 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 who believe that a result that 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 falsified result and we understand that protests will continue this is only the first action where we pull the official results from the central action commission to come out and suddenly 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 holes 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 that 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 now it's time for some other world news hour twenty two people have died in flooding in southern india. drowning. and house collapses the worst storm in forty years head the state of. dumping over thirty one centimeters of rain over the weekend the weather forced almost ninety five thousand people to abandon their homes and move to state run camps. british pm david cameron has vowed to raise the issue of human rights as he arrives in the middle east on arms sales for the u.k.

is looking to sell fighter jets to saudi arabia by despite concerns over granted to producers and nations ties between britain and gulf monarchies have been tested lately over british support for revolutionaries some arab leaders have hinted that if the u.k. doesn't cut ties with activists it might lose out on the critical arms to us. as britain grapples with the over how much of 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 missions sarah furthur investigates. real time miami we might all dream of getting off to some exotic destination but unfortunately in the middle of a double dip recession with thirty measures. we're being kept to ground not for some lucky n.p.c. even just think of the some of those fall flying that the nation's backed by doing

. well in fact that has been found is that these trips costing millions in tax payers pounds so take a look at the figures they regularly come in at more than forty thousand pounds per trip one chip thing a poor 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 trip very . good luxury hotels when they could look at more modestly called ocean or they're using business class. when they travel most of the rest of us not surprisingly the public's not impressed i certainly think it's excessive and i think they can say taking the piss but they're taking advantage there's absolutely no question. there 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 device for the. central meaning you know you're ok think. 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 r.t. london. all right well that'll be it from me here on our team but stay tuned in a couple of minutes the latest round of debate and cross talk that's coming up. the six america votes for its next president. who takes the wheel as the u.s. drives into the future. get the news the mainstream missives with up close election

coverage of the u.s. election up close. and on t.v. dot com. the skinny guy next big we'll see here with me then is playing my son died in iran don't agree you don't agree we don't have to look for him my son isn't isn't in the arena i don't know what his company are going to be for you affairs. sure.