americans flocked to voting stations after the end of a presidential campaign to a chorus of complaints about broken voting machinery intimidation and fraud. on the world waits anxiously for the outcome for many nations it's a case of hoping for a victory for the. plus on the second day of strikes in greece a nationwide walkout freezes the country as your makers prepared to vote for a new car it's crucial for receiving a fresh new cash. claims high tech american weapons are reaching rebels in syria and accuses the western media of floored reporting about russia's.

international news and comment live from our new center here in moscow this is r.t. with the twenty four hours a day in our top story the vote that's affecting every nation on earth the u.s. presidential election. with voting stations now open across america voters are flocking to decide on their president despite a torrent of reports about irregularities from the super storm wrecked northeast experiencing trouble with polling stations to allegations of parties and voter suppression and even ballot tampering elsewhere it's not going to our correspondents in the states from all the votes so far in washington let's hear from you first how is the voting going bring us up to speed. well bill for now it's all ohio ohio ohio the media here call it the ground zero of

this election right now the president is holding a small ad a small advantage there as well as in other swing states like nevada iowa and wisconsin not in florida though romney might have the edge there but again no solid numbers yet at least four hours to go before we could say anything more definitive our international viewers might ask why is it all about that handful of swing states what about the rest of the country the fact of the matter is that not all votes are equal in the u.s. in the electoral college system some votes are never counted it's a winner take all system where if a candidate loses a state they get zero alike twelve votes from that state doesn't matter how many people voted for them in that state this morning i was chatting chatting with random folks at a coffee shop it was a young man a democrat from texas who voted for president obama by mail he requested an absentee ballot he went through all that paid for knowing perfectly well that he's

vote would not be counted because the state of texas is a solid red state that is republicans with democrat votes there don't count at all in the electoral college president obama will get zero electoral votes from texas then i was chatting with another young man in a similar situation he was telling me how much he would want his vote to actually count and i see here that more and more. frustrating for more and more people about . it is a problem for those who think democratic process is when all votes are equal and counted thanks very much going to. new york we've been hearing about well about the problems there in the northeast all they own going. bill they certainly are on going as a matter of fact i just returned from a polling location where it took quite a while lots of confusion before i myself was able to cast

a ballot now the reason there is so much chaos taking place in many polling locations in new york and nearby states is because hurricane sandy caused a significant amount of damage and wiped out more than two hundred polling locations in new york state and two hundred more of more than two hundred polling locations in nearby new jersey as a result of that the polling locations in new york are being flooded with an enormous amount of people and the lines are wrapping around the blocks in many places in addition to that there was complaints in one location in upper manhattan where there were delays reportedly because election officials could not find ballot cards and scanners were not working in other parts of new york where where voters still do not have power or electricity military trucks have been used as makeshift polling stations in staten island people who were polling were casting their ballots with a flashlight and using paper ballots now i did mention new jersey their government

officials decided to allow voters to cast their ballot either by fax or by e-mail we are getting reports that voter volunteers say they're very or now getting overwhelmed from the flood of e-mails coming in there's an enormous amount of delay some voters in new jersey can't even find their polling locations but throughout the east coast there's been other complaints for example in cleveland ohio there's been reports of malfunctioning election scanners in florida a lawsuit is already been filed over early voting suppression and there's also reports coming out that hundreds of voters in florida have received robo calls from a so-called elected official saying that the election is on wednesday now in arizona voters also received of verbal calls just a day ago directing. democratic voters two wrong holding locations meanwhile in oregon there's been allegations of voter fraud and ballot tampering and authorities in texas and i was this must be might be most surprising according to reports they

have threatened international election monitors with arrest if those monitors approach voting locations anywhere in iowa or texas so clearly the integrity of the american election system is is is up to to be challenges on this election day twenty. two leading candidates but what about the the. bill according to a gallup poll forty percent of americans identify themselves as independents these are tens of millions of people who would have possibly voted for a party other than republican or democratic if they had the choice but they don't you do have alternative candidates in this election but their voices have been blacked out by the us mainstream media which are entirely focused on the two party

race we had a debate here in the studio just the other night between the two leading alternative candidates in this election and they did offer views distinctly alternative to those who broke obama and mitt romney would prepared a short clip of some of the some of their remarks higher corporate tax rates with economic the notion that we've been the country that stood up to the bully as opposed to being a bully it's a growing police state quite obviously we can end the failed racist war on drugs downsize the military and the drone wars bring the troops home let's stop with our military interventions let's get out of afghanistan to moral thirty thousand drones flying over the united states what are they flying over the united states for in the unemployment and jumpstart the green economy that spells an end to climate change and makes wars for oil obsolete. alternative candidates also talk about how difficult and expensive it is to get on the ballot in the u.s.

campaign financing is a huge issue here especially with the supreme court ruling which now allows corporations to funnel as much money as they want into political campaigns which makes it virtually impossible for someone without the backing of the big party machines to win an election because big money goes to the big parties the election campaigns of mitt romney and barack obama have cost a round of billion dollars each and one of those alternative candidates or debating this monday night could possibly catch up with that kind of spending the amount of all the ads that we've seen in this election cycle has been staggering so it's quite hopeless to be an independent in the u.s. . going to thanks very much indeed more now on the vote from the perspective of benedict tees exacted director of the libertarian national committee which how does own candidate running and is joining us live now here. one of

the the two major parties of course dominating this election while the third parties again complaining about being excluded from the spotlight do you ever see that changing in the future. i hope it will change and it has been different in the past ross perot was in the national televised debates that was carried by all the major networks in the past and what happened is he got eighteen percent and i had a major effect on the election we've had candidates independents for governor. jesse ventura he was included in debates in minnesota and he won his election for governor so i hope it'll happen again in the past i think if people get. ok. ok you're still with us you're right that's just ok. i'm still here yeah great we're not on the air though sorry about that. can i can

you actually still see me and him me all right i can't see anything but i can hear you fine i hear you perfectly well let's carry on then tom again the democrat in the republican vote. i should say that the actual victim is they break their election promises they a bomber and his pledge to shut down guantanamo is one example why don't people look beyond the main policies. will the democrats or republicans do such a good job of scaring voters into thinking the other guy is awful and i you know i i i wish voters would look beyond the two main parties but it's been that way for a long time people vote against the other guy rather than for their own i don't know for sure how to change that occasionally it happens to people get upset enough with what both parties are delivering but do you think things are really changing

because the american people really don't need the diversity perhaps they are actually happy with what they've gotten they don't need that party option. well at some point and this is not what policy it titian's do is blame voters but at some point you do have to put the burden on the voters to step up and vote for something dead different or demand something different i think if things get bad enough in the us that the economy gets worse if we get drug into more and more wars overseas and we start having losing more soldiers and spending a lot more money maybe people will demand a change but another thing about the third parties we don't always just think that we have to win an election to make a difference if we get our message out there and then either the republicans or

democrats take the third party message and take those issues up and run with them we're ok with that we don't have to win elections to make a change and you think there's not a major story because when i was going on in the u.s. right now yeah you could actually make an impact in the swing states though and it's very noticeable that those votes did go to a party could that be the case. absolutely there are states like ohio where gary johnson is polling at three or four or five percent and the race is expected to be very tight is you know this forty eight forty seven depending on the day between romney and obama so if a libertarian gets bigger than the spread you know if a libertarian gets three or four percent and that is keep one of the others from getting fifty percent that will be talked about for many years to come that's what happened when ralph nader in the year two thousand got

a couple of percent in florida people talked about ralph nader's impact on the election for many years so certainly we can have an effect that way but i'm not just hoping to change which whether republican or democrat wins we want to change the policies that get implemented but it takes so much sorry about the communication but we got you thanks very much for joining us from the libertarian national council in the usa thank you. well more still lined up for you in the u.s. election here in focusing on what's at stake for the world in this vote including for america's closest allies that's coming your way in just a few minutes after this. of the six america votes for it's next president. who will take the wheel as the u.s. drives into the future. get the news the mainstream missives without up close election coverage the u.s. election up close. and r.t.

dot com. flying north with me in this old soviet work course of a helicopter is dr vladimir brodsky and his team from the region's medical education service we head across ever more barren tundra higher and higher into russia's arctic far north until eventually we see our landing spot with the arrival of this tiny village after crossing hundreds of kilometers of snow a wilderness as a boy here suffering from favor and the doctors are going to see what they can do. inside a small building not one but two babies and their parents are waiting for us the doctors inspect them but can't make a diagnosis and decide to bring them to a regional hospital for better care spread lana doesn't like taking her baby away from home but she's been before and agrees to go that's the usual practice with

those who live in atlanta they keep mothers with their newborns in hospital for a month. on the way back another stop to check on the health of some native minutes reindeer herders out in the tundra it can take many hours to reach the nearest village so a medical problem simply fixed here in the tent. they used to be but now we can go to civilize places so we call for emergency help. back at hospital other patients helped by the air ambulance are being treated the service costs forty million dollars a year to run and there's been controversy with some claiming that locals exaggerate on. make up health problems and use the helicopters as a free taxi service by causations vladimir firmly dismisses your brow that is not true usually the calls are perfectly justified sometimes we even reproach locals waiting too long before calling us he's been working as a doctor now for forty three years but vladimir is confident that even after he

retires his helicopter doctors will remain a lifeline to the peoples of the russian foreign north. wealthy british style stock. markets why not canada. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our.

morning news today violence is once again flared up the philippines are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are today. he lived here most of the news continues now back to our top story with more on the domestic and foreign influences affecting the u.s. vote and joining me live now is ted rall he's an american political cartoonist columnist and author amman's we'll start off with a golden question ted who's your money on to come out on top in this election i think i'm going to lose my money my money about a year ago on mitt romney based on b. economy largely it's pretty clear that president obama will win a second term why. well just be you know those two seem so

sure one from the squeezed particularly from ohio seems to show that the president's going to have a hard time losing and it seems like it's all going to come down to that. the working class people of ohio which is where i grew up just can't relate to a guy who's worth a quarter of a billion dollars and has his own car elevator what about the nature of the voting system there and of the say that the vote could be in a drawer with the victim perhaps not winning the popular vote that's the issue but only the electoral college bound count what sort of reaction would vote give to that one. well that is not precedented of course we saw that happen in the year two thousand and the controversy was really kind of eclipsed by a mess that happened in florida which you will remember some people think that memory is fresh people a lot of americans are really against the electoral college but it seems to be

election over even after a president is elected with a minority and a particular. people just move on and forget about we're not a country with a long memory oh americans really fed up with the dominance of the two party system and there is really a strong interest now in the said party candidates after all that that's any marginalize on the because they don't get much media attention in the u.s. . well historically there's always been a great interest in choices and you know it is a bafta country with three hundred twenty million people and to center right party you just can't really serve the ideological need or desires here and you know we do have a viable well my viable third party there are a lot out of the system particularly the green to the libertarians and you can see that you're going to manifest itself in movements like the tea party in two thousand and nine and occupy wall street last year there is a there is

a desire for something else and what why then haven't we seen a political party really latching on to the likes of the occupy movement and then really getting some big votes well certainly the republican party did play that role with the tea party and depending on your perspective that the tea party took over the g.o.p. or it was the other way around certainly the democratic party has pushed out any kind of insurgent movements from its left flank ever since really the late one nine hundred seventy s. so their strategy seems to be to try to chase the republicans over to the right and in terms of that yearning you know the two parties the doowop really really succeeded in using all sorts of laws and obscure electoral regulations that lock out two parties from acts that party third party throw in the political process it's hard to get on the ballot in many states without a certain number of. votes from the previous election and you can't get those percentage of votes without having been on the ballot before so it's kind of

a catch twenty two speaking to a lot of candidates presidential candidates and parties and they've got some really relevant sound issues which clearly do have a lot of falling why why is it that they can't break through will they eventually get a voice in the future do you see the system the dominance of the two party system changing a tool at in the near future in the states no i don't unfortunately it's really just impossible to get traction. you know first you have to get enough money in order to advertise but you have to get ballot access in all fifty states and in thousands of discrete voting districts you have to develop a party organization from the ground up and perhaps hardest of all you have to prick people's mentalities and get and convince them that there is a another way that there is a. there is an option outside of the d.'s and the r.'s but democrats and the republicans and people just don't buy that it's called the tea party trout and people are really stuck at ted rall thank you very much indeed for joining us live

from new york. the high price of refuge thousands of pounds i handed to british authorities after violated his conditions for release he caught up with one of the people he posted bail find out whether he's still fully behind the world's top whistle blower that coming your way very soon here in altie. three blocks of the syrian capital killing at least fifteen people in the district traditionally loyal to president assad it's the third day in a row damascus has been the target of terrible thing that's as moscow's claim sophisticated american so it has to missiles are making their way into the hands of rebel militias in syria more now from. the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov speaking in the jordanian capital of amman has warned against western powers supplying syrian opposition fighters with illegal weapons he says that russia has evidence as well as information that the fighters are being supplied with high tech a face of equipment more than just the stingers are currently in the hands of the

able fighters and the equipment is u.s. made now in iraq also said that he was very surprised to find out that the b.b.c. says it has information that russia is supplying syria with weapons of mass destruction he said it was amazing to hear from a close funded of such over suspected cooperation such claims being made at the same time he did say that russia was finishing its arms shipment to damascus and that these were deals that were made and old contracts but that the distinction needs to be made that these are only defensive weapons weapons that are not being used in the conflict by comparison with the type of weapons that are making it into the opposition fighters today that are fueling the conflict on the ground not also say that russia's position is clear that there needs to be talks between the syrian government and the opposition he said it is up to syrians to decide for themselves who they want in the transitional government and he warned against meddling from the outside now live of comments come as the syrian opposition needs in doha mean

what we do know is that the meeting is aimed at bringing the opposition together but certainly the u.s. has previously suggested that it would hand pick some of the candidates for the new united opposition what we are seeing is washington taking and to hard in forming this new body there are really rubs within the opposition with some members claiming that the reshuffle has not been done properly and that what we've seen is old names nearly being replaced by new names who really have the same logical position is there is growing concern of what will evolve in syria will be much the same as what happened in the other western countries recognize the opposition as the only legitimate government and then launched military action we concern is that by not recognizing the syrian president bashar assad wisdom nations will be given greater freedom to do what they want next country. the director and founder of the french center for intelligence studies believes turkey and the gulf states are helping the u.s. transfer weapons to rebels on the ground we perfectly know that all this rebel

groups i mean most of them. they receive the strong support from the. directly sometimes in the north of that through the channel as well as through. so it's very difficult to know exactly what kind of very modern weapons are there receive but. the matter of fact they are the support coming from the. getting down to business we look at what the british prime minister has to offer the unelected molecules of the gulf on his key trade. first the group of people opposed to bail for julian assange three hundred there were thousands of pounds to authorities in britain that money was forfeited after the world's most famous whistle blower violated the conditions of his release by seeking refuge in the ecuadorian embassy in london that we could he said it was trying to avoid extradition to sweden those who lost money however say they continue to support

julian assange. obviously thousand pounds which is the share of the dive last twenty and we managed to get it reduced but you know that is a significant sum but i don't personally hold julian assange responsible that i think he's entitled to. entitled to claim political asylum i don't know if judy in the song would face the death penalty in america however i have to give julian the songs the benefit of the dials on these things because i think that we can be sure that he wouldn't if you look at the treatment of bradley manning who is was apparently the source the whistleblower alleged to be his that his treatment was described to us. as actually having you know being tortured so i think it's reasonable for us to believe that if julian songs were to go to the united states that he would face. a top level reshuffle in the russian government corruption scandal claims the head of the country's defense

ministry and then an occasion to one hundred million dollars hole in the nation's budget that's the head. i mean. the only city in europe the host of the twenty fawlty in which are the picket. thank you. so much. thank you. it's so true.

the evening he.

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