bloodstain vote deadly bomb blast rocked pakistan as the country holds its milestone democratic election continuing the violence which has marred the whole campaign. but more ballots than bullets in this historic vote here and pockets on update from islamic body in just a few moments. space station repairs astronauts perform an emergency spacewalk to try to fix or leaking cooling system onboard the orbiting laboratory. embassies on alert the u.s. and u.k. are pulling non-essential diplomatic staff out of libya with security fears fueling after militants besieged two ministries last month.

at six pm in the russian capital you're watching r t with me marina joshie. now deadly explosions and gunfire in cities and towns across the nation as pakistan holds a milestone general election marking the country's first power transition through the ballot box polling stations have now closed after voting was extended by an hour to cope with a high turnout but some are paying a high price to exercise their democratic right well at least eleven people have been killed and dozens more injured in a series of bomb blasts in karate more people have died in pakistan's biggest province of blocks of stone were explosions and government targeted voters outside polling stations also there others fell victim to shootouts between rival in political factions or violence has erupted in pakistan's volatile north as well

where a roadside bomb caused further casualties in the city of peshawar with an update on the turbulent vote from pakistan's capital islamabad here's artie's lucy coffin of . no one has claimed responsibility for the violence that has been reported across the country today there are a number of armed groups who operate in pakistan as well as the taliban which has waged a bloody intimidation campaign in the run up to the vote claiming the lives of more than one hundred thirty people they view these elections as being on a lawmaker and have largely targeted the secular leaning parties but these elections are more about the ballot box than bullets i have to say as the millions of pakistanis turned out eagerly eagerly in droves despite the threat of violence there have been some reports of the vote rigging allegations in karate and several parties have withdrawn their candidates in a boycott of the vote but by and large all signs point to a successful a democratic election here and caucus done which is really quite critical for a country that has been ruled by the military for more than half of its existence

as an independent state the big question now is of course who will win these elections well it's going to be a few hours before the preliminary results are released but i have to say just from speaking to the voters some of the stations here in islamabad a lot of support for emraan khan the former cricket star turned politician who has really been able to seize on the youth vote here in pakistan he seized his gun the empathy and the sympathy of millions of pakistanis who feel disillusioned with the established political parties that have really run the country for decades and he's been pushing a platform of change anti corruption anti u.s. drone strikes anti western aid of course the kind of candidate that many experts expect to do quite well is not was sharif he has served as prime minister twice before he is running yet again here and he's running on a platform of free market policies he thinks that economic solutions will really help pull papa stan out of its economic nightmare and it really has seen the

economic problems under the ruling coalition headed by the pakistan people's party that is benazir bhutto the late prime minister's party which has been accused of sort of festering adama's. corruption we've seen massive unemployment power outages still plague that country and of course a growing sectarian violence as well in it as an islamist resurgence here so a lot of problems for whoever wins. that's our web site for the latest update on the developments in pakistan as a chooses its next parliament amid the bloodshed that's at our t.v. dot com. international security specialist patricia de janeiro says the people of pakistan are so fed up with conditions in their country that they were courageous enough to head to polls despite the danger these things are very tough though you know we saw the same thing in afghanistan with the taliban threatening and you know as we're seeing they're very very serious about these threats and and it's difficult for people that don't have

a lot of of ability maneuverability around with so many threats going on of around them goes a long way particularly when you don't know when it's going to happen and you're looking around at every corner but you know people really take risks to get out there and and exercise their right and their voice are becoming victims from an external power and they're becoming victims by their own internal struggles so yeah people become very very tired you know remember when you're so traumatized and you become absolutely exhausted with this continuous type of reflection in your reality it's sometimes it's hard to to be so courageous. well here on r t want to know your verdict on the outcome of pakistan historic first democratic transition this hour at let's take a look at our side vote r.t.

dot com happening right now we see the just over half of the respondents say the ballot won't change a thing and is just a spectacle for the benefits of the west well over a quarter or so far believe the election will trigger muslim rage across the country fifteen percent of those who participated in the poll are convinced that the vote will provide the basis for a functional democracy and the rest of our viewers at this point say it will only bring more dysfunction in the government do us now what do you think on the issue by logging on their website. download the application itself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television just doesn't matter now with your mobile device you can watch our t.v. anytime anywhere.

but back you're watching r t coming to you live from moscow well add this point to nasa astronauts are conducting an emergency spacewalk to fix the ammonia leak at international space station we know so far that if found the traces of the spill let's now talk about this in more detail with our correspondent tom bard who's in the studio with us now so tom now the the found the small traces of it what's going to happen next i mean it's going to be a six hour walk obviously is this enough well it's just the beginning at the moment chris cassidy and thomas marshburn the two astronauts this is rather jumpy sometimes a bit grainy but some live pictures here from a nasa feed of those two astronauts up on the side of the international space station they have indeed found just very small traces unfortunately that's nothing special very small traces of that ammonia that was leaking out earlier they're looking for something more substantial and in the process of that operation they're going to try and find the cause of what we've seen lots of crystals leaving earlier

described by the station's commander chris hadfield. a very steady stream of. profits got out of comics earlier and i rotated in towards florida so you know as we are we trust rotating surface waiting ritualistic they're always getting it if you're out of the. so there are two of them so there's two of them working there on the side of the station they've got to the place where where it is they're trying to take off for a pump supply box it's obviously a very complex overall a range of equipment you're thinking that the link to the leak is inside that part and if they can if they have enough time they're already over an hour into the space walk they can try and replace that piece of equipment of course because that's a big question how long will this walk lasted that this is an emergency one we know that it's planned to be six hours right now they found

a trace of it but whether the are in the right path or not where that this will lead them to we don't know yet so that remains to be seen well tom the question now is how serious really is this leak and whether it will affect future missions you have for us for the station at the moment both the crew up there and the on the ground in mission control they say this is a serious leak it's very annoying for the crew but it's not dangerous they really don't think it's going to cause any any serious threat to any of the crew on the six crew up there on the station but i also think it's probably not going to interfere with three crew members due to come back down to worth on monday but they're obviously working through it and they may have to go back out again to fix it if they can't do it this time or absolutely will that again remains to be seen and we are closely monitoring the situation there as we were looking at live pictures here earlier and i believe this might be still live pictures that we are getting there but tom the station is twelve years old now the question is whether

it's all good enough or not really i mean yes i mean you can look at it from different speeds you could say it's a real workhorse but again that would maybe miss the point a bit the international space station is constantly evolving constantly new modules and pieces of equipment being brought up to modernize it to try and make it do new things this particular problem is with just one of the eight solar arrays that power the thing so even if that solar. rays taken out of operation the station can still go on without it so it's not really right to look at the station it's just being new or old it's a constant maturing and just kind of think of it i mean it's being used nonstop because one mission replaces another and so on and so on so yeah well let's keep our fingers crossed that these two nasa astronauts will manage to fix this problem and tom bard for now thank you very much indeed for the subject.

the news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world seen from the streets of canada. showing operations around the day. mounting an arrest in libya has prompted the u.s. to put its troops on heightened alert and poll diplomatic staff from its embassy the u.k. as also recalled all non-essential staff from the country armed gunmen have been laying siege to b.b.'s ministries and foreign embassies for over two weeks and on saturday and time militia demonstration in the capital came under attack maybe as government recently granted the militias demand for gadhafi air of fishel to be banned from senior government roles now they are calling for the country's prime minister to resign international relations professor mark almond says western powers are responsible for the instability and the surge of violence that sweeping

the country. we're seeing is deep divisions among the libyan revolutionaries who britain and other nato countries supported as a power struggle over who should control the libyan state and protect the who should control libya's oil and gas if colonel gadhafi had suppressed self-assertion him when it was opened in the streets of last the two thousand level possibly hundreds of people would have died but perhaps as many as thirty thousand died since and the country is in this deep state to disorder uncertainty life for most of us is worse than it was on account of that our articles kind of about his regime was supposed by the western countries to be the bad regime anything must be russia we were told well i'm afraid to say we see that it's not necessarily so clear after all they all mean libya which create a situation where groups came to power and they have local domination and there are of course groups who may be welcoming nato bombers but are in fact quite serious

and he wants to move in fundamentalist groups who have now been sending parts also to syria so they don't we go this is where the continued presence of western embassies the british french all the americans as being wholly something they'd like to see in a liberated as they would see libya. it was still a contrary the sour israel's building on controversy still of you began to give the going out to the construction of hundreds of new homes in the west bank despite being branded as illegal under international law. and action against the bailout slovenia's i packaged of measures to avert a financial meltdown and it fears about a follow cyprus for that in just a moment. with . technology innovation all the developments around russia

we. covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm target market is a big issue. download the official publication yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television well it just doesn't matter how would your mobile device you can watch your t.v. any time anyway.

welcome back you're watching our tina israel has given the green light for the construction of a further three hundred homes in a west bank settlement it's fear of the move could ward recent attempts by u.s. secretary of state john kerry to rekindle peace talks between palestinian authorities and israel so far this here israel's army has a victim almost four hundred palestinians from the west bank and a small over two hundred houses the number of such incidents has risen sharply since a new israeli government was even stronger opposition to a two state solution to office in march and authorities policy are now records israeli the fans for us are ready to use almost and a thing to bag their government orders. first it was the bullets then the tear gas and now this it's probably the worst smelling substance you will ever smell in your entire life that god never you stink you bad people i don't have

a home it stinks you made it smell i have nowhere to go i can even see my son you sprayed him. developed by israeli security forces this foul smelling liquid is used to disperse palestinian demonstrations and it's proving to be pretty effective if it hits you in the eyes it could be painful and it could cause redness and if swallowed it can cause stomach problems it's important to. state that this material has never been used against israeli jews in only jewish demonstrations it's the answer to a years old search by the israeli military for an alternative to tear gas to control crowds the skunk is an anti-riot means that we employ in order to live up to our philosophy of containing rights at a safe distance while also ensuring the safety of everyone involved but those on the receiving end came it's being used as collective punishment it's sprayed not at stone throwers but generally simply people participating in nonviolent marches and

very often is that the skunk a spray that homes gardens at people who are not participating at all in any demonstration take a tele to me for example he shows me the damage to his house from the so-called sky his wife was forced to throw the two old daughter from an absence balcony to safety below after the windows of her bedroom shattered the israeli forces come from this side and the sewage car stops it starts spraying while at the same time the soldiers throw the tear gas on the houses. if we find it's usual to see clashes here in the west bank village of not be selling between israeli soldiers and palestinian demonstrators villages came a nearby israeli settlement is being built on their land as you enter not be silent this is the sign that welcomes you dozens of tear gas canisters that have been collected just over the past few months a stark reminder of the excessive force the israeli army uses against the small

village it remains unclear what's actually inside the liquid how. this water is very dirty and has a very bad smell once we left the house for three weeks because of it and it's water based and has various ingredients that create a very pungent smell but it is household ingredients as well whatever it is one thing both sides agree on you would not want to be sprayed with there's. not be sunny in the west bank. now are to call and find out how the world's biggest hacker group is fighting fire with fire us government is taking a page out of the cyber activist block and its relentless battle against online attacks. and. another click away on our t.v. you tube channel windows are blown out and cars battered check police released c.c.t.v. footage of a gas explosion that ripped open an office building and the heart of prague.

now somebody is rushing to reform its economy amid mounting concern it's next in line for an e.u. bailout the action plan includes the sale of fifteen state companies tax hikes and public sector wage cuts and comes right out of a european commission report due at the end of the month and you nervous over the situation in slovenia well it's tiny economy with a g.d.p. of about forty five billion heroes and out of debt a banking system burdened with about a seven billion you. hero's of bad loans so he is now trying to profit obviate transferring the non-performing loans of its largest banks to a newly established band bank meanwhile its credit rating was recently cut to junk by moody's one of the lowest investment grades and the same thing happened to cyprus in twenty twelve a year before it faced punishing bailout terms however slovenia has been insisting

it doesn't need help from international lenders you know what about our fell from the economic trans magazine says that sounds very familiar everybody who has been in trouble in the eurozone in the last years as in the first phase of the crisis always refused to admit that they are really in trouble and that of course is first of all some kind of psychological game they're trying to play with the markets and with the public at large. but that. being said. that's also been quite clear that all the countries that came into the danger zone eventually had to ask for help which is something national governments don't like because then obviously to at least a certain degree death to hansard to and to date to foreign

powers the european central bank the european the european commission the i.m.f. or the treaty together in the famous trachea. and while much of you are worries about the next country in line for a bailout its largest economy is still managing to grow with germany's success comes a flood of immigrants from debt stricken neighbors and other not e.u. countries something the locals are not so happy about a report of nat in just a few minutes stay with us. and for that let's take a look at some other stories making news around the world well thirty people have been killed and dozens injured in a double car bomb attack near a turkish border with syria reports say turkey has arrested five people including three syrian nationals in connection with the explosions so far as no one is claimed responsibility for the a tap. water malas forward to the caterer has been sentenced to eighty years in prison for the genocide of seventeen hundred indigenous mayans during his first year rule in the eighty's eighty six year old from rise mont started his

military career in a minor cia coup in the one hundred fifty s. and builds close ties with the reagan administration the verdict seen as a landmark for guatemala which is wrestling with the trauma of a decades long civil war which has killed more than two hundred thousand people. now foreign troops are set to leave afghanistan next year but it won't be the anne of the road for america's armed forces there the u.s. says it will keep nine of military bases open while sounds of private security contractors are also staying on the middle east and un issues activist phyllis bennis believes that's because of the ghana stance strategic location allows washington to keep a foothold in the region. we know that the agreement signed between the u.s. and afghanistan allows for some number of u.s. troops to remain after the end of two thousand and fourteen the numbers have varied there's been estimates of as low as eight thousand and as many as twenty two

thousand that the obama administration would like to keep in afghanistan after the the withdrawal of so-called combat troops this has everything to do with the neighborhood where afghanistan is located afghanistan doesn't have or along its own but it has a large territory in the midst of a very crucial neighborhood in terms of oil and in terms of the expansion of power the u.s. wanted for example to keep permanent bases in iraq that it could use as a base from which it could attack iran the iraqis said no the afghans will be asked the same thing will they allow those bases even if it's only nine of them to be used potentially to attack other countries in the neighborhood that's one of the things the u.s. is very eager for on a permanent basis it's not so much about the immediacy of the taliban everyone knows that the presence of u.s. troops in afghanistan is making it much more difficult not easier for there to be serious peace negotiations between the various factions in afghanistan whether it

be the taliban whether it be the afghan government whether it be a host of other factions that are all competing for power now what are you looking down the barrel of yet another year over recession the block's powerhouse germany is doing relatively well it's the only member state that's managing to eke out growth and as a result it's attracting more and more people scaping financial troubles in debt stricken southern europe and outside the e.u. well tran is archie's peed all over now reports that's becoming frustrating for manny germans. those coming to germany in search of a new life might find one of their biggest challenges in the shape of the german people a bertelsmann foundation poll shows two thirds of people here a few new comers as a burden on society one of those is coal schmidt he says he knows families who come from outside of the e.u. as many as five children who live off the state presently. the main performance which you have to bring to stay in germany you have to make

children if you have no drop in germany and normal social flat if a hundred square meters is five children you get another three thousand your month social eight call runs a motor scooter hire company in berlin and claims to represent many upset at what they see as a free ride given to migrants. if i would live in africa and i hear that when i see that my friend of mine of the relative of mine is already in bali and shows me via facebook how is living then i would say oh well i go to bernie and as soon as possible immigration here is that a twenty year high with a further two million expected to arrive within the next three years along with traditional settlers from turkey the bulk of that number will come from within in

you as the jobless from countries like spain and greece look for better opportunities in the much wealthy in north as the mediterranean situation worsens wealthier countries like germany are a magnet to provide work for their fellow e.u. citizens but even those who weren't even born in germany worry about the influx. i came here in one thousand nine hundred four and now there are so many immigrants in germany who are not working not doing anything this leads to problems they live better than those who weren't. but those in the turkish community insist it's not easy. sometimes having immigrant status is not stickle to get a good job which leads to a lack of prospects and in some cases people turn to crime but this is not the majority how to handle surging immigration numbers or even the perception that they're draining society is going to prove harder for leaders to. there's a general election here just five months peter all of the. lead. you have today

here in oregon our backs why africa is still starving despite all the humanitarian aid from developed countries in charity diplomacy and this stay with us.

thank. me please please. please please please. please. please. see.

the book. length. in july two thousand and eleven the horn of africa was struck by a wave of famine and. again our screens were flooded with images of a may see that africa.