nationwide following up. against the. other way around a thousand people were injured and killed as international calls. and accuses it of targeting individuals business. as well where hundreds of demonstrators were arrested in. spain and portugal. the week syria's opposition refuses to international peace talks the refusal just a day lifting of the e.u. . opening the door for lethal weapons to be quickly supplied to the rebel fighters

. shot seven times while being interviewed by the f.b.i. for his alleged connection to the boston bombing suspects the reports are suggesting he was. just in time for the weekly. highlighting the top headlines over the past seven days live in moscow welcome to the program. at least two people have been killed more than ourselves and have been injured in. protests and fierce clashes with police that have continued for several days now but most of. what started as a peaceful city and against plans to revive paulk in central istanbul has spiraled

into a nationwide display of anger against the government for the latest report from istanbul . the protests have been raging throughout the night to the visitor in fact my hotel faces the square and i woke up around two thirty am because of the extreme noise and the smell of something burning coming in from the street and it was really a sight to behold in the middle of the darkest night you saw those red flashes of fires burning in the middle of the square now the protesters have been burning a lot of things around the square starting from vendors booths and ending mostly with calls now among those vehicles were police police trucks that i have personally seen but also they seem to have been targeting. these satellite. trucks . a lot of people are incredibly distrustful of the media especially of the state controlled media and this is a matter of fact that is largely the reason why i'm actually sitting in the studio today and not out on the square because the companies that were doing live

transmissions from the square yesterday today said it's too dangerous to go out there to go back a little bit the police did withdraw from texas and square in the early afternoon on saturday and that is thousands of people started pouring into the square despite the fact that it was essentially permeated with tear gas and pepper spray and there's still puddles of water everywhere from water cannons being used to launch to the square and one point it did seem like i was not in istanbul but rather in egypt or in tunisia during the protests and you have to understand that the protests began. the government plans to get rid of a park in the middle of the city it was a peaceful sit in until the police started to break it up using tear gas and essentially excessive force and that is what people have gathered over there in multitudes and they weren't at that point protesting not the plans to demolish the park but rather they were saying they wanted to save the country from aragon and

his policies which are becoming increasingly unpopular with the people in turkey some of the most of the people that i've spoken to said they you can see there is three things that they're unhappy about its policies and toward syria the increasing islamisation off the country and basically a crackdown on old freedoms particularly in areas concerning media and journalists turkey remains the number one country when it comes to the number of journalists when it comes to international reaction we should mention a report by amnesty international which office happens to be really close to ducks and square and they have said and i'm quoting this was disgraceful use of excessive force demonstrated by police in istanbul having said that the police did seem to be targeting individual protesters there have there are some reports that some people may have lost their sight because of the tear gas being fired at close range there's also reports of police targeting individual shops and stores and cafes which were trying to help out the protesters on the square and the police were seen

to be throwing the tear gas canisters inside but there were also reports that a medical very medical association has tried to set up sort of camps within a so they could help those who were injured in the protests but they couldn't do so because of the tear gas permeating the streets i could smell the tear gas coming into my hotel two kilometers away the streets were blocked off i had to walk around in that area it was really difficult to breathe in fact the first thing that a lot of tourists were handed out when they came to istanbul were little maps to cover their faces and really i saw a lot of people with their i did see like their eyes were burning and they were suffering from the effects of tear gas so we can talk about the excessive use of force and still waiting for any reaction from calls by amnesty international to stop the police brutality. and took as prime minister of the one who admitted that police may have indeed used excessive force but called on protesters to stop their demonstrations because the changes in the park are still going ahead international

relations professor mark almond from ankara has built and university he says only the ones actions resemble those of leaders that was ousted by that of the arab spring. massive police action has backfired and this is a very dramatic moment for the prime minister who sort of has had for the first time to step back he was extremely aggressive in his initial statements that he wouldn't tolerate protest and now the man who was the first world leader to call for president mubarak to resign is now talking all that you really did shortly before his own fall he's now saying he's going to investigate the police he's got the people he wants to carry on the project so he's managing to in a sense muddy the water but i don't think we need to calm the situation because if he insists on carrying on with this project which is very unpopular he still is going to protest during the supposed relations disaster with huge economic. look here at r.t. we are closely following developments in turkey on air and online in fact on the web site you can watch our live stream from istanbul and get the latest updates

again that's on our website and while you're there you can also get involved with our current online world wide poll that's how you think it's all going to pan out let's bring up the stats now from our web site and see how you're voting for this hour the numbers have certainly been changing our hour so here we have a joint first position thirty five forty two categories here an equal amount saying it will either develop into a turkish spring or it's going to incite a very harsh crackdown down to eighteen percent for this hour major changes will be implemented and the bare minimum now losing one percentage point it will die out of the violence will die out by the end of the week we are still taking your vote gauging your reaction to this at r c dot com not too late to get involved here with us for now though it is a weekend of unrest in the german financial capital frankfurt police used batons and pepper spray against thousands of anti austerity demonstrators several people injured in clashes though around four hundred handcuffed and detained protesters

have been blocking the e.u.'s main financial institution for two days now peter all of a filed this report from frankfurt. a planned march that was supposed to go right through the middle of all germany's financial capital only really lasted five hundred meters before police intervened splitting the demonstration in several different parts now the police have told us that this is because they asked people to remove the masks who were marching in the green put on see all seriously announce the fascist campaign is they refused to do that then paint was thrown and police responded with with pepper spray this lucky pie from twenty c. demonstrations were mostly peaceful but all changed on something they know this then ended up with a hours long standoff in the sense a cold front. with so many people being caught up in the clashes that broke out sporadically between the police and protesters.

there. we were standing there suddenly police moved in and they beat some of us and i was a street there was no reason for that and managed to get out. from work oh this is your policy not ours now away from me paying throwing in the pepper spraying the idea behind blokey pie i was supposed to show the political leaders of europe that they're not happy that they want change and they said that they had a clear message to those leaders in the european union this is book if i frankly have been came alongside the release of unemployment figures for the euro zone

countries and they made well pretty desperate reading almost twenty million people are out of work in the eurozone most of them young we're hearing that almost one in four under twenty five's don't have a job and that's what resulted in many people coming out here on on the streets of trying to demonstrate. it's also taking place in spain and portugal both nations among the worst hit by a crisis and issues of austerity when are you tube channel you can watch footage from madrid and lisbon as crowds demanded an end to the hard hitting cuts. artes you tube channel rocketing to a billion viewers from the world spirit of funny disasters. join me in for more on how you helped make the first global views to reach.

live from moscow this is our t. powerful car bomb in damascus exploded near a police station there reportedly killing at least eight security officers it comes at the end of a week which saw the prospects of russia or u.s. brokered peace talks on syria hitting some fairly massive earlier i discussed the past week with artie's lucy who's been keeping a very close watch on the events in the war torn country. the leaders of the syrian opposition had in fact announced they will not be participating in the u.s. and russian sponsored peace talks they are saying that has been laws involvement in the bloody civil war really complicates things a little the group itself is highly divided there's questions as to whether they have the syrian opposition have credibility with the syrians on the ground meanwhile president bashar al assad in an interview this week said only a referendum would decide whether he should leave power further complicating things

is the decision by the european union which agreed not to renew a weapons embargo on syria potentially paving the way the way for weapons deliveries with. such a massive announcement such a big development in the past several days regarding syria so the e.u. weapons and bug has been lifted now the doors can fling wide open for all sorts of e.u. members to still funneling their weapons straight to the opposition the rebel fighters what's it a decision embraced by all e.u. member states or just a few absolutely not roaring i mean the u.k. and france really led this push to dismantle the cargo which prevailed despite opposition from other european union member states those two countries are saying that this would have somehow helped to ratchet up pressure against president bashar al assad the other states that are not so not so clear on that although we should note that the british foreign secretary has said that there's no immediate plans to ship weapons into syria but still certainly a cause for concern in a conflict that has claimed more than eighty thousand lives to date some of western

powers lucy accusing russia at this point of hampering peace efforts over the whole argument about russia supplying assad with weapons how does moscow justify this it's a complex issue russia's plan to ship as three hundred anti-aircraft systems to syria caused a stir this week after president bashar al assad in an interview said that russia will be honoring its defense contracts further complicating things that the israeli elements the israelis have said that they are strongly opposed to this that they are prepared to use force if those weapons are delivered but we have to keep in mind these are contracts were signed roughly a year before. the syrian civil war broke out in twenty eleven russians are not prepared to console the contracts although the deputy foreign minister has said that this is seen as a stabilizing factor that will deter quote what he called some hotheads from a considering to send in foreign forces to intervene in the syrian conflict i do preserve russian made at three hundred i myself i reserve supposed to be for defensive purposes not offensive but what about the issue of the use of chemical weapons it came up again this week can you tell us more about it's

a bit murky but according to local turkish media reports the turkish government has rounded up about twelve people with suspected ties to the island those are fronts this is one of the rebel groups that's affiliated with al qaida that's been fighting bashar al assad on the ground and accused according to one reading reports they've discovered what they said two kilograms of sarin gas a powerful new york talks and now these are not confirmed reports but they do come amid growing concern of the use of chemical weapons by both sides and the united nations. in fact and obtained testimony from on the ground witnesses who allege that the rebels had he used sarin gas now again unsubstantiated testimony but we should it did prompt a response from the russian foreign military mr sergei lavrov. we've warned repeatedly of provocations connected with chemical weapons we've also insisted on investigations into any case related to their possible use including the incident reportedly took place near aleppo we're very disappointed that because of political games the u.n.

has failed to act on this we expect our turkish colleagues to quickly provide a full report on this latest case this issue ation is too serious for those who constantly talk about the chemical weapons problem to keep playing games around it each and every incident needs to be investigated so there you have it the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov calling for an investigation into what obviously is a murky but but serious issue of concern. but with the e.u. embargo lifted in the syrian opposition still fractured. going off talking about the syrian opposition and those who might be armed on its behalf. since britain and france blocked attempts to extend the e.u. embargo on supplying on's to the syrian rebels there have been growing fears that the weapons could end up in the wrong hands and this is why the syrian opposition is made up of many divided and often competing factions and clearly there is no force that can represent it as a whole there is the syrian national council the national coalition for syrian

revolutionary and opposition forces the supreme military council the free syrian army the international coordination committee the jobber or the brigade and many more like to point out that only the n.c.c. says it's open to dialogue with the authorities while all the others have officially proclaimed their goal is to topple the regime the only difference being how extreme their approaches are and here is where these two rebel groups stand out . is officially recognized as a terror organization by the u.s. it's also known for its links to al qaeda and for being among the most highly trained rebel forces currently on the ground in syria and the federal brigade perhaps just as notorious after one of its leading commanders was shown eating the body parts of a dead syrian soldier on video but despite warnings raised by international human rights groups including the international and human rights watch the rebels have

been receiving weapons for some time now according to western media reports the rebels have received one hundred sixty planeloads of arms shipments from jordan saudi arabia quarter via turkey and then with a cargo smuggled across the border here with syria but no matter which rebel group or the arms may be destined for it's also why we recognize that they usually end up in the hands of the best trained and most radical brigades. that are joining us here on r.t. today still ahead for you in this hour a friend or mass rallies accuse. the u.s. army of imprisoning private manning for uncovering its war crimes they started days before his court martial a moral not on the rest of softer the break. plus gold standard if we take a look at the unique design of the medals that will be handed out and twenty fourteen winter games that is just around the corner for.

a clear image of iraq after inflation. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the roads full of danger. clear evidence from north to south. the roots of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. talks e r t.

or just ticking past twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow this is r.t. an interview turned deadly in the u.s. when i check man who was shot in the head while being questioned by the f.b.i. over his alleged links to the main suspects in the boston marathon bombing reports a game called dasher was. over the authorities have claimed that he tried to attack the agents with a knife something his father finds very hard to believe. from the photographs that were sent to me it's evident he was shot six times to the body and

once to the head the back of the head it looks like a finishing shot of an assassination to me it looks as if they came to his house like bandits and shot him in cold blood from the photos his house looked like it had been robbed he was questioned for eight hours without witnesses or a lawyer no one can tell for sure what happened there until there is an official investigation the agents say my son attacked them but there were several armed and well trained men even if he lost his temper and became violent they could have restrained him or wound him shoot him in the leg or the arm or the shoulder but what happened was murder complete with a finishing shot maybe my son knew something the police didn't want to come out and they killed him to keep him silent. and investigative journalist and veteran placed officer mike ruppert police to that jeff skilling leaves an awful lot open to interpretation. there are two glaring problems with what we have

has as an already contradictory account from law enforcement about how the events went down the first of which is the man was unarmed and i would hearken back to my days on the streets in one nine hundred seventy six in los angeles where. olympic medalist juan carlos got combative with a bunch of police officers not not one of those guns and we were getting thrown around like rag dolls and we were all trained and we were all very very fit at the time so there's a there's an escalation of force scale which was obviously or apparently not followed in this case but my second huge problem with the law enforcement stories he was supposed to be signing a confession to a triple murder i don't care even if if you are the f.b.i. which doesn't have a good reputation us somebody is going to sign a confession for triple murder you have a minute jail house and a secure setting and the police officer or officers won't foresman personnel around

him are not armed because he's in a secure setting this was at best for the f.b.i. . horribly mishandled but it sounds to me very much like they went there with the intent to provoke him and stay just shooting scattered police procedure everywhere in the world was not followed here and in the united states thousands of gathered outside the camp in maryland to support private bradley manning is accused of aiding the enemy by passing classified documents to the web site wiki leaks and activists say manning is behind bars simply because he exposed war crimes. reports . we're at fort meade maryland in baltimore on monday the court martial against by the first class bradley manning will finally begin private manning twenty five year old army intelligence officer is accused of the biggest leak in the history of the united states according to army prosecutors manning is responsible for the lion's share of material that's been shared by the anti-secrecy of wiki leaks in the last

few years u.s. state department cables watanabe detainee assessment files iraqi and afghan war logs have all been attributed to private manning and for leaking this material the u.s. government is charging him with aiding the enemy and he could spend the rest of his life in prison on monday however the courtroom here and for meeting with supporters and prosecutors attorneys on both sides waiting for the court martial of finally against the three years after manning was first brought into custody it was late maybe twenty ten with manning was picked up in baghdad transferred to kuwait brought back to united states and spent three years of waiting and waiting for this court martial to finally begin the sense december two thousand and eleven they've been having pretrial hearings here at fort meade and there's been really them all over the world in support of the soldier according to demonstrators this is the largest bradley manning really that has ever happened in the three plus years sense these men what if the u.s. military custody people from all over the country gathered here today to really in support of the soldier but there's also demonstrations planned in more than two

dozen cities in four continents across the world in the next coming days seoul south korea earlier in germany toronto ontario cities throughout the united states and across north america and the rest of the globe are all holding events this week in support of private manning now his court martial will eventually begin on monday more than three years more than one thousand days after he was first brought into custody and by the end of the summer his supporters his family his friends are all finally going to know how he's going to spend the rest of his life and i was special coverage of bradley manning's case starts here on monday i mean while you can follow the live updates on the pretrial protests over it to talk. this is so hard with. you. or i don't see walt up to a time now starting with the latest tornadoes in oklahoma and the nearby states

left nine dead and dozens injured and three people died a result of regional flooding in missouri oklahoma barely had a chance to recover from lethal twisters two weeks ago that killed twenty four. the u.n. says more than a thousand people were killed in iraq last month that makes may the bloodiest month since two thousand and seven and some are worried that the recent sectarian violence between the shia led government and sunni minority could bring about a full scale civil war. well thanks for watching with us here on r.t. today with less than a year until the winter olympics the organizers of the games have given athletes something to dream about the medals unveiled in st petersburg and you farmer. now holding up one of these will be the dream of every athlete competing in sochi twenty fourteen which begin in just a month's time and here in st petersburg the medals were revealed for the very first time to the public the designers hope to capture russia's sense of national

identity and character and they've tried to do that by showing the warm waters of the black sea crashing into the ice of krasnaya polyana up in the mountains and if you look very closely you will also notice a patchwork quilt thing here and that is meant to represent the multi ethnicity of russia a record thirteen hundred of these will be produced and that is because sochi twenty forty move be the biggest winter olympics in history and also if you win one of these you will need a very strong net because they do you weigh in at something like over five hundred grams i spoke with jimmy fortunate shanker who chairs the sochi organizing committee and he hopes that when someone does win one of these they will also take away the spirit of russia on a more serious note mr chernyshenko also addressed security concerns and said that the government had taken exceptional steps to guarantee the games would be safe and secure he also talked about the possibility of a lack of snowfall because sochi has experienced

a very mild winter but he has said that tons of snow is now being stored under thermal blankets up in the mountains to cover any shortfall essentially the message is sochi is ready andrey farmer. simply. up next to an r.t. it's a close look at war torn iraq where through the windows of a taxi our special documentary are just a minute or two away. a u.s. senate. committee has passed a bill that if signed by obama will love the u.s. to put a lot of weapons into the hands of syrian rebels this seems rather odd because many of the factions that are revolting seem like bad people to be arming in fact one

rebel faction al nasra which according to the guardian is an islamist organization with links to al qaeda is quickly becoming the most powerful rebel faction of all of them the b.b.c. even declared that al nasra has been designated as a terrorist organization by the us government itself as it started something like a bad idea to ship weapons into syria on american taxpayers' dollars yet let's just pretend that somehow all these weapons will magically not fall into the hands of al nasra well the free syrian army is that much better they seem perfectly happy to use rape and beheadings and genocide against christian alawite minorities with great glee to get what they want arming radical groups always has blowback if you remember back to just the one nine hundred eighty s. the u.s. funded and armed the taliban and those mujahedeen fighter guys and look how that turned out the u.s. government seems way too eager to arm radical foreigners and disarm average americans when they should be doing the exact opposite but that's just my opinion.

on the road to bass road this morning the u.s. army is beginning to withdraw from iraq. in december twentieth eleven and after nine years of occupation the last american troops are finally leaving the country. every guy got in about it i don't know what about it members of the iraqis anger towards the departing invaders who once dreamed of being liberators that departure resembles abandonment.