this week's top stories in our. report the last plane crash points to pilot error that was some aspects. of the world's oil joining forces. as a crew to explore the potential energy treasures buried beneath. washington another step forward as russia's parliament approved. three readings. look back at the week's top stories and the latest developments this is r.t.

in moscow good to have you with us this hour the final report on last april plane crash in western russia which killed the polish president lech kaczynski has caused some controversy this week says the interstate aviation committee report is incomplete while the agency insists its given the all the relevant information. has this report. for the first time the last seconds are heard before polish president lech kaczynski his plane crashed near smile nancy turned on board. the crew ignored warnings from the aircraft automated system to call up and advice

from air traffic controllers to land at an alternate airport plus were inexperienced in flying in bad weather the interstate aviation committee highlighted what they found to be the main causes behind the tragedy in their final report there's never a failure to make a timely decision to land at the reserve airports based on multiple recovering day sions about poor weather conditions at smolensk airport descending lower than the safe minimum height necessary to make a second landing attempt failure to react properly to a magic amount those are the reasons which led to the tragic crash of the aircraft into the land and the death of those on board. the findings also claim passenger pressure on the crew to land as soon as possible played a vital role in the incident here is evidence the crew was afraid of disappointing someone if they didn't land. it's

not clear whether the navigator was referring to the polish president or the commander in chief of the air force who is in the cockpit and later alcohol found in his blood poland was not satisfied with the draft report compiled by the i.a.c. which found pilot error was to blame and insists various factors at play caused the accident but aviation experts have. dense in the findings my experience with the russian investigators has been very good they're very high quality organization that i believe that it was the investigation was generally carried out in accordance with the international civil aviation organization and which is the international standard for accident investigation the committee concluded that no single person can be blamed for the accident but now that the final investigation report has been delivered a criminal investigation can be launched and perhaps more light shed on the crash that killed the polish president his wife and most of the country's political elite

and he's now a r.t. moscow prime minister donald tusk kind of knowledge that part of the blame lies with the polish side however warsaw intends to carry out its own investigation and is currently setting out a formal response to the findings but catherine as ever reports even in poland opinions on the tragic plane crash are divided. said of bringing closure to a very painful chapter in recent russian polish history the final report has opened a pandora's box of doubt denial and political mind games from rational disbelief the brackets to let up on the investigation is incomplete diplomacy and politics should not hamper the investigation of facts for us facts are the most important polish investigators will add to the report the parts that are missing but will not change what is already there the stranger catastrophe was not and does not have to be a blow to good polish russian relations. to motional outrage. today we see the consequences in the shape of the reports blaming polish pilots in poland

in general for this catastrophe and making it a one sided matter without any evidence we're dealing with speculation without any basis. but is this grief talking or shrewd political experience some believe mr kaczynski the twin brother of the deceased president and himself a failed presidential candidate could be attempting to use this tragedy as political advantage. in poland is called for among the reasons. first of all. we are approaching parliamentary elections i am afraid that. all these people one of the most important balls of. contention between major forces well some of owning up political leverage in their sights others say the cause of the disaster is clear cut. very complicated. simple

people. interested so sometimes it's easy for the. conclusions. my opinion. of poland and russia have insisted on keeping this debate from influencing the recent fall in ties but with a story far from over it looks like some in poland are keen to keep things for. polish newspapers of their front pages with strong action minded words war against the report tossed curses the aviation committee we will find out the truth and so on but these headlines that are how catchy are just words what actions the polish government will choose to undertake and how they will affect relations between russia and poland remains to be written. catherine as r.t.

warsaw poland. well david lim and from flight global magazine says poland may be eager to distance itself from the blame but he can't find fault with the official report but i think that the polish government is i think desperate to put at least some of the blame in somebody else's direction but incidentally i completely go along with the russian verdict on the on the air traffic controllers powers incidentally the air traffic controller did not clear this aircraft to land he had with withheld clearance for the aircraft to land and he wouldn't have had permission to stop an international flight like this one anyway if it had been a russian air force aircraft the controller could have told it to divert an international flight especially of this status the controller would simply go along and do everything that he could to help the captain achieve

a safe approach but it's a very very emotive happening for for the polish people however i can tell you this if they tried to carry out their own report in order to allocate a little more of the blame in the russian direction i think apart from some minor technicalities they will totally fail to do that. b.p. has dubbed as historic it's multibillion dollar joint venture with russia's oil firm the companies will not join forces to exploit potential huge deposits of warning gas buried under russia's arctic continental shelf nor am it reports now from london where the agreement was signed. it's a deal that both parties are calling a groundbreaking strategic global alliance russia's biggest oil company has signed a deal with b.p. it's the first major partnership between a national and international oil company when it's done after the send to be paid

in exchange for a nine and a half percent share in the russian oil made. chairman deputy prime minister. told r.t. it's the beginning of a new direction for the company. which is working on a new strategy aimed at transforming the company into an international energy holding our deal with b.p. is of course part of the strategy they've gained a great deal of experience including the gulf of mexico oil spill cleanup operation b.p. has learned from this experience and our joint venture will be carried out with the greatest level of measures aimed at protecting the environment we've been working with b.p. for many years they're competent and have strong experience of russian companies the aim is that b.p. will team up to develop three areas on the russian shelf that's potentially a lot of oil and gas down the which rosneft owns the license to exploit it's

a huge area around one hundred twenty five thousand square kilometers and it easy to extract the resources takes a highly inhospitable environments and requires sophisticated technology and billions of dollars of investment but aside from the cash b.p. c.e.o. bob dudley says they've got the life experience has been working with us now for twelve years now and we've been working for us since two thousand and four working with our capabilities our expression capabilities and i think to be honest we learned a lot about what happened in the gulf of mexico and the company of the core we're going to really focus on safety and risk management. for environmental care what we do the russian government's behind the deal and prime minister putin says all parties are ready for the challenge. i would like to let you know that the government of the russian federation supports this joint operation this is a project that could become global much can have

a significant influence on the world's oil and gas industry in russia's arctic reserves are estimated to be five billion tons of oil and ten trillion cubic meters of gas such a project may require tens of billions of dollars of investment and state of the art technology and we are fully aware of the recent which is the optics the highly contentious area with many parties wanting a slice of the potentially lucrative pie but experts agree this deal will trigger a muddy but what lies beneath the exploration area they're talking about is in the south car sea it's off the north coast of russia as far as i'm aware it's not territory that is disputed by anybody so i don't see this as being contentious in that sense it's being branded around the world as a breakthrough deal opening russia up to billions of dollars of investment now and opening a potential door to similar ventures in the future arguably this deal improves the u.k. energy security and it also puts b.p.

on the service financial footing following the massive losses it sustained from the gulf of mexico oil spill it's also a huge vote of confidence for the russian oil exploration industry you are at it. still have you the cuban fury. is once again the subject of strife between cuba and the u.s. as says it wants its land back. with a happy ending to a three hundred people at safety after being stranded on russia's far east coast for over two weeks. the story still to come first the pivotal treaty between. moscow and washington to cut nuclear arms is now one step closer to reality russian lawmakers promised to approve the start agreement by the end of the month after it passed the second of three readings a treaty that would see the two countries nuclear arsenal slashed by a third was signed by president obama last year was given the go ahead by the u.s.

senate just before the new year after months of debate congressman had several key changes forcing russia to counterbalance those amendments to keep the treaty intact the head of the state duma foreign affairs committee told r.t. that washington is responsible for the long drawn out ratification process but he also expressed fears the u.s. may one day pull out of the deal they amended of the senate resolution just very dramatically and they left no other option of but to amend our decisions on the twenty fifth of january and we are going to rectify the treaty as it is and. to add two more statements by the state duma. to be included in the british occasion document but this time i believe the risk is quite obvious on the american side that they will proceed with the strategic not

regional but strategic. defense system small not the current president not the current government but probably the next president the next government which has a completely different strategy on this issue and in case it happens yes the treaty may be damaged and yes there may arise conditions for us to to pull out of this treaty but again we are not there yet and we still have time to make better agreements and to avoid any misunderstandings and that will be our invasion. this week portugal's prime minister repeatedly insisted his country can deal with its own financial problems and does not need a bailout juices socrates' to continue with strict austerity measures such as pension cuts and tax increases portugal minister in the you've some concerns as it raised over a billion euros in the bond auction but this might not be enough for it to escape the fate of recent iron and. portugal's demise could trigger spain's collapse an

economy which could be too much too large to bail out but financial advisor marco pierre to poly says any survival package wouldn't solve the fundamental flaws in the concept of the eurozone. this is not in any kind a way a final solution for the european debt crisis it is just buying time for these countries so that hopefully they will be able to get control of their fiscal situation and the markets will start to to believe in them again that they're able to service their debt moving forward in reality what's happening is burdening this country with these countries a lot more debt to service and the jury is still out on whether they can actually turn their fiscal position around over the next few years you can't save all the banks and save all the countries because at some point someone's got to fail all which is the other option which we've been pursuing so far is that we just carry on printing money and everybody carry on printing money and we end up with

hyperinflation and most currencies then become worthless so at some stage someone's got to fail but what we're doing is patching up patching up patches up hoping that the issue's going to go away pushing the can further down the road now the europeans have to start thinking about a complete reform of the european structure. the quantum of bay detention center has entered the tenth year of its controversial existence and there are no signs that u.s. president obama will be shutting it down any time soon the american presence follows a deal struck over a century ago but calls are growing stronger from havana that the u.s. is violating cuba's sovereignty i'll teach you one of these as this report. it's a place forever immortalized by images of torture known by its abbreviation get america's notorious detention facility in guantanamo bay cuba has been the source of world condemnation where abuse lack of legal recourse and indefinite detention

is the norm it's also been the subject of decades of strife with cuban authorities who argue the forty five square mile military base violates cuban sovereignty and amounts to a military occupation the to greenland under which the u.s. has to be. kuantan a moment let's hear a piece. from earlier earliest years of the twentieth century the plot amendment was imposed following the u.s. occupation of cuba after the spanish american war in one thousand nine hundred three was extracted from the den tube and government under under threat under duress and in clear contravention of international laws like the vienna convention the us government threatened to continue its occupation of cuba unless cuban authorities agreed to lease the land for america's military base indefinitely or for as long as it paid the cuban it's nearly ran after the cuban revolution swept

the island nation one nine hundred sixty its revolutionary leader fidel castro cashed only one check and he insists it was an accident no checks have been cashed tents in protest no such she would never be signed today knows the treaty signed today will never be internationally recognized the united states. will hunt down. and punish those responsible after nine eleven the bush administration swiftly turned its military base into a detention facility declassified documents show the u.s. government used cuban soil to evade national and international law to interrogate terror suspects a strategy during this that they escobar argues is convenience you can ship to cuba and never bring them to the u.s. mainland and they are going to live there for ever in a state of legal limbo most of the remaining one hundred seventy three prisoners at

guantanamo bay have been detained there since the facility opened nine years ago awaiting a trial the afternoon president obama recently signed away his right to bring detainees to u.s. soil making it unlikely that any of them will see a trial or freedom any time soon some argue the u.s. that violates cuba's sovereignty for this reason because this is the only latin american country for the past over this past fifty years has said you know straight to the eye of the american government or as they would say the american empire a country cubans believe should give rights to its detainees and give back the land that's right fully there is jan hopkins aren t. washington d.c. . and the music of rap metal band rage against machine was played for up to seventy two hours nonstop during interrogations at guantanamo bay but ironically the band is always trying to fight the system that kept those prisoners incarcerated as it's

guitarist tom morello now explains. we learned that the united states government was using rage against machines music to torture people guantanamo bay we sued the state department to go to a stop and we were unsuccessful in that suit and pursued over the course of a couple of years and i think it's a thing of the crime my only hope is that they hopefully at some point not the too distant future when the war criminal. of the bush administration are brought to trial there one day wearing their yellow jumpsuit and black hoods it will be the music of rage against the machine that is popular sells twenty four hours a day. and you can see the full interview with rage against the machine guitarist ten minutes from now here on. the maritime drummers almost a. ship that had been stuck russia's far east coast for two weeks more than three hundred people were trapped on board the vessel that is now being escorted through the frozen seas by two ice breakers pair of other smaller ships have already been

towed to safer waters three vessels got trapped in ice in the sea before the new year stream weather conditions and technical failures have been hampering the operation. wiki leaks founder julian assange could end up facing the death penalty in the u.s. if he's extradited to sweden that's the fear of his lawyers according to legal papers released on tuesday one attorney said if it went to sweden it would be easier for washington to extradite him to the u.s. washington wants to prosecute him for espionage relating to the release of classified government documents. charges against him in the scandinavian country politically motivated one european politician told r.t. the case is becoming over politicized. i'm sure there's lots of political maneuvering inside the powers that be a very difficult position the americans want to get their hands on the silence authorities now think the game's up people can see what the european arrest.

know what they're going to do but i'm fairly confident that they're going to come up with some kind of cynical fix. to go back to australia or possibly to go back to sweden if some kind of deal is done about what charges will be laid against him but i'm sure this whole. media publicity about the european arrest because this is just this there are other legal instruments coming through which remove our freedoms in other areas of life all down in the name of integrating europe's legal systems. in addition to what you see on screen here there are always more stories for you on our website at www dot com here's some of what's on right now. the economic crisis in the u.s. is full of many businesses to the millions unemployed but find out how government workers in washington have managed to flourish during the recession. and welcome to. this new role playing community has its tyrants and invites guests

to build their own identity. you can find out more in our story and stories on our web site. world news in brief this hour police in tunisia have been engaged in a gun battle near the interior ministry in the center of the country with reports saying two gunmen have been killed while writing is crucial political tools over the formation of a unity government after weeks of violence force the former president from office and to flee the country comes a day after the speaker of parliament was sworn in as interim leader. president ben ali fled to saudi arabia and expected. six hundred people have now been confirmed dead flooding and landslides across. a military doctors are also taking part in the rescue operations to. continue for several days

already. declared three days of national mourning for the victims in the wake of the country's worst natural disaster in four decades. early results suggest. has overwhelmingly voted in a referendum in favor of splitting from the north full results for not be announced until next month but the region is widely expected to secede ninety seven percent of the southern. in europe voted for the split to end a cycle of devastating. would create the world's newest state. the shooting massacre in tucson arizona has led to calls for gun control laws in the u.s. to be reexamined. oftenest also known as the resident to the streets of new york to find out how people feel about guns in today's society.

do guns kill people or do people kill people this week let's talk about that i think it's ok you know god's not concealed weapons what's the difference. walking around in public with a gun is probably not a good thing but i don't have anything else hunting so how do we prevent people who have guns for hunting from taking them out in public. you have laws against say people can't walk around nude in public what about the argument that you should be able to have a gun for protection you can use other objects for protection i think the more guns you have the more you're able to use them actually. to have it the more you allude you would use it i can't believe how free you are to have guns here in america but what about the argument that if guns are outlawed then only criminals have guns. yeah i guess it made my old go underground but i still think they should be

a lot more legislation on he can and can have guns is that possible in a violent society though. people don't agree with policies books and all. need to be done when laws that need to be. politics or guns are more violent and deadly i think politics. you know it's part of humanity's constant struggle to figure out how to. before the bad thing happens prevent it. it comes down to education with whatever the topic is i think yes but do you think guns or people kill people i think we can all agree on the bottom line that violence is rarely the answer. those are the week's top stories for you i'll be back with the headlines in just a few moments from mel stay with us live here in moscow on or to.

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