thousands flee from political unrest in north africa or the middle east but i was there arrive in european countries looking for safety there accused of bringing violence of instability with them. to. the middle east could shatter into pieces the situation is extremely tense moment there is going to be to revet of wars of decades of turmoil if the protests continue in the outer world as the government sends planes to pick up hundreds of russians working in libya. the red planet see this last guess for now where the six man crew making their final walk on a mock martian surface as part of a simulated mission to la.

moscow time live from the russian capital watching the t.v. news channel with me kevin owen and the main news this hour thousands of refugees are fleeing their homelands in search of a safe haven in europe as political unrest escalates across the arab world faced with a delicate of immigrants italy is now raising concerns about security on its borders can off southern island struggling to cope with the influx. no home no job and no guarantees the life of a refugee. i had to leave i can do my should i have no money. a familiar story here in lampedusa a tiny italian island in the mediterranean around eighteen miles away from the coast of north africa it's always been the main route for refugees but since the

recent revolution in tunisia it's become swamped by thousands desperate for a better life in europe who are willing to risk all. we got into a storm and. i survived six of us and. these are some of the boats which were used by the refugees to get here and now they have these signs on them from the of the already saying their use is prohibited by italian a lot they've been only here for a couple of weeks so it's pretty clear their initial condition is far from seaworthy nevertheless sometimes up to two hundred people can cram on each one bitterly and tunisia used to have an agreement under which most tunisian refugees were intercepted before even reaching the island but now that the government has been overthrown the floodgates have opened we were not ready for this according to one produces mir is becoming increasingly hard to keep the situation under control

with scuffles between migrants and police. there have already been cases of robbery and vandalism it's really hard to identify them some of them may be criminals or even terrorists most of the refugees are held at a center where they're provided with basic help but it's equipped only for eight hundred people. we brought in additional staff members including police and even psychiatry one hundred people in total but that's still not enough. with a wave of violent political unrest sweeping north africa and the middle east italy is warning of an exodus of biblical proportions it's calling for cash to help handle the influx of refugees but for now rahm is planning to deploy its army to the island to help the gateway to europe you've got this kind of. italy.

we're bringing up today with the latest developments in libya there are reports now that the libyan interior minister has defected and joined the protesters calling on the army to do the same and support the people's demands for changed. that follows an earlier t.v. address by colonel gadhafi who vowed to fight till the end and die a martyr khadafi urged his supporters to take back the streets from the opposition who he claimed had been bribed drugged and quote serving the devil it's the last attempt of the needed to cling to his forty one year rule amid the nationwide revolt and sense of the second week on monday gadhafi reportedly ordered the army to use airstrikes against demonstrators in the capital tripoli more than two hundred killed so far and over four thousand injured in the first week of riots making this the bloodiest of all the arab revolts i spoke to the former you can bust as a libya all of a miles but earlier he says we're seeing the final throes of a dictator at the very end of his reign. gadhafi is a very different character for why the benignly or mubarak. i wasn't surprised by

the way he behaved i mean he's never he's never been prepared to accept any idea of genuine opposition inside libya each always accused anyone who opposes him of being well now it's on the drugs but it was for it's always been in the pay of the experience is something he just can't get his head round the idea that there are people in libya who would like to see a change and that change means getting rid of him i think his promises he has suggestions of reform and so on work very hollow and his threats. frankly disgraceful we're witnessing probably the final act of of the drama because what happened in libya is different from what happened in the other countries was that the protests started really effectively outside the capital and it was in the in the villages in the towns and in particular in benghazi which caught the attention of the international media of course the protesters came out confronted the forces loyal to the regime and won and i i believe although information is very scanty and

it's very difficult to know what's going on in libya i believe that the situation in benghazi and in many other parts of the country is not held by the by the protesters. well michael t. clay is a professor of peace and world security studies he says that country should focus on the reasons behind the rising he told me food prices and other economic factors should be resolved before the problem spread even further afield. i think sierra one thing the interest went before the events occurred in egypt and now in libya bahrain and elsewhere they want dangerous signs and my mind think tanks a sign of the rising price of folk the price of fuel now is as high ask was even higher than it was two thousand and eight when you had bunk riots around the world and dozens of countries and that's the situation you have today and i believe the

situation can only get worse because indications of drought in many parts of the world in china and elsewhere and that makes people very angry in the case of libya it's too late because the government has used for us to kill their own citizens once you do that you've crossed a threshold and there's no going back in the case of egypt when the military announced they weren't going to fire on the protesters that open the way to a peaceful transition which we have so far seen in egypt i think that's the crucial factor is avoiding conflict also transparency opening up the government to scrutiny where the money is is is is very crucial the fact is that the problems in tunisia and egypt are replicated in many parts of the world not only in the middle east but in europe and central asia and in other parts of the world. where

for its part russia is among the states is evacuating the citizens from libya amid the escalating political crisis hundred fifty russians have been reportedly trapped in a railway construction site in the desert all together there are about five hundred currently working in the country at a meeting of the national counter-terrorism committee in russia's northeast at the present to me to invent of warm the mounting violence in the outer boiled could bring dangerous consequences senate side of the story. well we've heard president medvedev speaking today at a security meeting and he was addressing the situation in the middle east and north africa and what we heard him saying was about talking about the real danger now political instability throughout these regions for decades to come. middle east could shatter into pieces the situation is extremely tense we could witness the disintegration of large and densely populated countries. but the thing is the situation there was quite complicated before and now there is

a possibility that religious fanatics could seize power dashwood certain region and far for decades to come and would spread extremism further which extremists prepared such a scenario for russia before they could try and make it a reality now but they definitely will succeed what from that list no we see russia's response to the situation throughout these regions is that it's been markedly different to that of other western countries certainly much more cautious where we saw the u.s. being very pro diverse we had a lot of that rhetorically coming out especially at the beginning of the protests russia's focus is really been actually takes more political dialogue the foreign minister sergey lavrov is really revolution does not a democracy make what now needs to be the focus it's about having these democratic structures put in place and as we heard president medvedev saying that there's a real risk that that won't happen and certainly over the coming weeks and months

there's going to be a real little whether these countries you've already seen egypt in tunisia having the government save its right libya potentially following in the states that whether these democratic structures can be put in place and whether these countries are capable of running a modern democracy we've heard from the foreign ministry that the evacuation for those national sort of working and living in libya at the moment has it has got under way now a president made vegas orders they've dispatched four planes we know the libya has actually given permission for those to land in tripoli so there's over one thousand two hundred people at the moment actually waited over five hundred days in the russian nationals themselves and many of the specialists in the working on high tech investment projects in the country you know remember of course since livy has been open for investment since about two thousand and eight we've seen a number of these high profile investment projects get up and running one of the. one of the biggest is the russian. project to be completed in twenty twelve

gazprom has also come out and said that it's going to be evacuating its workers that just last week they stein's a deal with an italian company to jointly work on an oil field in the country but of cools with the potential. regime with thing these foreign investments being called into question sort of course want to go to chicago is gauging reaction coming out of washington. washington's reaction as analysts point out has been passed slow and cautious as ever only this tuesday did secretary of state hillary clinton come out to the press and call for leave it to stop the bloodshed she also called for leaders in other countries including bahrain to show restraint when handling the protests what analysts point out despite the cautious words of concern expressed by the administration there is no more of that democracy chanting that we saw little more than a week ago when obama delivered all those passionate speeches on people of egypt

making their voice heard and embracing democracy there's no more of that now with protests spreading like wildfire is across the region the u.s. seems to have little control over what's going to happen next there is the u.s. is very sensitive about bahrain they have their fleet there the suez canal a major oil shipping route and keep an eye on iran's and they have good relations with the king of bahrain and all the political unrest could really undermine the u.s. presence in the gulf now the new strand coming out today as well this whole big story the british prime minister's of help his decision to take defense representatives with him on his tour of the middle east critics are accusing david cameron of exploiting the current events. correspond to the romance go vote. it is the timing of this visit that has brought it under so much fire we've seen this is a huge amount of chaos in the middle east across these countries libya bahrain yemen before that egypt and tunisia and the police cracking down on these protests

in certain countries and in fact there's a former foreign office minister here in the u.k. member of the labor party denis macshane who has called the prime minister's visit with defense companies at this time insensitive and. he's insensitive and crass to seek to bolster u.k. arms deals with countries in the middle east at this very sensitive time we've seen just just very recently embarrassments for the u.k. after it was forced to revoke arms licenses to bahrain and libya amidst fears that british arms had been used against protesters during the trouble david cameron is now trying to ascertain that they weren't that british arms weren't used in the suppression of protesters one just can't have that kind of control if one is an arms selling country we've also seen in the past accusation of the u.k. selling arms in exchange for oil particularly in relation to saudi arabia and we've also seen over a number of years a very in mesh relationship between thora tarion governments and the military and

police forces of this country in fact british police have frequently going to help train police forces in countries like libya bahrain abu dhabi and qatar and saudi arabia and these are all police forces that have a propensity towards violence and some of them have shown violence towards processes in recent days the u.k. has also number of years authorized the supply of tear gas crowd control ammunition to these countries as well as small arms ammunition and we also have seen a tradition of the elite coming to train at sandhurst which is the officer training institution here in the u.k. and in fact current heads of states formally trained at sandhurst the king of bahrain. the head of jordan kuwait oman and hacks are all trained at sandhurst here in the u.k. and of course this all comes against a backdrop of cuts in defense spending in the u.k. so it would seem that one of david cameron's missions is to ensure that the u.k.

defense. product will always have a market in the middle east but the question that people are asking is is that morally right during this time of intense on rest in the region. a lot of course. well among the military equipment britain sold to libya were crowd control their calls and there's apparently been filmed on the streets of the country being used against the protesters all of a sprog who is the u.k. arms program director of amnesty international told me that although britain has got tough arms sales regulations it seems they've been overlooked for years the vehicles that we've identified that appear to have been identified from from the you to footage should never have been sold in the first place it was just amnesty and influential u.k. parliamentary committee was very critical of that decision back in two thousand and eight it is true to say that the u.k. does on paper have very strong rules that it's not supposed to sell any equipment where there is a reasonable risk that they'll be used to fuel armed conflict and human rights

violations now in this case in libya. and elsewhere across the region booked in libya i think their judgment has been wrong and i think they have agreed the sales when when they should have done because i think it was clear back in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine when these losses were being approved by by the previous government actually that there were very real risks that they would fuel human rights atrocities exactly what we're seeing on our on our t.v. screens right now. welcome but this all story a bit later in the hour but for now let's look ahead as well and there we're taking a walk on the red planet on our team to find these man made up there of what a moscow has to do with their journey is coming up. more news in russian special forces have reportedly killed at least three gunmen in a counter-terror operate in the north caucuses during the operation one officer was killed six others were wounded the militants are suspected of attacking tourists in the country's southern republican caria last weekend on saturday two masked men stopped a minibus heading for a ski resort

a man elbrus three to risk was killed and two more injured when the gunman opened fire more world news few brief now officials say four americans have been shot dead by pirates after their boat was hijacked off the coast of oman last week u.s. forces had been negotiating with the pirates until gunshots were heard early tuesday morning troops stormed the yacht detaining fifteen suspected hijackers and killing another four the americans had been around the world trip when they were attacked. rescue operations are under way in new zealand after six point three magnitude earthquake that killed at least sixty five in the city of christchurch thousands of people in emergency shelters tonight a powerful quake brought buildings tumbling down in the business district at lunch time office blocks collapsed trapping scores of people and railing debris down on busy street it is feared some two hundred might still be beneath the rubble the second earthquake that hit the city in five months this is the country's deadliest natural disaster for eighteen years. to reign in naval warships and to the suez

canal choose day on route to the mediterranean israel which views around as a threat as already called that move a provocation officials say the frigate and supply vessel headed to syria for a year long training mission it's the first time around military ships have sailed those waters since the country's islamic revolution of one nine hundred seventy nine egypt's defense ministry says iran's request stated the vessels would have no military equipment or nuclear materials aboard. the final walk on mars has been completed in a virtual experiment studying with demands of deep space travel this was the last three simulated strolls on the mark martian surface barres five hundreds of project david studying the physical and psychological effects on people if mankind want to take such a long journey in the future a group of six volunteers took part there three russians two europeans and a chinese man they are now than halfway through their five hundred twenty simulated

journey sitting in isolation in a moscow lab patrick fully exposed to meet the founder of a company that specializes in scientific innovation he said that even though this experiment is pretty accurate in reality its mission will be much harder. there is a body of knowledge that can be drawn on there what makes this particularly challenging in a real mission when you're on the surface of mars or a long way from the earth. is that if you need to consult somebody for help the radio messages take a twenty minute round trip so that really does add an extra rather more difficult dimension to it psychologically of course we know a lot more about how people will perform under these conditions now but the real challenge one of the real technical challenges that remains is working out how we protect cosmonauts on this long journey from the solar wind the charged particles that come from the sun because that really will be one of the biggest difficulties

that future technologies face in carrying out this journey for for more top stories as well as features blogs videos comment and a chance to have your say on what you see on this channel head to r.t. dot com now that's a quote funny pictures and like the mood a bit well it's funny when you know that the poor cat got out early she has a habit of doing it makes me laugh and with a habit of getting into a tight spot this cat has become an internet there were sensation slightly bottle shape but happy we are told nonetheless no harm and don't try that and or people enough of the political unrest not confined to the arab world as thousands protest an anti union bill in the u.s. state of wisconsin we got the details there that interests you as well as our tea dot com. bucks more serious matters more now on the ongoing unrest across the middle east and north africa next start getting primakov is former russian foreign minister an expert on the arab world we ask him about the implications of these

unfolding events. thank you very much for finding time to talk to us and. speaking of the recent up presence in north africa and in the arab world how possible is a in your opinion that they might have been incited from outside your door marshal

i think we can safely discard foreign involvement as a factor in these a purely internal affairs after they began however other countries definitely became concerned about what was happening i was in washington d.c. when the rights in egypt began meeting with state department officials we had a bilateral meeting on the middle east settlement i saw that my american counterparts were really shocked by the scale to which the events in egypt had escalated incidentally the cia and other intelligence agencies were quickly criticised for not predicting the possibility of such an rest almost immediately though they became very active president obama called mubarak several times he was still president mubarak at the time they also maintained contact with general omar suleiman the u.s. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff maintained contact with his counterparts in egypt all the channels were immediately activated even former diplomats who were

well connected. in colorado flew over to egypt to help the embassy there why did the united states abandon the box so quickly for him and you know this was america's position from the very beginning in his conversations with mubarak president obama strongly recommended that president mubarak step down before september because mubarak said initially he would step down in september that was leaked to the media and reported by several u.s. newspapers gets at the same time it was clear that the u.s. found itself between a rock and a hard place on one hand it had to maintain its image of a country that supports democratic revolutions the rights in egypt would democratic not islamic there were no islamic slogans no green flags all people wanted was to put an end to corruption and to allow normal economic growth to develop the primary

protest was against the regime so the us had to maintain his image by supporting the riots is on the other hand they had to do all they could to retain their influence in egypt and other countries the u.s. strongly relied on the barracks regime in egypt and on ben ali's regime in june is here so they were looking for a way out of this predicament at first they hoped that general suliman would remain in power this was obvious since hillary clinton said that he might be the interim ruler until the election then it turned out that people didn't like him because of his close ties with mubarak then the military stepped in what will some say that the united states was actually happy to see unrest in egypt because it diverted attention from israel for much of the mission of the new israel to is now facing serious problems jews the riots israel doesn't know what the new egyptian leadership will do whether they'll maintain the gaza blockade only sin aside along

the egyptian border. i read an article in the wall street. and all that said the military and intelligence communities in israel are in favor of preparing for re occupation of goals and at the same time many experts say that would put israel in a position where a large scale bloody war would be inevitable but this process is slightly different in different countries take bahrain for instance trying to percent of the country's population a sunni eighty percent a shia the leadership all sunni shia muslims consider themselves oppressed now they want to be represented in a coalition government they're in talks now and they may find a modus vivendi in bahrain in other countries the phenomenon is purely social i'm sure islamic groups will take part in it but we have to differentiate between them we shouldn't paint everybody with the same black sitting room political zones of a person still everybody is wondering if there's uprisings may islam assize the

region instead of democratizing it news you name them we should go with know who i don't think that's possible but let's look at what brought about the riots many people believe that all arab states sooner or later and up having an anti colonial revolution not so those revolutions and not just anti colonial they directed against the authoritarian regimes and also we probably underestimated the way new technology effects arab countries. why did the riots happen in june is here in egypt because these are the most advanced arab countries the internet television and mobile phones helps organize people there is a youth group called the april sixth movement in egypt and has approximately seventy thousand members of the movement is internet based these young people spearheaded the street protests. he also mentioned that this uprising is in effect

the israeli palestinian settlement using that new forces main mirch in the middle east and that they may be able to dominate the region. it is hard to say what is going to happen at the moment we've seen the statement made by the prime minister of the palestinian authority saying he is ready to form a coalition government with a mass that is also a repercussion of recent events have the same time it helped relieve pressure in the region when the egyptian military which is currently the defacto government announced they would observe all the agreements previously signed including the nine hundred seventy nine treaty with israel so it's hard to judge the situation right now and i can give a direct onset i think it will become clearer after time has passed in any case i think it might force the israeli leadership to give up their policy of maintaining

the status quo in the middle east so far the israeli leadership has been leaning towards preserving status quo and abandoning the idea of a peaceful settlement despite numerous un security council resolutions and president obama's cairo speech israel kept building new settlements in the west bank and east jerusalem sabotaging all attempts at negotiation i think recent events may cause them to reconsider their policy because global trends and not in favor of israel's anik sation policy would in fact they cannot really annex the west bank. if they were to an extent west bank israel will cease to be a nation state it will become a states of two nations and they realize that that's why they want the status quo they want to preserve the current state of affairs.

the stress nutritious and delicious products on the price of healthy eating. meat to test the toxicity allergenicity immune response lower nutrition and for environmental contamination don't you feel like a lab rat some consider the experiment in human treatment freddy idly significant differences between the g.m. felt that they both at the top. but they weren't treated so well themselves one question means one career if you ask one question you could be uncertain and you might or might not be able to publish it but that's the end of your career.