no safe haven for thousands of refugees fleeing north africa as they are accused of burning violence and criminality to their first stop in europe. libyan leader colonel moammar gadhafi rejects calls to stand down despite hundreds killed in anti-government protests this comes as british prime minister david cameron is slammed for taking defense company representatives on his tour of stricken countries in the middle east. leading to. the middle east could shatter into pieces the situation is extremely tense with president medvedev warns

of extreme volatility in the arab world as the government pulls hundreds of russian workers out of libya. and a moscow a mock moscow version of the red planet has seen its lots of visitors for an hour after researchers take their final space walk as part of a simulated mission to mars. two am in moscow good to have you with us here on r t our top story 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 deluge of immigrants italy is raising concerns about security on its borders or he visits an 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. 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. that 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 authorities saying there he was 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. 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're not ready for this according to him because as me 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 health 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. 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 roll is planning to deploy its army to the islands to help go. to europe was going off or to. italy. brits you notice an area from the danish institute for international studies says the global community could resort to sanctions to deal with the uprisings the prospect of massive immigration has always been europe's wars tonight europe will be able to do that it depends on the ability of actually core donating among some of the governments that are most affected most concretely there is a prospect for from texas which is the agency in charge for protecting the borders to install some more effective lines of protection into undersea of patrolling of the sea borders the instruments. bill to the international community in the

short term are very limited yesterday in brussels at the meeting of the e.u. foreign ministers the talk of sanctions was was voiced and definite prospect is there i mean imagine if in two months time coral gadhafi is not overthrown i mean business cannot proceed as usual after this so something will have to be done and clearly one obvious thing to do or one immediate thing that could be done is a visa ban on the regime if the violence continue at this at this rate. would at least avoid calling prevent corner gadhafi from traveling europe and put up his talents in several european capitals. over the past few years anything beyond that including freezing of assets it's going to be more complicated but clearly targeted sanctions is the kind of symbolic as well as concrete answer that the international

community can give if the violence continues at this rate. there are reports tonight 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 change as follows an earlier t.v. address by colonel moammar gadhafi who vowed to fight till the end and die of a martyr gadhafi 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 latest attempt of the leader to cling to his forty one year rule amid nationwide revolt that's entered its second week on monday gadhafi reportedly ordered the army to use airstrikes against demonstrators in the capital tripoli more than two hundred have been killed more than four thousand injured in the first week of riots making this the bloodiest of all the arab revolts former u.k. ambassadors and libya oliver miles 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 old 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 being well now it's on the drugs but it was for it's always been in the pay of the here in the sudan 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 these suggestions of reform and so on working very hollow and his threats. frankly disgraceful witnessing probably the final act 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 particularly in benghazi which caught the attention of the international media of course the protesters came out confronted the forces loyal to the regime and one. i believe all the information is very scanty and. 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. michael t. clare a professor of peace and world security studies says countries should focus on the reasons behind the uprisings he says 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 danger signs and my mind began to sign this the rising price of folk the price of fuel now is as high as was even higher than it was in two thousand and eight when you had bunker 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 force to kill their own citizens once you do that you've crossed the 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 seeing 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 to 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. russia

is among the states that are evacuating its citizens from libya i mean the escalating political crisis one hundred fifty russians have been reported trapped in a railway construction site in the desert although there are five hundred currently working in the country at a meeting of the national counterterrorism comedian russia's north northwest at the present dimitri medvedev warned the mounting violence in the arab world could bring dangerous consequences are the sorrow for a thousand more. 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 of political instability throughout these regions for decades to come to. the 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. would set the region on

far for decades to come and would spread extremism further which extremists prepared such a scenario for russia before and 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 criseyde care we had a lot of that rhetorical 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 we've already seen egypt and tunisia having

their government say that's right libya potentially following and they states 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 so they snatched those that are working and living in libya at the moment has a has got under way now a president made vader's orders they've dispatched four planes we know that libya has actually given permission for they still land in tripoli say there's over one thousand two hundred people at the moment to be evacuated over five hundred days impression national sales many of the specialists in the working on high tech investment projects in the country now 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. one of the biggest is the russian high speed rail waiting. to be completed in twenty

twelve gazprom has come out and said that it is going to be evacuating because 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. thing these foreign investments including to question . correspondent on explains the u.s. stance on the uprising washington's we action as analyst 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 to patrol the swear nala major oil shipping route and keep an eye on iran 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. british prime minister has upheld his decision to take defense for representatives with him on his toward the middle east critics are accusing david cameron of exploiting the corrida beds there or to use laura. 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 crass. 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 embarrassment for the u.k. after it was forced to revoke arms licenses to rein and libya amidst fears that british arms had been used against protesters during the troubles 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 armed 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 meshed relationship between. governments and the military and police forces of this country and 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 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 us which is the officer training institution here in the u.k. and in fact current heads of state formally trained king of bahrain the head of jordan kuwait oman and cats 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. 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 among the military

equipment burden sold to libya where crowd control vehicles and they've been filmed on the streets of the country being used against the protesters all over spray who's a u.k. arms program director of amnesty international says although britain has tough arms sales regulations they have been overlooked for many years. the vehicles that we've identified that appear to have been identified from from the u two footage should never have been sold in the first place it was just amnesty saying mount an 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 will be used to fuel armed conflict to human rights violations not in this case in libya. and elsewhere in the region book to do with libya i think your judgment has been wrong and i think they have agreed that when and when they should have them because i think it was clear back in two thousand

and eight two thousand and nine when these losses were being approved by the previous government actually the they were very real risks that they would fuel human rights atrocities exactly what we're seeing on t.v. screens right now. stay with us here on our t.v. coming up a little later on walk on the red planet and find out how these men made it up there and what a moscow lab has to do with their journey. first the russian special forces are reportedly killed at least three gunmen in a counter terror operation the north caucasus during the operation one officer was killed six others wounded militants are suspected of attacking tourists in the country's southern republican area last weekend on saturday two masked men stopped a minibus heading for a ski resort on mount elbrus three tourists were killed two more injured when a gunman opened fire. turned out of some other stories making headlines across the globe 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 and told gunshots were heard early tuesday morning troops stormed the detaining fifteen suspected hijackers and killing another for the americans had been out around the world trip when they were attacked. a rescue operation is underway in new zealand following the six point three magnitude earthquake that killed at least sixteen. five people in the city of christchurch thousands of people are in emergency shelters the powerful quake brought buildings tumbling down in the business district during lunch time office blocks co-op trapping scores of people in raiding debris down on busy streets it's feared some two hundred people might still be buried beneath the rubble the second earthquake to hit the city in five months this is the country's deadliest natural disaster for years. to iranian naval warships under the suez canal tuesday on route to the mediterranean israel that the use iran as a threat has already called the move a provocation iranian officials say the frigate and supply vessel are headed to syria for

a year long training mission it's the first time iran the military ships have sailed in those waters since the country's islamic revolution of one thousand nine hundred eighty nine egypt's defense ministry says iran's requested a request as stated the vessels would have no military equipment or nuclear material aboard. the final walk on mars has been completed in a virtual experiment aimed at studying the demands of travel as was the last of three simulated strolls on the mock martian surface mars five hundred is a project aimed at studying the physical and physiological effects on people if mankind was ever to undertake such a journey in a future group of six volunteers taking part three russians two europeans at a chinese man they are now at the halfway point of the five hundred twenty day simulated journey spent in isolation in a moscow lab patrick the founder of a company specializing in scientific innovation says that the experiment is quite accurate and in reality the mission would be much harder. there is a body of knowledge that can be drilled on there what makes this particularly

challenging in a real mission when you're on the surface of mosul 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 makes. the most difficult dimension to 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 really will be one of the biggest difficulties that future technologies face in carrying out his journey remember for more on our top stories speeches blogs and videos you can always click on our team dot com here's a look at what's online right now. with a habit of getting into tight spaces this cat has become an internet sensation.

and political on arrest not confined to the arab world as thousands protest an anti-union bill in the u.s. state of wisconsin. now with the ongoing unrest across the middle east and north africa speaks with you have guinea primakov the former russian foreign minister an expert on the arab world about the implications of the unfolding abouts.

thank you very much for finding time to talk to us. speaking of the recent our presence in north africa and in the arab world how possible is it in your opinion that they in my have been incited from outside. i think we can safely discard foreign involvement as a factor these are purely internal affairs after they began however other countries definitely became concerned about what was happening i was in washington d.c. when the riots 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

criticized 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 counterpart in egypt all the channels were immediately activated even former diplomats who were well connected in cairo flew over to egypt to help the embassy there why did the united states abandon the quickly. 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 me. and reported by several u.s. newspapers gets at the same time it was clear that the us 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 riots in egypt were 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 its image by supporting the riots says on the other hand they had to do all they could to retain their influence in egypt and other countries the us strongly relied on the barracks regime in egypt and on ben ali's regime into his ear 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. he also mentioned that this uprising is with fact the israeli palestinian settlement doing 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 at 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 one 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 is. well kept building in 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 and if they were to annex the west bank israel will cease to be a nation state it will become a state of two nations and they realize that that's why they want the status quo they want to preserve the current state of affairs.

just. shows that so much of. the market. revolution in the middle east is the era of dictators coming to an end in this vital region and as the west. this is not a war. everybody should support. no idea about the hardships the people face. is the most precious thing in the world.