welcome to the. blizzard of winter blues. moshe's got a little calendar excitement in its southern. trainers to keep you in top form and watch lying on the gulag carving the trail to sochi twenty four. until a day here. the future.

no safe haven for thousands of refugees fleeing north africa. and criminality their first stop in europe. libyan leader moammar gadhafi rejects calls to step down despite hundreds killed in anti-government protests this is british prime minister david cameron is slammed for taking defense company representatives on his tour of stricken countries in the middle east. through the middle east could shatter into pieces the situation is extremely tense the president warns of volatility in the arab world as the government pulls hundreds of russian workers out of libya. version of the red planet has seen its last visitors for an hour after researchers took their final space walk as part of a simulated mission to mogs.

six am in moscow. have you with us here on r t our top story thousands of refugees are fleeing their homelands in search of 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 are to visit 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. 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. 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 by italian a lot maybe 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 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 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 helston at a center where there are provide. it would be seek 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 time but that's still not enough. with a wave of violence political unrest sweeping north africa and the middle east italy is warning of an exodus of biblical proportions it's cooling for cash to help handle the influx of refugees but for now role is planning to deploy its all me to the islands to help the weak to europe it was going to be. italy. 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 die as

a martyr gadhafi urged his supporters to take back the streets from the opposition who he claimed had been bribed drugged and serving the devil this is the latest attempt of the for leader to claim days forty one year rule amid nationwide revolt that has entered its second week on monday khadafi reportedly ordered the army to use air strike against demonstrators in the capital tripoli more than two hundred have been killed and over four thousand injured in the first week of riots making this the bloodiest of all over of all the arab revolts hand-basket or to libya oliver miles says we're seeing the final throes of a dictator at the 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 all being well now it's on the drugs but it is for it's always been in the pay of the

here it is so that is something he just can't get his head round the idea that there are people in libya who would like to see a trade. and that change means getting rid of him and i think his promises of suggestions of reform and so on worked very hollow and his threats frankly disgraceful 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 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 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 michael klare

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. i think the sierra one thing dangerously far the events occurred in egypt and now in libya bahrain and elsewhere they want danger signs and my mind then i think dangerous sign of the rising price of fuel the price of food now as as high as was even higher than it was and back out and they went your head riots around the world than 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 crossed

that 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 opened the way to a peaceful transition which we have so far seen in the gym i think that's the crucial factor in so boyden 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 countries evacuating its citizens from libya maybe escalating political crisis hundred fifty russians have been reported trapped in a railway construction site in the desert although there are over five hundred currently working in the country at a meeting of the national counter-terrorism comedian rush's north set here

president medvedev warned the mounting violence in the arab world could lead to dangerous consequences r.t. sarah first has 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 solidity most of . 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 that would set the region on 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 look at whether these countries we've already seen egypt in tunisia having the government save its right libya potentially following and they spit out 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 they snatched those that are working and living in libya at the moment has has got

under way now president medvedev orders they've dispatched four planes we know that libya has actually given permission for they still land in tripoli so there's a one thousand two hundred people at the moment evacuated over five hundred days in russian nationals themselves and many of the specialists the working on high tech investment projects in the country you know remember of course since livy has been open for investment since thirty 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 railways high speed rail way link. to be completed in twenty twelve guys from has come out and said that it's going to be evacuating its workers that just last week they started a deal with an italian company to jointly work on an oil field in the country but of course with the potential that it's one of these regime now we're seeing these

are foreign investments really being called into question or to correspondent garbage here on explains the u.s. stance on the uprising. the situation in libya has been critical for more than a week now the protests there turn out to be a lot more violent than they were in egypt or anywhere else in the way john but washington's we action as analysts point out has been as slow and cautious as ever only this tuesday did secretary of state hillary clinton come out to the press and call for libya to stop the bloodshed she also called for leaders in bahrain and yemen to show restraint when handling the protests what analysts point out despite the cautious words of concern expressed by the u.s. administration there is no more of that democracy celebration that we saw. a week ago when obama delivered all those passionate speeches on people of egypt making their voice heard and embracing democracy with analysts say it was easier and safer for the u.s. to root for democracy and support the people because there is the army there which is very powerful and is largely supported and financed by the united states and is

now in control of egypt but in other countries in libya for example the u.s. doesn't have the same leverage libya has the richest proven oil reserves in africa it is the twelve largest oil exporter in the world experts say it is very hard to predict who will take power if gadhafi is ousted washington's biggest fear is that those uprisings in the region could bring about leaders who will be hostile to the united states market off he never was their favorite leader of us for sure but seven years ago he agreed to open up or leave years old or oil riches to the west and let them invest in oil production so they kind of left him alone but 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 also the u.s. is very sensitive about bahrain they have their fleet there to protect all the swear have out a major oil shipping lane and keep an eye on iran and they have good relations with the king of bahrain and all that political unrest could really undermine the u.s.

presence in the gulf so they're very cautious calling for democracy there or even yemen for that matter where. antigovernment protests are also going on the u.s. sponsors the yemeni government in exchange for their food cooperation in chasing down terrorist suspects experts say the un rest there is very dangerous for the united states as well the stark difference being rather rape that we've seen here in washington many allen analysts say for the u.s. it's not really about supporting democracy in those countries it's about securing their interests turning now to protests in yemen at least two demonstrators have been killed in eleven government rallies in the capital sanaa supporters of president saleh reported to have opened fire outside sanaa university they tried to force thousands of anti-government protesters from the city's main square before eventually retreating tuesday's deaths of the second fatal shooting since students started demanding the resignation of the president two weeks ago tens of thousands of people have rallied across the country calling for an end to solids thirty two

years in office. british prime minister rise up held his decision to take defense firm representatives with him on his tour of the middle east critics are accusing david cameron of exploiting the current events there are teas laura emmet has more . it is the timing of this visit that has brought it under so much fire we've seen 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 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 the mesh relationship between storage area and gold 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 which is the officer training institution here in the u.k. and in fact current heads of states formally trained horse the 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. 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 among the military equipment britain sold to libya where crowd control vehicles that have apparently been filmed on the streets of the country being used against protesters of our spring or u.k. arms program director at 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 you to footage should never have been sold in the first place and 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 to human rights violations now in this case in libya. and elsewhere across the region book tickly 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. a little later this hour taking a walk on the red planet and find out how these men made it out there and what a moscow lab has to do with their journey. first though russian special forces are

reportedly killed at least three gunmen in a counter terror operation in the north caucasus during the operation one officer was killed six others wounded militants are suspected of attacking tourists in the country's southern republic of coverage you know ball-carrier last weekend on saturday two masked men stopped a minibus headed for a ski resort elbrus three tourists were killed two more injured when the gunman opened fire turned out of some other stories making headlines across the globe two iranian warships passed through the suez canal tuesday and are now in the mediterranean israel which views or iran as a threat has already called the move a provocation iranian officials say the frigate and supplied vessel are headed to syria for a training mission the first time iran's military ships have been used in the canal since the country's islamic revolution in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine egypt's defense ministry says iran's request stated the vessels would have no military equipment or nuclear material aboard. 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 heard early tuesday morning troops stormed the detaining fifteen suspected hijackers killing another four the americans had been on a round the world trip when they were attacked. rescue operations underway in new zealand following a six point three magnitude earthquake that killed at least seventy 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 around lunch time office blocks collapsed trapping scores of people in raining debris down on busy streets it's feared some two hundred people might still be trapped beneath the rubble of the second quake to hit this city in five months this is the country's deadliest natural disaster for eight decades. and severe flooding has knocked out train service to per's main tourist attraction much and picchu the railway line follows the river which is swollen by more than twenty days

of rain tourists on their way to the ancient incan ruins and in their journey in the regional capital cusco last year the historic site was closed for almost two months because of floods. final walk on mars has been completed in a virtual experiment aimed at studying the demands of deep space 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 psychological effects on people if mankind was ever to undertake such a journey in the future a group of six volunteers is taking part three russians to europeans and one chinese man are now at the halfway point of a five hundred twenty day simulated journey spent in isolation in the moscow lab patrick founder of the company specializing in scientific innovation says that though the experiment is quite accurate 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 mars all along 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 doesn't add an extra rather more 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 subtle way in the challenge politic goals that come from the sun because that really will be one of the biggest difficulties the future technologies face in carrying out this journey remember you can always find more of the stories we cover along with videos blogs and more at our team dot com here's a look at what's online right now. we love this one with a habit of getting into tight spaces this cat has become an internet sensation and you can see why. political unrest is not confined to the arab world as thousands

protest an end to union bill in the u.s. state of wisconsin. and more now on the ongoing unrest across the middle east and north africa r.t. speaks with you have any primakov former russian foreign minister an expert on the arab world about the implications of the unfolding events.

thank you very much for finding time to talk to us. speaking of the recent up presence in north africa and in the arab world how possible is it in your opinion that they might have been incited from outside. i think we can safely discard foreign involvement as a factor in these 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 and 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 who need. shipped all the channels were immediately activated even former diplomats who were well connected in cairo flew over to egypt to help the embassy there but 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 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 rights 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 u.s. had to maintain its image by supporting the riot 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 engine 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. also mentioned that this

uprising is with fact the israeli palestinian settlement doing that new forces main merchant 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 opened 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 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.