this is. the u.n. has imposed sanctions on libya as the pilots continues in that country in a week that see more protests across the arab world. also in the news this week with of thousands of north africans are fleeing from political upheaval italy has declared a humanitarian crisis as refugees flock to its shores. the founder of the wiki leaks bribe site julian assange choose to appeal to london court decision to extradite him to sweden he says he won't get a fair trial in a process he believes is intended to ultimately get into america to face prosecution over a vast leak of u.s. diplomatic trials. and america says goodbye to discovery as the spacecraft

performs its last ever mission before nasa retires its three remaining shuttles later this year american astronauts will now have to rely on russian rockets to take them into orbit before the next generation of spacecraft is ready. and broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is r.t. we're certainly glad to have you with us the u.n. security council has unanimously agreed on sanctions against libyan leader moammar gadhafi and his loyalists and has ordered an investigation into possible crimes against humanity after attacks on protesters opposed to the regime over a thousand have died in nearly two weeks of unrest. pro khadafi groups have been confronting rebels now in control of large areas of the country including the city

of zawiya fifty kilometers west of the capital tripoli where opposition forces have tanks and anti-aircraft missiles the opposition will wants to and could offer his forty one year rule and they have appointed a former justice minister mustafa abdel jahleel they had a provisional government he has expressed frustration at the lack of support from other nations as it could offer his forces attempts to suppress the popular uprising with brutal violence more than one hundred thousand people have fled to neighboring countries in the turmoil along with many foreign nationals correspondent peter oliver is following developments from next door in the us. the u.n. security council voted unanimously to impose these sanctions that are free now they'll take the form of a travel ban against colonel gadhafi himself as well as others close to him an acid free zone could be out is in a circle a sixteen names on this list there's also an arms embargo placed upon libya now

the resolution it was brought forward by france the u.k. germany and the united states also contains a referral to the hague to the international criminal court there so that they can look into allegations of crimes against humanity committed during the two weeks of violence that we've seen in libya governments around the world have been doing the best to get their citizens out of the country but there's also been libyans trying to get out of the country as well one hundred thousand are believed to have fled across the border either into chinese here or here to egypt where i am now many of the nations around the world being called so suspending diplomatic ties with tripoli we heard today on sunday that france suspend their diplomatic ties with tripoli the russian embassy in the capital of libya will be taking care of french citizens until the french government can work out a way to get them out of the country or prime minister but out of here putin has

said this the sick country libya should be allowed to determine its own future once this bloody violence has died down it was because today we saw you were concerned about things happening in libya please note the following in the north african soil of al-qaeda is also concerned about what is happening in libya do you think this is a coincidence because i'd like to go back in history a little bit as would the former leader of the iranian revolution with where did you live but he lived in paris and there's a whole he was supported by the western community we would now the entire western community fights against the iranian nuclear program i remember just recently our partners were very active and some of the democratic elections. in the palestinian reform and how much one would wish and immediately declared hamas a terrorist organization and started fighting against it we need to give people have chosen to listen to them in the future themselves we need to give them an opportunity to take on your true way without any foreign interference to build their future protesters take control of more and more of the country they're coming

across the palaces of the gadhafi regime now one such palace just outside of outside of benghazi has become the the command center the center of operations for the movement against the libyan government against colonel gadhafi and they've been cut discovering some interesting things as the been going through these palaces and that one being guarded or discovered a bunker there is designed to withstand a unit an attack from a non conventional weapon showing me the security consciousness the security paranoia if you will that was in place in colonel gadhafi mind now we are hearing that tripoli remains in control of loyalists to colonel gadhafi and they've been handing out weapons troops to be handing out weapons to civilians on the streets of tripoli and in the abu salim district about six kilometers outside of the the center of the capital billions were manning checkpoints looking at cars searching

cars there and checking identification papers now many of the citizens of tripoli have remained inside their homes locked indoors scared of these these armed militia that are patrolling the streets there with the latest reports that we do have suggests they are just fifty kilometers outside of tripoli the city of his fall in to the opposition forces now this violence in libya has been the bloodiest across the region we've seen revolution here in egypt where i am and also violence in other arab states and north african states now the. violence here though fast the passing anything that we've seen elsewhere at least one thousand people believed to have been killed so far. parties are peter our reporting for us there from cairo now a london based author and journalist afshin rattansi says western powers are being driven by their own interests in fueling the uprising in libya i have spoken to

dissidents here in london some of whom have been rooney asli related actually to al qaeda in the past but i think what i was more referring to is the chance that u.s. and british and european special forces are now organizing things with certain elements of opposition groups undercover the western powers are not interested in democracy in libya what they are interested in though is the oil it's very interesting that the international criminal court have been brought into a resolution the united states of course is not a signatory to that resolutions are graphic it always hide out in washington escape when i see subpoena i think the americans and i don't know people like tony blair would be very very frightened of nicolas sarkozy or with the berlusconi of italy would be quite frightened about an i.c.c. trial because then then we feel regime and the people that are still supporting him in tripoli in their bunkers will be able to tell all the stories about everything

from lockerbie to how. american and british arms companies were involved in propping up that regime and there are a string of e-mail that have an e-mail trail i don't think the americans or in london or brussels would very much want that to come out in court you. and as unrest grips of the middle east and fears spread that oil prices could keep rising even further reports that colonel gadhafi included sabotage his country's oil pipelines have fanned the flames of concern with prices hitting their highest level in two years major concerns of global economic consequences if unrest hits another top of the area's top oil producers in the region some analysts claim prices could rocket is far as two hundred twenty u.s. dollars per barrel analyst manouchehr talking warns that merely the fear of more unrest spreading could drive oil prices up people in the financial markets have if year they look not at the present time that there is still selfish and oil in the

mediterranean basin but say but they fear that this might expand and there will be destruction etc etc and they think in a few weeks not a few months ahead and to fear for that is what has caused the price go up i think the basic behind it is defeated that there will be a destruction of the supply of oil and so people who are in that market a bit and take positions for higher prices in order to cover themselves if they are allied paging and if it is only confined to stop him from libya they're all industry the world market can manage it with a he called me the difficulty of. disruption for a few weeks or maybe a month or two and in europe italy fears being swept under by a wave of illegal immigrants fleeing instability in the middle east the italian government has declared a humanitarian emergency as thousands of refugees from its former colony libya and other parts of north africa have landed on the island of lampedusa from where you

go to peace can offer ports. at eighty miles off the coast of north africa the tiny italian island of one because it has relied on fishing and tourism for its main sources of income for the first time in years the boats or harbor and the bats are drawing. the best of the chic you are always out here we haven't gone out to sea for twenty days now. since the recent uprising in tunisia the island has been flooded with great the g.'s over five and a half thousand arrived in just two weeks sometimes up to three hundred refugees but gravel just one tiny fishing boat to make the perilous journey to the mediterranean. doesn't have all of you drown maybe all those who need it have nothing to lose turning local right here on its head with no money and no jobs they have already been cases of planned elizabeth and that we're not getting it was

started to leave in the lights on at night they always wonder around and none of the local server used to lock their doors now that this people out here will feel uncomfortable due to its location one uses for me with refugees but never so many in such a short period of time and with many voicing strong beliefs official say identifying the way he says is one of the biggest problems. not only are we historically a free nation and we want freedom and desire that we want to live like a prophet told us and who leave much to live in an islamic state. most are housed at this refugee center where they're provided with food water clothes and medical aid all financed from the state budget is designed to house only around eight hundred people so under tight security hundreds of three g.'s are flown to the mean when they say i think we're going to go off and see we sent four planes yesterday

but on average two planes with very few g.'s leave every day it's. to me money and political celebrity. it really and t.j. used to have an agreement under which most with the d.'s were intercepted before even reaching the island but now that the government has been overthrown the floodgates have opened i put what i was continuing to spread in both north africa and the middle east issues over the war and other evil states up to three hundred thousand refugees could we libya a little more decades limpy the managed to remain a tiny isolated world of its own while the locals with calm and peaceful life and no one was afraid to leave their doors all the while. find something changed and the biggest wave of refugees may still be out there for the only one this tiny island but being tired confident you've got this i'm all for being good about it

only. puppets you know tossing out in from the danish institute for international studies says political change in the middle east affects europe and much more than just illegal immigration. even before all these are prized things the prospect of massive immigration has always been europe's wars tonight. in real terms it has never been substantial we have always been below thirty thousand. possible entries every year. clearly the overthrow of the governments poses a whole different set of issues and what europe will be able to do it depends on the ability of actually cordy meeting among some of the governments that are most affected i mean imagine if into a month's time coral gadhafi is not overthrown i mean business cannot proceed as usual after this something will have to be done but. coming up in

a few minutes there doesn't have to be only one. or two thousand and fourteen sochi winter olympics we'll have three mascots chosen by russians in a country wide call stay with us to meet the characters are close. so we pony up the cash then after right on the hunt for the back seat take the wheel you know move this. americans are baffled by obama's new space program which they feel hands of the reins of the two russians in the race to the plane. the founder of the wiki leaks website julian assange is to appeal a london court decision to extradite him to sweden on sex charges which were earlier dropped saying he won't get a fair trial he also believes the court proceedings in stockholm will bring him closer to prosecution in america in connection with a vast leak of top secret u.s. diplomatic files artie's kalen forward looks of the case and why many think it has

more to do with politics rather than justice. when julian assange emerged less than we've year ago with this video. showing u.s. troops getting down and arm civilians into reuters journalist videogame style he was lauded as a hero of transparency. and anti war ally a human rights defender r.t. america interview to start on the day of collateral murder released what keeps people and more keeps. going on the stand how the world actually works. in the fourth of us to get information out about the real world and the second is the common for them to think about it but sources do it. out of the public eye no magic computer access the cache of two hundred fifty

thousand classified. data is the front page of virtually every newspaper in the country with the week's wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks wiki leaks to his foes julian assange is a cyber terrorist and work time he's guilty of sabotage espionage crimes against humanity he should be killed but to his fans a soft spoken activist with the potential to radically reshape the geo political landscape voted by the people as time's man of the year and our commitment to our sources is not just to protect we have never lost it's not just published it is to get the maximum. possible. today it's a political impact i believe and not the leaks that has gripped. allegations of sexual misconduct by two swedish women infighting within wiki leaks prison break it's how it's still the nation particularly in the obama administration and the cia

they want to start with you leaks they're doing. all sorts of extraordinary actions stopping a paper or leaning on pay pal master card and other private corporations to allow donations to be made to wiki leaks the once heroic figure now hawking mugs bumper stickers and t. shirts to pay his legal bills who profits from the meaning of meaning. obviously it's the u.s. government which is really. makes no bones about it through under the bus by the newspaper that once eagerly used his leaks impressions who. read some analysts say assigned and wiki leaks have been effectively neutral consumed by litigation rather than leaks i think would be american government wants us to have mr assad in custody so they're ultimately he can be extradited to the united states to face charges for the release of those documents or you can court ruled that

julian assange should be extradited to sweden but his attorneys say the next stop for the thirty nine year old computer programmer could be here in the united states where science could face as you know charges and even the death penalty as a sound basis jail time the future of wiki leaks hangs in the balance and its ability to be a place for whistleblowers and it became of transparency and ford artsy washington d.c. dr burton a member of the european parliament for the u.k. independence party says the decision to send the wiki leaks founder to sweden is symptomatic of a flawed system. what mr sounds christ does illustrates the fundamental problems with the european restaurant which i've been talking about now ever since it was introduced in two thousand and four he's an australian citizen they want to actually write to sweden but this affects only three british citizen and anyone who is a guest in our country and what it does it removes the fundamental rights of the english courts to protect its own citizens and guests in our country because they are not

simply not allowed to look at the promise she had been cynical case like this and taking into account it's what a lawyer called what justice and i would now sylar been signed now for some time that relation which is now called judicial surrender has been reduced to a bureaucratic formality and now i'm saying that it's actually nothing better than legalized kidnapping alan system going on that's been going on for a month and i haven't figured out what charges are you an interesting thought and say about what's going to happen in sweden they don't use a very very rarely used mechanism here to try this case in secret so we won't even be able to hear what's being said what the allegations are what the charges are and all the full evidence because that's it's going to be done in a secret hearing which is absolutely astounding. this week america's longest serving the space shuttle discovery has docked with the international space station on its last ever mission after almost thirty years in service of the spacecraft is to be retired and put out to pasture in a museum on saturday the six member crew delivered supplies and the first humanoid

robot to fly in space all together there are now twelve people on board the space craft representing the u.s. and russia and italy discovery's sister ships endeavor and its writers are scheduled for their final voyage is within six months marking the end of man u.s. based credit until the next generation fleet is ready in around ten years time but archie's damage which you can found out that not everyone is happy in america with the new space program. by the end of the year nasa will no longer be able to same humans into space. this plane responsibility will go to private companies which are expected to come up with cheaper ways to ferry astronauts to low earth orbit they know that they have a big step to take when they if they're thinking about putting humans into space and that's going to take a you know the next phase of their development so i have a oh gosh i. can even estimate exactly no one can say for sure when the private american companies will come up with

a new spaceship for years to come it will be the russians so you see it's going to be the only means for people to reach the international space station which is perfectly fine with the leaders of russia and the u.s. but doesn't sit well with many americans how could this how. we could make it to the moon. and then. and now we're we're reduced to being passengers on a russian ship and that's that's sort of it's so a wounded pride being wounded pride revealed itself in comments by some american lawmakers astronaut scientists and former nasa officials. comedians in the u.s. does not miss out on poking fun at american sense of pride so we pony up the cash they have to write on the hope of the backseat take the wheel. yes you know you got to let us touch the radio they will let us eat snacks or stop to use

the bathroom should have gone before we left. us but those the nasa who now actually work with the russians like astronaut sunny williams have different sentiments i couldn't imagine when i was growing up walking through red square or going to a russian company and working hand in hand with my russian colleagues or going to their families homes and having dinner with them and likewise when they come to the u.s. and so i think. maybe we're not competing but we're to working together think it's more of a time of joint cooperation and learning from one another that's just as healthy as the competition that we have in the past it's not the first time americans have to rely on the russians to take their crew to space they depended on russian rockets during a true year grounding the u.s. spacecraft after the two thousand and three space shuttle columbia disaster columbia exploded during re-entry into the earth's atmosphere all seven crew

members died shuttle track record includes another tragedy in one thousand nine hundred eighty six the space shuttle challenger broke apart seventy three seconds into its flight. the russian so use proved to be the safest way to deliver people to space and now with the shuttle retiring it will be the only way we're no longer racing against an adversary we're no longer competing to achieve a singular goal like reaching the moon. in fact what was once a global competition has long since become a global collaboration the leaders of both russia and the us are saying space over a longer brace for competition it's now grounds for cooperation with the remains if ever work here in the us. that i'll demonstrate an article russell. let's take a look at some other headlines from around the world. a massive landslide in the bolivian capital or look pas has swept away at least one hundred fifty homes there have been no reported deaths but there's been widespread structural damage across

an entire neighborhood in the mountain city president evo morales declared a state of emergency to cope with the flooding and landslides damaged roads hit much of the country and killed forty four in recent weeks. several people including bystanders have been arrested in china as so-called jasmine rounds took place across the country for the second sunday in a row the demonstrations were organized anonymously online because for a more accountable government organizers had urged peaceful action and encouraged people to stroll watch or pretended passion by one rally however was dispersed by squads of police men with dogs and numbers of people on police division of the army international the police were warned not to conduct interviews without five missions but several he flushed to a protest site in beijing police were arrested. the death toll from the earthquake in new zealand has reached one hundred forty seven with more than

two hundred people still missing the moral services across the country have been remembering the dead rescuers in christchurch are working to clear wreckage from the city as officials warn that many buildings may have to be demolished the earthquake is thought to be new zealand's worst ever natural disaster. prime minister and mohamed ghannouchi has resigned seeking to start a violent new project. in the country his retirement was the demand of the demonstrators as the new tree was seen as too close to x. president ben ali who was ousted last month at least five people were killed in the latest clashes between hundreds of protesters and security forces in tunis on saturday another former government minister has been named as the new premier. they say teamwork is the lynchpin of success and the russian public seems to agree have been chosen not one but three mascots for centuries two thousand and fourteen

winter olympics competition was fierce but a snow leopard a polar bear and a bunny on skates took the gold in the televised vote on saturday archie's dance blonsky reports on these latest additions to the winter games lined up. these are the first winners of the sochi olympics from now on a snow leopard a polar bear and a hare has won through to become the official baskets of the two thousand and fourteen winter games a ray of light and a snowflake will represent the paralympics he is the minister through on the prize winning places in early school sudan for a second and third and the main more likely olympics is not it's not a victory but it was a surprise and it's unfortunate that a leopard and the leadership there strong. that's why i think creating the teen was a smart choice award winners were selected by members of the public from across russia in a phone booth televised on saturday become petition to devise them was also the public afford the creations are the result of

a nationwide competition launched last year with ideas but a special website and pressures artists amateurs and professionals a wife rushed to the challenge the election of the olympic mascot started with hundreds of ideas and you can see some of these drawings here in sochi olympic information center eventually it really came down to this top ten rate here these are the best ones that made it into the finals and won the entries are two bears slowly acquired for the frost and then they have so cheese personal favorite of broken on. this point they're currently appearance the competition between the mascots was almost as intense as for olympic gold traditional russian characters like father crossed melted to them because you don't battle and didn't make the point all caught not even a make over with the latest winter sports where passion was enough to sweep a rather hip set of russians much rush for dollars so big three will be a lympics have only one winner the competition organizers for the mascot settles

down three will go with the night to commercial possibilities to see who's doing the breathy journey is ahead for hold the suit has chosen really games they're just making their first steps in the. as it is he can get a copy later unless you don't foresee going of course it was counting on commercial success three years left on still be olympics sochi will now have to get used to three new very honorary citizens the place one of them is no stranger to the southern russian city as for real snow leopards have recently found a new home at the local wildlife preserve the three winning best gets have a heart after a fall in matching the worldwide fame won't buy me a shot to counter part of the 1980's most grueling picks but still she will be hoping she'll become just as loved and well known good as full of ski argy sochi. and i'll be back with a recap of this week's top stories in just a few moments. come

up over your feet. from where.