the top stories this morning fears of a nuclear meltdown escalate with the threat of a second explosion of japan's fukushima atomic power plant out of emergency alert declared another facility in the northeast it's believed more than ten thousand people could have been killed in the devastating earthquake and resulting in the. libyan state t.v. reports colonel gadhafi gave his moments of winning back more territory as international calls grow for him to surrender power get of his men advance like eastern libya making that very soon the town of pindar the call for you need a few moments formal. and in other news this week pushing the reset button in

moscow and washington post ties a pledge with drugs trade as the u.s. vice president met russian leaders and opposition in moscow. close to midnight here in moscow you're watching r.t. if you just joined us kevin and our top story the situation of the fukushima nuclear plant in japan remains grave the smalling with persistent fears that a second blast could follow causing a radiation leak this is the country declares a state of emergency and a second atomic facility affected by friday's massive earthquake police say more than ten thousand people may have died in what japan's prime minister says is the worst crisis to hit the country since world war two artes i have a bennett is in the northeastern city of sendai near the epicenter of that quake and not far from the fukushima plant itself. well the worry there is concerning

a second reactor at the number one concern now is that the second one has lost its cooling mechanism prompting sea walls around to try and cool reactor down the temperature inside the reactor is growing very hot knows he is that they actually could start to melt which is then least a nuclear meltdown now so the fear the main theories of another explosion but the general here is concerning these reactors is that they wouldn't be an explosion on the scale of chernobyl twenty five years ago because these are and what is known as light water reactors however there is a serious chance of radiation leakage the authorities are saying they're already treating thirty people who have been exposed to radiation you hundred thousand people already in that since the reactors on this nuclear power plant have been evacuated further away from fukushima. prefecture actually which we drove through today on our way to sendai where i am now there were concerns amongst

the people of what could be happening because what we saw was people stocking up on food none of the shops actually had any chance water because people are afraid to drink the tap water here over fears of it being contaminated and the government has wisely will not do so no town water shops and a lot of people buying in. exact in short supply as well in the worst hit area especially here and as for fuel as well we passed a petrol station most of them actually have been closed but there's one open and there's a queue of cars about a kilometer long we are stuck thirty minutes and everyone's queuing up because they fear shortages of fuel and so they're only actually. being rationed the amount of fuel i can get just twenty liters each going to get that's still about an hour's drive and the roads are blocked off i'm hearing the average there is absolutely destruction here the buildings are still standing but the damage is is otherwise and people are actually now at

a relief center. there's plenty of these dotted all around the city and on the floor the floor is covered with people lying on cardboard bedding down with blankets many spending their night gene because they aren't able to go home some where in sendai when the earthquake happened and so and they live quite far out makes it we can't get there because there aren't any trains there isn't any public transport functioning here and there's very few check season cars so he will have to stay here also many people staying here actually live in sendai their houses that are too unstable to go back to see what's more most of sendai is actually without any power there is no electricity heating no water no gas and that's why people are making their way and spending their nights at these relief centers furthermore there's no food in this town very little food and very little water and three hundred thousand it's reckoned that have been left homeless or fled the areas where their homes once stood they've been left with nothing they'll have another

six weeks without anything to go back to and it's looking very bleak for them because all they've got is literally a patch of cardboard around one and a half meters long and a blanket and that's all and it's no real assurance or guarantee of food all drinking water either so it's a very bleak outlook for them. to live a bennett reporting there from sendai capital of the region worst hit by the tsunami watches atomic agency meantime says it needs further information about the situation in japan's fukushima nuclear plant that's despite close contact with the japanese crisis center emergency services are on high alert in russia's far east as well a region close to northern japan artie's cutting approach over is in the area for us. michel's insecure you say that radiation levels remain normal in russia spore is ever seen when you can hear coal plant in fukushima was hit by an explosion they've been monitoring levels closely we can even check the radiation levels for

ourselves this is the so-called geiger counter and this is used in professional safe nuclear war trays by the emergences ministry and also by other specialized services it measures regional levels around and it is showing is jumping between two and three migrants grauer this is way less than the average in moscow for example and also as a comparison a passenger flying on a plane from moscow to vladivostok receives as many as twenty two microns per hour which is ten fold the figure here in. the capital of the region all russian security services are still on high alert as there are confirmed reports from officials in japan that possibility of a nuclear meltdown is there a high in fukushima and so experts in russia are now wanted to bring your levels of radiation in not only in russia's foreign minister but also in the arctic for example they are also saying that even in the worst case scenario become true

should be spared any fallout but what we know from independent experts experts is that a lot depends on the weather the good news is that the weans is now going in the direction of the pacific ocean about the weather is changeable and things could also quickly if the worst scenario takes place and if there is an explosion inside a reactor at the fukushima plant that would mean that radiation would be spreading in waves and these region of russia is the closest would be the closest to the epicenter of the nuclear tragedy. where we are now is only six hundred miles away from fukushima and russia's coral islands are some two hundred miles now people of course have gained. morrison about the latest news and they've been closely monitoring group was on t.v. in the beginning they were afraid of another natural disaster he's seeing a close. what they are afraid of now is as

a part of possibility of radiation contamination and they've been calling emergencies ministry the line is almost always easy and trying to find out what preventive measures could be taken i mean you told me that as they watch the news reports they can't believe their eyes that these disaster scene is unfolding so close in such a vicinity to russia's bullshits even the beginning shortly after the earthquake and tsunami in japan they were mostly afraid of a natural disaster which could hit the northeastern coast of russia they are afraid of another tour novel now which could happen close to their homes. reporting for us crews are fighting to cool down the overheated fuel rods out the fukushima nuclear plant this is considered key to averting disaster as they try to contain radioactive materials christopher simons is a professor of tokyo university he explains how explosion might occur and what the worst case scenario may mean for local residents. and damage to the fuel rods in

this case will not cause a fire and again this is a key difference between the disaster going on at the moment though it is a disaster and the charitable incidents the situation is the furor it's can melt they can become oxidized and the rods are protected by zirconium our lloyd coating and when that comes into contact with water the result is the production of a large amount of hydrogen which is of course explosive and causes there a large explosion as we saw yesterday whether the radiation is coming from fukushima daiichi reactor number one or number three or more locally is a very important question to sort of i would hazard to guess that it is coming from fukushima daiichi number one now there are different types of radiation being released into the atmosphere a good news is that

a lot of the steam which takes state in the explosion from h.p. reactor number one building yesterday is relatively light isotopes these isotopes cannot really cause long term damage to human health the more serious problem is that they have also detected isotopes of iodine and cesium in the area around the fukushima explosion these are much heavier isotopes and that means that if they get into the human body or if they get into the soil water supply they can cause long term radiation poisoning moscow's pledging to stand shoulder to shoulder with tokyo during the crisis a plane carrying russian rescue workers is heading to japan with another due to take off from the country's far east on monday and as a lecturer jesse explains next russians no stranger to dealing with the nuclear threat facing japan right now having first hand experience of the world's worst atomic disaster during the soviet era. spare no effort in getting the job done this

typical motto for construction projects in the soviet union also applied to the chernobyl nuclear power plant when construction kicked off in the nine hundred seventy s. it was intended to be a dream project for soviet ukraine. the birthrate in prepared was higher than all of ukraine people were given homes and there was a great demand for a work force in chernobyl so everyone worked and lighted there but this happy existence came to an abrupt end on april the twenty six nine hundred eighty six with the explosion of the reactor at the power station the very same ato use for building the plants where no effort was known to be used in the clear up of the world's worst ever manmade nuclear disasters the blazing reactor was bombarded with sand and lead measures which at first seemed crowley driven but which related deemed highly effective by the international atomic energy agency this action helped to contain the radiation and enable construction of the sarcophagus

structure built around the reactor to seal it off for several months after they retire strophe the lessons of chernobyl have been learned by experts worldwide since the catastrophe and will have been of assistance to those battling the latest serious nuclear accident in japan threatening contamination with large numbers of people being evacuated because of the radiation threat something which didn't happen twenty five years ago in story two crane the chernobyl fallout was caused by a massive human error mistakes made by the authorities in the first hours after the blast also cost many lives but the events of twenty five years ago and what is now so over in ukraine prove to be an invaluable lesson for mankind alexy rossetti r.t. reporting from kiev ukraine. will stay with me for the latest developments in japan and it's also covered on a website as as well. dot com. thing look at some other news now tonight forces

loyal to colonel gadhafi gaining momentum in the east and with international calls for him to step down libyan media's reporting that rebel groups have been driven out of several key oil town of artie's paul asli has got the latest from the region . looking state television is reporting that forces loyal to the libyan leader moammar gadhafi have now retaken the oil town of great get in the east of the country according to state television this town has been to quote the maclean's to arms gangs brigade is the site of a major oil terminal and throughout the day sunday they have been hitting clashes happening there but we haven't as of yet been able to independently verify these state television reports in the past state television has been faulty in its reporting at least very often preempting the sec's this is of gadhafi is in before they actually happen that we can come to that definition in all it wants and eastwards they are encountering increasingly loosely organized rebel groups they do not have enough equipment and they lack leadership and until now what really has

been a unifying factor which is enthusiasm is slowly starting to the way people are asking the question well how much longer can that enthusiasm hold out at the same time in the oil rich portion of the rest of the latest reports this a case of the talent is in the hands of gadhafi is main we've been hearing from able groups that they have the numbers but they do not have the equipment to take on his soldiers were able to have well come to the call from the arab league for a no fly zone to be implemented over libya this call came saturday when the foreign ministers of the arab league meet in cairo they have now called on the united nations security council to implement a no fly over the country but they've made the point that this was not a leave and let's not be confused with foreign military intervention they say that gadhafi has lost the legitimacy to rule as you can well expect gadhafi and his regime have criticized this call from the arab league so be on the ground as good as his forces make advances they are losing the war on the international front very

much the feeling that they are being abandoned by the former friends but at the same time to be able beached themselves also feeling increasingly hopeless there is chaos happening here it is not very clear where. frontline is it very often shots from one point to the other the fear that any kind of foreign involvement whether in the form of a no fly zone or in any kind of humanitarian assistance or anything else will be motivated by self interest of the united states and the european union but they will not really be acting in the interests of libyan people not concerned about the safety of the rebel groups themselves because he still remains the stronghold of the rebel groups we are hearing from gadhafi as men are making their way there and when going benghazi force to quote him any kind of disruptions and all the kinds of fighting over the past month will come to an end here in tripoli the situation remains calm and quiet people here have accused the international community and the

foreign media there feeds it of being alarmist they say that they have exaggerated the situation let's take a look there's a lot more haggling on the international stage of the merits of intervention and a no fly zone and a bargaining taking place in downtown tripoli market shops here close only nowadays people are afraid and many of the africans who used to work here have fled the country but the argument that libya is on the brink of civil war so foreign intervention is needed still seems to ring a little hollow seven hundred people killed but that's not a huge level of violence it certainly isn't a global level of violence that would normally merit intervention gadhafi has offered access to foreign media but only if the camera lenses stay well away from any of the opposition but it's a similar picture in the opposition strongholds dr ramadan break he was forced to close the benghazi office of his newspaper because of pressure from rebels you have to print a version of events he says or nothing the media. is going to the hot

places and all these cities are controlled by the bridges and then given that people go through. they knew was what they think and what they believed and many gadhafi supporters fear that while he may be winning the war with the rebels he's losing information you like here in john's new outside tripoli schoolgirl mona says she's puzzled and angry i reported missing aires was hitting people in her town is . right. and like so he seems calm on the streets this leaves of tweets in libya except that it's coming from outside the statement do you think that they will be civil. there are things normal right now and in the future it will be ok

we'll move normally as for conflicts elsewhere with a good count is climbing it's a little media coverage and even less foreign interest to intervene there are events unfolding right now in ivory coast where there is also conflict on the conflict between rebels and the government but nobody seems to be thinking about it's only because fashionable attention is focused on libya the only reason is the with libya's brother your oil think we'd be in iraq if their major war there was broccoli so as leaders meet in brussels to discuss the fate of a country hundreds of miles away many libyans are saying if they miss and they'll clean it out police here are t. jones or. and he was from the online newspaper the daily bell he told lucy believes nato member states are putting huge pressure on libyans who are now at a crossroads between islamic fundamentalism or a western style government. there's quite a bit of speculation is to act actually who is who is pulling the strings of what's

happening in libya i think what you're going to see here is a secular style western government that would be introduced post. but that that will that will fail i believe within a very short period of time and i believe that is where we will see a more fundamentalist islamic type of government that will surface and take power it should be a natural democratic shift within the middle east or in any of these countries if there's going to be change it should be change that is and i hate that word but i'll use it anyway because it's the word of the day again but change in the middle east should be driven naturally by the people themselves they're going to get the help whether they want to or not and some would say that the help is basically what's been driving this revolution to begin with and not to say or take anything away from the people in libya who are fighting and putting their lives on the line here to to actually make some form of a change but you know you look at what's happening in the world today and the pressure that's mounting with respect to foreign intervention being demanded especially from the western mainstream media you would have to think that the western media trumpeting such an intervention is something that is heard loud and clear within libya by the libyan people as well and the people on the ground who

are leading this movement they're influencing factors but i don't believe that there's necessarily a unified on the ground presence in libya that is being cohesively led by any one group or any one individual and that means also that there are certainly fundamentalists and others within the libyan population who do not wish to have any foreign intervention at all there are others who would probably like to see it happen. to me to repose in russia's envoy to nato says certain countries are pushing to get involved in libya because their reliance on its oil resources. i believe i think if libya were just a banana growing country there wouldn't be so much interest in his domestic situation including in the humanitarian spear of course libya is a big enough energy supplier to europe certain countries like italy for example are heavily dependent on libyan deliveries others are not so much dependent but either way libya's share is considerable. we know that nato for example puts energy security matters at the top of its main agenda for this reason i think this factor

has a most direct bearing on the speed of the west decision making regarding libya. and i can tell you the full interview with russia's envoy to nato is being shown again here on r.t. in ten minutes time. western powers are frozen the accounts of michael duffy and other senior figures in libya's government the u.s. alone has blocked thirty billion dollars the largest amounts of foreign assets ever seized by america but as lauren lyster reports next history suggests libya may never see its money again. as violence continues in libya the u.s. sends warships and more troops in that direction fueling speculation of a military intervention and meanwhile western countries may have already launched a war against colonel moammar gadhafi as north african regime countries

consider. freezing their asses. for the weapons here the foreign assets of either libya the country or khadafi and his family that some estimate to be almost one hundred billion dollars it's believed to be spread across the globe all money invested through the country's sovereign wealth fund everything from a stake in the company that owns that the mansion times newspaper to land near the spanish resort town of moore and they are being developed into homes and a golf course to the oil company of your annex and billions of dollars of cash in banks throughout europe and the u.s. the question now is what happens to all this money especially the thirty billion dollars the united states has frozen the most ever in the history of this country and this type of situation it essentially cuts libya off from the entire u.s. baking system for now it stays put while the situation is still uncertain but what

is certain the president of the united states is now in control of this money which gives him a powerful tool book. deal about this money were some of this money. but you have the forward. whatever the u.s. . is trying to accomplish. with that he thinks it's all about control and profit. and empire it's an empire where the greatest profits come from the military contracts and the oil contracts so they are. will work overtime those corporations are interest to enact these sanctions the u.s. president declared the situation in libya quote an unusual and extraordinary threat to u.s. national security and foreign policy that's not typical considering there is not a clear aggressive action libya has taken against the u.s.

as for libya its financial interests analysts say you could look at the history of countries such as iran their assets were frozen in the wake of the one nine hundred seventy nine hostage crisis their money that was seized from iran back in one nine hundred seventy nine has still you know not been returned to the iranians so it's very sickly time for a ponder police you know if we can take it away from them we will the money is used most often to paper the settlements of lawsuits against a leader or a government or to recoup losses khadafi can likely has the money could buy we took their nuclear capacity away made promises didn't live up to them claim that was a great victory for peace and now we're in a situation where it's clear that oil is at stake the future of the massive sums of money reach for libyan oil is now with uncertain is a divided country it came from lauren lyster r.t. new york. the u.s. first president was in moscow this last week to boost trade and encourage the

further research of relations between the two countries while several issues were discussed including libya joe biden said he was keen because read the previous administration's mistakes in economic ties version of usually better job than with biden that he hopes the vice president quote working on russian's bid for world trade organization will be out of his career quote but promised his personal support from author of inclusion of a critic started just chris look at siena says the u.s. and russia have already called the day. i think that the existing relations are on a track moving forward no matter what the little disruptions are and i think that's very important and i think that's part of what biden strip is all about and obama's trip will be all about which is that even if we have setbacks along the way the message has to be very clear to the russian people into the american people that russia the united states now have more in common that we would we do that separates us we need that russia to be part of the w t o we need

a free trade with russia i think that that message is being sent to anything the united states does it will clearly take into account how the russian government the russian leadership feels about things and i'm sure that vice president biden is making that very clear to. the russian leadership that whatever we do in libya we're going to try to make sure that we cooperate with you and we're not in conflict with you the other thing of course is that we're coming up to the tenth anniversary of nine eleven i don't think it's lost on the american people that the russian people have been victimized by islamic terrorists and we share that in common and i think the metaphor for that is this idea of a missile defense although it's aimed at states like iran and others i think that it's a symbol that we stand united against terrorists and that's another thing so while we might disagree on things like libya i think going forward the relationship moves forward no matter what the little setbacks might be. well i do see

a brief at least one person has died over one hundred have been injured in government protests in yemen after police opened fire on crowds of the capital city hall were killed on saturday demonstrating for an end to u.s. backed president ali abdullah saleh is thirty two. testers are also bombarded with tear gas which calls further injuries there's been continual unrest against it saying february. israel says it will build several hundred homes for jewish settlers in the occupied west bank that announcement came a day after five israeli settlers and stabbed to death in their home two children and a baby were among those killed with palestinian extremists suspected palestinian leaders have refused to continue talks meantime with israel until new settlement construction which reaches international law is halted. tens of thousands of joined a rally in the lebanese capital beirut to protest the weapons arsenal held by hezbollah fundamentalists a crowd supporters about going probably just as sad hariri who stepped down last

month after his unity government collapsed on its allies pulled out of a cabinet over a un backed tribunals which is likely to implicate its members in the killing of the country from a prison in two thousand. you're watching r.t. from moscow with me kevin owen we will keep you updated with the latest news coming out of japan throughout the evening and night you can also find the latest about. the next headline update on this channel just under ten minutes from now.

they're impossible. to needs be they are the best and the leader radium ended in an intensive no number of both of our vehicles is sprayed into. the most dangerous. radiation that they exist in the nature. of our cars because in the vicinity of known differentiated so that produces so much heat and genetic changes including pantsuit leukemia. and why being out of the immune system. you don't have to have a college degree going to have to meet for an education to understand it if you spread radioactive materials all over somebody's backyard if you've got a problem.