latest headlines of the week in review here on the libyan government blames of foreign forces for the latest setbacks which they say are giving the opposition a significantly. not a victory for the rebels it may be a key oil town and move to a not a government stronghold. washington tries to distance itself from the libyan crisis but the country's long history of international interference leaves a war where republic another lengthy conflict. i. worry. about painful economic see quarter of a million a march through london and protests as hard pressed year peons question an

expensive in libya campaign spending is slashed. in japan radiation rises in the sea near fukushima despite efforts to bring the plant under control following the earthquake ten thousand are now listed as dead with the many more homeless. we're highlighting the week's top stories here and welcome to the program well the libyan rebels are advancing west towards the capital tripoli after regaining control of two strategic eastern oil towns from the forces meanwhile in nato ambassadors are due to meet later on sunday to discuss the transfer of control of the mission in libya from the coalition. live now to tripoli to us me to watch

music for the latest on the paula you successful we kind of the rebel forces or tell us about their latest gains which are. well it certainly has been a successful weekend for rebel fighters here for almost a week they were in a stalemate position and able to dislodge themselves from the rebel stronghold of benghazi and now in the last few days almost with seemingly lightning speed they've retaken the town of ajdabiya which is one hundred sixty kilometers west of benghazi this is a strategically oil important town in the eastern part of libya they have advanced further beyond this town another seventy kilometers to the town of brega and the latest word we have is that they are advancing now a further forty kilometers to the town of where they are now on the perimeter if indeed these reports are true it would seem as if the next point on the map is the port city of ras lanuf and once the rebel fighters are wide there they would have recaptured overstock towns and cities that they lost in the last week or so now it does raise questions though on the ground in terms of how much fall further west

which they plan to go but we're hearing from opposition leaders is that they intend to march on tripoli which raises concerns because until now the defenses that they have faced have been relatively lightweight from the move onwards the next major city is the city of sept which is the hometown of the libyan leader moammar gadhafi there his support base is incredibly strong and the rebel fighters are likely to come under a lot more fire and a lot more intensive fighting in the cities that they are recapturing as can be imagined the residents there are expressing relief they celebrating but we're also hearing voices of concern about some people saying that they fear that there will be a return to fighting and also that some of these rebel leaders cannot be trusted a very different picture coming out of the west of the country from the city of misrata which is so she said she should leave this city is in the hands of gadhafi forces are not going to that they had begun to treat me shelled the city the city of. my day. nice by french missiles the french saying that they took out five

libyan planes and two helicopters and air force base not far from misrata we also hearing from the american army that they fired some one hundred tomahawk cruise missiles at misrata and other targets that a series of those missiles were fired from a warship in the mediterranean sea. by the way you talk about the rebels apparently making some progress but it's an uphill battle ahead of them and then you mentioned the if use of these tomahawk missiles raining and also rebel targets what does it mean for the people there as the coalition has been enforcing the no fly zone for a week now with a pretty impressive show of force how the people dealing with it on the ground. well as you say we've witnessed almost one hundred eighty degree turn in terms of the fighting on the ground and both the coalition forces as well as the rebel fighters themselves are quick to admit that this is because of the airstrikes by the international community the fact is though that it's taken them more than a week to actually turn the tide on the ground and if indeed the rebels are to make

true if they promises to move towards tripoli we could be witnessing the start of a very sustained long drawn out fight because it is no secret that they now rely on these foreign aid strikes and they need them to back them up so the question to the international community is just how much longer they plan to remain involved in this conflict what is confusing and not clear at this stage is just how far back the duffys forces have been pushed and just how much of his military might has been destroyed now the government spokesperson here in tripoli mr ibrahim mousawi said that these actions by the international community were not only illegal and immoral but they were also a violation of the united nations security council he said that the international community said it was getting involved in libya because it wanted to protect civilians but instead what it's actually doing is bringing this country to the brink of civil war now apollo we're hearing from some of the certain rebels are saying that they're grateful for the international military intervention here but there seems to be a general condemnation. across the arab world against western powers being involved

now we're poised to see nato take over the operation within hours what libyans are expecting in this change of command do you think. but what we are hearing is that tonight's sunday evening nato when in fact take over commanding the enforcement of the no fly zone the discussions on the table right now after what is being called a no fly plus which is a question of whether or not nato will actually take over the entire operation and command and control of that now we're hearing from washington that there are a number of points that just need to be resolved that they are quite confident that in the coming hours if not the coming days nato will not be firmly in control of the whole operation the sticking point though and in relation to your question is just how far nato will go in terms of protecting civilians on the ground and how the various scenarios being painted if for example you have gadhafi forces in a stronghold in the desert where there are no civilians how then can the international community justify a strike there the same scenario being painted for example as the forces at vons

westwards essentially once they move toss to the port city of wrestler north the rebel fighters will be on the offensive and they will be trying to take towns and cities that never were in their hands no not really of how the international community justify getting involved at that stage and trying to protect civilian lives we are hearing from able leaders that that they have commitments from a number of western countries who say that they will be supplying them with arms we have no indication of who these countries are and we've been told that the arms haven't yet to live but there are concerns here that the rebels themselves are you see organized they've shown that in the face of chaos they are quick to run away quick to disperse they very young fighters very inexperienced if these we're going to stand up in the hands of gadhafi is man that paints an even more sinister picture in terms of how this fighting will move forward or a doctor's policy that live from a aaa thanks. well while american bombs pound libya barack obama says the u.s. . should not and cannot intervene every time there's

a crisis somewhere in the world even so every american president since rolled right and who also bombed khadafi has weighed in on at least one military conflict he was christian for cell lines up this controversial trend. it's become an unspoken identifies of the job description. i become president of the united states. declare war my fellow americans my fellow citizens for president ronald reagan in one thousand nine hundred six a familiar attack on a familiar enemy despite our repeated warnings gadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation is relentless pursuit of terror he counted on america to be passive he counted wrong turns out so did saddam hussein just two hours ago allied air forces began an attack on military targets in iraq in kuwait for his

successor president clinton the target was slobodan milosevic today our armed forces joined our nato allies in airstrikes against serbian forces responsible for the brutality in kosovo president george w. bush said it was weapons of mass destruction that threaten the world and invaded iraq in what was supposed to be a quick and limited campaign on my orders coalition forces have begun striking selective targets some military importance to undermine saddam hussein's ability to wage war most thought it would end there with president obama running on an anti-war platform he has spent most of his presidency trying to end the wars started by his predecessor until now the u.n. security council passed a strong resolution that demands an end to the violence against citizens. it authorize the use of force in the timeline of recent history there have been some glaring similarities when it comes to the use of force by u.s. president none have been in response to

a military attack or even threat of an attack on u.s. soil and none have ever been formally declared wars we had to protect thousands of innocent people in kosovo from a mounting military offensive we are determined to knock out sat on hussein's nuclear bomb potential we will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities self defense is not only our right it is our duty the definition of duty often changing the result eerily parallel thank you god bless you. god. thank you very much christine r.t. meantime the russian president medvedev says that the u.n. backed military intervention is a direct consequence of the violence carried out by libya's leader moammar gadhafi against his own people but he did criticize the strikes saying that the no fly zone should be used only to protect civilians and restore peace. just that everything

that's happening in libya is a result of the shameful behavior of its government and the crimes against their own people we shouldn't forget that everything else is just a consequence of that we supported one of the un security council resolutions and allowed the other resolution to go through this was done consciously to prevent the escalation of violence but still the events that followed show that any decisions of this kind should be accompanied by thorough consultations as well as remembering that the use of force should be proportionate to what is happening the fact that as a result of these actions of billion targets were damaged and according to unconfirmed reports that innocent people have died shows that states taking part in the military strikes have achieved i hope that as a result of coordinated actions by the international community there will be peace on libyan soil and full measures will be taken to prevent the conflict from spreading into africa and other states. or meantime russia rolling out getting involved in a coalition operation in libya saying it is not producing the expected results

prime minister putin agree and the protection of libyan civilians is paramount but shouldn't be achieved at a cost to innocent lives. there's a civil war going on in libya the proposal of a no fly zone was aimed at preventing gadhafi from firing at his opponents and so protect civilians such a decision applied to a sovereign state is a difficult one but the aim was well intentioned but what are we seeing now that is strikes on the entire territory of the country how can it be aiming to protect civilians such means are chosen to civilian death toll actually rises. now the u.s. defense secretary was in moscow this week to try and muster kremlin support intervention in libya moscow abstained from voting on the u.n. resolution which led to the no fly zone enforcement robert gates a short president medvedev that major operations in libya would scale back within just a few days but it wasn't the only military issue which came up missile defense in

europe was also discussed but little progress was made moscow wants a joint system to protect the continent but it washington insists on a lot of its own which russia says is a threat to its own security. well our correspondents in libya and around the globe are updating artie's twitter stream you can stand touch with what they are actually witnessing on the ground as also more on our facebook page and of course our you tube channel. is.

it with r.t. . now or london's streets were filled with more than a quarter of a million angry voices on saturday. staged britain's biggest political demonstration in years over the deep spending cuts which are being rolled out there were hundreds of arrests as part of the rally turned violent the windows of shops and banks were smashed down with paint the demonstrators opposed government eighty billion pounds spending cuts which they say will destroy essential services. but ministers insist they're necessary to reduce britain's future deficit the u.k.'s outpouring of anger follows a week which saw intense protests in brussels. portugal parties reports. of more layoffs to pay cuts no retirement the message from angry demonstrators pushed back with. pepper sprayed by riot police the protesters tried to get through to e.u.

leaders meeting in brussels. this where there was made. to be used. to. the bank so. that the world's first move to take. prisoners goes across europe voters are saying no. measures portugal's prime minister has quit of the poll. voted down a fresh round of cuts because he has three months left to repay almost ten billion euros at a time when its sovereign credit rating has been carved and received the only option left is national default tolin does the country called pay back its loans or accept an e.u. bailout similar to greece and ireland hasn't happened in the west since the second world war but the longer you postpone this necessary evil. the more costly it is

is going to be at the same time military intervention in libya is costing hundreds of millions of euros many a furious so what they see as an unnecessary and expensive campaign somebody asked the chancellor of the finance minister about the financing of this and i think the overwhelming sense that you got from it was among the public in britain with skepticism with millions unemployed across europe people losing patience with politicians who seem out of touch with reality increasingly familiar sides on the streets of the e.u. was government built timing leaves growing numbers well to work it big the question is now the right time to spend the money available on wars abroad don't you bush or r.t. brussels or british or your m.p. nigel farage or says people across the continent have every right to feel angry have a cuts when their governments squander money abroad. we've had british troops on

the ground in afghanistan now for over ten years i don't think there's any appetite for us getting involved in foreign wars where we cannot directly see our own national interest being threatened where frankly if we go in to support the rebels we don't even know who they are or what they stand for or what they want i don't think anybody has thought this through and if they are going to put ground troops in that i think they're going to find in all the member states involved in this a real strong level of opposition when people say. cuts in front line services for whatever reasons when people see their retirement age is going up when people see the taxes both direct and indirect they're paying going up they have a right to question what on earth are we doing getting involved in an open ended commitment in terms of war with libya that could cost us goodness knows what else i do think that to a very close to me but i also feel as portugal is about to topple over as the next eurozone country rich requiring

a bailout that that is actually going to cost each british taxpayer about four hundred pounds and that actually the biggest effect on our pockets this week wasn't the chance of his budget but it was the fact that the portuguese government fell and they're about to be bailed out so i think people have every reason to be pretty angry that they see their own costs at home going up their services being cut money being thrown overseas in all sorts of projects that they wouldn't necessarily support. you with r.t. let's turn our attention now to the developments in japan with the spread of radiation from the fukushima nuclear facility years raising concern among those in the region high levels have been found in the sea nearby and they are increasing the government's warning people to get out of the area now workers trying to restore the cooling capacity of the plant have been evacuated from reactor number two that that's where the radiation level is ten million times more than the norm three workers have already been exposed to dangerous materials in the continuing battle to avert catastrophe in the wake of the earthquake which destroyed large

parts of the country the official number of those killed by the quake and tsunami stands at over ten thousand with many more homeless or missing but fukushima remains at the biggest concern at the moment with the ongoing a possibility of a nuclear meltdown artie's i spoke to a man who knows firsthand what the consequences could be. lease man has borne the scars of nuclear disaster for most of his life as a resident of nagasaki your sherry in milwaukee has had liver and kidney problems since he was thirty five and he's already beaten cancer twice every time he falls ill now he feels it could be his last battle you sure do watch these events unfold at fukushima during the true nature of the disaster is yet to show itself so you are saying that the result of the contamination won't just end off the event it will be handed down from generation to generation i have four daughters the first

to have leukemia another has breast cancer the results of a disaster will be shown in generations to come. you should know was just eleven when the bomb was dropped he survived the blast but was exposed to lethal levels of radiation on his two trips to the hypocenter first to find his father then to bury him despite everything he's pro nuclear power but still thinks fleeing from fukushima is the wise thing to do so then. i don't think the public or the government are overreacting in this situation i think people must take all precautionary measures they can to avoid the worst for the rest of the nygard psyche the stands today had to be built from scratch eleven square kilometers were jews to dust the cloud of its tragic past still hangs over the city its residents though know what it means to suffer and are willing to help those in need members

of the international volunteer organization the lions club and here collecting for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami everyone's desperate to give with donations already ten times higher than normal. we have a custom something happens in our nation we call it the nation and we help each other especially the people and i guess i can be very very sensitive to atomic power so we are very worried about what happened. and we want to help in. every way it sounded like a sack it is a memorial to the seventy five thousand died when the atomic bomb was dropped here this one marks that exact moment now the city will forever serve as a reminder of the destructive potential of nuclear power and those here are now praying that focus wherever in the same way nagasaki transformation has been remarkable ground zero is unrecognizable the city would escape any radiation from

a meltdown at fukushima but there is a nuclear plant close by and the incident has left residents living in fear. but nothing. people from naga circle and hiroshima are very sensitive to the incident. we've never experienced such a devastating nuclear accident before and i think everyone is no three this could happen again i wasn't afraid of nuclear accidents before but now because i can see it's not under control. this memorial represents the water crave by so many after the explosion the base and strength quality a far cry from the destruction wrought by the tsunami that has done its damage this place reminds us the ripples from a radioactive disaster extend for generations after bennett r.t. and a second. let's get some more on this and speak to our independent nuclear energy consultant shaun barney now joining me live from hamburg to discuss the implications of japan's nuclear crisis so we are constantly hearing different

reports on the situation at the plant according to the latest radiation figures just tell us how bad is the situation at the moment. is clearly a very bad situation on one level i think it's understandable that there is confusing. descriptions of the situation because this is an ongoing accident so every hour that passes there are new developments in a very complex nuclear site it's not one nuclear reactor that's had an accident this is the entire nuclear site with four reactors in a critical situation a nuclear waste. that's what explain each other explanation of course is well in japanese bureaucratic culture where very little information is given to the public by the new clinton street and by the government and regulators that's a traditional crucial briefly managing. what is clearly a serious problem so i say i'm sorry to say that's a traditional approach to the japanese government to withhold information what is

the reason for that because that has some pretty dire implications of the case. it has got dire implications and i think we're seeing some of those. unfolding now at the moment one explanation for example if you're a journalist in japan and you're covering nuclear energy and you're into cure you work out the ministry of economy and treat new street chris klug if you start making critical questions and even critical articles about nuclear policy in japan your ability to function within that press club is critically ill therefore the japanese public are given very limited information about the actual situation these clearly hazardous nuclear plants that's unfortunately a culture that the japanese people are now seeing exposed and as as you've seen they're not very happy about it let's turn our attention to as you were discussing moments ago the radiation levels we've got our four devastating reactors at fukushima we've got three workers at least to an island hospital for radiation exposure and burns reports of radiation levels off the coast ten million times the

norm tell us that whatever that's radiation become too hot to handle where all the workers just have to evacuate. well unfortunately there is no safe level of artificial radiation in terms of its risk to humans if exposed to that radiation the international commission for a lot of protection declares as much now that's not a radical organization it's relatively crude nuclear but there is no c threshold of course long lived in exposure increase the chances that you will develop cancer i mean one of the examples i think the particular levels they're talking about and i had seen the slaughter and also a standard tap water in tokyo that has a relatively short half life was in about eight days you're losing half of them in your activity but some of the we didn't like that had been talked about will be being released into the environment we've heard of cesium one three seven that's

around thirty years before it loses half its review activity is a huge problem in terms of long term cancer risk but even other isotopes such as petroleum which almost certainly there are some plutonium entering the environment from these reactors that's a twenty four and a half thousand your half life so the long term health risks from this accident for the people of japan are truly horrendous are so you say absolutely there are some horrendous long term implications from radiation exposure here but the i.a.e.a. chief says the nuclear crisis is far from over with such a potentially die forecast or why do you think the nuclear global watchdog took so long to get involved because when it comes to iran on any nuclear issue the watchdog is all over it in in a second. my view is that it's not our u.n. nuclear watchdog the nuclear industry pujol the i.a.e.a. its principal objective is to promote the expansion of nuclear power since the start of the zines in one myself and colleagues in the anti-nuclear community and

the nuclear research community we knew that this was a potentially catastrophic accident and what you saw was the i.a.e.a. was a rather relaxed so of media management approach to say we have confidence that everything is under control well actually after a monologue that it's it took you you saw that the i.a.e.a. is almost trying to distance itself from any responsibility for this accident by sea we only have an advisory role in nuclear safety this is the same agency that is ambitiously promoting nuclear power not just in the advanced industrialized world but in the developing world promoting the idea that nuclear power is a solution for climate change the idea is not fit for purpose and cannot basically get away with the fact that it hasn't got any responsibility for this and it's relying on information from the japanese they do not have a crisis management approach there were news management approach from bernie in a kind of nuclear energy consultant life from him thank you.

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