historical. culture in the city. is true for mr tropicana. rebels in libya. way to the capital while nato full control of operations. people in tripoli are making with the books of the rebels are close to me and there's simply no way to run join me from the capital city in a few moments when you will. and here in the rebel stronghold of the opposition celebrates its francis is reportedly even to go back to his hometown find out all the details in just a few moments. arrests in connection with. an anti terror operation in russia's volatile republic of. radiation surges to

a hundred times above normal at the fukushima nuclear plant as japan battles to prevent meltdown while struggling to lay thousands of tsunami victims. this is coming from the russian capital where it's now eight pm and seven pm in libya where there are conflicting reports about just how far west rebels have advanced towards the libyan capital tripoli the opposition claims it controls. reporters say the city is still in government hands let's talk to our correspondents there in libya is in tripoli. is in benghazi first to you paula well the rebels surely have their sights on the cap. where you all house the city

reacting to the goings. well this city is a sense of panic here in the capital city there's almost a sense of fear that you can touch the reports of so conflicting and that is what is making people here so distressed why now we hear that the rebels are thirty kilometers away from gadhafi hometown of sirte the next hour we hear that they've been pushed back a hundred kilometers the frontline no doubt keeps shifting but in the early hours of this morning monday we actually heard that the rebels were inside so that itself they were never supposed to get this far and that is why talking to people here in the libyan capital there's a sense of almost amazement that the rebels have advanced this father no doubt to be threats and the claims by the rebels that the ultimate goal is to reach trippin he is why some in the capital city are starting to respond by saying they will be a bloodbath now we've been hearing from search itself that at one stage we could have a few soldiers they were holding up white flags and that rebels advance forward but then there was some kind of clashes in the rebels were treated so well the ports

are receiving at the moment all quite confusing and that is why people here are so long to they do understand what ever is the reality on the ground no doubt gadhafi forces are moving that is a much closer to the capital city it's also interesting to note how the government has been responding in the last few hours they have stepped up their p.r. efforts as foreign journalists working here we're not being invited almost alvi on various choices and excursions to visit cities that are clearly in good duffy's hands and this of course is an effort by the government to put across the message into the international community that they are still winning this war we are also hearing from the town of misrata they the government has declared a cease fire but the reaction from the rebels is that they simply do not believe this and so here talking to libyans in the capital city they will say this with their time easy about the cease fire that the government has announced in the past the latest word from this russia is that there is heavy shelling we're not hearing again reports of snipers standing on the roofs and shooting anything that moves we were hearing those kind of reports just a few days ago so. the action on the ground hotting up. well now let's cross east

across the country across the northern coast and join eagle out of there your in a rebel stronghold in libya's second largest city benghazi we've heard how tense it is there in tripoli at the moment how the people there are responding to the advances further west. well the situation is quite different from tripoli here in benghazi we are also hearing shots being fired into the air but these are shots marking celebration and there are signs of applause to the opposition because any news that is received here in benghazi or even any speculation about any victories out there on the front by the opposition that's greeted here with great applause and with the first rumors of sort being taken over by the opposition that was in the middle of the night we heard we heard shots fired into the air here in the city

and can still hear it from time to time as i guess some of the rebel rebel groups get the news about the military operations going out going on out there on the front but i can tell you as we traveled from the egyptian border here towards bin guys it's pretty clear that the port of the country the east side of libya is in full control of the opposition the road the main road which links benghazi to to egypt that's heavily heavily guarded by the national police and it's also clear and it's quite visible on. the actual rebel force and what it consists of from teenagers to old men carrying old rifles or a k forty seven but everybody here is against gadhafi regime and are for any success successful news from the opposition there on the front paula back to you there in. tripoli is there any

concrete evidence with regards to the number of civilian casualties that's been reported. well there is some evidence but it's very hard to get the concrete evidence that you ask for in terms of the libyan state television reporting that more than one hundred civilians have so far been killed in these coalition air strikes we know that they were for the first time a strike from the city of set there were three young men who were killed we know that they have been explosions in the same two of the country and certainly now here in tripoli as it begins to get dark this is the time that the air strikes begin over the capital city a short time ago the libyan state television also started broadcasting pictures of moammar gadhafi he is inside a car he is in his compound and he's being flanked by supporters now we have no way of verifying when this footage was taken and if indeed he's inside that car but it certainly gives you a sense of the way the regime is handling the situation at the moment very much trying to put the message across that they still in control and that gadhafi is

still the man who is leading this country when you go to benghazi was reporting massive casualties last week when gadhafi troops were advancing what's a situation where you are now any signs of destruction oh. well surely this is a big city with a population of over one million people but the the traces of the recent violence are still seen in. benghazi it's mostly government buildings like police offices which have been burnt down nearly completely there is this huge compound which was actually even used by gaddafi himself when he stayed here and visited bin guys if there's a huge wall around it well i saw it with my own eyes that this wall was completely torn down i guess by the thousands of protesters and the revolutionaries as these events were unfolding here and as the local see guys he was being liberated from the regime. generally at the moment it seems that the signs of

a normal life or coming back some shops. and there's food and water in the city electricity as well there are big problems with phone connections that's not working especially if we're talking about international calls so perhaps i think that could be one of the reasons behind this various information and. conflicting reports coming from the front because of the poor connection between the rebels themselves and finally back to you paula let's talk about the ongoing foreign military operation taking place there in libya coalition air strikes made it possible for the rebels to advance do you think that patton will change when nato takes full command. talking to people here most people don't actually think the pattern will change when nato takes full command all i asked say it on that meeting tomorrow tuesday that will take place in london this will give some kind of

political direction to the nato coalition now we do understand that countries such as italy france and germany they have to say nine hundred usd they are very concerned about the future of the operation particularly a country like italy from there in naples the whole nato operation will be based here in the italian saying that they need to be an immediate cease fire they are particularly concerned about the number of immigrants that are coming to these shores and more and more we hear that people are going they from here from libya turkey has said it will participate in this nato mission but it too says its role will only be in terms of humanitarian assistance now i think what the government here in tripoli is hoping is that as you have more and more nations controlling in commanding this operation they will be more to same thing voices and perhaps the maintenance perhaps the steam for this operation to continue will be diminished. reporting from the capital tripoli and you go to. the rebel stronghold city of benghazi thanks very much indeed. well russia's foreign minister says the

international coalition is acting outside the limits of the un resolution on libya sergey lavrov is also demanding independent verification into reports of civilian casualties in the foreign forces assault that syria has the details. from the very start russia has been a reluctant participant in the what is going on in libya at the moment what worries the foreign minister right now in his statement he says that it appears that coalition forces are taking sides in his worries come amid a nato statement saying that they will stick to the books and do what is stipulated there no more no less well let's look at the un resolution it says there that it authorizes all necessary measures to protect civilians will their words all necessary measures could be open to interpretation but protecting civilians is definitely stated there as the goal and so what worries the a russian government is that the offensive is going beyond just protecting civilians that the coalition forces taking sides is clearly not stipulated well let's hear more from the foreign

minister sergey lavrov we should. is taking part in a civil war in libya by talk between colonel gadhafi troops and those supposed to the rebels this was not sanctioned by the u.n. resolution which stated that the coalition can only enforce a no fly zone and protect the civilian population should the recent concerns about the unconfirmed reports of civilian deaths caused by the airstrikes and we would like this information to the kind of the u.n. has every means to carry this out and we are expecting this to happen as soon as possible so again it's a he's going back to what is stipulated in the u.n. resolution and again when russia abstained from voting they clearly stated their position that they are against the use of force on civilians by the gadhafi regime however they did have a lot of questions with regard to the rules of engagement the limits of engagement and right now these are the questions that are coming forward and again as the accompli gun folds in libya we can see a lot of the countries especially those that had abstained to keep looking at the actions versus what is stipulated and had been agreed upon on paper. reporting that

will fall on the on rest in the arab world with us is james denzel he's a writer on middle east politics and security issues. for james a lot of coverage on what's occurring in libya at the moment but of course we're hearing about unrest in yemen by. rain and of course in syria and there the government is promising reforms following a wave of deadly protests in the last week or so what do you think is next for that country are we likely to see a civil war up to that we will actually see the president's gesture of reforms appease the protesters. well i think we're quite a long way away from civil war in syria yet what is happening there is quite unprecedented for a country that has enjoyed a snail pace of reform over the presidency of the child since two thousand what he is supposedly willing to put on the table as if his spokesman had to be believed and he hasn't really come out front and center of this on these protests he's been hiding behind his sword ambassadors and his spokesman the moment in damascus is

that there is a possibility that the emergency law that has been in existence in the country since one nine hundred sixty three longer than the dentist itself will be maybe reformed or perhaps got rid of and of course that has fundamental repercussions for the political economy of syria this could potentially mean a political party and for the freedom of the media a huge could tell me the security laws that allowed the police there to arrest people will this be a very different syria to emerge from this if he is to be believed because of course the contrary side of this argument is that the lesson learned from mubarak and ben ali in tunisia is that you have to try and stop the momentum of these protests if you want to survive them and perhaps offering concessions to the silent majority you have not chosen which side to sort of put their stall on is a way by which he can kind of distill this whole conflict and therefore how time to consolidate his rule if he isn't believed and we see the situation worsening indeed

we've seen the situation getting pretty bad with a severe crackdown on protesters with a number of deaths we see a foreign intervention there like we're seeing in libya. well i think it's bad to predict what's going to happen in the middle east at the moment but i would say that certainly what from what we're hearing from washington and from the europeans there is no appetite for expanding the current intervention that we're seeing in libya i think even in libya the americans have been very quick to hand over to nato and therefore sort of wash their hands of total responsibility for what happened next that hillary clinton was quoted as saying that she still believes that bashar assad is a reformer someone who can potentially deliver a better syria rather than heading down into a civil war which would have huge repercussions for the rest of the middle east bearing in mind syria's geostrategic position so i don't see any kind of appetite at present for western intervention in syria that said syria has

a legacy in the main in the eighty's of heavy handed clampdowns on its own sort of civil protests and i think if we saw anything like what happened in say ninety two . there west would be forced to intervene simply because the level of bloodshed but i think once again we're a long way away from that right now you mentioned syria's in geo strategic position is it is it a more important country than the likes of libya and neighboring countries. to the west was important different ways i think i mean the only libya has a more natural resources in terms of oil and is of course located right on the southern flank of some pretty powerful european states syria on the other hand is deeply intertwined in the middle east peace process relations with israel of course it has a longstanding and very complicated relationship with lebanon a country which still has yet to form a government following syria's ally has pull our sort of bringing down the previous one and of course has links with iraq to i've i'm interested in what i've heard from various commentators about the role the saudis and the jordanians have had in putting pressure on the americans to sort of back off syria and syria usually is

uneasy punchbag the american administration has always been quite happy to have a go at the state's actions and its lack of democracy and freedoms but it is quite interesting that she said americans almost defending bashar assad as a reformer today i think which is a reflection of how incredibly dynamic and fluid the situation is in the middle east at present and as i said i think this is a genuine it's the biggest single challenge to bashar rule in ten years it's a huge event for syria can we just look at the implications beyond syria beyond yemen bahrain to iran now that there has been speculation that there's a wider goal here and that is to isolate iran and force a regime change there that of course coming from western influences is that something you suspect. well i think that story's been the intention of the west in terms of its policy towards iran it sees the iranian regime as its sort of public enemy number one and i think that honestly it would look to any means to do that but often the fact is that western support to opposition movements in these

countries is actually far worse for those movements it gives them. a huge amount of legitimacy from them because there seem to be foreign backed elements what we've seen in iran and certainly in syria right now is a real domestic movement here that is not linked to the west's plans policies or actions but rather a domestic discontent with the way that in which these regimes can actually run the state of affairs bearing in mind that syria it takes an actual state of emergency to get rid of a state of emergency and they can only happen i think in a country which has real fundamental issues with how it governs its people james don't flow right from middle east politics and security issues thanks very much for joining us here on r.t. . two suspects thought to be behind the terrible ring of moscow's don't want out of port of being detained in russia's southern republican the committee says the pair were arrested during a special operation well let's get more now from our government is out of a who joins us live in central moscow what do we know about these arrests.

or we know the arrests took place during a special operation that was undertaken by the security forces in the russian southern republic according to sources within the local security offices we know that that operation was being planned for a long time that the number of people who knew about it was minimal so that the operation could be successful we know that seventeen other militants were actually killed as a result of that operation and two men were detained those two men the brothers are believed by security forces to be involved in the terrorist attack on the moscow. airport which took place a few months ago those two men are believed to be by security forces the two men who actually scored the suicide bomber to moscow brought him to the airport and left him there to detonate his deadly device now those men were of course proclaimed wanted security officials have now made the arrests and they will be prosecuting them with all the evidence that they have so far managed to gather

security forces also believed that those two men as well as the suicide bomber and all the other people involved in planning this deadly attack on moscow's biggest international airport were acting under the orders of russia's most wanted terrorist. no doc also thought to be behind the the moscow metro bombings and of course because a year ago in choose there will mark the first anniversary of those terror attacks . indeed tuesday will mark a year since two devastating blast tore through the moscow metro system both very central locations one of them the metro station the other part both of course in the heart of the russian capital down could being just steps away from the kremlin of course the heart of the russian capital both attacks took place during the early morning rush hour wounding dozens of people killing over forty and tomorrow will be

the day when hundreds of people will flock to both of those stations bringing candles flowers holding vigils we know that a lot of people are going to come to pay their respects to all those who lost their lives to show support for all of those who lost loved ones in those terrible attacks basically it'll be kind of a show of strength and support for the people of this country they will show each other that they are able to come together in tough times like these support one another and of course not rest until authorities find those responsible for these terrible attacks and make sure that they do everything in their hands to prevent similar attacks from ever happening again live from central moscow reporter thanks very much indeed for that. to japan now and the troubled fukushima nuclear plant where high levels of radiation have been detected in the trench outside one of the reactors there reading say it's one hundred thousand times above normal similar to

the levels found in the water used to cool reactor number two on sunday the operator tepco mistakenly said levels were ten million times above normal the japanese government slammed the company for what it called unacceptable mistakes in handling the crisis fears of a nuclear meltdown began when four of fukushima reactors were severely damaged by the massive earthquake and tsunami the tragedy has claimed over ten thousand lives so far one of sixteen thousand still missing as you go to reports it's leaving distraught communities struggling to cope with the overwhelming number of the dead . instead of a property. a mass grave the japanese always cremate their dead but not the criminal that full capacity. has been turned into merge and see graveyards. these people be buried in contravention to japanese tradition there is an opportunity they'll have to be exuma. cremated instead of a priest

a town official conducts an impromptu ceremony is only just devised. this is horrible we're just trying to bring these people closure as best as we can. as a traditional fishing town after being struck by the earthquake and the tsunami it was then ravaged by fires that last a day. at least five hundred dead in the biting when family members get just a few minutes before construction workers bury the coffins. crematoriums to be able to process these bodies. many of the relatives have themselves lost houses. loved ones. of the other things for two weeks we search for my cousin and now at least we know what happened to her meanwhile soldiers break through the remains of the untouched since the disaster

they say there may still be hundreds of bodies below the rubble. of. japan. by the way you can get more on the situation in japan on our website it's all too dot com has a full chronicle of the events from when the country was hit by the earthquake and the. consequences of the nuclear crisis spread internationally now japan is having trouble with experts and people fear good may spread radioactive contamination also on the web sites seismologists be alarmed at japan's disaster is just the start of a decade of trouble from the pacific. available to. just a few minutes from now we'll be talking to the russian presidential advisor on afghanistan he tells us that the nato mission there is not helping bring peace to the troubled country but first this business update that's with dimitri that's next.

welcome to the program it's good to have your company russian oil giant forced nafta and pipeline not being transnet they want to take china's national petroleum corporation caught as they await forty million dollars they say the firm has failed to pay for january oil shipments alone russia and china signed a contract in two thousand and nine providing ross never transnet with a twenty five billion dollar loan in exchange for shipments of oil through the pacific ocean i feel like there's so little some of the chinese side is allegedly fall in short of amounts to one hundred million dollars because of that russia's oil pipeline monopoly trans nafta is now in debt to ross after a while that it purchased to deliver to china richard swan from platts energy agency says it's unlikely this dispute will get out of hand. it does seem strange that what should be a simple commercial arrangement should have this discrepancy over really quite big sums of money so this is a highly unusual but this is an unusual pipeline it's an unusual project the role

of transmitted comes in here is the pipeline company they don't own the oil at the start of the chain but they take delivery of it and push it all the way to the chinese border china seems to be lobbying and we're hearing the kind of not happy with the price the implied price for the transport costs along the pipeline i think they think they should be paying a lower price than people who take the same oil but on russia's pacific coast when it comes out to cause meaning now again there's no clarity over exactly how these costs are calculated and is the price china paid is it pegged to the urals export price back in. or is it actually pegged to the new cause mino price and when does that switch happen. so going to the stock markets u.s. markets start of the week in a positive note with the dow and nasdaq adding a point to a point one percent respectively general positive picture. the board telecom put it down from the biggest gains there boosted by better than expected increases in

strong spending in europe investors remain cautious on renewed concerns about japan's nuclear crisis and ongoing unrest in the middle east therefore we are seeing. the session on a negative note on the next flight now the euro is gaining versus the dollar as the chairman of tree shape indicates a rate hikes may be coming soon here in the rush to monday's session closing the markets recovered from early losses and trading in the black in the final minutes of trading with the r.t.s. six gaining point two percent the close take a look at more detail some of the stocks energy majors actually managed some gains gazprom putting on more than one percent meanwhile banking stocks are among the main losers with burbank losing around two thirds of a percent tom mundy the chief strategist. says the russian market is likely to see more activity soon. russian investors are just struggling in the moment to find

stories to trade. for russia that we've heard of the first quarter of this year has really been because the oil prices traded up so strongly three hundred five dollars a barrel there is a story with a really clear catalyst investors have been coming in very strongly and we saw the end of last week and also day with with growth which is going to be added to the address here i rushed index of. may. investors have benchmarks the index need to. add to that position so we've seen a very large volumes in that stock rationale it's just a giant the federal grid company has listed its global deposed receipts on the london stock exchange the company's deputy chairman. reveals the reasons behind the move. and. the richer new look one of the main goals is to improve and share liquidity and we also want to ensure maximum access for international investors to the if g c shares and to ensure the active presence of the company in the

international markets concerning a possible privatization of the stake owned by the government during. the disaster in japan could reduce global car production by thirty percent that's according to latest research from iowa chess consulting many japanese carmakers are halting work at their local factories with producers in other countries suffering from a lack of components being distributed consulting says while companies currently have some reserves they could be used up by made a fall if automakers find no alternative global production may fall from three hundred thousand cars a day to around two hundred thousand meanwhile general motors ford and closure cetera now have already partly cut production at a number of european plants. so for now the headlines are next with bill on r.t. that's after this very short break to stay with us.

the. machine would be so much brighter if you knew about sums from funds to impressions . bills for instance on t.v. dot com. wealthy british style it's just not out to the subscribers.