fighting rages on in libya as colonel gadhafi scrambles for an exit strategy. casualties rise in the battle the last of rebel strongholds in the west of the country but tonight the side table to break the deadlock i'm going. to be joined in a few moments when you will. meanwhile the opposition's lack of experience discipline and manpower mean calling out to foreign assistance could be the only chance to oust gadhafi. in other news a trial or error a russian pilot taken to the u.s. to face drug trafficking charges claimed he was brought to new york illegally with

noise citing numerous politicians. and three cosmonauts are set for an anniversary of the picture as they prepare to head up to the international space station fifty years after man's first flight into orbit. and a massive corporate overhaul in the making as president between inventive orders to prohibit ministers and senior officials from taking top sports and state owned companies find out more in our business because of the around twenty minutes time. international news live from a studio here in central moscow this is r.t. just past nine pm here and seven pm in libya well colonel gadhafi is desperately seeking ways out of the libyan crisis it has become the latest state to recognize the country's opposition government meanwhile a turkish humanitarian ship has taken hundreds of injured libyans from the fighting

in the west to the rebels' stronghold of his port of slayer has more. the fighting here on the ground seems to be located in two primary cities in the east of the country it's around the city of brega but that frontline keeps shifting and at the moment it's actually not clear who is in control in the last six weeks that city has changed control six times in the west of the country most of the fighting is happening in and around the town of misrata and there we are hearing that the government has stepped up if it's she eliminates and she did a few supporters now we do know that a turkish military and ship has taken two hundred and fifty patients civilian casualties to the city of benghazi some doctors on board that ship are saying that the injuries are incredibly severe and that the civilian death count is likely to climb we certainly have witnessed an increase in diplomatic activity on behalf of the gadhafi regime to try and seek a way out of this crisis what we are hearing is that gadhafi might be open to some

kind of settlement plan that that plan would see someone from his inner circle taking over power we are also hearing move forces from the international stage though that if the plan is to be reached it has to include duffy sitting down they have been in talks between key opposition members and members of the bush administration very main question at the moment is the whole question of whether or not to supply the ripples with weapons and also the british have been trying to find out information about exactly who these opposition fighters are we continuously hear these reports that there are suspicions that there are al qaeda and hizbollah members among their ranks there is also an alarming concerns about the fact that the rebel fighters themselves are disorganized as my colleague explores further in this package a war on the. forces or just a few miles for the rebels this is the time for. everyone. is

worried or would do these men. have any. every day in the rebel stronghold of benghazi more pictures of those killed or missing or put up on walls and for the first time at least a dozen rebels are reported to have been killed in a coalition strike still many locals say they realize they have no choice but to take steps the losses. more than two weeks have passed since the no fly zone was put into effect over libya nato planes have been trying to rein in going after these heavy artillery clearing the way for the rebel fighters on the ground and there is even speculation egypt and the u.s. may be secretly training at the front line is still shifting back and forth with

the rebels achieving only brief advances west this season. and either you give him anyway. the opposition says they are ready to take weapons from any willing state in order to get our feet but it's. more weapons will help you discipline many more teenagers with no training or combat experience but. it seems that they are think they are not you know very much representative of what's going on on the ground we are seeing very articulate people talking to various governments in europe but also to the americans whereas on the ground we are seeing rebels drive balls completely disorganized who do not have much they do not seem to have any political points to make aside from of course getting rid of gadhafi according to

some estimates only twenty percent of the get out these military might have been destroyed despite the shins efforts instead his forces are reported to have changed tactics come of watching themselves as rebels you confused lethal pilots above so let's face it the current pool level of organization and training the rebels alone are no match for gaddafi is superior forces and it's only with the help of the alliance that something could be achieved big question is how far is nato itself planning to go you got was going off forty eastern libya. by the way you get all the latest about the developments in libya online you can check out regular updates from our correspondents there in the country on our twitter and facebook pages and don't forget to watch all the videos which are constantly being uploaded to you tube channel.

in the. russian politic used by the us of international drug trafficking was facing trial in a new york court constantine yet a shelter was arrested last year in liberia and brought to the states illegally according to his lawyers and as i started checking a report some see a tendency of america snatching people and trying them on his own soil. a legit tons of cocaine a pilot snatched up and wired to a foreign prison and a wrong fax number this is a case of constantine your shango a russian pilot in his forty's scooped up by u.s. officials in liberia last year brought to a manhattan jail and along with four other suspects charged with international drug

trafficking you won't. know for a long time he did not even know where he was when he was brought to the u.s. he was put in solitary confinement and he didn't even know he was in the united states constantine's wife victoria just to write to new york she says her husband was kidnapped by american agents while america says your show was smuggling drugs to south america africa and europe mostly from it is where a lot liberia a pilot has complained he was beaten and tortured following his arrest. they tried to pick fights with him provoking him constantly close to try to stay away from all that he asked them why are you treating me like this i didn't do anything to you and i have not been found guilty retore believes the case against her husband was the abrogated by the u.s. not also why the u.s. is involved in this is unclear he has never been to the u.s. in his entire life he never had a u.s. visa and wasn't third country upon his arrest. when constantine you're shankill was

arrested russian officials were not duly notified and moscow cited a breach of international law we have. apologized to russia and the state department's excuse we pressed the wrong button on the facts. to be brutally honest notifying romania instead of russia to observers this seems a joke and a series of questionable details in this case the idea that there's a bank of buttons that they push it i guess if they push the next one they would have gone to rule rwanda which is next in the alphabetical list so that sounds like a bird. strange story and i don't think anyone would buy that your sham course case is often compared to that of victor boot similarly snatched up by the us in thailand and currently on trial in america for arms trafficking some see a tendency here if they can use interpol they can use. picking up the phone to

russia and trying to talk about this just going out and kidnapping people i think this is part of the carry over from the bush cheney administration the defense team has long labeled the case of provocation and unsuccessfully called for its dismissal the prosecution meanwhile has been fighting to limit the scope of issues that can be addressed during the hearings they want to exclude questions regarding the legality of trying your show niccol in a u.s. court allegedly by a lesions in the investigations leading up to his arrest and official conduct during and after the pilot's arrest and essentially all the media arguments of the defense after almost ten months constantini are shown cause trial is finally here a jury is deciding his destiny if found guilty he will spend from ten years to a life sentence behind bars and. new york. to purr and is dumping more than ten thousand tons of radioactive water from the fukushima plant

into the pacific officials say this is a necessary step to free up storage space for more highly contaminated water the government says it will not holmes human health or the environment well let's talk about this with an independent nuclear energy consultant schaller burney who will be joining me hopefully from. now we understand that about twelve thousand tons of radioactive water have been released into the sea is it really as harmless as the government is making elves. absolutely not and in the other normal circumstances the release of such of all humans of water would be described as catastrophic i think i'd like to draw attention to the fact that in one thousand nine hundred three when a russian vessel was spotted offloaded or stock discharging nuclear waste into the sea of japan the japanese government was released and led the charge for a ban on all nuclear company seeds. so what will be the the effects there i mean people are worried about the fish and the seabed being contaminated what what what

could be the long term or indeed the short term effects at the moment of what we're seeing happening there. well the ocean currents and in that part of japan mean that in if in the first instance the contamination will spread north and south of the coastline from the fukushima power plant which means to the very cause that been devastated by the earthquake and the tsunami so that's going to add to further unease on the part of the people living in that part of japan longer term to redo nuclides particularly cesium which is a half life of thirty years plus also other reader nuclei and well presumably for many many decades they tend to concentrate in large volume of water passing animals such as shellfish so those are called filter feeders as well concentrate as well as in sea wheat well the workers there at the moment this is all down to the fact that they've got to keep the water flowing into the reactors to stop them overheating

and then of course they've got to deal with the accumulation of all of that waste water which of course is contaminated but they say there's no other choice but do you see another way out are they doing the right thing from what you can gather. i think it's very difficult to judge. whether they're doing the right thing from their own because they're the ones that are faced with his nuclear disaster certainly they have a water problem they have to keep all in water to get two units on to the spent fuel to keep them from melting down any further the problem is they've got a large amount of new could fuel that's already melted they've got spent fuel that's uncovered not been cause of water so the more work to the people on the more problems are going to rice and i think that the admission but they haven't really got the situation under control is what we see today so we are going to see further problems do you think this everybody is obviously being say for the last two or three weeks that a catastrophe is about to happen but actually nothing really has happened so far

what do you think could happen if if a picture is as bleak as you make it out to be well i think the fact is they have three reactors a percentage of which are nuclear fuel has actually gone into the not so our concerns over the coming days is what is the condition of that fuel melt where is it in the reactor has actually gone through the reactor building into the environment those are releasing really nuclides which we know will persist for centuries tens of thousands of years we hope. the worst an explosion releasing an even larger amount of radioactivity in its environment but we've got such huge problems i think what we'd be more interested in is a bit but honestly to see the scale of the problem we are facing and really beyond a mistake each and every getting more help from the international community. well i think the problem is the international community for example international atomic energy agency they tried to put a distance between themselves and japan by seeing we're only in advisory when it

comes to nuclear safety and nuclear conference hope and in vienna the seventy two governments basically saying that the reactor operations are safe i've read the japanese government's document which appeared last september corn to them they don't have a problem according to the situation today in fukushima they have a catastrophic problem so there's a complete and see on the part of the international nuclear industry i'm sure that the u.s. russia korea france they're all trying to do their best the problem is this technology is inherently dangerous clearly focus shemar eventually when all this is over will have to be closed down but is there any past history experience on how to deal with a nuclear power station that has been retired or is it the sort of thing that has to be buried covered up forever and no go area what is the future of an area like that all the japanese government and then you can st don't really even want to talk about this being another chernobyl and we're coming up to twenty fifth anniversary at the end of this month because this comparison is in fact true noble and the

efforts to control the releases from that site go on we know about the sheltering operation it's still not being funded properly or meijer problems in terms of the long lived nature of that shelter. twenty five years after chernobyl there are still struggling with the contamination on the site and the threat of for the release is good humor is three reactors and many many more tonnes of spent fuel than is contained insurable so this is an issue we're going to be talking about probably for the rest of the century and beyond sean gurney very interesting here we have to say we appreciate your time here in r.t. thank you indeed for joining us here independent nuclear energy consultant joining us there from one big thankful. well still to come in the program this is our countdown to blastoff we're on standby a large crowd there's three cosmonauts prepare for a very special take on. that story still to come

and that blast off of course occurring in kazakhstan and as it stands leader an assault on another birth has won the country's presidential election with partial results showing who took over ninety five percent of the vote he's been in power for two decades and has the constitutional right to be reelected indefinitely some international observers slammed the ballots saying they were serious irregularities but many including monitors from europe and former soviet republics praised it is smooth and democratic political analyst and rich from russia's not a state news agency told me a little earlier that he believes the result is perhaps more of a vote for stability and a vote of support. that we can never be sure whether the person who gets ninety one ninety five percent is a great a very popular everywhere else here in the middle east have shown you know or don't believe all their official results and certainly we cannot can see them a true expression of what everyone has in the back of his mind but i don't cook are so my impression is that there was

a certain fear for stability in the country after the events in the middle east more because people were afraid people were just scared by the events in neighboring killed here where a lot of people were killed in the indirect think question last summer i'm not sure that it means they are less than stable and. determined future before this country but obviously chose the people or the force to be here. and if you're going to talking to me a little earlier by the way can always find more news views and analysis on our website it's our t. dot com here's a quick taste of what's online for you right now. barack obama is up for another four years in america's top job easy enough as he'll run for president in twenty twelve. it's risky doing business with georgia dinner invitation with the country's prime minister blanket and israeli businessman behind bars all that and much more for you at our team dot com. some of the other international stories

for you an old world update at least fifteen people reported have been killed in an anti government protest in the yemeni city of. hundreds have been wounded in the city of who died after crowds tried to notch on the presidential palace protestors and thousands have been calling for the resignation of president ali abdullah saleh since february the leader is refusing to step down with what he calls eight hundred settlement. in the you are just a little earlier japan is dumping more than ten thousand tons of radioactive water from the fukushima plant into the pacific officials are saying this is a necessary step to free up storage space for more highly contaminated water that will not harm human health for the environment meanwhile workers at the facility are continuing their battle to seal off the leaking cracks in the damaged reactor. supporters of the u.n. recognize ivory coast leader allison you would say they have begun a final assault against radical forces in the country's main city abidjan incumbent

president of my book is refusing to cede power after last november's election as many as a thousand civilians were killed in violence in the west of the country last week. hundreds of troops to the country to help protect civilians. so a mission honoring the fiftieth anniversary of mankind's first journey to the stars and sets it apart from the international space station the russian american crew will blast off from the same side propelled yuri gagarin into space. is that vital cosmodrome in kazakhstan for us. it's a big celebration it's a significant date at least in this space history the crew that will be going to space consists of two russian cosmonauts who have a. day about a single and nasa astronaut ron garan preparations of course are still continuing in just the last a few hours you know they fall off a lot of traditions here because astronauts themselves a bit will be leaving their signatures in their rooms at the confinement facility

it's very interesting because if you have done the same and therefore they're going to do the same as well and also a russian orthodox priest will be giving his blessing to the crew so the preparations continue but not just for the crew i'm joined now by dimitri he's actually a ten time world record holder in swimming and he's here for his own reasons in relation to space let's find out what he's doing here exactly so what is a sportsman doing here or what do you have to do with space you know. i mean. for the. young because when i was doing the last press conference yesterday our children of the kitchen of the two you had the truck instruction which you will do if you will meet some unknown flying objects. and it was easy. instruction but. ok well thank you very much for that insight well again the preparations that are

happening is not just for the crew and i managed to speak to the families a very important part of the celebrations are the families who have come to say their farewells to the three men going on their mission. before every blast off comes the fanfare so you see i'm a twenty one crew member stand in the spotlight their families close by it's only a matter of hours before the shooting to orbit in a spacecraft bury the image of you got it the first man in space to celebrate the achieved. yes fiftieth anniversary what's more the cruise captain was once called the guardian when i was in kindergarten they gave us a play rocket i spent all my time inside and i would let all the kids get in there since then they started calling me guardian preparations have been intense both with the crew and they're so used rocket any astronaut can attest to the arduous process. working in training was so hard sometimes we fell asleep behind or desks

we had to take many exams and sometimes we had to repeat those exams after a long and meticulous process of assembling the spacecraft the so used to your mates what you want is finally in position waiting to take its crew to be international space station well that's a t.v. as the singer to russia's will make their first flight a space and in america you will be flying to so used for the first time but far from the frenzy everywhere of camera lights a better halves of the astronauts have been going through preparations of their own albeit more personal ones it's really hard to explain the weight of emotions are being feeling watery anxiety and pride here on the other hand held his own he showed no emotions i was more worried and excited he took our photographs with him those that show us and our daughter not. ever since the official confirmation that their husbands are going to space every little thing becomes a memento i'm wearing my husband's jumper it's grooming me close knit and unity

with my husband here all the wise man her husband clothes among the women a close bond is formed carmel garrett wife of nasa astronaut ron garan gave oksana and sawyer a bracelet as a symbol of unity. we're going to be as united as our husbands have become. because for six months these women and their husbands are literally going to be worlds apart this are still your r.t. baikonur in kazakhstan. one of the earlier arty caught up with the head of russian space agency who said all battle towards him may soon be available to all people and that interview is in just over an hour from now here on our team for twenty five minutes past the hour in the russian capital but next is the latest business news with dmitri.

welcome to business r.t. b.p. and its russian partners and alpha actors run over once again facing each other in court in london they are once an arbitration tribunals or for a proposed sixteen billion dollars share swap deal with russian state owned rosneft it claims the deal breach of the shareholder agreement would be pee wee said stephen cave you should be its primary vehicle of all exploration in russia and ukraine christine says corrino from a pause believes it's a fifty fifty chance whether the court will block the assets swap between ross their plan b. companies are allowed to invest in other companies and b.p.'s not taking a majority position in rosneft noreaster often i think b.p. normally investment from any mutual fund or head fund or personally investor of

around five percent it's normal so there's no reason why it shouldn't be now it depends on how they interpret the law and whether they believe that maybe the share swap should be. a later time until the whole deal being either postponed or canceled but from the point of view of an investor i think b.p. east free to invest in any other company that is not an operational deal so therefore it should go ahead but they've got a fifty fifty chance and we'll find out piece week whether he goes through or not. that really prime minister is going to set in one of the principal architects of that new york could soon be forced out of his position as chairman of the rostam board that's after the machine had better have signed a new order that prohibits ministers and other senior officials from being on the boards of major state owned companies and settle of seventeen russian firms they're on the restricted list they will have to remove top state officials by the first of july this move is seen as part of the president's bid to improve corporate

governance and boost foreign investment. u.s. markets over on the side of news still trading that way with the dow and nasdaq flat and mixed region resistance levels rather quickly volumes remain low continuing the trend from the previous week where the market soared most volumes this year while prices have reached another thirteen month high with brant crude trading above one hundred twenty dollars per barrel lights more than one hundred eight dollars price that being supported by positive job data from the united states and supply worries i would term oil in the middle east. of the russian markets now and they ended in positive territory energy majors were boosting innocence and higher oil prices looking at some of the companies we see the state's own monopoly gas problem are one point one percent so with rosneft ballou quarrel was a rather weak just point one percent is going to western for about on. it is the energy segment it is leaving the market upwards and gas promised in

particular strong as has translated this could also have to do with some comments that we had over the weekend and last week about cost cutting state owned companies and this world or there's a bit it's called to exclude ministers from board of directors something that will be taken quite possibly gives happens by esther's are we seeing some profit taking in metal names selected middle names as well as well in consumer names but that is not more the trend this monday headlines are next on our c with the bill don't stay with us sir.

in some petersburg oh she's available in hotels the story of the little ambassador really sounds cool to kowtow petra.