as fears grow over stalemate in libya opposition to the coalition airstrikes are on the rise in france amid criticism the intervention was an act of an impulse and imperialism rather than protecting civilians. nato forces also see their support for after an ill fated air strike killed several antigovernment fighters the alliance has so far refused to apologize. plus every situation for prince harry and the british royal and his charity expedition get stranded in the arctic after a crack on an ice runway scuppered their return home. and it george's attempts to

project a democratic a very tarnished by the state of its legal system or even lawyers are getting persecuted. and b.p.'s up as yet another setback in his bid to join ross neptune explore the arctic shelf in russia as the so-called knowledge ration tribunal holds its blocking of the deal find out more in our business update in twenty minutes. with r.t. live from moscow where it's now are just after five pm here and three pm and paris now nato says it's conducted more than a thousand combat flights in libya since the alliance took full command of the military campaign and the u.s. cutting back its involvement in the strikes mission has become shoes dependent on french jets results he's

a ten year old bushel reports the longer the campaign lasts the more french people find themselves beginning to wonder about the reasons for the country's leading role. froths was among the first countries to push for a military solution in libya but now watch as a questioning its justification for going in once again on what i call the imperial condominiums a recurrence of africa already having long term connections on the continent paris called forgive colonel gadhafi for fighting its military in neighboring chad in the 1980's and challenging its corporations in the region ever since the french quarter . is it a french quarter see or or is it a sarkozy police he. tried to do to convince the world that he is the man in this capacity to be their leader. and also the way that he tried to survive in frost reports le pen gold was plotting an invasion

already last year have prompted it because asians of revived imperial ambitions calculated as a photo with france's president the move has backfired french foreign minister island should pay says the invasion could last days or weeks but months into its third week war in libya is turning up longer and harder than wanted. with gadhafi forces still standing firm rebel games only come with a heavy hand of nato helping the war in libya was a good friend to friend feed the broad congress the government supported aren't there already instead the public continues oppositional both sides is growing these demonstrators say they see through fraud these noble claims that i can't claim humanitarian intervention but it's really inherent. in local elections nicolas

sarkozy got thumped his un people to just nineteen percent of the folks a fridge president hope for a ratings list from the. he's got the opposite. because the more. presidents for ever for the last forty duels given france's troubled history in the region maybe fear some countries may remember they couldn't pause and unite against live former colonial master. countries that have genuine revolutions genuine brazing and then being able to unite i think that is something which the imperial powers don't really want to see withdraw speccing a growing backlash at home and abroad any talk of a quick fix sounds beltre to. the new bush or c. paris. meantime nato is refusing to apologize for the airstrikes on thursday

which mistakenly killed a number of rebel fighters meanwhile a number of russian journalists have been seized by the forces russia's foreign minister says he's worried about the situation and is taking steps to resolve it how course won a pulitzer winner has more from tripoli. hearing out of nato is that they might mistakenly have hit a group of opposition fighters in and around the city of brega that is in a strategic important oil city in the east of this country but nato refusing to apologize for that incident what we're hearing from nato officials is that they say the situation on the ground is extremely fluid and they were unaware of the fact that a lease and days rebel fighters had acquired tanks we are hearing from doctors that at least five opposition fighters have been killed and some twenty two injured what we understand happened is that using this heavy weaponry the rebel fighters had tried to advance in the supposed to be a surprise attack on the duckies it says that they were been struck by these nato air strikes we are being told increasingly that nato pilots are finding it more and

more difficult to be soon who on the ground particularly now when both sides are using almost the same machinery now there has been a lot of demoralization on the ground for some days now against nato rebel fighters increasingly feeling that the international community is not going far enough in its airstrikes betty moralization is now turning to anger and we're hearing some of the rebel leaders saying you came here to protect us not to kill us this is the second such incident in two weeks just last week thirteen people were killed in a similar rate so the state now we have been hearing reports as well that two russian journalists who work for a popular russian newspaper as well as a russian television crew have been taken by rebel fighters in just a short time ago the editor of one of the one of the editors of that newspaper confirms that he had spoken with his journalists via satellite phone and they say that they were on their way to being ghazi now this is strange response we know

this is the first time that journalists have actually been taken by the opposition forces they are usually the one to provide cover to the journalists most of us are invaded with the rebel fighters and that is how they are able to report on the frontline we at this stage know that gadhafi. at least for her internet and that is easy to feel happy fourth of taking care of her feet and not rebel fighters. his policy reporting journalist pepe escobar from the asia times believes that the coalition has already blundered badly its actions and maybe should avoid making an even bigger mistake by arming the rebels the nature of going on these nato incompetence number one ok you know what they want they want a colo tanks of qaddafi forces sit in the desert place sixty ducks so they can bomb them at will like this is was a replay of theirs it's already in iraq more than twenty years ago this is not going to happen what that his forces are doing they're disguising their remaining

tanks and armored personnel carriers inside or around the cities so he's using their real or against the guerrilla the u.s. and the brits basically want to arm the rebels and you can imagine if these rebels are armed by the cia pentagon s.a.'s from britain and all that can you measure this in six months we're going to have neutered seemed to suit. and later in the day here on r t it is more on libya in our cross-talk debate show where the people of illinois guests are asking has foreign intervention achieved its goals and what's next for the international forces. they are massacres taken place in misrata and no one can get to them we can't get to them i see can't get that done by land and then in jebel nafusa in the west in libya so let's let's let's actually characterize things in the proper context there is no. you're making today and we really believe intervention is failing to protect people that's exactly the

point the people. are making saying we asked for this intervention but it's not working. with r.t. live from moscow now the e.u. commissioner has announced that portugal would need about one hundred and ten billion dollars to stay afloat after greece and ireland it's now the third nation to seek a financial lifeline from its european neighbors with fears that spain could be next and according to john court of the e.u. referendum campaign eurozone governments are oblivious to the strength of the opposition and their drive to preserve the trouble here. we don't have a duty to portugal we did not a jew should plan our island we made seven billion pounds worth of welfare cuts and then we gave seven billion to ireland go figure that is neither and now spain is going to go the same way and our lousy coalition government will give the british people the right to have a vote and we don't know the reason they won't give us their vote because they know

that seventy five percent of people in a recent e.u. referendum campaign and congress poll said they want to get out of this expensive undemocratic club and the euro is going to crash and burn spain will follow portugal and i say not a penny to portugal not one single penny one single cent one single euro it's nothing to do with the united kingdom we want our country back thank goodness we never ever joined this madness how can you link the economy of an economic powerhouse with the united kingdom or germany with somewhere like greece you know well the answer is you can't and it's failed and the sooner it collapses let's sell we're having a referendum on may the fifth on the alternative voting system that's the referendum we need the referendum a need in our great country is it straight in or out should we stay or should we go should we say to you and the british people want out but whether we get the

referendum no it's kind of becoming irrelevant because this currency is doomed the old country parson sketch you know this power to cities to cease fire is no more well let me say this currency is dead it is deceased is is it is extinct it can not survive spain will go next. coming up there were more financial trouble across the atlantic this time. one of the country's top credit agencies telling the feds something has to get done this debt and growing alarm over america's careless credit agencies one of the possible downgrade of the country's rating. and it's a granny versus the internet how a seventy five year old woman managed to leave both georgia and armenia off line. i thought runaway has left britain's prince harry stranded on an ice floe in the arctic the incident comes just a few weeks before the wedding of his brother william and his aunties peter all

about reports here third in line to the throne will be keen to get back from the cold so as not to miss the important preparations as does the prince harry's been taking part in a a two hundred mile trip to the north pole as part of his role as the patron of the charity walking with the wounded those taking part in last walk with courier included for amputees who were injured during the conflict in afghanistan four british soldiers there know how you have hope to her in the charity how to hope to raise two million pounds from this walk that they've been they've been taking part in and they they just about finished it currently in the russian territory on the on the arctic and we're awaiting a flight home however they want me to crack in the ice on the landing strip that they were due to take off from as many but they couldn't do that at the start there at the moment oh of course we're hoping that he will be able not only to get back for the royal wedding at the end of the month but he's due to be on duty on monday with his role as a british army officer so he'll be there's plenty of people wanting him back and

back on duty birds i think if he is not going to be really him to fly in and rescue him just yet we're hearing from the organizers of this trek that a rescue party is on its way and how he should be taken off the ice flow very very soon. georgia's legal system is under fire for failing to match its claims of damage. development the number of prisoners has significantly increased since president saakashvili into power with only seven acquittals in twelve thousand legal cases over the last year lawyers claim it's practically impossible to get a fair trial. the people of georgia do seem to have the right to speak their mind. but if you are unfortunate enough to be detained it appears that for many all your rights only right out the window and should the case get to trial there can be very little hope of an acquittal no matter how good your lawyer is she didn't last three

years i've managed to in only three cases if we were to look at statistics thousands of cases heard in judges courts we would see that acquittals make less than one percent of the numbers. a recent human rights watch report on changes within georgia's legal system. steps there are a lot of concerns as well according to the w. like increasing the prison term for administrative offenses and thirty days to three months come in contradiction with all democratic developments as international organizations insist she'll only be used as a last resort debates about the fairness of georgia's legal system continue but the numbers speak for themselves last year alone out of twelve thousand guilty verdicts only seven or acquittals various international surveys show that nearly half of the population has no trust in their country's traditional system even the lawyers feel it's a lose lose game understandable since a lot of them and behind bars themselves. saakashvili doesn't want an independent

course system the prosecutor's office is dominant and police are the main instrument of power and political pressure there is no need for justice or lawyers he's trying to influence advocacy and when he fails he arrests or discriminates against lawyers who don't cooperate every since we rose to power with the rose revolution his interests clearly pointed west in a legal system based on fairness and justice does not seem to be a priority. according to some justice system in georgia today actually measures are worse in that i consider the times. georgia holds first place for the highest number of prisoners per capita in europe which is a very somber fact i remember reagan used to call the soviet union the evil empire and then lead to a george bush called george it beacon of democracy but how does these beacon have five times more prisoners per capita then the evil empire. it certainly seems as

though there are some areas where the beacon of truth is not going to shine karina's over r t p.c. . and are staying in georgia with the story of how the internet was brought crashing down in two countries a parody all by one elderly woman a blackout lasting several hours at a georgia media official said the seventy five year old woman was scavenging for copper when her digging accidentally damaged a broadband cable underground she has been charged with the destruction of property and may face community service bush utilites you have anything to do with it we're not look at me i'm sick and tired of all this do they have any witnesses show me those witnesses who can say you was me who damaged the cable. well you can have your say on this and many other stories we're covering on our website of course it's artie dot com let's check out some of the other items that are lined up for

you right now and a raging inferno as a gas tanker flipped over and burst into flames at a packed parking lot in southern russia part of the full details and see more of these dramatic pictures that are to come. under two elephants from a moscow's zoo or on an extended holiday just spain who decided they're having too much of a good time to return home joining the stampede to watch he got company. if . you with us here live from moscow now feuding u.s. political parties are once again in deadlock over negotiations on the country's budget the dispute is threatening to shut down the entire government which would cost taxpayers almost a billion dollars a day as artie's laurent lister explains there are fears that federal inaction could be the cause of yet another looming financial crash. while u.s.

lawmakers in washington bigger over the budget and hurled blame across the aisle for the gridlock calling opposing colleagues relatively small extreme group of india logs who are an anchor dragging down the budget negotiation process give me a break another group of decision makers has been weighing in on the to be one of the country's top credit agencies telling the feds something has to get done this debt ratings agency standard and poor and moody's have been warning for months that the u.s. debt could threaten the country's golden aaa credit rating telling investors in u.s. bonds essentially they may have to worry about getting paid the u.s. debt problem is big fourteen trillion dollars big meanwhile the solutions lawmakers are coming up with to solve this problem are small this tiny dot represents even the larger sixteen billion dollars in cuts republican lawmakers originally proposed

meanwhile the u.s. government continues to spend a lot more than it takes then resulting in more than a trillion dollars in budget deficit so with all of this there rating agencies as unsustainable and a concern and it's a path the u.s. has been on for a while forty three cents of every dollar we spend this year. we've borrowed against the future of our children continuing on this trajectory of borrowing and spending however would not be an option according to financial analysts if the u.s. was downgraded so what would happen it would be another crisis it would create global shock waves in part because most models and understandings of the global investment landscape include a landscape take is their sort of central aim for the u.s. ten year treasury bond as the risk as it is the interest the u.s. pays on its debt is staggering it was one hundred eighty seven billion in two thousand and. it increases to eight hundred forty four billion

that number would grow exponentially faster with a downgrade because the us would likely have to pay higher interest rates to borrow money meaning less money to spend at home than we have to start cutting really aggressively and for many things there are too important for americans really to to be able to agree to cut them right now drastic cuts in everything from energy to education to the military whether the u.s. would really be downgraded is up for debate the u.s. has the exorbitant privilege after all of printing dollars the global reserve currency to pay its local credit card bill the scarier scenario may be that the u.s. has even reached this point a situation that once would have been unthinkable lauren lyster r.t. washington d.c. . now radioactive water has leaked from the spent fuel pools of the nuclear power plant in japan follows the seven point one magnitude earthquake that hit the

country less than twenty four hours ago the facility lost three of its four power connections after the quake but one of them was later restored atomic officials say the leaks of radioactive water were discovered at eight sections of the plant the site is less than one hundred kilometers or so from the stricken fukushima station which is still to be made safe following last month's quake and tsunami nuclear energy expert philip white says the authorities now have to choose the least worst option to tackle the crisis the focus has been so exclusively only fukushima plant which is certainly in much much more serious condition nobody has really looked certainly no independent people have really looked closely at what's happening in because it was isolated by the tsunami a few weeks ago. all around it was devastated it's hard to imagine that that plant is in the sound condition. three and a half years ago. because the reason one of the ally do they keep

a different planet and it took three or so years to bring the first of those back online after extensive inspections and there's still a lot of criticism about. the owner will take at least as long as that to bring back online and nobody really knows what's going on near. now you would argue like a moscow let's get you some of the world news headlines now and your voices in this town of killed at least fifty alleged taliban militants officials say four security personnel also died in the clashes the fighting occurred in the troubled northwest area along the afghan border raid government forces are trying to suppress militants linked to al qaeda. is a hundred bodies have been found in ivory coast some of them reportedly burned. the alleged killings occurred in the west of the country and are believed to be carried out by liberian mercenaries and u.n. that representative said the incidents appear to be at least in part ethnically

motivated the slaughter comes amid the current standoff between the internationally recognized election when i listen to what an incumbent leader at the home back book he was saying inside his blog. says two of its members have been killed by the latest israeli air strike on gaza it comes out of the hamas government declared a cease fire in an attempt to prevent a further escalation of violence heavy fighting took place across the border on thursday when israel responded to the shelling of a bus with airstrikes and tank fire. ok you updated now with a look at stories here on r.t. next it's the business news with dmitri. thanks very much rory an arbitration cause in london ruling on the legitimacy of the sixteen billion dollars shares or between b.p. and was there as up held the injunction blocking the deal and tribunals decision appears to mark another victory for our abscess were no b.p.'s partners in the

russian oil for ai's strongly objected to b.p.'s proposed tie up with rosneft saying it broke their shareholder agreement our london correspondent laura abbott has more. well this is as you say essentially a yes or no the victory for. the consortium of russian shareholders in b.p. it means that b.p. doesn't get what it wants that b.p. ross may have tied up cannot at the moment go ahead we remember. what part of the agreement refers to us now after receiving five percent of b.p.'s says and b.p. in exchange receiving nine in the halls. and this is merely out holding an injunction that was already made earlier we saw a court say that the entire deal which also involves a tie up between b.p. and russ have to explore parts of the arctic shelf where there are believed to be huge reserves of oil and gas what they had already said back couldn't go ahead then

b.p. came through and said well maybe if we can't go ahead with the exploration deal maybe we can just go ahead with this on its own and the court has today are held injunction saying it karns b p. b p b a our consulting or the deal between b.p. and russia never breaks the elements of their foundation agreement when they first set up pete which saves any business any work that he wanted to undertake in russia had to be agreed it's maybe he had but he's still on that work and they say that this breaks the terms of that contract this is probably not the end of this story b.p. is looking to extend the deadline for the shasta which was supposed to be the fourteenth of april that was when the shots for had to take place under the terms of the original deal they're now looking to extend that and see if they can go ahead it's a later date so they probably will be reapplying to the court to see if they can make this deal work in some way. the reporting from london and us or expecting to

get some sort of compensation from b.p. however. north capitol says it will be most likely in the form of physical assets. we finished the year with losses and b. is not is extremely unwilling right now to pay the cash probably team play a good offer for b.p. to buy its gas stations cannot even say that you want to acquire the b.p.'s gas station because i don't think it's it's adaptable it's reasonable but probably they would consider b.p. to solve them their network of gas station at a discounted price therefore team key theoretically will be better positioned in the market of the retail gasoline. roseman to oil prices now they've extended their rally with ongoing unrest in the middle east and in north

africa weakening dollars also contributing to the growth west texas crude is now over one hundred eleven and a half dollars per barrel while brant crude is over one hundred twenty four and a half reports say an oil field in libya has been damaged this is fueling concerns civil war may destroy the country's war facilities european markets are trading in the black ahead of the u.s. opening you can put see. point nine percent in the back germany's dax is point six percent higher in russia same as when the last looked at it last hour mining sectors also leading on higher gold silver and copper prices therefore we're seeing kazakh miss and b.h.p. billiton gaining around two percent that's our airspace and defense sector also is posting gains with the systems and rolls royce group. you have to gains here in moscow another hour to go yes and bisects are trading positively on this final day

of the week and energy majors are leading on both. trades about of course one hundred eleven dollars program if you like this week so going to get some individual share moves kasparov is up one and one and a half percent new coil point eight percent polymaths it was also on the rise and strong precious metal shares shares are up one point three percent. we will be back with an update in around fifty five minutes time next we had lots and lots.