the. eyewitness reports say at least eighty people have been injured seven people called being killed in the explosion in the gallery in capital and.

through giving a watching r r t the breaking news i think of the sound problem with the top of the program there let me update sure what we're talking about if you just joined is there an explosion has rocked a metro station in minsk in the capital of better roads with reports of rising casualties are a correspondent sara first there will be bringing us the latest eyewitnesses say that people have died in an explosion at a metro station tonight in the capital at least seven people have been killed these are all official figures this is the latest pictures we've got released online by some of the eyewitnesses you see the metro station after the blast and people were running away a lot of panic in confusion naturally cause there as a say seven killed a medic splosion at the metro station in minsk earlier on russia six pm at the saving time was there a furphy so you just bring us up to date on the details that you know so far tonight please. well still no official figure is holding the dead or injured from

the explosion but is he said the eyewitness accounts of local t.v. news are reporting that at least eighty people have been injured and is those seven people have been killed in that explosion it'll take to study much in the pallor of chinkapin still a million still happen is he said six pm local time rush hour there is too good to train had just come in and this explosion happening on the escalator and not much a station is also the explosion just later actually collapsed i certainly contributing to the injuries no eyewitnesses of the other day saying twitter accounts and i've been sending in pictures teach a bunch teachers he said you could probably see some of those now people coming out of the station days there was descriptions of people with their clothes guns with bits of gloucester all my clothes some pretty heavy injuries from what was going to splice oh well non-scented main bases like this some of these pitches you can see

blood the merchants the services of course working at the state we've had the police cordoned off such a station is actually located near to the galleries president alexander lukashenko his main office and we know that he is now to speak on the stage he's there responded by saying he's taking this under his personal control understood that any time around about now he'll be holding an urgency tools but now part of that will be to establish exactly what caused the explosion because as i guess there is no new official explanation is not knowing how low cost at its place should have been as we said we needed it once openly and later it will take a stab at a station opposing these injuries and the people that are called to say party you're sure of fraud what we've been talking we've got an update now again unconfirmed reports but looking at reports from brother russian television saying now the number of injured in that metro blog. has climbed two hundred and three but

most of the subway is the fifth largest subway system just reading some stats here about it in the c.i.s. in terms of passenger flow it's the sixth largest number of stations and the only one in belarus and it was the mother. extremely busy time of day was no no we've got some eyewitnesses as well tell us a bit more about that and. tell us about the eyewitnesses who managed to catch up with us as well. that you've been having the reporting from the end of the meeting after that it's they said they could see a flake coming from that they said people thirty days of day shopping what happened was that when some of the people played outside and inside that they can get in there eyewitness accounts. the metro station is off and on since are heading towards city hospitals the traffic has stopped in that part of the city explosion took place at

a busy metro intersection in the underpass witnesses say they saw thick smoke rising and black there bruce scattered people were carried out of the station into ambulances that's all i know at this moment. i was going up the escalator of the metro station it was very busy full of people only had about a meter left to go when i heard a loud bang intuitively or squatted down panicked a little there was no crushing through the barriers people continued walking there was a lot of smoke to be honest i was scared i continued walking there was a lot of white smoke i could hardly see outside a saw an injured woman. so again more information coming through as we're talking to you and hearing from you hearing from the belorussian ministry of internal affairs confirming that we've been reporting for the past few hours of seven dead now very sad news and again the unconfirmed figures so far. eighty.

we're also getting some reports of more eyewitnesses you heard to them here on our t.v. we're also hearing one guy saying it was a large flash an explosion and heavy smoke he says a fell to my knees and crawl he then says graphically bodies were piled one on top of each other another eyewitness saying that at least part of the station's ceiling collapsed after the explosion culture with the sarah further still on the line with us so whether we've lost a friend i was sorry still the. report says well quite early on couple of hours ago when this happened they gather the epicenter of feel like of this explosion whatever caused it was around but the escalators what more do we know about. it was the what happened late in the legislation that they the stuff. that afterwards there had been some flats in that area either the us plates with the full round again is the way that's of course describing the people who were coming out with

the plaster and bank plating that would be in the aftermath of that explosion as we say contributing to the galleys six pm local time and it's really busy time that would have been a lot of people traveling through that's played. a key trains of thought that just as they really think credibly pipeline couldn't really have had the other worst time because this is that emergency service is now working to try and help these things it in its place in syria for now thank you we'll let you get back in gather some more information from us we'll come back should it will be later and also tell you the president alexander lukashenko. new reporting that he will take the situation in minsk what some to know the result personal control the investigation of it and we are expecting official statement from him shortly well more on the explosion now in a couple of fellows let's bring in denis sound with c's executive director of think tank links hopes for the united kingdom some. thanks for taking the time out to be

with this devastating state emerging from because we're seeing these pictures coming in do you think we could be looking at a terrorist attack there's been no official comment about that yet. yes well of course it's a bit too early to speculate there is a possibility that it is a terrorist and that it is it will fall into a pattern of similar terrorist attacks that we've seen in different european cities. has not been a target before in this way and it is not perhaps an obvious target for a terrorist attack but here we are we have a situation that could very well possibly be a terrorist attack if it is an act of terror why would be a target number a guess throughout the last days not covered as we as we possibly could to try to flesh this out try and work out what could have happened here they're all saying really the there are no big terrorist networks targeting valorous at this time so.

yes this is a. lot of questions because. there's not an obvious target. and i would dismiss this is somehow connected with internal belorussian political situation because. the restoration moves in a different way and we have never seen examples of this kind of violence so it could be that this is something very specific connected with something very specific and this will perhaps emerge in the course of the next days and again if you think this story did last thought every second what could the consequences of this be tonight for bell or do you think early days i know taking a look at the consequences be is obviously very shocking forever living in that city. well clearly. is not immune.

these kind of incidents that we've seen in moscow that we've seen in london that we've seen in mother and in other places and so this would obviously be a number of alarm bells amongst your qualities and to the russian capital this evening. as i said it's early days yet we really have to see exactly what happened whether this was a terrorist attack and it could also be simply an accident of a of a different sort but for the moment i think we are safe to assume that all the evidence leads us to think that this is something similar to what we have seen before in other capital cities in europe thanks ever so much for your time thanks bill approach your dentist says sam its executive director of think tank legs giving us what insight you can. political analysts. in the studio thanks you heard what the gentleman said just then what do you think has

happened there tonight police been pretty guarded at the moment there's nothing official being said whether this is a terrorist attack whether it's some sort of accident to say you do kind of thing done she would probably could be a terrorist or know you're across this better than me what do you think is well i think that in the same position because if your information is available but. at least what we know at the moment is that. definitely be here for terrorist attacks we would happen if we can define it as a terrorist attack because it took place during rush hours and the selection of a place and. if this was premeditated if it was an accident said something going on then we were classifying it and we can call with her but at the same time i think that it really trademark label whatever it is a terrorist attack taken into consideration i mean place and the number of troops

as well indeed thank you very much of those poor injured tonight and indeed the fatalities and the friends and family and our hearts go out to them and it's not a good time to be talking about who may have done this at this stage and to be breaking out over it but it does beg the question if it is a terrorist who could be behind it because we've got a number of your sons night each one of them saying as i think you just heard me say to our previous guest there's no specific big terrorist target in belorussia well i'm not in a position to point a finger at someone and at the same time i don't buy conspiracy theories such but at the same time i think there's a lot of it and you've got things. for this terrorist they're the first theme is that definitely deal to the. right card. place and there was not any al qaeda operation or there was nor any islamic radicals there saw that and that's a big question. that the only thing what i can tell you see and i developed on my

intuition is that feeling that those public discontent which is generating interest and go at the last societies are good i rather controversial december. nineteenth presidential election. ways of manifestation you see. some people there in the political mainstream process but at the same time we can't rule out that they can be a known minor obscure group of radicals. just manifested themselves in such a way and it takes just three five people you see and basic knowledge of physics chemistry and engineering good just to conduct such a thing so here we've got a line coming through no saying of president vert have suggested that russia can help with the investigation to help her alexander. president lukashenko been quick

to say that he's taking charge of this investigation itself tonight indeed is already been to the sea expecting a media conference from him in a minute so he's taking a very firm hand the show that he's in control but you know it's an interesting point you raise isn't it just just no saying that ok this is the the figures the subway is the fifth largest subway system in the c.i.s. but it's still pretty small subway it's still a pretty small the city is as much of a capital is it is you know when you come from london when you're in new york when you're in moscow we've all seen the terrorist bombings we've all witnessed it we've all seen the warnings i guess thinking about the general public coming home tonight in. minsk you know getting the metro home not particularly maybe as much as some of us think elsewhere around the world thinking about looking if you shoulder looking at suspicious bugs like rule told to do and metros and railway stations i guess is a wake up call isn't. the people of minsk. are on the run and there's also always violence in the society as you know and there's also just the. possibility. of any

terrorist that there and there's no guarantee for any country where the this is a democracy or. just. to be guaranteed you see from any terrorist attacks look i'm fifty one i remember in my teens but the first little respect was conducted during sort of time in early seventy's and sort of literal with a few people remember this but there was a let me again repeat my theory that it wasn't just obscure group of people who were dissatisfied with that so it's an ability you see so they conducted that they were some we can solve at least some source a little to finish in a good surrogates not the first time there's been an explosion on the metro in minutes there was another explosion back in two thousand and eight again it was never really proved who was behind route as far as i remember really they were there was another explosion in this league asian led nor where of course these terrorists. strike it because of this as i understand it this is the biggest

terrorist attack in the independent history or of dollars but definitely this is a wake up call for the for the citizens of belittles and for authorities who are now to show on one hand guts and reverence that's just to control the situation on the other hand not to tighten screws you see this is a very delicate thing the source of this is a moment of truth this is a sort of test for and they wish they would undergo this test you see the way he did use previous times ok well as a say the main thing our thoughts tonight immediately sergei with the injured and with the families and friends of those you guys just bring our viewers up to date the latest we're getting better russian t.v. . the number of injured has climbed to one hundred three seven people have been killed in the metro station explosion earlier on today in minsk that's

according to s.t.b. reporting more than fifty have been hospitalized for the second and third clinical hospital some of them we're hearing in a serious condition is the latest pictures we've got through that so of the metro station itself we're hearing thirty five victims have been treated at the scene as i mentioned just now president alexander lukashenko said he's taking the situation in minsk on his personal control that's been reported on by the russian channel one television there are no reports instantly of any russians being injured tonight president bush. visited the scene putting flowers down for the victims victims say the explosion was a bomb we've got so much eyewitness reports on the news wires one chap fifty two year old saying it was a large flash an explosion and heavy smoke he says a fell on my knees and crawled bodies piled on each other another male witness said

in the metro said the station the ceiling collapsed after the explosion. one chappy is saying i thought i was dead after the flash i started to cry i thank god i've made my way out. what's the latest we know we will of course bring you up to date our correspondents. across the latest for you we'll update you on line at our facebook and twitter feeds as well do stay with us for the latest throughout the course of the. now in libya the rebels have rejected the african union's proposal for a cease fire a negotiation with colonel gadhafi the representatives failed to convince rebel leaders in the opposition held city of benghazi holding talks with gadhafi in tripoli on sunday gadhafi agreed to the proposal of a truce but his forces resumed attacks on rebel positions on monday insurgents say they want accept any deal that will see the colonel and his family hold on to power

in the world later stepped up its the soul of against gadhafi sunday destroying over a dozen tanks and the largest air strike in weeks libya's been ravaged by civil war and i have said february with thousands of reports of casualties our correspondent got pissed off as more from the rebel headquarters in benghazi. hasn't spoken with his wife winnie only two months she is in misrata it's now in the west surrounded by gadhafi forces and he is in the east i can't even call my wife i don't know whether she's alive for gerrard the front has been moving in both directions but what's become clear is there without needle support the rebels don't stand a chance against the superior firepower but after antigovernment fighters were killed by mistake in need or airstrikes trust in the alliance was hit as one. of the african union has sent a top level delegation to tripoli which proposed

a road map for peace it calls for an immediate ceasefire and political reform which even though the road map includes plans for reform it's not clear whether it also calls for gadhafi and his family to abandon power the way the political system in libya works is that officially got there is not a head office he is more of a formal figure or a moral leader as he called himself in reality this man is build a giant power web which is wrapped around business and the government and is built on a circle of children people both personally close to god i feed his family. also proposed a peace plan which was rejected by the opposition even though it individually elections the deal did not go to the sun taking part in them. we couldn't agree with the initiative because it didn't guarantee that darby's entire family would leave without that guarantee negotiations are pointless. it doesn't seem the

rebels are really took with their guns now how can we live in peace with this bloody tyrant. this one of our g. . as libya continues many of left north africa to seek refuge in europe italy's borne the brunt of the problem it's our little producers been inundated with tens of thousands of sheet is eons of libyans looking for a safe haven following uprisings of their homes and the crisis prompted the italian foreign minister to call for a political action from the want to sunday latest on this and talk to journalists north for groups of neurons are joining us from rome tonight thanks for being on the lines pretty shit just how serious is the immigration situation in italy them well actually the numbers are not a huge as they were originally originally thought. so far we have some thirty thousand more or less migrants most of them from tunisia and the rest of them from libya but not all of them libyans sinaloan all of them to lesions. who escaped the

countries who flee the countries and came to really that's number it's quite the one considering that this migration has taken place in in some fremantle moralists i mean from the beginning of the year but. as a matter of fact is now such a huge number given the average number it's below the average number that we get from the sea in a year in a normal year and anyway it's much less than the overall figure of illegal migration they get every year since most of the migrants usually come from land from the border from libya so i mean we we have a difficult situation but we don't have a real emergency at least not yet of course i'll tell you what you say there but obviously the people on the lot of love to do so would say it is affecting their lives greatly will come to that in just a minute just want to talk about the wider issue maybe this is posing for europe

what role do you think the e.u. should play in resolving this crisis. well the problem of it the problem is that we're caught between a rock and a hard place he wants the rock being. instability in north north africa that brought those regimes that we usually relied on in order to tackle the migration to collapse and so our problem is that we don't have anyone to talk to because we don't have anyone who's able to control the situation lead right now we either we don't have anyone who's. able to take a long term commitments with us in tunisia because tunisia is going through a transition right now so everything they unit goshi a visa transition really is it's not a definite. agreement and the hartleys is europe because the big issue here is that europe at the very moment is not helping at all we were left with the burden of the

. reception of these of these migrants and and so. there will indeed even germany the big power player in europe condemned the fact that it's in these and shoot visas to these north african immigrants isn't it. sure we have what i think what i think the italian government can you blame them for. leaving the situation can unexpected i mean we did the situation caught the our governments are not ready and the this is something the government can you blame the poor because actually the science of the. wave of migrants. were there not now just yesterday. at least since the beginning of the year so that's the point but on the other hand the problem is that at the very moment we have the problem of trying to frame these people in

a sort of legal or earth frame sort of or it didn't word in order not to leave them in our identification centers i would call them without legal status and the only thing we could do so far was to grant them a sort of temporary visa now the illegal issue if this can be considering a sort of passport for the shaman area which of course compasses and most of the european country or not we see yes because a from this point of view this one in government knows very well that the final this nation of most of these people is now easily but it's france and germany on the other hand france and germany especially but also other countries say no because they know very well that they are defined on this mission of this people so what is going on right now basically is a sort of dirty game. on these poor people with our government wanted to sort of get rid of them or at least to to to soften the impact of the mission and the other

countries this is my wish and i just quickly for bridge i want to ask you to actually just. the local people who produce their beautiful island as it is but also very small even though you say numbers could be across are not huge comparatively it's still an awful lot of number of people for a little and how they get on with the locals these people the locals going to home a verb. well the problem of the problem is that this island of lampedusa it's the closest point to tunisia and that's of course the first barrier let's see the first of the rubble points of all this people now. let's say a deep political bet of the government was dead the number of people would be low enough in order to confine them on the island and so their local population which is about five thousand people would of course blame the government for the situation. the. needs. of the situation

wouldn't be transferred let's see on the mainland but dead bad turn out to be wrong because the people are too many so now we have the is a paradox that the government lost on two sides from the point of view of the public public opinion because. the island of lampedusa are of course and raged with the government because they feel that the government will lead to situations leap out of its aims on the other hand we have this plan all over dividing the refugees a. lot of the you tell your region and the local community where the new centers are have been set up in order to to to put this people in of course. don't want those people near them so we have i mean the government has a big problem at the very moment of public opinion being against the way all the situation has been handled and the problem not just to finish is not so far as i

told you the numbers which so far are relatively speaking speaking still quite limited the fact dead so there is no stability inside the special in libya which is a transit country also from for migration coming from south sub-saharan africa so these these lack of full time frame for a visa. counting of people is something which is very worrying because if the numbers are not the so far this migration lasts for a very long time and there poses a very big problem for bilateral relations with those countries but also political problem with europe which is not so far been very receptive to our demands of italian government demands for sharing the burden for british author and journalist thank you for your insight and joining us from rome tonight here on r.t. international news channel is pre-show. all right now bring you up to date on the

breaking news story no. six o'clock tonight belarusian time. police have confirmed that seven people have been killed now in an explosion at the metro station in iran it's six o'clock local time local t.v. reporting the number of casualties now has risen to one hundred and three you're seeing these latest pictures coming through the first clear pictures we've got we've had a lot of mobile telephone pictures this is a. proper professional stuff coming through it's unclear whether people were hurt in the blast or from the collapse of the escalator we hear that the explosion at the center was. maybe on top we don't know but it was near an escalator we also heard from eyewitnesses very early on that that exploded emergency services are at the scene dozens of victims of already been taken to the.