in the. fresh nato air strikes hit the libyan capital parts there of warnings that continued coalition support of the rebels was an invitation for a chain reaction of civil wars in the region. and a culture clash a controversial russian art three wins a state award for what they see is to stick a protest part critics see it as an act of obscenity and vandalism. almost twenty five years after chernobyl the world looks upon it with renewed concern as the distress of the femur shows how vital it is to be prepared for a repeat of a nuclear catastrophe. russia's gazprom says prices for gas could grow by

sixty percent by the end of the year find out more now business will turn around twenty minutes. international news now from our studios here in central moscow this is r.t. where it's just past ten pm in the russian capital and eight pm in libya where the country's. colonel gadhafi forces are continuing their siege of the rebel held city of misrata fresh nato air strikes rained down on the capital where more than a month into the allied intervention there's been a lot of discussion about the real aim of the action there but there's little said about what the rebels actually want to spin off try to discover for himself their hopes and whether they'll come true. for years saleem has been struggling to

keep his on a porch running he claims even opening and i mean thousands in bribes to various officials all linked to either that or his family. i won't even begin to describe how hard it was to start this business could not be as hands on everything for decades he's been taking money from ordinary people but now it's time for him to be returned. sure small private business does exist in libya but with the colonel and his close allies controlling all sectors of the economy it's a huge struggle for any businessmen to make decent profits the idea that the revolution will open the floor cares for everyone to enjoy is backed by rebels from farmers to the military command we have as i told you average country. as we have. called them clean. and i would invite you.

the reason. but some analysts don't share this often is and they don't need to know is the guardian angel it promises to be it has nothing to do with the military and nothing to do with democracy and nothing to do with the people is the color exploited to steal the resources or forty one billion barrels will leave us all reserves or the war just in africa and the ninth largest in the world there's so much all filling up a gas tank on a mid-size corner costs less than ten dollars in two thousand and need to go down even promised every libyan would be paid eight hundred dollars every month to share that revenues but field to keep his word libya does have the resources to do big business it's just that in the past for decades it was done only by a circle of chosen people the elite now here in the rebel stronghold the local say

they are ready to fight to the end to build a free and prosperous society but is the opposition strong enough to build a whole new regime or can it be that the future of the libyan people has already been decided for them you got pissed off r.t. in guys the libya. well we caught up with hugo here in moscow sharing his experience there in libya with us in the studio. i came back from benghazi maybe over a week ago spent two weeks there. with the rebels themselves myself they are pretty badly organized many of them are young many of them on teenagers who just got their hands on kalashnikov rifles and are constantly shooting just in the air in the city so when they're either celebrating something or commemorating something it seemed to me it was actually even more dangerous to be inside because of that rather than

on the front because everybody just sporadically should be got these guns from got a few troops when they retreated so when we're talking about their actions on the front they're fully trained one of our teams was at the front they got caught by a mortar attack so when everybody was running back. from the front they saw how the rebels were actually running faster. than our team was with me and european countries now saying that they're going to send trainers to help organize the rebels to see how long this may take the russian. talks. with the prime ministers ready to meet mediate this but all sides have to abide by u.n. resolution the fighting. well that was. the fact that rebels now rely on international help makes the situation even more dangerous promoting the

idea of uprisings in other countries but this is the warning from the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov. because you believe you're an opposition's rejection of the cease fire initiatives is connected with the fact that nato is implementing the u.n. security council resolution in its own way and has sided with the rebels and called leave rebels rely on western help to overthrow the regime and seize power it's a very dangerous mood deliberately escalating the conflict in hopes that the world community would come to your aid it is essentially an invitation to a series of civil wars. let's get more analysis on the situation in libya from francis boyle he's professor of international law at the university of illinois thanks very much indeed for professor for joining us now are sort of your interviews recently in which you said that the u.n. resolution allows for a land invasion but you draw a distinction between that and an occupying force as

a legal expert can you explain the difference. well thanks for having me on with all due respect to our foreign minister lavrov he knew full well that when he refused to veto their resolution it would be interpreted by the united states of the natal states for for scale war theory or against libya and again with all due respect to foreign minister lavrov these are crocodile tears he's now shedding for libya the united states will pay absolutely no intention to distinction in the our security council resolution between our invasion in our keep asia when the clinton administration invaded haiti in one thousand nine hundred four with twenty four thousand us troops they nevertheless maintained that they were not an occupying force so i think we have to steer the basically the russian government has

sacrificed libya are to the united states and the neighboring states i guess for reasons of riyadh parlance because it's kind of like what are chamberlain did you know in nineteen thirty eight he sacrificed czechoslovakia to hitler in the hope and expectation that he could he could divert shit learn our to the east towards to solve the union and not to the west towards syria but they were sorry to interrupt but that the russians of stained the chinese abstained from that your resolution because it was imposing a no fly zone were you saying a little earlier about a full military invasion hasn't happened actually has it there has been a measured response by nato to carry out aerial bombardments admittedly it's taken a long time for it to take effect but there hasn't actually been a full scale invasion by america has there. there's nothing are measured about what . nato and united states of john bull florence even according to your own reports

a man of the russian government very just blowing the heck out of libya all up and down this has nothing to do with the no fly zone we also know that there are hundreds of special forces by nato states are already on the ground in libya and now it has been publicly announced that france britain and in the lead are sending in ground troops i believe this is the song called the camel's nose into the tent so there such is no presale and invasion ok so therefore are they now in breach of international law and if so what can be done about it well of course they are in breach of international law right from the get go this is all about stealing libya's oil and to closing out could garvie which even every wanted needed end to beginning regime change was not within the terms of the security

council resolution one look rob saw that resolution he these are sophisticated man he knew full well that the united states and nato would use this is a green light to take over libya still in soil and depose davi and that is the situation we're dealing right now what about the situation in the u.s. of burn us unsay could be impeached for this i'm not grounds. yes i've already set up a national campaign to impeach obama over this attack on libya he attacked with absolutely no authorization from congress when so ever in violation of the world powers clause of the constitution article one section eight and also the war powers resolution one thousand seventy three those are both impeachable offenses are high crimes and misdemeanors and we are making an effort here in the

united states to bring a bill of impeachment into congress and try to stop this war just briefly and finally we see sarkozy and cameron facing similar allegations. well clearly our sarkozy and camera you don't know well have to be are handled by their own people but clearly what we're seeing unfold here in libya is a pre existing work plan by nato by the british by the french by the americans to attack libya there is no way this amount of military force and pots higher power could have been put together in such a short period of time and less there was a work plan that was activated the moment there were disturbances in not in benghazi and now everything now is going according to plan which is why i believe

that since they have failed to. depose conduct the witness steps so far the next stage will be moving into a ground invasion and remember secretary of defense gates said publicly that anyone going to president obama with a plan for a third ground war in the middle east needed his head examined i think gates said that said make it clear that a ground invasion is in the work plan so far gates has said it will not happen on his watch but he's too tired to carry so ok we really have to leave it there for the moment thanks so much francis paul for joining us live in the usa international law professor thank you for your time thank you my best of my friends in moscow. well one man was so desperate to reach water on libya that he tried to hijack a passenger jet. anything in

a row never would have had to before the proof of life in tripoli more details on that story for you on our web site r.t. dot com and also their online. accounts burglar who turned out to be a real cat a woman from russia as you've contacted police to find out who stole her gold jewelry only to discover her pet was the prime suspect in that story another party dot com. it's. twenty five years since the meltdown of the chernobyl nuclear plant fears linger that the disaster will one day repeat itself on the eve of the tragic anniversary ukraine seeking funds to complete a new containment shelter over the reactors remains which is still emitting dangerous levels of radiation has had exclusive access to the disaster site. well if you travel across the chernobyl exclusion zone thirty kilometer radius

around the station the pa station the one which exploded twenty five years ago probably find different levels of radiation you would find the levels like three thousand micro which is very very high and this is not suitable for living that is it at places like that a so-called great forest or in top of the previous tallest building where i saw a level of two and a half thousand micromax power it is not advisable for a human being to be there for more than ten fifteen minutes at the same time you can find places with very low levels of radiation some are even lower than in most core even in kiev so. it is impossible to live there and the fallout period of most of the nuclear particles might last twenty thousand years so this will probably never be inhabited again but in some parts of the exclusion zone there are villages with the so-called recyclers or how they called in russian so my solar people who returned to the zone this immediately after the collapse of the soviet union and

they've been living there ever since they were all for it as they told me some flats and even money compensations in kiev and everywhere across ukraine but still they prefer to coming back to their home villages to their own houses to their cattle and there they're growing vegetables and fruits there so it seems that they are not scared and not put off by the radiation at all living there for the last twenty years indeed with this anniversary the twenty five years since the fall out ensure novel in one thousand eight hundred six now the exclusion zone has drawn a lot of attention we've seen lots of many different events now we know that the russian president dmitry medvedev has already presented liquidators that people who were involved in the cleanup operation in the immediate aftermath of the last with russian state awards will also know that the russian president will be joining his ukrainian and russian counterparts along with a huge delegation of international v.i.p.'s tomorrow on tuesday inside the exclusion zone. we also know that the head of the russian orthodox or orthodox

church curia has already arrived to kiev and he will also be holding vigils in kiev and in the inside the chernobyl exclusion zone on tuesday this comes less than a week after huge international donor conference which was held in the korean capital with ukraine seeking more money to build another sarcophagus now is clearly people understand that there's still a great deal of danger underneath the circle for this underneath the steel structure because nobody still knows to the day how much nuclear fuel has remained under the surface i did a report explaining all the details and how things are now with the support of this the old and the new and we can have a look at this report right now. japan's ongoing struggle to contain the thought shimmered disaster is fueling the growing anxiety over nuclear energy safety the last time the world was this scared was in the shadow of the chernobyl reactor explosion in nineteen eighty six but this latest accident to demonstrate that

despite make great progress made in the last twenty five years. more nice to be done to ensure that sci fi fans. like raunch becomes fully entrenched among nuclear power plant operators government and great lake and japan hopes to seal the site within nine months but back in the days of chill normal a quicker solution was needed shutting the gapping hole of the exploded reactor was the immediate way out of a deadly mistake scientists were quick to react to the unfolding catastrophe and managed to build a steel structure over the devastated porous station protecting europe from further spread of radiation and circle focus was built in one thousand nine hundred eighty six just months after the disaster back then absolute said that it would last for twenty years until two thousand and six no there are fears that the night collapse and there are several cracks on the wall of the building and experts believe that

this may cause serious danger and serious threat if the circle because did collapse the whole of the european continent could be contaminated by the radioactive fuel which is still thought to lie under the so-called figures this new arc is being billed by a french company not arca work has been in progress for months but it only recently became clear that this billion dollar project lacks financing a week before the disasters twenty fifth anniversary managed to attract an additional half a billion euros in aid from europe at a dollar conference. we've now been granted a real chance to complete the new shelter by the year two thousand and fifteen. experts are confident it could even happen quicker in just two years and that the new protective layer would last for generations to see their lifetime for their use of compliant is supposed to be a harmful. that is the term to develop technology is.

to manage fuel complain in manson's hard to manage long lead active metals radio. with means that your novel nuclear power plant could one day be dismantled under the new dawn is unclear but as japan's nuclear crisis keeps the climate on alert there is now a new focus on insuring should not was dark past. look serious ascii art see reporting from chernobyl ukraine. and as we march in novels and verse three many said that the world has failed to learn the lessons on nuclear safety that the tragedy provided we're now joined by professor tom burke is a funny little sustainable development company ethan e.g. for a little more insight on the crisis there in japan thank you very much professor for joining us but we learned that japan has announced that it will install a protective boom over its focus shima reactors and stop the radiation leak certainly hopefully within the next nine months do you think it will bring the situation under control at last. well good evening i think first of all they have to get the reactors into what's called

a cold shutdown and i think that's what will take between three and nine months to get to that point it's only then that they'll be able to think about putting a dome over the top of it they haven't yet decided whether to do that or whether to try and dismantle the reactors it really depends on what they find as they carry out work over the next six to nine months what risks still remain many are saying that there are comparisons with to nobble obviously the radiation levels internode of the more than one focus shima but what are the risks at the moment there. well the event is still in progress they have not actually regained control of the reactors and so there are still risks that there will be further explosions or releases of radiation either to the air or to water which to the sea which has been happening are all through this process now they've got a bit more manageability than they had earlier on but this event is still ongoing for sure noble event was over very quickly it was an explosion and it was over relatively quickly this is clearly going to run and run for months is it fair to

say the world has indeed failed to learn the lessons from what happened to noble twenty five years ago. yes i think it is we can expect on the basis of a record we've got an accident of this scale given the number of reactors around the world happening about once every decade and what is very clear from what happened in fukushima is the japanese neither the utility nor the government really had a well worked out thought through emergency plan to deal with a catastrophic event like this bearing in mind how the soviet union coped with the people displaced many people something like fifty thousand were evacuated and within two hours of that happening in chernobyl and they were set up in permanent homes very quickly but what's happening in japan thousands of people are still sheltering in stadiums comparison there. well i think i think again that the japanese authorities have not handled this for a while they've not been very honest or direct with the japanese people about what the implications of the exclusion zone are the likelihood is those people are not

going back to their homes for a very very long time and there is something like eighty one hundred thousand people got to be involved but twice the number that were involved in are bought and so but the future for those people is very grim indeed effect effectively their whole lives have been just dropped it completely and will be for a very long time to come. when we've obviously seen a surge in anti nuclear sentiment there in japan and indeed around the world you are indeed a director of a sustainable development company what options does japan have now all these nuclear energy there to stay in japan. well i think that would get they will clearly become a lot more dynamic in japan by and large japan has been very accepting of nuclear power despite actually not a very good track record of managing safety events i think that that will now change japan has lots of options for meeting its energy needs funnily enough it

relied on when pickup when its nuclear reactors shut down during the earthquake its window raters carried on so i think we'll see in japan a lot more when i think we'll see a lot more gas and fortune in the price of gas is falling globally so i think we'll see gas play a bigger role and i think we'll see the sun also begin to play a bigger are already quite a big debate going on in japan about how they really reduce their dependence on nuclear power as much as possible so not just those implications into kapan could you say the same thought the rest of the world many countries nervous now of nuclear energy could you see alternative source is now really being developed. well i think what will really give a lot of governments pause to thought is when the economic consequences of this event become clear so far people are focused on the radiation impacts but actually you're talking about something that could cost more than one hundred billion dollars in terms of direct costs to actually deal with this problem people keeping

up the mess and that will give a lot of countries pause for thought about whether they really want to rely on nuclear when there are indeed lots better options so interesting to talk to you thank you for your time professor tom burke founding director of the e three d. sustainable development company live in london a lot thank you. rush a lot has been catapulted into the limelight after a giant piece of coffee she won a state award reckon on the work seen by many as obscene and the drawbridge opposite the federal security service in st petersburg where most people and that reaction others say it's the message not the form that messrs. this is award winning aren't according to russia's ministry of culture the sixty five metre phallus whitewashed on a draw bridge in st petersburg has won the twenty thousand innovation prize for best visual artwork self-styled art terrorists vyner meaning war in russian are the unpopular with us. i think it's essentially vandalism a bridge is

a cultural and historical monument and anything on it has an act of vandalism and it should be punished not rewarded. here in the center of contemporary art can see the other entries for the award nothing is stimulating or a shocking or innovative as viner's and according to the jury that's why they won purely artistic merit but now it's not as simple as that the same symbol the ministry rewarded is now being brandished in mocking protest this russian youth group is angry four hundred thousand rubles of taxpayers' money we've given to a group it calls vandals for vine or the protest only legitimizes their own but. it's a very awkward situation when the state award goes to a group that in fact organizes an action aimed against the state but this is a very important signal artists always express society's pain and a healthy society accepts these. could be has been no acceptance of binah as art

until now two members still face trial on hooliganism charges for this little stunt british graffiti artist banksy did bail them out but they could still play seven years in prison for flipping police cars so why this sudden show of state support. the minister of culture was afraid of being accused of political censorship and i think he was right in our country is better being afraid of imposing political censorship than to actually important. a sea change from four years ago they say region two kissing policeman was banned by the culture ministry for international exhibits fearing embarrassment the curator of that exhibit was andrei year affair back then he lost his job but this time he was on the jury so why is this our then. the touring is a graphic and expressive example of how an artist reacts to

a social climate it doesn't specify the target of his protest he simply says that strong protest is brewing in russian society for having draw the line between saying this art and vandalism is this is just defeating them not their street art is mine of vandalism but it's not hooliganism the disorder it may cause is compensated hundreds of times by the meaning of their pictures which is painting could be restored on the bridge to become a symbol of some petersburg's culture because it's the first work that is proof of a civil society vyner court controversy usually at the expense of the authorities whether it's art or not they've achieved what they wanted to know to writing they say they'll donate a prize money to political prisoners why didn't it r.t. moscow. business is next now with dmitri.

thanks bill rising gas demand in europe should see more money pouring into gas from his coffers by the end of the year the c.e.o. of the russian gas giant projects the price of gas and long term contracts could rise by as much as sixty percent by december to five hundred thousand cubic meters they said the fact that exports to europe are higher than in april than in the winter months were good grounds for optimism but look at the markets u.s. markets opened flat after a long weekend the dow is off around a quarter of a percent point one and the nasdaq is actually up by the same amount as the almost three year highs stocks are struggling with the resistance level coupled with high energy prices kimberly clark has cut its profit forecast which is also going to investor sentiment here in the market started off on a negative note with the obvious losing point nine percent of my six point four one point five percent look at some of the stocks ross near last two percent polymaths always bucking the trend it was up point eight percent probability

a big wraps up today's. russia continues to be driven by external factors as usual the start of the week is unsurprisingly quiet as the european exchanges most of them remain closed for the easter holiday weekend to the russian market looks into the rumor which was circulated in the media regarding a potential increase in the new extraction tax in russia independent producers producing the so-called gas could be receiving tax breaks and. facing extraction tax and growth in line with inflation whereby i. guess of this world producing dry dry gas could see a doubling of traction tax. externality the headlines with. i'm going to.