one weapon did not strike the intended target due to a weapons systems failure although officials in tripoli claim more than eight hundred civilians have died in nato raids the nine people they say were killed in sunday's bombardment of the city have become the first civilian casualties officially acknowledged by the alliance only on saturday nato has also admitted another mistake in a strike they stand on rebel forces near the libyan oil port of bragger with a number of casualties not been disclosed we hold me to hold mr cameron mr sarkozy was the biggest cornish mr obama. he could make it is possible for the death of these innocent children innocent was innocent fathers and mothers you cannot justify this attack the enemy was sunday's fatal error hackers in the rising concerns within nato about his operation in

northern africa only eight out of its twenty eight members have joined the mission to protect civilians in libya which raises the question how many would support one to kill them ration option or r.t. tripoli. with civilian casualties in libya mounting no end in sight those paying for the intervention might be starting up more than they bargained for the u.k. and its taxpayers might see one point six billion dollars of their hard cash diverted from the intervention results is the remote reports now there's little patience left them on an already disillusioned public. they're already calling it the billion pound war it's calculated that if the war in libya goes on for six months it will cost the british taxpayer one point six billion dollars but that initial humanitarian mission is now get rid of gadhafi operation and that could take a lot longer assuming that their goal is to simply oust him from power one imagines this is not going to end until he or until he leaves office so this could

potentially drag on for months more and as we've seen they've already extended the operation by another three months that's unlikely to be popular with the british public that's watching government spending like a hawk already feel seeing services and jobs slashed even so downing street swore it is open and it's taking the lead in libya data gathered by britain's guardian newspaper from defense ministries and news reports shows that britain has flown twenty five percent of all sources in libya second only to the u.s. by the second week of may six thousand strike missions had been ordered blogger daniel rennick says the u.k.'s likely to have weighed up the cost but with a warm wind blowing westwards from libyan rebels and us movements britain reckons a billion pounds is a pretty good investment it's about having control of north african resources particularly. or to be made for the transitional council that seems to be very

clear some bombs cost up to one and a half million dollars each and with the u.k. cutting defense spending analysts say they may not be replaced and when you're dealing with such big numbers. small things make a big difference your fight a typhoon cost maybe one thousand pounds per hour to fly so small changes in the number of hours us to meet produce big changes in cost estimate for the operant. wars are always expensive but the costs back home could prove harder to afford next in line to strike a million public sector workers who are being asked to work more and get less the disruption to services could run in two weeks the commitment to continue in libya for however low suggests a blank check at a time when there is little in the kitty the deployment of apache helicopters doesn't appear to have given nato the tactical advantage it hoped for and every

time a plane takes to the sky or drops a bomb the cost for britain and its beleaguered european neighbors creates higher and higher lower and it's arty young to. the repeat of the libyan scenario in syria would be unacceptable and everything was prudent to prevent it that is the view of russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov. russia will do everything it can to prevent the libyan scenario happening in syria where together with the international community we can urge bush's surge to put the reforms into practice as soon as possible and to call on the opposition not to ignore suggestions to discuss these reforms or to start negotiating them. but it came as syria's president bashar al assad addressed the nation with his third major speech since the arrest began in the country in mid march in it as promised liberal reforms but he declined to go into detail about or something was picked up by the opposition the president stuck to his stance that foreign influence was behind the uprising

and he said that no change was possible until the violence died down experts said the speech could become a turning point if the president follows through on his promises. or for more on the speech by president assad and to try to gauge what the future might hold for the embattled regime as talk now to joshua landis director of the center for mideast and he's joining us from the usa tonight facebook on r.t. so i mean after two months of silence as i've just said assad finally has given his speech today promising these sweeping reforms do you think this is a sincere gesture or is he just playing for time. well i think that you know i think he's playing for time he has said that he started a bunch of committees he asked the nation to trust him that he's going to do reform the opposition doesn't trust president assad anymore they want a new regime the west i think had been beating the drums for trying to raise pressure to get him to make some big concessions getting rid of article eight of the constitution which makes the bath party the leading party this would be

tantamount to regime change and assad made it very clear there isn't regime change is not on the books he is going to lead the future he said he said he is in control of events and events are not controlling him he tried to strike a tone of confidence at the same time as saying that he understood that there was need for many reforms to ensure that a big catch here as well as i mentioned just now assad said that he won't implement those reforms until the protests stop but the protest is a side they won't stop until they see the reforms would does that put syria tonight well it could syrian a showdown this is a very stark line in the sand and the regime is asking people to trust him and to side with him and the opposition are going to ask people to side with them. so far the military has stood firm behind the regime there been a few defections but nothing really important and this coincidence sense the ball in the opposition's. court they're going to have to up the ante well the e.u.

for its part considering slapping syria with a second man the sanctions that is that how effective they sanctioned is likely to be well you know the europe has about forty percent of the trade with syria they they take a lot of syrian oil there are certain refineries certain type of syrian oil that they the sway the oil which is very thick and can only refined by refineries in europe if europe wanted to starve syria they could do it in the same way that europe starved iraq of course once you go down that road if they come. doesn't crumble as it didn't do any iraq then you have to take military intervention what is serious financial position. is well that's great that is the big that is the big question because syria does not have oil like iraq or libya countries which was stood decades of sanctions or iraq which has withstood decades of sanctions so this makes you some european countries believe that they could drive syria towards

a get a sense a tipping point through economic sanctions where they might not have been successful in other places on the other hand syria has. you know is a stain economy it's going to be up against strong difficult times but it says look at lebanon is live without terms omitted survive a civil war economically we can go to hard times we can bend down the hatches we will survive in a sense they get they think that they can head the they can face off the west on this economic sanctions question let's look at russia russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov reiterated again that russia in view of the chaos that we've witnessed in libya would not support any u.n. resolution that might lead to military action is that a justified worry. of course it's a justified worry once you start putting you know big economic sanctions on a country then you have to do you know if it doesn't bring down the regime and you're starving the people what are you going to do either you lift the sanctions which never happens or you have to go in and and under the regime because you can't

just start people forever. syria of course most of the get to the crossroads of the middle they see a strategic a very volatile region what are the risks of a civil war do you think tonight it would have had a scruffy consequences if it did. it would you know we don't it's hard to read the future of syria the situation could bubble along the way it's going now for some time. this is what we've seen before is that you think that things are going to reach a climax they're going to be regime change but there aren't we saw this in libya we saw this iraq we're seeing it in iran that you increase the pressure but things just grind along in a very unhappy situation and that could be the future of syria for some time joshua landis director of the center for middle east studies thanks ever so much for the program good to have your insight here be with you. a five day long nuclear

security forums kicked off in vienna the japanese atomic crisis is probably the comprehensive discussion about the future of nuclear power delegates from most of the one hundred fifty member states of the international atomic watchdog the i.a.e.a. are at the gathering they have to work out the universal safety regulations for reactors to perms expected to be criticized for its slow response to the fukushima disaster it has already submitted a report admitting that it wasn't prepared for next event such a large scale well at sea sean thomas travel to a city that's well outside the official institutions where locals nonetheless a still concerned of high radiation levels. the ominous and constant to can of geiger counters scientists working in fukushima city . turned on or similar i'm in charge of the group of radiation detection and survey from fukushima university where now thinking their vacation protocol and process set up by the japanese government is not enough and myself i think i should

evacuate from this area but because of my job at the university i can't my family and my friends' families are evacuating. officially fukushima city is in a safe area eighty kilometers from the day to plant a reactor one and a full sixty kilometers outside the banda danger zone but still radiation levels here are much higher than normal. just to give you an idea of the consistency right now the dagger count is really quite chilling nine of my girl records which is about thirty times what is more than the accepted level but if you come down here to where i just saw it all and i'm not had collected a regular quickly jumped up and it's still climbing earlier we got a really good night and now i look at my car and it's about a thousand times more than one of the accepted level of state really going. but in order to claim that fukushima is truly safe from leaking radiation the japanese government has had to be creative with the numbers but the government. is de

change the redish on quantum level are stunned at the levels from one. minute. to twenty minutes even twenty times. the. standards before the accident and now. they raise the. standard so that they can say it's safe but actually the standard has changed the new higher levels mean that fukushima can be classed as being outside of the exclusion zone some say that evacuating the city would be simply impractical given the huge numbers of people affected to try and mitigate the circumstances to some degree a group of scientists have teamed up to find a simple ways to reduce the radiation levels. we're just trying to do. project. on time initial. by ourselves and we are not to using our special equipment and we just use normal child. scoops.

we just. have to. a small effort to bring some security to a community facing a scary and uncertain future in fukushima city sean thomas r.t. well the discussions around. a conference will be held. behind closed doors are the only summaries being released around withholding information from the public is doing nothing to shore up public faith in the nuclear authorities that is indeed the view of malcolm grimston he's a former information officer of the u.k. atomic energy authority he's currently a policy analyst for the chatham house think tank in london is a bit more from him. understandably all of us want to know as much as we can about the present situation clearly sometimes you need discussions behind closed doors to . try to discuss things that may not be the case but which would cause a lot of fear if if they were announced and turned their later not to be the case

but for such a major and meeting of this sort i do believe that a demonstration of openness is extremely important but i i think this is the wrong decision people are going to think. that they don't want to come out even if that's not the case i don't believe personally that we've seen a massive cover up of information coming from japan what we have seen though i think is a very slow response to questions an attitude which has been far too backward looking about this is what we think might have been happening two or four weeks ago instead of this is what we think might happen in two or four weeks time and when that is the attitude. people are going to think will be all foreigners are sitting on the information of they don't want to release. always more online column for most is up one in twenty four seven our website chance have your say in all the stories you see just stop by and comment there if you fancy we've got these lined up for you tonight well take a look our shot of the top of russian football's premier league story broke

yesterday as a leading goalscorer gets a jolt from a policeman find out the back story there what happened what went on at r.t. dot com also who's next in the terrorist crosshairs we ask seems al qaeda has now launched its early hit list featuring pentagon officials and u.s. politicians going to read more about that tonight so online from us. in greece workers at the state of the christie company have gone on a forty eight hour strike against the austerity measures there it comes as e.u. finance ministers failed to agree on conditions for releasing the next installment of last year's bailout package for the country the decision was postponed now till july with the stipulation that. as implements fresh budget cuts workers of utility for their part are angry at government plans to privatized their company as part of the austerity measures that are seen as crucial if the countries to avoid a default fears of greece defaulting may british banks hold back billions of euros from them and the market has put john bolton from the e.u. referendum campaign he believes spain will be next on the list of financial

failures if we just keep pumping money into greece it's only putting off the death of their economy they are already bankrupt we have to wake up and smell the coffee and say enough is enough greece is going to go ireland's going to go portugal and of course the big one that everyone is worried about is the state of spine that is what some of our banks like barclays have been reducing our liabilities in spain because clearly the property slump in spain is much bigger than a spanish government is telling people they say there's only been a drop of eighteen percent i do radio shows in spain people are losing seventy percent sixty percent in the fire you have their homes in their developments spain will be the next one to topple but why should the united kingdom which is already facing massive recession massive cuts in our social services massive cuts in our essential services and public services cutting down of our armed forces cutting

down of our police etc etc why should we the u.k. taxpayer pay and indeed the german taxpayer pay for the ineptitude of the greek government i say we shouldn't i say let's get out of the euro and the now. also the news tonight tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of yemen as capital demanded the departure of president saleh two sons from the country both hold senior positions in yemeni military president abilities of those currently being treated in hospital in saudi arabia after being badly wounded in a rebel attack on his compound. more than five million people have been affected now by those devastating floods in southern and eastern. china with more than one hundred seventy people dead or missing they've been caused by two renshaw rains which of followed one of the most severe droughts in more than fifty years the thought is warmer floods are going to continue to and more than ten rivers in affected areas could burst their banks. president very of still keeping russia and

the rest of the world guessing whether he'll make a bid to stay chief of the kremlin for a second term however in an interview with london's financial times newspaper he appeared to rule out a putin would vote of face off in next year's election catron is over reports of what else the president had to say. it's definitely the question that the russian president has been asked most frequently in the recent odds with the way they decided to keep the suspense of the well. what is it do the new leader especially one who walking past the president's seat has to be willing to run for reelection however it's not a question of whether he would make that decision for himself i suggest waiting a bit longer and keeping the intrigue. of course the main entry of the twenty two of the presidential election still remains with him and they give did answer some questions in relations to who will run for office and one thing is certain both he and with him appear to will not run for the same office it will just be one man who

are still remains to see who will that be. it's hard for me to imagine vladimir putin and i both running for president of the same time for at least one reason the thing is we strictly speaking represent the same political force competition between us would bring harm to the golden tasks we've been working on for the past several years it wouldn't be good for russia and it wouldn't be good in this particular situation was a very long interview that the russian president gave to the financial times that were so many issues were raised through out the course of it of course retaining to russia's national and foreign policies many of us think that our interesting those people living in russia those observing from the specifically of course questions relating to the goals that the president set out for himself during his term in office what are they say should that only option which no interviews that is taken by western media source has gone by without the issues that were sealed

will tell you was a great president reiterated his position that that was his release should it happen not in any way be a danger to society like any russian citizen serving time that also. has the right to an appeal or so it wasn't just matters of domestic policy that were touched upon the russian president speaking quite harshly about the nato military intervention in libya saying that some of russia's partners basically chose to misinterpret the resolution passed by the united nations security council resolution that russia has hoping that it will be observed and kept as it is worded but of course the mediator said that basically a very good resolution turned into a meaningless bit of paper with nature's military intervention in libya and that precisely because of that no resolution will be asked on syria but the. serious matters of course that were discussed we do know that the russian president is very

fond of his gadgets he's barely see without the spine and he did slip that he has a special on it that lets him monitor exactly what his employees are doing and which of his tasks have already been fulfilled is a very useful thing i personally plan to check out the app store to see whether it's been specifically custom made for the president or whether it's available for the general public. also today president event of sent his condolences to relatives of the internationally renowned human rights activist to learn a bona she died in the u.s. aged eighty eight after a serious illness when i was with the late soviet system the nobel peace prize winner. of the relative said she'd be buried here in moscow and we've got all background of analysis on that story as well about you know. just over twenty minutes away from i just spoke with kate it's wimbledon day one of the rain judy rained however some play did get underway more of that later then but monday night

business next katrina. hi and welcome to our business bulletin increased demand for gas in europe has largely benefited the russian state company gazprom but the company has been criticized for charging far more than the market spot prices alexander medvedev deputy c.e.o. of gazprom believes however that the disparity between prices and long term contract prices will soon be minimal. in the next two years so we can expect prices to go significantly higher because futures where we do twenty love and twenty twelve and twenty thirteen if they're not already higher will be around four hundred dollars per thousand cubic meters this is equal to the price for you know long term contracts. despite the lower european and asian markets the u.s. markets are trading in the black monday though speculation that they will fall

throughout trading is high due to continuing concerns over the debt crisis in greece. very sentiment dominated the russian markets on monday the r.t.s. and the my six close more than one percent in the red looking at individual share moves on the my six ross telecom lost almost eight percent after a rally early this morning when shares rose thirteen percent analysts attributed the rise to the inclusion of ross telecom shares in the r.t.s. index and on expectations that the stop will soon be included in the m.s.c.i. index energy may just suffered losses dragged down by the oil price gazprom ended in the in the red despite its announcement of a twenty six percent increase in its forecast for this year's european exports banking stocks were also under pressure spur bank last point six percent during the day evgeny catch a master at alpha capital wraps up monday's trade. we do not see significance of. all major blue chips to trade in between. those two monist one point five.

major move. on off today was ross telecom which serves her purse friday trading today was also stars fifteen percent in black were novice trading. so it's true volatility of their own no one knows what scruton in this talk but still this was the major source of volatility other stocks are trading quite boring the ten billion dollars russian direct investment fund has just come into action after it was officially launched at the since petersburg economic forum last week that amir dimitri have chairman of e.b. bank outlines the funds plans for this year. i think that will do one of two deals before the year and i don't think the zero which is around two billion dollars will be full. but i have the feeling that will made jointly raise a bald half a billion dollars to implement specific projects sums and that brings you up to

date for this hour's business will be back with more in just under an hour's time stay with us with headlines from kevin next.

to. emission free critique free storage free. range free. three stooges free. food free broadcast video for your media project

a free media. dot com. kevin i am with you on the headline up that is now ten thirty pm time nato admits it launched the airstrike that killed nine civilians in the tripoli suburb while british taxpayers wary of reckless spending under the bill the three months of bloody stalemate. every head of state wants a second term but it's the people who are the final word so says president medvedev he still doesn't announce whether he'll stand again but did rule out a faceoff for prime minister going to. the international atomic energy agency is expected to slam japan for poor handling of the fukushima crisis and nuclear safety for my friends in vienna aimed at improving safety regulations and preventing a repeat of the japanese crisis and the story next hour he takes

a closer look at what happened in japan we talked to the number two official there in that disaster country. we are here with he day he called me she our man who is with the ministry of a colony here in japan specifically with the agency that deals with nuclear safety and thank you very much for taking some time to be with us today now as this. devastating event has happened in the news has spread out around the world it's become clear in the past three months that the information coming from the front nuclear plant has gotten worse can you tell us what's the situation on the ground right now the situation is improving. for example we're steadily in introducing a water to the reactor as. you need one two and

three and they're fairly stable in code so already asian. exposure is becoming a less and less a problem is the water which originated from that war that we've introduced into their reactors so we are now at the find there are testing a process of introducing establishing waterproofing a system people on the ground say that they have doubts about the information that is coming from the government why do you think they have these doubts and what is the government doing to get this information out there. the japanese government tried to. distribute or make. available all the information we got from that call and from our monitoring systems so i think.