more than eight hundred civilians have died in nato raids then 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 and other mistake in a strike this time on rebel forces neither live in oil port of brag or with the number of casualties not been disclosed we hope nato will hold mr cameron was that it was the best out of the better scorning mr obama had already and he did this possible for the deaths of these innocent children innocent was an affair and innocent fathers and mothers you cannot justify this that dichotomy was up with that incident as sunday's fatal error occurs 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. so when civilian casualties in libya are mounting and no end inside those paying for the intervention might be stumping up more than i bargained for the u.k. has announced that its taxpayers wide see one point six billion dollars of their hard earned cash diverted to fund the intervention results is the reports now there's little patience left among 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 i was to him from power one imagines this is not going to end until he killed 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 government spending like a hawk already feel seeing services and jobs slashed even so downing street swore wall 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 renwick 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 the crude oil. or sales of already been 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. big numbers small things make a big difference your fight to thai food 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 estimates go to the operant. 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 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 the bomb the cost for britain and its beleaguered

european neighbors creeps higher and higher your avatar to be young to. it is libya remains in chaos and under bombardment from a pentagon official michael maloof told me that they too only wants to get western man's on the country's oil resources rather than to protect civilians. they tried to achieve a certain level of humanitarian effort and initially but the protracted bombing is now increasingly hitting civilian targets and it's creating a very negative reaction i think it does raise the question of what is nato's role continued role going to be there it looks more as though they're trying to basically ultimately split the country gain the resources. of oil in the eastern part consolidate a hold on that so that europe can continue to receive the oil which is vitally needs from from libya the western part. could go to khadafi since seems to be very well entrenched and there's been no sizable degree of. having

kicked him out the question is what is being what has been accomplished. short of continuing to bomb targets which ultimately are hitting innocent people and i think that's probably one of the things that's going on right now is that we could offer forces probably are moving closer and closer into. the more civilian areas and as a consequence there's collateral damage a repeat of the libyan scenario in syria would be unacceptable and everything must be done to prevent it that's the view of russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov. russia will do everything it can to prevent the libyan scenario happening in syria 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 but to start negotiating them. but those comments come as syria's president bashar assad addressed the nation with his

third major speech and some rest began in the country in mid march it is said promised liberal reforms but declined to go into any detail and that was something picked up on by the opposition president stuck to a stance that foreign influence was behind the uprising and he said that no change was possible until the violence died down experts say the speech could become a turning point if the president follows through on his promises. and as europe verges on syria with more sanctions it could be setting itself up for more than it bargained for according to joshua landis is spoke to me he's director of the center for middle east studies. made it very clear there is no 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 of confidence at the same time as saying that he understood that there was need for many reforms on syria 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 if you're wanted to starve syria they could do it in the same way that europe starved iraq of course once you go down the road if the government doesn't crumble as it didn't do when you rock then you have to take military intervention because you can't just our people forever it's hard to read the future of syria the situation could probably long the way it's going now for some time if 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 the 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. coming up with a program president dmitri medvedev thoughts on the conflicts in syria and libya from an interview he gave to the financial times been able to shed his thoughts on the second term as president but state says it's the people who have the final word

he still hasn't announced whether he'll stand again but he did rule out the face with prime minister putin more than a bit later. grace workers of the state are good to see the company of going on a forty eight hour strike against the austerity measures the action comes as e.u. finance ministers decided to withhold the release of a twelve billion euro loan to the country until switching you austerity cuts supported by athens the e.u. decision reflects increasing concern that the greek parliament might top eight of the unpopular set of measures would see many of the state owned companies privatized and taxes increased. continuing fears of a greek default made nervous british banks hold back billions of euro from the euro zone lending market that's sort of behavior play there with these now we have dartmouth a member of the european parliament for the u.k. independence party which wants britain out of the e.u. he blames the greek situation on the euro which he says is a political project. as far as the euro zone is concerned and the countries in the

euro zone it was always it was always a project driven by politics not by economics and now the economic birds as it were are coming home to roost what's basically happening is that the taxpayers of northern europe particularly germany are going to have to pay up. to to stop greece should default we already saw in the last finnish election that a particle the true finns sure probably more aware of it must be the most people. came came from nowhere to get twenty twenty percent of the vote and that was on the platform specifically on the platform of no finished contribution to bailouts for greeks obsession the near fanaticism of the european elite for the political project of united states of europe on a common currency has resulted in a terrible terrible human cost and and the people and if the if there is

a greek default the people who would suffer would be the holders of greek sovereign debt who are basically banks institutions and the like is sort of the people who are suffering now. who are principally private the two million private sector employees in greece who are actually bearing the brunt of these draconian austerity cuts president very of still keeping russia and the rest of the world guessing whether he'll make a bid the state 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 very faceoff in next month's election next year's election rather this country is our reports now than a well says the president to say. well it's definitely the question that the russian president has been asked most frequently in the recent months thought the way they were they decided to keep the suspense of the well off. but is it the new leader especially one who occupies 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 intrigue of the twenty two of the presidential election still remains but with a with a different did answer some questions in relations to who will run for office and one thing is certain both he and with him approaching will not run for the same office it will just be one man or still remains to see cool well that man be. it's hard for me to imagine putin and i both running for president at the same time for at least one reason. 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 it was a very long interview that the russian president gave to the financial times the course many issues were raised without the force of it both of course pertaining to

russia's national and foreign policies many aspects that are interesting both to people living in russia and to those observing russia from abroad specifically of course questions relating to the goals that the russian president set out for himself during his term in office modernization and that only option was no interview that is taken by western media source has gone by without the issue of the seat where she'll will join us being raised russian president reiterated his position that that was his release that it happened not in any way be a danger to society but like any russian citizen who's currently serving time the call to. has the right to an appeal first 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 passed hoping that it will be observed and kept to as it is worded but of course the media just 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 passed on syria what do you see all the serious matters of course that were discussed we do know that the russian president is very fond of his gadgets he is rarely seen without his wife at any did let slip that he has a special app 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. as out of a reporting welcome to a website called there you can find the interview with president medvedev and fully

believe your comments as well if you'd like. to see. an online these are the two serious one who is next in the terrorist cross a. list now featuring pentagon officials and u.s. politicians if you want to find out more about on line from. home. and even though the angry birds one of the applications the russian leader free for you says he still gave a special thank you to create the fun of that as well. a five a day long nuclear security reforms kicked off in vienna the japanese atomic crisis is prompted a comprehensive discussion about the future of nuclear power delegates for most of the one. hundred fifty member states of the international atomic watched over the gathering they aim to work out tighter universal safety regulations for reactors japan's expected to be criticized for the slow response to the fukushima disaster it's already submitted a report admitting it wasn't prepared for an accident on such

a large scale to sean thomas travel to a city well outside the official exclusion zone but nonetheless where locals are still very concerned about the high levels of radiation. the ominous and constant ticking of geiger counters and scientists working in fukushima city concerned one or i'm in charge of the group of radiation detection and survey from fukushima university where now thinking there is a key asian 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 evacuated. officially fukushima city is in a safe area eighty kilometers from the daiichi plant reactor one and a full sixty kilometers outside the band 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 pretty point two nine

a micro ring it's about thirty times what is more than the accepted level but if you come down here to where it just sort of a lot of it collected the radiation will quickly jumped out and it's still climbing earlier we got a reading of night and now i look at my career which is about a thousand times more than was really acceptable level of state regulation. 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 did they change the redish a quantum level standard the levels from one. to twenty million even twenty times. the standards before the accident and now. they raise the. the standard so that they can say it's safe but actually it's

a standard house change 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 simple ways to reduce the radiation levels. we're just trying to do a pilot project do d.d. contamination. by ourselves and we are not using our specially equipped men we just use normal child both. scoops. you just. have to topsoil is a small effort to bring some security to a community facing a scary and uncertain future in fukushima city sean thomas our team. got some breaking news coming through five people. taken to hospital in a serious condition after a plane crashed while it landed in northwestern russia with reports not yet

confirmed that there could be fatalities and the fuselage of the plane has been destroyed we're hearing after a split into two and called a light when it hit the ground over the flames we're hearing as well work quickly put out another flight not be able the airliner was heading from moscow's done with it over airport to the city of petra's divorce it didn't make the runway is what eyewitnesses are saying forty eight people reported to have been onboard just recapping what we know there we're hearing a plane crash landed tonight in northwestern russia it was there headed for moscow's dhamma did a very airport to the city of petra is a vast five have been taken to hospital there are unconfirmed reports there could be casualties of course we're across this story very much for you throughout the night since we get more we'll bring you up to date. right now back to one of our main stories our t. takes a closer look next at the nuclear crisis in japan we talked to the country's number two nuclear official they're next.

we are here with he day he called me she 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 from the 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 introducing a water to the reactor is a question i daiichi you need one two and three and their fear is stable and could so already asian exposure is becoming less and less a problem is best i've been on the water which originated from that waterway introduced into the reactors so we are now at the find there are the testing 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

or they formation with that and from typical and from monitoring systems so i think we hope that people can understand that state rights the situation right now we have to explain in the manner in which people can easily understand the situation that's our task there's a perception out there that the quality of information is coming from the government. isn't what it needs to be what do you think this perception exists. it's very difficult to understand for ordinary people how. dangerous those numbers are we think that except for places and very close to the nuclear power plants. no big risk for the. ordinary people so we should make them understand that point now we were in fukushima just a bit ago and there are some spots that we measured personally where the radiation

levels are one thousand times the safely recommended dose there are mothers who are concerned that their children go by these hot spots where you have to say to these mothers our government especially mystery of. education is in charge of monitoring all of us out of japan and they. publish that they obtained throughout japan and. they asked you could safety commission to evaluate their that. and you could if the commission is publicizing their comments every day i think the problem for mothers. is that it's difficult to understand how safe or how dangerous those numbers are and it's very it is said that.

radiation those is more dangerous for children and that's the point that we should . make people understand that more currently the accepted level is twenty micro sieverts. which those standards were actually raised to twenty micro sieverts from one micro siebert do you think it's responsible to actually change the standards so that. they are now. be safe we do not say that. twenty meters see but it is safe but. it's. a pretty standard in this type of emergency situation scientists say there needs to be more cooperation with outside agencies and outside governments what do you say to these critics they don't know that fact and actually. from the time of their accident we have been consulted with the united states france and russia and other countries in terms of take any kind of support. equipment and machine regular

support and we closely exchanged information regarding the status of plants and possible measures to take japan a country which has faced a two nuclear tragedies with your she might not psyche there are many critics out there who say that it's irresponsible for a country that has experienced such tragedy with the nuclear field to be building nuclear plants. in an area that may be unstable seismically known to have earthquakes what's your response to this so far. we have a forty years of more than forty years of history of safe usage of. that to make energy and this was caused by the unprecedented a tsunami very heights and i mean nobody an expected that size of

a tsunami so you can bring us that you failed but this was foreseen by anybody all over the world of course we are responsible for this accident but it should be closely reviewed whether we could have taken any other measures to prevent this and as of right now can you imagine a future japan. about nuclear energy moving away from atomic energy altogether and right now no we. have to see souls. so we have to use nuclear and it's in the near future to insist.

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face to face with the news makers on r.t. . this is r.t. from moscow our top stories nato admits it's launched the airstrike that killed nine civilians in a tripoli suburb while british taxpayers weary of reckless spending under the bill for three months of bloody stalemate. the international atomic energy agency is expected to slam japan for poor handling of the fukushima crisis a nuclear safety forum opens in vienna range and improving safety regulations and preventing a repeat of the japanese crisis. europe's finance ministers postponing a decision on a fresh bailout for greece they say more sturdy is needed if the country already shaken by violent protests against pending cuts is to be say

a more developing news story the news coming in there was so over the last five minutes or so we're hearing that five people have been taken to hospital in a serious condition after of planes crash landed in northwestern russia with reports of not yet confirmed that they could be fake teletubbies we're the fuselage of the plane's been destroyed it split into say eyewitnesses and caught fire when it hit the ground the flames were quickly put out the airliner was heading from moscow's domodedovo airport to the city of petra divorce skids didn't make the runway according to initial reports forty eight people are reported to have been on board of course as we get more about that more information will come through over the next few hours we will bring you up to date here on r.t. from moscow. next china has recently outperformed western nations as africa's largest trading partner but with many eyeing up the continent's resources paid to live alum is guest debate next whether another era of western imperialism is on the

way crosstalk coming up. in. a low and welcome to cross talk i'm peter all about africa in the new great game outside interest in this continent is immense rich in natural resources and a growing middle class china the us europe and other powers are scrambling for influence and wealth there can africa of oil another wave of imperialism.