the latest news in the week's top stories first u.n. monitors arrived in syria following saturday's unanimous security council vote for an observer mission as damascus warns of retaliation if attacks by armed groups continue. to kabul under attack the taliban strikes at the presidential palace of western embassies and nato saying it's revenge for recent actions and killings by u.s. troops. access denied scores of activists from across the globe receive his purity threat by israel and banned from flying to the country but some do make it to protests. and the biggest day of the religious calendar for millions of orthodox christians who are celebrating easter sunday with the most spectacular of the

services held here in moscow. it's four am in the russian capital très and bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news the first u.n. monitors have just arrived in syria to oversee the ten cease fire sent there after a security council resolution saturday and this is the massacres warns of retaliation if attacks by armed groups increase the number of demonstrations erupted in the wake of a fragile truce since it started last thursday leaving a fresh confrontation with security forces or he's a marine important as more. according to russian ambassador to the u.n. to tell you one russian officer will be part of the group heading to syria the resolution that was adopted also calls on all parties in syria including the opposition to immediately seize all armed violence in all its forms this is what

was a sticking point on friday and why the security council was wasn't able to vote on a resolution friday because according to russia's position the u.s. first drafted resolution made many demands of the syrian government and no explicit demands of the syrian opposition the russian ambassador. vitaly churkin said at this critical junction is very very important for all syrian parties including armed opposition to comply with the six point peace plan that was laid out by a u.n. special envoy kofi annan on this of course also calls for an immediate cease fire and for an inclusive political process in syria in which the opposition groups and the syrian government engage in a dialogue with the russian ambassador said that moscow from the very beginning has been supportive of mr a nonce peace plan and is only he said through an objective

balanced approach that the security council was able to reach a consensus on saturday. his draft resolution has been significantly. more instance of. more. serious. observer mission according to this resolution the u.n. secretary general ban ki moon will have to report back to the security council on april nineteenth regarding how the resolution is being implemented whether the observers are being granted access throughout see. whether humanitarian officials are being granted access throughout syria if the syrian authorities and the syrian opposition is complying with what the security council this monitoring mission will eventually grow to a team of two hundred fifty people we should note though that it does say in this

resolution the house and there is a vague reference that if syria does not comply with what this a curate council is asking further measures can be taken and what those further measures are is not clear yet i think at this point all security council members are hoping that the armed opposition group in the syrian government do comply with what's being asked and peace is finally established in syria a political analyst could no was and uses the political for more support for the opposition by washington won't help bring peace to the country. some party is within the middle east politics trying to sabotage the peace plan that is a range by mr annan and the u.n. one thing that somebody in. arabia they're not like and they want the bloodshed to continue and probably we have seen and witnessed in the past couple days major progress from other authorise organization and getting from other countries into

syria and causing all these against the stability of syria and i think in my estimate the peace plan could have signed by. the sudanese and the united states. because but because these factors are actually causing. military and that's going to continue at this point we don't understand how mr obama would say i'm supplying all kind of. different technical and. mostly weapons to the opposition and at the same time you want to have a piece is working at this point a series of explosions have rocked the afghan capital in a coordinated wave of taliban attacks across kabul with targets including the presidential palace the afghan parliament and the nato headquarters well most of the targets were in the city's diplomatic district with western embassies and

a residences coming under fire at least seventeen insurgents and two police officers were killed in the violence and dozens more injured the military airport in jalalabad in the east of the country also hit and violence reported in two other provinces the taliban says the assaults revenge for the recent actions of u.s. troops including the massacre of civilians and the burning of the koran it depended watering the radio show host even the lead in the instability in the country is in the u.s. favor. i think america wanted to spit out we don't want the incidents were to go to a lot of play including our t.v. bickering and burning your eating on the koreans and a massacre in kandahar not what you wish so if you put reports i'm a grown up to twenty eight special forces. seventeen afghans because what in region of the population i don't think this happened by chance i think america

wanted it because the one thing they are defeatist whether it's in iraq where the rich in libya last year or even now know whether it's in it. and asked the possibility of create peace in syria the possibility of peace and stability. in the bid america's imperial agenda depends on violence in its utility that i don't know how many parents worried about it but without the one date was postponed to another date to another date you are still over a hundred thousand forces in it. it may well back some of us would lose some of the country's need but here it spans of thousands of little leisure it's rising military contractors still pay literally what he says the kill it if things get too quiet bill turn it don't lose it with imperial and and ratchet up more impotence but more like. so ahead this hour show premieres an exclusive interviews

are to launch a new program featuring some of the world for featuring the world's most famous whistleblower julian assange is coming this week plus. britain who says he's very influenced selling arms to japan which is looking to invest in military hardware. but first more than forty activists from the welcome to palestine movement have been detained by authorities said ben-gurion airport in tel aviv israel also worth . dozens part of a so-called fly to work plan peaceful activities like planting trees in the west right now with his third year of the campaign with activists from more than fifteen countries wants to charge what they call an israeli siege of occupied territories or just cause leaders and they are part of this international campaign that has been dubbed to palestine and the intention of this campaign is to highlight the plight of the palestinian people its intention is to really hold peaceful

demonstrations in the west bank they were planning to meet with palestinian families climb trees and together. this is also an attempt to highlight the way the israeli police in these rebel forces deal with activists all foreigners coming to israel who hold political views not shared by that was a small. ladies who shouted at them go home go to syria what are you doing here the israeli police accuse these activists of provoking the situation they say that they were intent on destruct in public all then they really were trying to be legitimized his role this heavy handedness by israel is not something new we've witnessed a bit of a short time ago with the way the israeli police dealt with the day commemorations if you have one person dead and several other palestinian activists injured throughout the west bank from jerusalem and then of course they've been to attend sim previous years for ships to reach gaza those photos were unsuccessful with the first one resulting in nine activists killed. with the french only

a week away from choosing their next president candidates have staged massive rallies in paris and what's being called a very tight race one hundred thousand gathered just outside the city in support of the socialist candidate francoise hollande who is slightly ahead according to the pain and meanwhile president nicolas sarkozy who is seeking a second term in office spoke to a crowd crowds in central paris estimated to be one hundred fifty thousand strong as are his costar silly reports it's growing immigration and fears of terrorism that many french politicians are using to move the voters' anti immigration antihero antiglobalization and advocates of protectionism. all in the name of the french state and national identity there is not a single french person not one european who does not know that i am a sworn enemy of the european single currency buskers its radical islam is

a direct consequence of mass immigration that's the left and the right in hose on us for decades the macnow. traditionally on the fringes of france's national politics the rhetoric of today's far right may no longer be as far off for its citizens as it once was opinion polls suggest that presidential candidate marine le pen of the ultra right wing national front party is third with potentially ten million votes its biggest support base ever there is no potency of the gryphon friends so if you don't speak french. doesn't bother anyone but the two we don't want. to play so we will play one of the different communities but don't speak together. as and i don't think it's globalization destroyed insight into. enter lipans with her calls for economic patriotism or your ties in france over europe its native citizens over others of

giving the french back their jobs. and center right income that nicolas sarkozy stands accused of jumping on the far right bandwagon some say for the ballot sake. of our integration system is getting worse and worse why because we have too many foreigners in our territory threatening to withdraw from the shanghai border from the agreements by no coincidence at a time when europe is seeing an influx of refugees fleeing conflicts in north africa and the middle east this is a critical letter or shift so we will have to see. what he will do his. sarkozy knows pretty well he was elected in two thousand and seven only because he was able to catch it as a nation and know the situation is going to save some say that what was once a protest vote is now

a more permanent part of the french political spectrum so deleted lots of there is certainly a part of the electorate who vote for the reasons of dissent but i think it must now be recognised even if it's difficult to accept that the vote for the national front is increasingly a vote of support. for the increasing prominence of right with rhetoric in france especially the lead up to the presidential elections it's clear well it's more difficult to decipher is whether this grows support for the right reflects the direction of the cycle of values i stated or is simply a knee jerk reaction to everything the french see wrong in their country that's are so your artsy paris. it's the show that's got people talking in the premier's of tuesday right here on our team with you leaks founder julian assange sits down with newsmakers on the program which is film well under house arrest in the u.k. where a smith gives us a sneak preview. the first episode of the show will be broadcast on tuesday april seventeenth so that's this choose date coming and we and julian together are really

hoping this is going to be an explosive new show i can't tell you the name of the first guest you'll have to choose name yourselves to find that out on tuesday but i can tell you that they are all opinion formers some of them this isn't and some of them have never been interviewed before on english language television the first guest is particularly controversial and according to julian in the wake of the interview highly charismatic so do you tonight and find out what that's all about i met with him recently and i talked all about the show how he changed his guests why he decided to do it and of course he spent a lot of time sitting on the other side of the interview his desk and he told me a bit about his disenchantment really with the mainstream media and why he chose r.t. to broadcast first this show the themes that we're trying to report not being current reported in the mainstream when we look at what works.

for parents gently or not this week coming up for the week in which the first show is going to be broadcast is really a week of round of bursaries for him both personal and professional is going to be five hundred days since the investigation into these allegations of sexual assaults by two swedish women began now we've seen that the requests for his extradition go through the courts here in the u.k. right up to the supremes courts which that case finished at the beginning of february that's ten weeks ago now we still don't have a verdict we are expecting it possibly to come next week but there's still no set date for that verdict to be handed down and still after five hundred days no charges have been laid against him it's also five hundred days since the wiki leaks bank accounts were first frozen so that has made funding for wiki leaks very difficult at. and threatening that whistle blowing organization all together and really that's what makes this program so unique the fact that it was conceived all

store sold while i was virtually living under house arrest here in britain awaiting this verdict on his extradition there's two reasons first of all being on the house arrest for so long it's nice to have an occasional visitor and to talk more about the world and the conversations we were having an interesting one for a lot of people what was going on that's what brings the second reason is that as someone who's given a lot and before and it's been on the receiving end of very aggressive. i felt i wasn't getting much more intimately but pretty quickly. because. it was sort of the principle of sort of people to take it out of context and i wanted to have a different sort of pre-purchase of the people and why but approach has been difficult and sometimes i think it is also succeeded in other ways so that we have

a real science or very interesting reporting from what normal because we're not dealing with different viewpoints on this on the house. has gone from political problems the great and. so you can see the full version of that interview on monday the sixteenth of april and that will be followed hops on the heels first episode of the program on tuesday the seventeenth of april we're still awaiting the verdict on tonight's knowledge of extradition but we are quite glad that he's managed to make this program before whatever happens to him happens to him obviously his main thing has always been that he will be extradited from sweden to the u.s. . there hasn't been anything yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. for the sources. cereal is what helps keep journalism we.

we want to position. something. series goes on the air tuesday and as laura mentioned her full interview with assad will hit the airwaves for thirty g.m.t. monday so stay tuned here on r.g.p. to hear more from the whistleblower himself and before you can catch our stories in leeds developments online at archie dot com here's what's a click away right now. relatives of those who died when the titanic sank a century ago after turning to the site for seven hundred died when the ship struck an iceberg. as a sense henery of a different kind in north korea a spectacular fireworks display rounds off two weeks of celebrations america hundred years since the birth of the founder of the reclusive state. ten of the twenty three candidates in egypt's presidential race have been barred from standing in next month's poll those barred have the right to appeal and

demonstrations are expected in the capital the blacklist includes the mubarak era intelligence chief omar suleiman and the candidate of the country's largest islamist party which is backed by the muslim brotherhood political activists ahmed says despite moves toward democracy it will be hard for egypt to pray for military rule. the running mates that were found such as sighted charter almost tell a man well causing a lot of tensions on the ground so egyptians are receiving this blood there's a deep military state here for over sixty years the military has been ruling this country anyone from. heads the governors the mayors all retired military terms this puts the tentacles have a strong grip over the country so it's not easy to the root there's those i remember when you first. said we're not here this is not a revolution we're here as a gyptian zx and once things settle down we'll definitely run for parliament and

that we will not get all the thirty five percent maximum of the parliament and this is this was more of a promise and then just the statement what we've seen is that they actually begun with seventy percent and then said it will be twenty five and then they said it will be thirty five what we've seen is that with the broader coalition of salafist it's reached over seventy percent of parliament there is likely to be more western weapons in the far east as japan is opening its military market with britain vying for trade prime minister david cameron led the charge of this week joining the us in building up asia pacific influence but that won't sit well with china as r.t. is over better reports from london. selling weapons is quickly becoming what britain does best prime minister david cameron unashamedly touting the u.k.'s military hardware only he calls it flying the flag for britain seeking to become only the second country other than america to trade arms with japan not only big

business but the chance for a crucial foothold in what's clearly the place to be business perfectly predictable result of being the shifting of focus of american attention in the attention of much of the world to be asia pacific region as china obviously continues to be an economic powerhouse and even india and other countries in the region for him to actually become more economically dominant i think with that comes the attendant attention from the militaries of the west and the u.k. and other countries america's recently announced plans to station two thousand and remains in australia hoping to exert influence in a region china says isn't theirs to meddle in and britain could soon join them part of its defense deal with japan could see a british hunter submarine deployed in china's backyard complete with missiles and all physical presence the british government claims is needed these geopolitics are

relevant but i think that's even more reason for the u.k. to be going out there to engage with what is one of the few key allies in the with over thirty executives from the u.k.'s highly profitable arms industry this isn't the first time david cameron has been criticized for turning an overseas trip into a travelling sales pitch cameron was left red faced last year when on the same trip he went from praising the democratic uprisings in cairo to flogging weapons in q eight prime minister david cameron's been forced to defend his party weapons manufacturers saying it's perfectly responsible and respectable but this is a region that's highly sensitive to any kind of military maneuver and tensions at the most. it's not particularly high to certainly not want to confront the moment and not have the resources to fuel their respective military strains to come up. with the best. alternative movement of calls to count on the united states

more strategically and more foreign power was the region source whatever but it's alan's exerting be pressure off international community on trying until now britain and america have had to make do with the existing name influence in the region from a thought that with the talk of a physical presence there the theories could upset the balance on the bennetts see london as russia and poland mark two years since the plane crash that killed polish president lech kaczynski his brother and polish right wing opposition candidate politicians continue to claim foul play despite findings of official investigations into the tragedy but morial services were held tuesday in warsaw at the site of the disaster near smolensk all ninety six people in a v.i.p. delegation died on route to a commemoration for victims of the stalinist massacre of thousands of polish

officers at kut in moscow in warsaw about are taking two years of meticulous investigation into the tragedy with separate probes blatant pilot error and problems with the plane but the deceased president's twin brother who also leads poland's right wing opposition party told a separate community commemoration rally in warsaw held by his supporters that he thinks the circumstances could point to an assassination. taking a look now at some other stories making headlines across the globe the taliban says it's responsible for the masses of nearly four hundred prisoners after a full scale attack on a jail in northwest pakistan heavily armed is the most insurgents stormed the prison with guns and grenades early sunday morning among those freed was a militant placed on death row. former president authorities suspect it's actors had inside help from some prison staff so. for the first time in fifteen months enron held talks with major world powers over its nuclear program the meeting in turkey was held as positive and constructive with

a second round of negotiations scheduled for next month in baghdad the five plus one group of countries ultimately hopes to persuade iran to stop enriching uranium something to iran has so far refused to do iran insists its nuclear ambitions are peaceful but western nations suspect it could be trying to develop atomic weapons. millions of orthodox christians around the world have been marking the holiest day in their religious calendar easter sunday so will be celebrating the resurrection of christ and largest overnight a vigil was held in russia's main church the christ the savior cathedral where the congregation included thousand of the congregation of thousands including the country's political leaders or he's tom barton reports. easter services in the russian orthodox tradition are designed to be both long services but also very beautiful services stylized markings of the key moments in the story of christ's death and his resurrection on the third day a key moment in the service is the easter vigil where the priests walk in

a circle around the church holding candles and they also change their outfits three times during the service from black which represents lent through to purple which represents the passions that christ went through and on to one which represents the resurrection itself. the holy fire has also arrived here in pasco this easter as it has done since the eleventh century when it first made that journey from the church of the holy separate in jerusalem the story surrounding the fire is that a light shines through the roof of the church of the holy sepulcher every easter in jerusalem i'm somehow manages to light candles one of which is brought to moscow and is then taken around to merely orthodox churches a very special symbolic moment for the russian orthodox church easter in the russian orthodox church also comes at the end of great lent not seven weeks of

fasting no meat a no dairy products but at the end it is time to bring out some special foods with a special connection to easter all is a cake by the sweet and full with raisins another is named after easter in the russian language it's a sweet dessert. also designed to be a celebration after the long weeks of fasting and also that universal symbol of easter eggs many are painted and often shared with family members and all are taken to priests at easter were blessed. with holy water they'll be sat around by orthodox families the world over. in thirty thousand russian orthodox churches and communities around the world as additional russian orthodox greeks it will be said. christ has risen and it will be answered with

a reply that for additional russian orthodox reply indeed you have. a recap of our top stories coming up after a short break stay with us. your vote for bush. by one. so the people that are going to be validating this machine can stand there all day

long and vote for somebody and it will be right every time the guy can walk up here and if he hits the right button. they can flip a boat that. will lose. its technology innovation all the lives developments from around russia we've got the future covered. the close up team has been to the sverdlovsk region. where blacksmithing has developed from a craft into an industry if. he goes far north. where returns to good roads and rail are a battle against the elements.