there are national laws on the line as the u.s. talks of tougher action on syria without u.n. consent. and or irish voters head to the polls in every friend on the e.u. fiscal treaty which poland state amounts to nothing more than permanent astaire and told by brussels while the backlash against cuts sweeps across europe. the father of the late former security officer alexander litvinenko died of radioactive poisoning london in two thousand and six reveals the names of those he believes were behind his son's death.

of the russian capital you're watching r t with me marina joshie the u.s. says it's time to consider taking direct action in syria even if that means going against international law this follows the massacre of more than one hundred people in the syrian town of houla with damascus and the rebels blaming each other for the atrocity russia's vowed to block any moves for intervention add the un but washington says the security council can be bypassed artie's more enough work i has the latest. well what was exactly said is the fact that the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. susan rice said that the syrian government is solely responsible for the massacres that took the massacre that took place in syria last week those those comments were also echoed by america's european allies and as a result there is now a nother push within the security council for international sanctions against against syria now the united nations is conducting their own investigation to find

out who exactly is responsible for the killings of one hundred eight people in syria last week but the u.s. and its allies has come to its own conclusion now. that if the six point peace plan put together by kofi annan which calls for a cease fire in syria that plan breaks down and if sanctions are not supported within the security council then the international community and council members will have to consider options outside of the authority of the security council now what those options will be exactly is not clear we do know that the u.s. and european countries have already imposed their own sanctions on syria so many are interpret these words as a threat of military action now russia's ambassador to the un vitaly churkin believes that countries should not come to jump to conclusions of with respect to who was responsible for the massacre in houla last week that that all parties

should wait for the results of the un investigation ambassador churkin said that he's very disappointed with the fact that there's been very little progress or progress with mr anon six point peace plan and that both sides the opposition and the syrian government have been seen in some ways violating their agreements to a cease fire and many other things outlined by the six point peace plan but ambassador churkin said it's very important to note the fact that while. the responsibility of course lies on the syrian government the opposition group also is still carrying out acts of violence and it's important for those that are arming or financing the our opposition group to look at the circumstance and understand that maybe those moves are provoking the violence and further escalating it. now reporting there now syrian rebels say they will no longer be bound by the u.n. peace plan of damascus doesn't observe a cease fire and withdraw its forces within forty eight hours but according to the

world body there is no evidence to suggest the u.s. backed militants have been keeping their part of the deal some observers say washington and its allies are determined to replace the syrian government with a proxy regime. ambassador rice is is the basically i believe telling russia and china and other members of the spirity council that if they do not go along with western plans for more stringent sanctions and other actions against syria that the u.s. and its nato allies reserves the right to act outside of the security council as a did with us watching the thirty or so and launch military actions against syria would be the same cast of characters in the same roads gallery that you know waged the six and a half month bombing campaign against libya last year it would be the north atlantic treaty organization with us at its core would be the u.s. and nato as newfound allies in the persian gulf and the gulf cooperation council monitored the shakedowns qatar united arab emirates of participate in the bombing

campaign against libya last year this would be part of a pattern of course to bring down secular. governments in iraq for all in favor for you know the regimes installed the support of the aged care of monarchies in the gulf cooperation council morocco and jordan. this is the life in this one armed with syria we should be very clear about those likely targets not sure they succeed in syria likely targets afterwards would include nations like jerry and. the french president says paris is also considering military intervention in syria comes as a disappointment to those who hoped francois hollande would reverse his predecessor's aggressive foreign policy and focus on problems at home or he says are syria has more. new president. but not soon rhetoric just two weeks into his post you know that they've been all

i've heard where you are going to get as you and me mention a military and that by then show it is not ruled out. a comment that came in response to the massacre in houla syria. from the leader of a country that led the implementation of a no fly zone over libya last year critics have pointed out that there was no real choice between french president francois launch and his predecessor nicolas sarkozy but for those who thought they had voted for change now appear to be already faced with a case of deja vu one of the pillars of the laws election campaign was the pledge to pull french troops out of afghanistan this has made many hopeful the new president would focus on issues at home rather than spending millions of military campaigns overseas but it seems they were wrong as foreign affairs magazine put it french foreign policy is on the autopilot nothing inherent. in french horn. and that's not the right thing because. they. were imposed they were not

even an issue and a last words are in line with the position of bernard on the levy a french activists and philosopher who wrote an open letter calling on the lawn to quote take the initiative in syria assad knows that it is counted for him the next is to stop the killing in syria i'm innocent of levy's active role of convincing former fed president sarkozy to support the libyan intervention and should france take the interventionists route again some say it begs a new question what's going to we're not going to interview the humanitarian argument is used to lower the bar for foreign intervention. before that i mean something we need to intervene for i mean when the when there was a genocide you know it's a massacre and we were in for you all to a winter been. anything but where do we want to intervene in korea but while

a lot to starting to sound a lot like sarkozy some analysts point out that there may be no real teeth to such rhetoric this time around it's telling that we. he would only act you would mandate . it is nothing nothing because we go to. china and russia. we can be sure that he can do anything as far as french people are concerned they don't care about the point but he said they'd rather their new president do something to put out the economic far in their own backyard first and foremost tests are still here r t brussels. they're watching r.t. coming to life from moscow so i have three this hour facts or fiction r t speaks with the author of an article which accuses the u.s. and south korea of deep level surveillance in north korea even parachuting in spies to report back on the ground military facilities. voters

in ireland had to the polls today in a referendum to decide whether or not to approve the european union's fiscal treaty driven by germany it conversely plans strict central control of the national budgets of member states who've signed up but opponents see it as a permanent astaire and charter with mattie angry about surrendering power and sovereignty to brussels or smith has more. it's hope since choice island has two options is it goes out to vote on a fiscal pact with the e.u. to say yes to writing austerity into law and cede precious sovereignty to brussels say no and incur the wrath of the european central bank and potentially kiss goodbye to e.u. bailouts and it looks like it's going to be close to resembling yes this time is that we are in the e.u. now we have lost a veto and it would be foolish to do anything else it is

a matter for we were both looking for to change france. has said that they don't want to go down group austerity and that's all that are and have gone so far and it's not working there's no change in our at the moment so that's why our people want to send a message to your votes taking place against the backdrop of a failing economy unemployment up to fifteen percent welfare payments a cut public sector spending has been slashed everyone's feeling the pinch including publican jimmy killed near he's seen his turnover full by half as locals batten down the hatches we would have had two and five full time employees yeah for part time we're now down to two full time to part time we had a restaurant upstairs which is now closed and that's another three full time jobs gone disposable income is it's a huge factor it's the discretionary spend that people have it yeah you can see it

throughout a lot of the populace and the restaurant business and people are very very very careful on how they spend their money to pay the economies tightly bound to the ailing euro zone through bank loans and bailouts and many economists think a no vote would mean even steeper austerity and difficulty borrowing from financial markets we would find ourselves at three. being looked at the scans by foreign direct investment financial investment they would say well are these women really in iraq of the european core that's arguable the sense of the sensibility of what's going on but if there's a global and they want to be part of this you know you join the army you were the votes we would be rejecting the us and i think that would be. attractive from a national pride perspective is it a pride we can afford i'm not sure people think it is thanks to their constitution the arash are the only european people who get to vote on the pact and all but two

e.u. member governments have already signed it but if they vote no the irish will be joining a growing anti austerity backlash france's new president francois hollande has talked about trying to renegotiate the pact and germany's angela merkel despite having written the treaty can't get her own parliament to ratify it most of main political parties support it but not richard boyd barrett of the united left alliance because of all of the gambling debts of banks and speculators of import on to the books of the state that this would mean permanent austerity binion's worth of colt's every year for at least a decade or more in order to meet the treaty targets and we believe will do on told damage to the economy which is already very traumatized for ireland it seems more damaging austerity is up ahead no matter which way it turns here in dublin literally every available post in the city is bristling with referendum posters the

no posters call the fiscal pacs the bankers tracie the austerity packed meanwhile the yes campaign maintains it's all about stability either way the future looks bleak many seem willing to cede silver and tea in exchange for financial backup but even that's not guaranteed in a bid me good. euro smith r.t. . why they were virgin is making his first foreign trip as russia's president to belarus after snubbing the g eight summit in the us has all the details from the country's capital minsk. but the two presidents will be discussing economic matters political matters foreign policy internal policy a lot of things really will be covered during this particular meeting and of course russia and minsk did have russia and belarus did have some rather rough relations as of late not exceptionally bad not what you would call bad relations

but they did have some disagreements over some of the issues for example as gas transfer from russia to europe but it does seem like those issues have been ironed out lately and it does look like this trip is what many believe to be indicative of russia's foreign policy of the way it's going to develop in that means didn't hear his future and it does look like that by this trip visit with him is a pointing to the observers that he is going to be focusing on russia's relations with its closest neighbors particularly with the valorous now traditionally first visit first official visit from a russian president has been to one of the c.i.s. countries this time as valerie and it comes of course. it comes on the heels of the g eight summit which was held in the united states very recently to which a russian president was met with and did not go now a lot of people saw that as a way to spike the west but again you have to remember that that was the time

immediately after president bush and did take over in his capacity as russia's president and he did have a lot of issues on his hands he did have to reshuffle the cabinet almost two thirds of the ministers have been replaced so really the president couldn't just leave the country and attend the g. eight summit seeing how he had a lot of internal issues he had that had to be dealt with again this is a trip to bellerose does seem however to point out to the west that russia is going to be focusing more on the relations with the countries and the space which surround this as opposed to. as opposed to putting greater focus on. and on as dealings with any of the western or any other foreign country meeting those core point there and join us on just legal team are continuing what's likely to be a last ditch attempt to stop his extradition to sweden and they're reviewing a supreme court judgment in london ordering that he be handed over to the swedish

authorities where he's wanted for questioning over sex crimes accusations which he denies that we hear leaks founder and his supporters fear that he could be handed over from sweden to the u.s. to face espionage charges these allegations stand from a song his website the hundreds of thousands of confidential american diplomatic cables with sensitive and embarrassing information the secretary of state hillary clinton visits or even within days to discuss internet freedom among other issues journalist and author al burke believes that it's a matter of principle for the swedish authorities to have a songe convicted. what i've seen so far on the net is pretty consistent with what we have seen all along in the past eighteen months or so and that is a mainly hostile and negative attitude towards julian assange and his attempt to avoid extradition to sweden my own opinion is that the swedish prosecutors have invested so much per stage in this case that they're under

a lot of pressure to get him convicted of something so i don't think they're just going to walk away from the case but they may surprise the ships so everything that i've seen thus far indicates to me however that the prosecutor in charge is rather seriously determined to convict him of something. well we are following all the developments in the julian assange case on our web site r.t. dot com so you can go online for all the updates also online watching the latest installment of a sound his interview show in which he needs members of the occupy movement to hear how they are battle against the law is going. and in our teeth of calm as well learn how president obama has offended the entire polish nation by misplacing wild word during his speech.

at the father of the late for morrow russian security officer he's an eleven iago has revealed the names of those who he believes masterminded his son's death of a man who case has become a major point of division between britain and russia over the past six years now a correspondent there for us reports from london. the twist in the story surrounding the poisoning. a former security official alexander litvinenko a live in your case has revealed in an interview the names of the people he says are the killers of his son other people he names of the russian billionaire boris the better results and alex gold both former colleagues and friends of alexander litvinenko. going for. gold for. knows all about energy how do you think alexander first became infected with

polonium to turn why do you think this case has been dragging on for so long why is the be no court case because they don't have anything and if it were to open it will become apparent who was behind it. pays money to some high personas. everyone is covering everyone my boy son should was just caught in the hands of i want to return to russia to seek justice for my son's death alex goen he's the chairman of . the liberty bell it was a very close confidant of the in the weeks leading up to his death he was the unofficial spokesman he was also the man he wrote the statement at the time of the yankees that accusing the russian government of carrying out that crime though after the death the investigation stake is very heavily full of bodyguards and a little boy he's now a russian and now he recently passed

a lie detector test that was carried out by british acts but did you do anything that led to the death of alexander litvinenko. were you involved in alexander litvinenko. have you ever had any dealings with. live in your case father volta had previously apologized to him if he knew a thing that he was a. both in this crime being carried out now in an interview with thought he. had said that he was with alexander at the time that he died and that alexander litvinenko had written down the names of the people responsible for this on a piece of paper he's also told that he should be used as a witness now and indeed it things on the back of this interview and these revelations this could now be the case and this could be submitted to scotland yard to be used as evidence and perhaps we can see this now being a push for the british authorities to continue the lines of investigation and other

attempts to finding the truth of what really happened in the. so first reporting there now it's a development likely to further fuel longstanding hostilities between washington and pyongyang a media report accusing the u.s. and south korean special forces of parachuting into north korea to spy on underground military facilities the source is an american army general who admitted the missions took place it's been vehemently denied by washington which now uses the journalist behind the report of making up the quotes however he insists what he published was exactly what he heard it comes as the u.s. looks to reinforce its naval power in the asia pacific region already experiencing american military buildup earlier we talked to the author of the article david x. and he told us that the full fallout from his piece would not be known for several days. at present both the pentagon and the lower level command whose general i i heard speaking have both admitted that i did

not fabricate the story earlier they had both said i fabricated the story he spoke in the present tense and it was not clear that he was speaking hypothetically not clear at all i mean it was actually quite apparent he was speaking in sort of the the present and literal sense of north korea tends to take a few days to process news reports like this before formulating some kind of response whether that response be an official statement or some sort of military posturing or something so i expect based on what experts are telling me that we'll have to wait a day or two to up to see what the official response will be i hope it's nothing i hope the general it is is telling the truth when he says he was speaking hypothetically i regret that this thing got out of hand. now take a look at some other stories from around the world rescue teams what's believed to

be a file body from the rubble after tuesday's earthquake it brings the death toll to seventeen people three hundred fifty others were injured after the five point eight magnitude quake struck north of bologna and the region was hit by another earthquake just two weeks ago which killed seven people. israel's defense minister says the countries should consider unilaterally imposing borders for a future palestinian state television has called for negotiations toward a two state solution and the past peace talks have come to hold due to israel's continued building of jewish settlements against international law tell us seeing leaders opposed to obvious efforts to determine territorial borders and abandon goshi. tensions brose between two states two states last year when palestine pursued un recognition in the face of israeli and us opposition. a french journalist abducted a month ago in colombia by

a left wing rebels has been released on harms to international mediators. was captured by far guerrillas while filming a report on the destruction of cocaine laboratories in the south of the country earlier this month leftist groups freed tanned hostages have been held for more than a decade after announcing it was and the kidnappings are. well we're crossing now to the world of business were natasha's manning the desk so the tension we saw a major sell out on the global equity markets on wednesday so any hope for recovery today. well there's always hope but the picture we're currently seeing is really pointing to a lower global equity markets on thursday if you look at the asian markets which are the only ones actively trading this hour you see read pretty much across the board than a case shedding more than one and a half percent at the moment in. hong kong the hang saying is their own around one

and a quarter percent overall for the month of may says today's the last day of the month we can really now see the preliminary results of the asian markets pretty much shared all in the double digits the nikkei figure is minus eleven percent the hong the hang seng in hong kong is losing around thirteen percent if you don't count today and of course they had to so they had no place to go but down considering what was happening on wall street overnight u.s. traders really got rid of all the assets they considered risky sending the indices down as you can see the dow was down around a one and a water for sound and resource stocks retreated on all the global uncertainty and as usual of course europe was to blame as a spanish and italian bond yields skyrocketed mainly on the latest poll that showed that the greek people are not ready to go through the process parties that overall

for the month u.s. benchmarks lost around six percent and all of this uncertainty is of course affecting crude prices and what we're seeing right now is that crude is declining we're now seeing the lowest levels since a last october and for the month a light sweet has shared around sixteen percent of its value and of course. there's no appetite for risk whatsoever investors usually run to the u.s. dollar and that's exactly what we're seeing right now let's take a look at the currencies as you can see the. the dollar was gaining against the euro the russian currency the ruble on the wednesday was retreating against both major currencies we'll bring you the latest figures as soon as the markets reopen in less than two hours time let's see how they closed on wednesday. and as you can see the picture is not white just friends different the r.t.s. . q. and a half percent on wednesday deep in the red may has been one of the worst months months

of the year for the russian markets the mindsets and up shedding around eleven percent so far and of russia and china want to challenge boeing and airbus is leaders in the aircraft industry that you countries are setting up a joint venture to build new airplanes based on russia's aircraft will provide the know how and technology while beijing the cash the project is worth between seven and twelve billion dollars with an estimated seven years to produce the first one and that's the latest from the business desk i'll be back in fifty five minutes time i'll see you then all right thanks very much indeed natasha for the subbing of course will see fifty five minutes and for more on what's happening the world business meantime i'll be back with a recap of today's headlines after this short break.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.