international law on the line as the u.s. talks of tougher action on syria without u.n. consent. in or out irish voters head to the polls in a referendum on the e.u. fiscal tree which opponents say amounts to nothing more permanent a sturdy told by brussels while a backlash against cuts sweeps across europe. and the father of the late former security officer or example of an ngo who died of radioactive poisoning in london in two thousand and six reveals the names of those he believes were behind his son's death from.

nine am in the russian capital you're watching r t with me arena josh the u.s. says it's time to consider taking the rag 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 is valid to block any moves for intervention at the un but washington says the security council can be bypassed archies more in a fortnight 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 country should not come to jump to conclusions 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 in 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 know the fact that. 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 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 the did with yugoslavia thirty years ago and launch military actions against syria would be the same cast of characters in the same roads gallery that you know wage the six and a half month bombing campaign against libya last year it would be the north atlantic treaty organization with the u.s. at its core and it would be the u.s. and nato as newfound allies in the persian gulf as the gulf cooperation council monarchies i'm sure a. guitar 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 the area for all in favor of you know the regimes installed the support of the aged care of monarchies in the gulf cooperation council morocco and jordan. says in the light of this one and good syria we should be very clear about those likely targets you know which are they succeed in syria likely targets afterwards would include nations like you know gerry of. the french president says paris is also considering military intervention in syria and it comes as a disappointment to those who hoped francois hollande would reverse his predecessor as aggressive foreign policy and focus on problems at home are just as are syria has more. new president but not soon rhetoric just two weeks into his post. ben ali i heard bernard enrile

very mention of military intervention in it but it is not really doubt it. it's with. a comment that came in response to the massacre in 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 read foreign policy is on the autopilot now and her. french foreign. and that's not the right thing. for him not

even an issue and a last words are in line with the position of bernard on the levy a french activist and philosopher who wrote an open letter calling on the lawn to quote take the initiative in syria assad knows that time is counted for him the next email doesn't see is to stop the killing in syria i'm innocent of libby'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 some decades ago when you intervene for me when the when there was a genocide and now it's a massacre and we were in for a little to twenty even. in zimbabwe we want to intervene in korea

while along to starting to sound a lot like sarkozy analysts some. doubt that there may be no real teeth to such rhetoric this time around just turning that he would only act. in mandate. it is nothing nothing because we go to. china and russia. we can be sure that they can do anything as far as french people are concerned they don't care about foreign policy they'd rather their new president do something to put out the economic far in their own backyard first and foremost yes or sylvia r.t. brussels. so i have very this hour here on r t a fact or fiction r.t. speaks the author of an article which accuses the u.s. and south korea of deep level surveillance and north korea even parachuting and spies to report battle on underground military facilities. voters in ireland head to the polls today in

a referendum to decide whether or not to approve the european union's fiscal treaty driven by germany it kind of urgently plan straight to sandra e.u. control of the national budgets of member states who have signed up but opponents see it as a permanent a staring charter was many 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 kissed goodbye to e.u. bailouts and it looks like it's going to be close the reason i'm voting 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 of what we were both looking for to change france. has to go down groove

austerity and that's 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 heart as locals batten down the hatches we would have had. five full time employees yeah four part time we're now down to two full time two part time we had a restaurant upstairs which is now closed that's another three full time jobs gone disposable income is it's a huge factor it's the discretionary spend that people have that you can see you throughout not just the publicist but 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 eurozone 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 people really in or of the european core that's arguable the sense of the sensibility of what's going on but if there's a club and they want to be part of us you know you join the army you are tickets we would be rejecting 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 ireland's main political party supports it but not richard boyd 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. . live report is making his first foreign trip as russia's president a bell arose after snubbing the g eight summit in the us are his arena has all the details from the country's capital minsk. but the two presidents will be discussing it can all of the matters political matters foreign policy internal policy a lot of things really will be covered during this particular meeting. course russia and did have some rather rough relations as of late snow is exceptionally not what you would call bad relations but they did have. 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 off the way it's going to develop in the mean the near future and it does move by this trip which it is pointing to the observance that he is going to be focusing on russia's relations with its closest neighbors particularly with the valorous now traditionally first visit the first official visit from russian presidents has been to one of the c.i.s. countries this time and it comes of course. it comes on the field of the g. eight summit which was held in the united states very recently to which the russian president did not go 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 a. takeover in his capacity as russia's president and he did

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 that this trip to bellers 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 base which surround this as opposed to putting greater focus on issues. on his dealings with any of the western or any other foreign country read english the reporting there will join us on his 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 were he's wanted for questioning over sex crimes accusations which he denies but we can he's founder and his supporters fear that he will be handed over

from sweden to the u.s. to face espionage charges these allegations stem from the songes website leaking hundreds of thousands of confidential american diplomatic cables with sensitive and embarrassing information u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton visit sweden within days to discuss internet freedom among other issues and journalist and author al burke believes that it's a matter of principle for the swedish authorities to have a son convicted. and 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 student 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 if we are following all the developments and the drilling is on just case on our website r.t. dot com so go online for all you can also they are watch the latest installment of us on his interview show in which he needs various occupy activists to hear about the past and the future of the movement. and also online learn how president obama has offended the entire polish nation by misplacing one war a jury his speech. how the father of the late former russian security officer has revealed the names of those he believes masterminded his son's death his son died of polonium

poisoning in two thousand and six in a case which has caused major divisions between britain and russia but as our t. sara first reports his new testimony may shed further light on the murder. further twists in the story surrounding the poisoning. of former security official alexander litvinenko a live in a case that has revealed in an interview the names of the people he says of the killers of his son other people he names of the russian billionaire boris a better result and alex told both former colleagues and friends of alexander litvinenko. it was berezovsky and. knows all about atomic energy how do you think alexander first became infected with polonium two 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 there is a pays money 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 for spares those who live in the phone was a very close confidant of the bank 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 andrei lugovoy he's now a russian and 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 own case father volta had previously apologised to him if he knew a thing that he wasn't. and this crime being carried out now in an interview with the he both live in yankee. 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. first reporting they're also developing likely to further fuel longstanding hostilities between

washington and pyongyang a media report accuses the u.s. and south korea special forces of parachuting into north korea to spy on the ground military facilities the source is an american army general who admits the mission is to place it's been denied by washington which now uses the journal's behind the report of making up the quotes however he says what he published was exactly what he heard it comes as the u.s. looks to be more stable power in the asia pacific region already experiencing an american military build up earlier we talked to the author of the article david x. and he told us that the fall far from his piece would not be no for several days. at present both the pentagon and the lower level command whose general 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 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 italian rescue teams have what we've to be the final body from the rubble after tuesday's earthquake and brings the death toll to seven hundred people three hundred fifty others were injured after the five point eight magnitude quake struck north of bologna in the region

was hit by another earthquake just two weeks ago which killed seven people. israel's the fans minister says the country should consider unilaterally imposing borders for future palestinian state television has called for negotiations toward a two state solution impasse the peace talks have come to hold due to israel's continued building of jewish settlements against international law and leaders oppose tel aviv's efforts to determine territorial borders and a ban on negotiation settlements tensions rose between the two states last year when house time recognition in the face of israeli and u.s. opposition. french journalist abducted a month ago in colombia by left wing rebels has been released unharmed international mediators romy along was captured by far grew realize while filming a report on the destruction of cocaine laboratories in the south of the country earlier this month the leftist groups feed freed ten hostages have been held for

more than a decade after announcing it was and began happenings. to cross to the world of business where natasha is awaiting and we may soon see a new player on the global aircraft market absolutely it looks like russia and china are now planning to compete with boeing and airbus all the details in just a couple of minutes but first let's check out the equity markets and from the picture we're seeing right now on the asian bourses which are actively trading this hour it looks like we'll extend it once these losses the nikkei is now shedding more than one and a quarter percent of the hang saying is roughly the same and overall for the month of may says today's the last day of the month we can now see the preliminary results the asian indices are shedding in the double digits and the nikkei za figure is minus eleven percent the hang seng is now losing around thirteen percent

for the month and of course when it comes to today's trade it looks like the asian indices had no place to go but down considering what was happening on wall street overnight and there of course the traders dumped all the assets they considered a risky sending the indices down the dow jones ended up losing around one and a quarter percent as you can see there and of course europe was to blame as usual as a spanish and italian bond yields skyrocketed mainly on the news that the greek people according to the latest poll are now not ready to vote for the crawl over. party in the next month's elections overall for them on the u.s. benchmarks lost around six percent of their value and of course all of this global uncertainty is really affecting crude prices which are extending wednesday's losses today although right now it's the losses are certainly not as wide as the work they

were in the previous day and for the month overall light sweet is shedding around sixteen percent of its value a significant loss there as well and traditionally investors run to the u.s. dollar to avoid risk and that's exactly what we're seeing right now the u.s. dollar is gaining value against the euro and the russian currency the ruble on wednesday retreated against both major currencies and the we'll bring you the latest figures as soon as the russian markets reopen in a less than one hour's time speaking of the russian markets let's see the figures there they finished a pretty deep in the red certainly for the r.t.s. a loss of chew and two and a half percent and for the month of may it's actually been one of the worst months of this year for the russian equity markets the my six ended up shedding eleven percent of its value

a large internet companies have more than that have more than twenty million visitors to their websites a month could be forced to report to the russian government any plans for foreign investment into their firms the russian parliament is now considering a bill that classifies such companies as strategic enterprises that means they'll need official approval for mass investments of more than ten percent of their stock analysts say the move will make it life more difficult for internet startups seeking capital abroad and to russia and china want to challenge boys. and air bus as the leaders of the aircraft industry the two countries are now setting up a joint venture to build new airplanes based on russia's aircraft moscow will provide the know how and the technology while they will put in the cash the project is worth between seven and twelve billion dollars with an estimated seven years to

produce the first plane and that's the latest from the world of business you can always find a lot more stories there on our site slash business i'll see you in about fifty five minutes it sounds great and us thanks very much indeed for this on just a few minutes here on ars he puts a spotlight on one of the world's biggest investors before that we're back with headlines stay with us.

well for. science technology innovation all the mist of elements from around russia we've got the few jerks covered.