international law on the line as the u.s. talks of tougher action on syria without un can sound. in or out irish voters head to the polls in a referendum on the e.u. fiscal treaty which opponents say amounts to nothing more than permanent stare and control by brussels while a backlash against cuts sweeps across europe. and the father of the late former russian security officer alexander of any onco who died of radioactive poisoning in london in two thousand and six reveals the names of those he believes were behind the son's death. and in the business bulletin the version of the markets in the first hour of trading a rebound from wednesday's losses all the details in about twenty minutes.

it is eleven am in 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 as 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 u.n. but washington says the security council can be bypassed are just merida pork ny 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 where 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 embassador rice said 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 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 the terman to replace the syrian government with a proxy regime. ambassador rice is 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 does the u.s. and its nato allies reserves the right to act outside of the security council as it did with yugoslavia thirty years ago and watch 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 months 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 it is the gulf cooperation council monarchies insure 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 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 with syria we should be very clear about this likely targets which are they succeed in syria likely targets afterwards would include nations like jerry. now the french president has paris is also considering military intervention and syria comes as a disappointment to those who hope francois alond would reverse his predecessor's aggressive foreign policy and focus on problems at home or he says are silly has more. new president.

but not soon new rhetoric just two weeks into his post. ben ali i heard bernard on relay the mention of military intervention and but it is not ruled out here. 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 french foreign policy is on the out of nothing her. french horn.

and that's not the right thing. for him both you 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 time is counted for him the next emergency is to stop the killing in syria minnes a division active role with 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 you know it's a massacre and we were in for a while to a winter been. invaded by where we were going to intervene in north korea while all along 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 yes turning that he would only act the u.n. mandate. it is nothing nothing because. 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 fart in their own backyard first and foremost yes or sylvia r.t. brussels. and still have for this hour here on our team facts or fiction part he speaks with the author of an article which accuses the u.s. and south korea of deep level surveillance and north korea even parachuting in

spies to report back on on the ground military facilities. and president putin makes his first trip abroad since his recent inauguration having four bellers after ditching the g eight summit earlier this month. 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 controversially plans strict central control of the national budgets of member states who have signed up but opponents as a permanent a stereo 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 see each 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. it's not working there's no change in our at the moment so that's why our people want to send the message the 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 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 to part time we had a restaurant upstairs which is now closed that's another three full time jobs. is it's a huge factor it's the discretionary spend that people have that you can see here throughout not just the pub 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 through. least being looked at. 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 this you know you join the army you are tickets

we would be rejected 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 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 billions worth of cults every year for at least a decade or more in order to meet the treaty targets and we believe will do 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 new posters call the fiscal pact 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 beleaguered. euro smith r.t. . cans of more on the e.u. fiscal treaty referendum in our interview section in an hour's time here on r.t. . but important is making his first foreign trip as russia's president to belarus after snubbing the g eight summit in the u.s. . 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 and of course russia did have some rather rough relations as of late is 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 the mean the nearest future and it does look like this trip which in 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

a russian president has been to one of the c.i.s. countries this time it's bellerose 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 doesn't of course 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 trying to. take over 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 that have had that had to be dealt with again this trip to belarus 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 states which surround this as opposed to putting

a greater focus on its issues on his dealings with any of the western or any other foreign country. everything goes quite pouring there from minsk now join us songes legal team are continuing what's likely to be our 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 is wanted for questioning over a sex crimes accusations which he denies that we have expounder and his supporters fear that he could be handed over from sweden to the u.s. base as you know charges these allegations stand from a stand as a web site 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 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 mean 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. and we're following all the developments in the julian assange on this case on our web site r.t. dot com so go online for all of the updates also watch the latest installment of the songes interview show in which he meets various occupy activists to hear about the past and future of the movement. scotland yard has been handed

a video in which the father of the late former russian security agent alexander litvinenko points the finger at who he believes was behind the death six years ago of a man who died of radioactive poisoning in two thousand and six and a case which has caused major division between britain and russia as artists or first reports his new evidence may shed further light on the murder. 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 now the people he names of the russian billionaire boris the better results and alex gold these were both former colleagues and friends of alexander litvinenko. knows all about. 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 it been 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 phone 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 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. livin in case of the 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 r t full to live in yankee 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 r.t. that he should be used as a witness now and indeed it seems 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 further push to the british authorities to continue other lines of investigation

and other attempts to finding the truth of what really happened in this case. that's a development likely to further a few a long standing who still has between washington and pyongyang and media reporting fuses u.s. and south korean special forces off parachuting into north korea to spy on underground military facilities the source is an american army general who admitted the missions to places it's been a theme and we denied by washington which now accuse us of journalist behind the report of making up the quote 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 an american military buildup for earlier we talked to the author of the article david x. and he told us that the fuel fallout from his piece would not be known for several days very 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 is take a look at some other stories from around the world italian rescue teams have told

what's believed to be the final body from the rubble after tuesday's earthquake it 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 and the region was hit by another earthquake just two weeks ago which killed seven people. israel the fans ministers as the country should consider unilaterally imposing borders for a future palestinian state tel aviv has called for negotiations towards a two state solution in the past though peace talks have come to a halt due to israel's continued building of jewish settlements against international law palestinian leaders oppose tel aviv's efforts to determine territorial borders and abandon negotiation settlements tensions rose between the two states last year when palestine pursued un recognition in the face of israeli and u.s. opposition. a french journalist abducted a month ago in colombia by left wing rebels has been released unharmed to

international mediators romy along the walk was captured by far guerrillas while filming a report on the destruction of cocaine laboratories in the south of the country earlier this month the leftist group freed tanna hostages who've been held for more than a decade after announcing it was ending kidnappings. all right we're now crossing to the world of business we're in a talent show has got all the latest and we may soon see a new player on the global aircraft market what more can you tell us about that. absolutely looks like russia and china are getting ready 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 we'll start with europe where investors a finally see the current levels low enough to buy the foot sea and the dax are gaining value in the. first hour of trading we're seeing the figures there but

actually the numbers not quite correct they are in the block indeed they are gaining value and here in russia the markets are also in the positive territory in the second hour of trade. today is the last day of the month so it's certainly time for some preliminary results and what we're seeing for the month is a loss of around eight eleven percent for the my sex it's one of the worst months for the russian equity markets so far this year and if you look at the asian markets we see red pretty much across the board the nikkei is losing around one and a quarter percent a waltz is on the hang saying are a bit narrower but overall for the month of may we see double digit losses for both at the end nikkei and the hang saying it's around eleven percent minus eleven percent for in tokyo and around thirteen percent in hong kong but of course

speaking of thursday's trade the asian markets had no place to go but down considering what was happening on wall street overnight u.s. traders indeed got rid of all the risky assets bringing the dow and the nasdaq down you're seeing the figures right there as usual europe was to blame after the tally and the spanish bond yields skyrocketed mainly on the latest poll that shows this greek people are not ready to vote for the. austerity party in next month's elections over all the u.s. benchmarks are off around six percent for the month of may and of course traditionally investors run to the safest asset the u.s. dollar in times of uncertainty and away from all the risk and that of course brings the u.s. dollar higher it's currently gaining against. the european currency and the russian

ruble is continuing its retreat against both major currencies the euro and the dollar and the large internet companies and russia may soon have a tough time attracting foreign investors those that have more than twenty million visitors a month to their websites could be forced to ask the russian government to approve any plans for foreign investment into their firms the russian parliament is considering a bill that classifies such companies as strategic meaning that they would have to ask for an official approval of investment work ten percent of their stock analysts say the move will make life more difficult for internet startups seeking capital abroad and russia and china want to challenge boeing and airbus as the leaders of the aircraft industry the two countries is setting up a joint venture to build new airplanes based on russia's evolution aircraft moscow

will offer the know how and the technology and beijing will bring 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 business desk i'll be back in about fifteen minutes i'll see you then my all right thanks very much indeed it's always good to hear from you and of course looking forward to the next date all right and in the meantime here on our team and we kept our top stories coming your way in just a few moments stay with us. but. religion

and education are inseparable. enlightenment isn't possible without knowledge of. inner peace without hard work. joy with no press. in the news a secret laboratory to mukherjee was able to build a new its most sophisticated robots which on fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach music creation.