international law on the line as the u.s. talks of tough action on syria but without the consent of the u.n. . in or out irish voters head to the polls in a referendum on the e.u. treaty which opponents say amounts to nothing more than permanent austerity controlled by brussels this while a backlash against cuts sweeps across europe. the father of poisoned former russian security agent alexander litvinenko blames fugitive tycoon of boris berezovsky for his son's death but all of this in a video which is now being passed to scotland yard.

on air and online twenty four hours a day this is r.t. live from moscow with me wrong reception 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 are blaming each other for the atrocity russia has about a block any moves for intervention at the u.n. but washington says the security council can be bypassed. still a test. 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 said 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 this circumstance and understand that maybe those moves are provoking the violence and further escalating it. autism are

reporting that one of the rebel syrian army reportedly wants u.n. envoy kofi annan to declare the failure of his peace plan this size damascus says it remains committed to the world body's effort to form a syrian ambassador to turkey expects an escalation of foreign funded terrorism. over five thousand violations by two groups have been actually documented by us. in syria so far. it's very clear that there are local regional and international powers them and on a spark of some sort of civil war in syria based on sectarian criteria and ethnic factors they are trying now to play their final card which is the sectarian factor the ethnic factor that's why we anticipate that some more massacres will

take place committed by those two groups fundamentalist salafist twenty six libyans to new jersey. and some citizens of other countries have been killed in action in syria and what they call the jihad what we call some terrorist acts against syrian civilians the syrian army and syrian security forces if they decide to take a foolish step they have to bear with it this is not libya this is not yemen this is. meantime the french president says paris is also considering military intervention in syria it comes as a disappointment to those who hope that francois hollande would reverse his predecessor's aggressive foreign policy and focus on problems at home but more they're starting to test for ourselves. i know president.

but not soon you rhetoric just two weeks into his post. i heard bert lahr don't relay very mention of military intervention but it is not. 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 critic. 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 now. in french foreign.

and that's not the right thing. for imposed 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 emergency is to stop the killing in syria mina said to various active role that could visit 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 point are we 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 twenty even. in zimbabwe we want 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 telling that he will only act with a u.n. mandate. it is. nothing nothing because though the. china and russia. we can be sure that he can he can do anything and as far as french people are concerned they don't care about the point but you see they'd rather their new president do something to put out the economic fire in their own backyard first and foremost tesser cilia r.t. brussels it's a good to have you with us here on r t today and still ahead for you in this program fact or fiction we speak with the author of an article which accuses the u.s. and south korea of deep level surveillance in north korea or even or

a shooting in spies to report back on alleged underground military facilities. and president putin makes his first trip abroad since his recent inauguration heading for better or worse after ditching the g eight summit earlier this week. it's ten past here in moscow 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 and controversially plans strict central e.u. control of the national budgets of member states who have signed up but opponents see it as a permanent austerity charter with many angry about surrendering power and sovereignty to brussels with a story as artie's laura smith. 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. and it's not working there's no change at the moment so that's why our people want to send a message to 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 for part

time we're now down to two full time two part time we had a restaurant upstairs which is. another three full time jobs. is it's a huge factor it's the discretionary spend that people have it you can see it 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. and difficulty borrowing from financial markets we would find ourselves through. being looked at the sky by foreign direct investment financial investment they would say well are these people 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 club and they want to be part of us you know you join the army you are the votes

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 billions 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 pact the bankers tracey 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 been the. euro smith r.t. . i know much more on the e.u. fiscal treaty referendum or that will be in our interview in about twenty minutes time here when i say. a lot of my putin is making his first foreign trip as

russia's president to billow bruce after snubbing the g eight summit in the us that was just this month arena go to go now has all the details from the country's capital. russia did have some rather rough relations as of late it's 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 mean the nearest future and it does look like this trip which it is pointing to the observers that he is going to be focusing on russia's relations with its closest neighbors particularly with the bell or it's now traditionally the first visit the first official visit from a russian president has been to one of the c.i.s.

countries this time it's valorous 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 the russian president was 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 turning. 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 again 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 states which surround this. political analyst says that russia could improve their relations under president vladimir putin. and they're going to discuss economy they're going to discuss their joint venture on production of drugs they're going to discuss privatization of the russian enterprises by

russian business and i would say that quarrels that russia had with bill it was they were mostly on the line between will question and former president maybe who didn't was always very cautious he never got involved in a very very. angry exchange awards that took place between midday to find a question call and there is a lot less bad blood between them and even made a big difference if you know what just changed his tone towards aggression during the last one in the hof years. it's good to have you with us here on ars he will get to the world update in just a few minutes but for now i julian assange and his legal team are continuing what's likely to be a last ditch attempt to stop his extradition to sweden they are reviewing a supreme court judgment in london ordering his transfer over sex crimes accusations which he denies the wiki leaks founder and his supporters fear that he could be handed over from sweden to the u.s.

in order to face charges of espionage is allegations stem from a songes web site leaking hundreds of thousands of confidential american diplomatic cables with sensitive and embarrassing information meantime u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton visits sweden within days to discuss internet freedom among other issues and journalist and author believes that it's a matter of principle for the swedish authorities to have a stange 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 mean the hostile and negative attitude towards julian assange in 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 us yet everything that i've

seen thus for indicates to me however that the prosecutor in charge is rather seriously determined to convict him of something. and we are following all the developments in the julian assange case on our web site on t.v. dot com you can just go online for all the updates and also watch the latest installment of assad's interview show it's where he meets with various occupy activists to hear about the past and the future of the movement. this is r.t. scotland yard has been handed a video in which the father of the late former russian security agent alexander litvinenko points the finger at he who he believes was behind the death six years ago live and died of radioactive poisoning in two thousand and six and a case which has caused major divisions between britain and russia and as sarah first now reports his new evidence 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 of a volt that 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 to turn why do you think this case has been dragging on for so long have been no court case because they don't have anything and if. it will become apparent who was behind it. pays money to some high personas. everyone is covering everyone my boy son she was just caught in the hands of i want to return to russia to seek justice

for my son alex goen he's the chairman for spares those who live in the fall 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 investigations take is very heavily all full of bodyguards and a little boy he is now a russian and he recently passed a lie detector test that was carried out by british experts 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 apologised to him if he knew anything that he wasn't. in this crime being carried out now in an interview with r t both

a living 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 things on the back of this interview and these revelations this kid 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 i want to do stay with us for an attack on the business in a few minutes but for now this is a development that is likely to further fuel longstanding hostilities between washington and pyongyang a media reporter queues as u.s. and south korean special forces of power are shooting into north korea to spy on underground military facilities the source is an american army general who admitted

the missions have taken place it's been vehemently denied by washington which now accuses 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 an american military build up earlier we talked to be author of the article david arks he told us that the full fallout from his piece would not be known for several days. in the very beginning 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 art 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. let's start with italy for the outer world update now and our rescue teams are told what's believed to be the final body from the rubble left to choose days of the quake it brings the death toll now to seventeen three hundred fifty others were injured after the five point eight magnitude quake struck north of belonging a region that was hit by another earthquake just two weeks ago that killed seven.

israel has handed over the bodies of ninety one palestinian militants to the government in the west bank in a move it says is designed to encourage peace talks but israel's defense minister has grown impatient waiting for negotiations saying the country should consider unilaterally imposing borders for a future palestinian state talks between the two sides of ground to a halt due to israel's building of jewish settlements on the seized from palestinians tensions rose last year when palestine pursued un recognition in the face of israeli and american opposition. a french journalist abducted a month ago in colombia by left wing rebels has been released unharmed to international mediators romeo was captured by far guerrillas while filming a report of the destruction of cocaine labs in the south of the country earlier this month a leftist group freed ten hostages who had been held for more than a decade after announcing it was ending kidnappings. but as promised so there's

a touch of standing by the r.t. business desk good to see you i do understand a new development in the ongoing saga of a russian british french a t n k p p absolutely owner and former c.e.o. because freedman now says a third party may soon enter into the picture to help resolve the shareholder dispute all the details in a couple of minutes but first let's check out the equity markets and we'll start with europe where it looks like both the footsie and the dax are firmly in the black the biggest mover on the foot sea is what you could feel see the idea companies getting more than sixty percent on the news that c.g.i. group is planning on buying it for two and a half billion dollars and of course the markets are also welcoming the european commission's in this it to to be a banking union a body that would oversee the entire euro zone's banking sector and would share the costs of bailing out individual banks of market watchers really. while combat as

a would ease the fears over the banking sector is seen as the weakest a link and the recent uncertainty brought crude prices to the lowest levels since last october for the month of may it lost around sixteen percent of its value but as you can see it's actually gaining this thursday afternoon and gaining quite a bit but traditionally investors are drawn to the u.s. dollar for the time of uncertainty let's check out the currency rates we're seeing that that was the trend over the past few days it's actually being reversed today in the euro is gaining against the u.s. dollar the russian nubile is a losing value to both major currencies and the russian markets are mixed this hour we're seeing that the r.t.s. is trading in the red but the my six is managing to hold onto some of its gains overall for the month of the mind sex is off around eleven percent of its value and

let's now see the biggest movers on the my six and they include a of casey's demo which reported its literally results earlier in the day and it looks like its first quarter net profit is four times higher than it was for the same period last year best to definitely welcoming as you can see the stock is out performing the market is better bank is down on general economic concerns and gazprom is higher on the news that it signed the fifty fifty joint venture to build the south stream and gals pipeline through slovenia's territory and to the anglo russian joint venture t.n.t. b.p. may soon get a third shareholder the company's co owner and former c.e.o. michael freedman told commerce on daily he says this as a viable option amid the ongoing shareholder dispute in the company earlier the russian side said it was ready to buy al b.p. stake in the company or swap its t n. b.p.

shares for stake in british petroleum. russia and china want to set up a joint venture to build new airplanes based on russia's aircraft moscow will provide the know how and technology beijing they count the project is worth between seven and twelve billion dollars with an estimated seven years to produce the first plane business r.t. caught up with a head of boeing international who said russia has a huge market potential. we see russia's growth its economic growth as a huge benefit to an enabler of aviation growth within russia and so the market there as we see it is over a thousand aircraft to russian airlines in the next twenty years valued at over one hundred ten billion dollars. that's the latest from the business desk you can always find more to our team dot com slash business but i'll see you back here in fifty five minutes so if we're looking for a place to touch. back in the headlines in just

a moment. right before we speak about the fiscal treaty that this new austerity pact is it all about solving the eurozone crisis or is it long to force fed austerity back in a second. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know.