as the our next president as a country continues to mourn the later charge as. final chord verdicts in the board saying full bore you massacre these attempts to call me egypt's unrest in tatters as fresh violence and gold cities. have a team of u.n. observers a set free by syrian rebels whose initial claim to have taken them hostage and human shields is highlighted radical motives among some of the opposition. this is r.t. going to live from the russian capital i'm going to josh in welcome to the program but as well as will vote on april the fourteenth to decide who will take over from the lady which august the commandant in georgia long battle with cancer but is said to have died of a heart attack millions went on

a pilgrimage to the military academy in caracas to pay their last respects to the late leader who's lying in state there's a feeling from archie's roughly video agency was also there. vice president nicolas maduro sworn in as the president and so elections take place some voices in the opposition notably the man who is the main opposition. who have called the swearing in as. hugo chavez personally appointed. as the man that he wanted to succeed him and of course hugo chavez the late president has immense popularity and by the way the russian that has said that he hopes that heritage continues to deepen the ties between russia and venezuela and he's also said that he hopes that russia will respect the outcome of venezuela and that elections and he hopes that all countries around the world again referring to the fact that bad being many outside powers he would like to see. a

revolution inside venezuela. among many condolences coming from inside and outside venezuela there was a very good statement coming from chavez's last election opponent. he said he was mourning this loss and that he had never been his enemy but his rival i think is a very respectful attitude and i hope it will persist in the following election battle mourning the loss of venezuela and its friends including russia we have to look forward and i hope chavez's heritage will only help to deepen our partnership the majority in venezuela want to shop with his policies to continue we will respect the choice of the venezuelan people i hope all of the countries that have relations with venezuela do the same and there was no attempt to influence their choice. amongst the crowds you know we've been there quite a lot over the last few days and one of the most popular chance is with chavez and i thought other people are saying when he was sworn in in the national assembly that were very emotional crowd by doing their support for him and he announced that

he is to continue the revolution he was very emotional he was in tears as he took the presidential sash and he said that the sash that he was taking belonged to. java's his death has left a political gap and uncertainty not just in his own country but throughout latin america now that the united states loudest critic is out of the picture thoughts are turning to whether washington could now get an upper hand creases and ones in the region are just going to check out of estimates and. communities of people throughout latin america are mourning the death of. the venezuelan leader enjoyed tremendous popular support in his country as well as the whole region he won four presidential elections and had ruled venezuela for fourteen years says. this liberation process not only on the venezuelan people but also of all the latin american peoples must continue. chavis allowed us to restore faith in latin america

region so that a profound transformation in the region can be carried out that's the only guards and the empire will no doubt be happy and celebrating the news empire is the word a host of south american leaders and used to refer to the united states in washington president obama extended his sympathy to the chavez family and herald it quote a new chapter in the history of latin america but the u.s. congress was not as restrained in their reaction to the death of the venezuelan leader the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee had this to say his death. to us leftist leaders in south america good riddance to this dictator in the media a slew of pundits embarked on a search for new opportunities that might now be available for the u.s. in venezuela. so what does this mean now for the united states in all that oil in that country venezuela is a place of enormous opportunity it has by survey's perhaps the largest reserves of oil in the world from the u.s.

point of view this has enormous potential implications because a venezuela that moves away from chavez is foreign policy means a venezuela that's less welcoming to iran low. friendly to russia less friendly to castro's cuba less friendly to leftwing regimes around the hemisphere which is financed in their campaigns in and other aspects but before america jumps at the chance to explore those new opportunities it might be useful to look back at what washington's previous efforts led to what the u.s. now calls leftist populist governments in latin america came to power partly in reaction to decades of the us recklessly meddling in the affairs of the region for years washington had seen many of those countries as its outposts after chavez was elected in one thousand nine hundred nine a host of other leaders in latin america followed his example to varying extents including but not limited to ever morales in bolivia rafael correa in ecuador and

daniel ortega in nicaragua chavez may not have been as hardened in his views against washington if not for allegations of the tacit support of the bush administration in the coup against him in two thousand and two he met with bill clinton a couple times they got along just fine it was really only with george bush then when things really were turned sour and especially after the coup attempt within forty eight hours of the start of the cool with the help of the military and vast popular support chavis returned to power. but during that short period when he was deposed some in the us hurried to celebrate the new york times for example ran this article venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by would be dictator caracas name provides fifteen percent of american oil imports and with signs of policies could provide more for years after the coup chavis had expressed his anger at the bush administration in a variety of fiery metaphors yet as to who is the other one the devil came here

yesterday. and it still smells of sulfur here george w. bush has long left office but suspicion and mistrust remain some argue if during these challenging times for latin america washington continues to deal with the region using the same old tactics the hostility could be put in washington i'm going to check out. this week yet again we've seen just how divide it still is violence erupted on saturday after a career of court upheld twenty one death sentences given to people blamed for being behind last year a stadium massacre in ports a while acquitting others neither side was satisfied by the verdict and their anger immediately spill into the streets three people lost their lives in clashes in

cairo as a mob torched and attacked buildings across the capital including police property in port saying you heard the army to charge of security on friday protests were quick to restart including attempts to blockade ferries crossing the suez canal well true as following the crisis for r.t. . both sides gutted security headquarters is a powerful reminder of the past five days of bloody clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces in a bid to quell on rest a day ahead of the contentious verdict on last february's football riots the government removed the police and put the city security in the hands of the army activists here say a military takeover will only antagonize the situation and is an example of president mohamed morsi ignoring the demands this is in this imagine the government has forgotten our main needs or the rights of the people and those who have been killed in the port so you'd is not going to be more secure with the withdrawal of

the police but it won't help us at all the ports are you dog. busters are supposed to be in the streets taking care of the country that's what we asked for with the police leaving there will be chaos now the people will have to secure the city themselves tension between protesters and the police has been high since last year's riots and when the minute you place them on the city's streets there was an initial optimism but that all changed off the court's decision the atmosphere changed on saturday when the verdict confirmed that twenty one people will face the death penalty and a further five will serve my sentences residents here say that the army will not protect them as the local authorities bowed to pressure from the capital at a funeral for protesters killed during recent clashes on the spicy founder of the green eagles ultras saeed's football fan club says the police used excessive force against local demonstrators treating them worse than their counterparts in cairo he believes the death sentences are further proof the city is being targeted toward

side has been persecuted for the last thirty years and president mohamed morsi is keeping the status quo created by the last regime the president wants to wrong the people of portside and instead satisfy the cairo alley old tribes were widespread across the country now there is a risk of everyone being racist towards portside the military for their part to maintain they are protective peaceful force and that portside protesters have not been singled out they say police are merely responding to the level of violence from those attacking key government buildings meanwhile on the banks of the suez canal protesters burn tires to prevent boats from ducking saying they will escalate acts of civil disobedience until there is a fair trial with further violence on the horizon this could be the toughest challenge yet for morsi and his military true for r t.

i'll stay up to date on news from edges. belle's twitter feed new details comments and opinions from locals on the crisis are they are you know the early action who have been getting journalists while iskandar has been telling us that in ships current troubles are getting little attention abroad. the western countries have largely ignored what the regime has been doing which is cracking down on a lot of freedoms and you know returning to mubarak era style of ruling and i think what what will happen now is it will come to the forefront and i think there will be a lot of international pressure not to see you know the regime for as a democratic force but rather as what it is so it seems like the whole verdict is politicized and it's just just a way to manage the country's political crisis rather than to bring about justice.

and coming up later in the program the drama and infighting at the bolshoi leading dancer and a story here is in custody after admitting to masterminding a tap which disfigured the company's artistic director after an absent was thrown in his face. leadership hard be she faced freedom fighter. and. you're ready to clean up a new sword. and bring you liberty any time you salute play free. not. to be reduced to a. syrian diary on our t.v.

. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing operation throughout the day.

welcome back to what you know if you live from moscow twenty one the u.n. peacekeepers have been released by their syrian rebel captors after being held for three days the militants handed the observers over to jordan after u.n. recovery team stopped short of reaching the captives let's get the latest now from our he's middle east correspondent paula we're so paul what are the details of the u.n. teams release and why were they even held in the first place. well the peacekeepers crossed into jordan on saturday afternoon after having been captured back on wednesday the rebels themselves moved the hostages off to a u.n.

team inside syria was prevented from doing so because of heavy fire slicer in the area now the un secretary general ban ki moon has welcomed their release but he has said that all sides in the conflict must respect the united nations impartiality what we do know is that the peacekeepers were held in the village of jamila which is about ten kilometers north of jordan by a group calling itself the martyrs brigade it is important to point out that those who were unarmed they were initially taken hostage as human shields and that is according to the initial statement that was made by the rebel faction that captured them the rebels demanded that syrian government forces pull back from a nearby village and clearly stated that they were holding the u.n. team to ensure that the rebels wouldn't be shelled by government forces it was only off to the united nations international officials the heads of the syrian opposition as well as the free syrian army condemned the hostage taking that the

rebel faction backtracked on that statements and said that the peacekeepers were so-called guests they also at that stage dropped all preconditions for their release. all every action of any has there been to the significance of this unprecedented hostages ration in the crisis. well what this does do is that it highlights the fact that the opposition is becoming increasingly radicalized the armed rebel force consists of numerous groups like the ones that took the securing to hostage and what we see is that these groups are not coordinated and they don't believe onset to a central rebel political and military command in this case clearly the rebel chiefs had not been warned about this hostage taking in advance and they're only intervened after the hostages were taken it is an unprecedented incident it is the first time that the. u.n. workers have been taken hostage inside syria it is also stoking fears that foreign countries which are supporting the rebels are in fact supporting people who could

turn against them as we saw in this case and there are also growing fears that weapons being smuggled to the rebels from abroad could be turned against the united nations or anyone else all of this coming as the united states and its allies all beefing up support to the opposition which is demanding that the west stop openly arming bin turkey and the gulf states already allegedly arming the rebels and has been doing so for the past two years of the conflict. thanks very much indeed for bringing us the respond positively or there now some outlets blame america's arab allies for weapons which fall into the hands of all coddling militants in syria. in the end the hostages were not released to the u.s. and that shows that there is a was a certain intention to undermine the united nations and luck that brahimi the special envoy of the un and the arab league for us area and at the same time

there was sent to jordan jordan is a country where the united states britain and one of the other countries are training syrian rebels the british foreign minister william hague keeps repeating from time to time that he wants to help the syrian rebels but not al qaeda are similar fundamentalist groups. i'm i think it is fair to say that president obama would also not refer that but the problem is how can the united states and europe stop countries like saudi arabia and qatar who are the main arm suppliers to the rebels and whose constituency is that of militants. a top

dancer at the ball show theater is in custody right now after admitting that he was behind the brutal attack on the company's are to sit directly filon and he's free trial hearing pavel dmitrichenko claimed he didn't order filling to have acid thrown in his face so it was dancer of the two manny paid about fifteen hundred dollars to carry the assault could get up to twelve years in prison for the crime well fill in was attacked on january the seventeenth in the center of moscow and he was nearly blind it is now undergoing extensive treatment in germany where it's hoped his eyesight can be restored and we do tend to start as manny villains during his career the latest being the role of ivan the terrible it's thought he'd had a number of disagreements with his artistic director and one reportedly involving the dancers a girlfriend ballerina of the bolshoi and the way fill in hand and leading roles at the theater while art is in her team and reporter martin andrews says that in

fighting him threats are a sad reality of show business. in the front of the theater you see a beautiful production but really the drama backstage is i think it's everyday life in a production house and that's what it is it's a factory from from the problems with the understudies from the problems because thing from the problems of of management who were dances they were bitter about their faded career it's not an easy world to be in obviously the rivalries between companies within moscow and with the mets and the skull and they all want to be at the top of their game and tensions are always high and fraud and this is the first time we've had these sort of things happen right well this is certainly a very severe but there been other kind of scandals what is this it's called drama for a reason to fight a year ago stravinsky's rite of spring was postponed and in fact one of the dances that. she was actually said that she was threatened by various people and she she actually went over to canada in fear of her life in fear of that it would escalate

these tensions between the theatrical ballet world would escalate into violence and obviously as we see with the result. that happened in january it happens and this may reduce it down to a level of a cliche but we have this blockbuster movie black swan that cloud that's absolutely what it's like with the black swan film nothing portman really highlights the you know the extremities and the tensions and especially with the with the management with the hiring in the firing it's everyday life and sometimes it can seem like a wonderful place to work but it they reality is somewhat different. north korea's reaction to further u.n. sanctions history and system will pursue nuclear weapons and away the country also officially scrapped a hotline and non-aggression pact with the south this week saying washington and so are responsible for ruining nuclear disarmament talks thursday's u.n. vote tighten financial restrictions on the north expanding asset freeze on

companies and sanctioning certain individuals north korea quickly threatening the u.s. with a preemptive nuclear strike to which washington said it's ready rules imposed by the security council following previous nuclear tests and rocket launches have all failed to deter pyongyang the co-founder of the national campaign to end the korean war believe sanctions will only take a toll on citizens. was it they said they're going to limit money that by eight go toward nuclear technology well that means limiting cash when it means limiting cash for a country that can't feed itself because it doesn't have enough arable land to you to do so you're talking about taking food out of people's mouths so we have to examine why we use sanctions as something that is in essence a weapon of war and it cannot be used in this way because we're going to be taking money out of a country that needs the money to feed itself so in the end thank sions really ends up hurting people in

a country who need it the most and i think we have to get over this and see that sanctions haven't worked hasn't worked in cuba and other places in for decades in iraq it didn't you call it we had to go into a war that didn't stop saddam hussein these sanctions have generally ended up killing people on the ground and really we need to get a lot more creative than that. turning to sound today's world news now a russian helicopter carrying passengers and cargo disappeared from raiders in the republic of congo connection with the crew was lost ten kilometers from the am i ates planned to landing spot an aircraft was being used for a freight services for the un mission in the country. crowds have ransacked and torched a christian neighborhood in pakistan's eastern city of lahore of the ongoing sectarian unrest first erupted on friday night after a christian man was accused of committing blasphemy a crime punishable by death in the country police took the man into custody in an

attempt to pacify the mob hundreds of christian families later fled the area fearing for their safety. the people of the folk with islands are holding a two day referendum on the whether to remain a british overseas territory the u.k.'s hoping for international backing and its dispute over the islands. should the majority say yes one is a reason poses the poll saying it has no validity rao over jurisdiction as rumbled for decades especially since britain repelled their invasion in nine hundred eighty two. china opened its annual national people's congress in beijing this week assuring in a new generation of communist party leaders on the aims is a continued and still in peril of economic growth as well as a major boost to military spending james corbett a journalist based in the far east says and i'm sure of topics were mentioned for the first time. where we saw a couple of the main issues on the table are increasing calls even among the party

officials by an increase. in calls for easing of regulations on private capital in china's economy and we're also seeing another big issue right now is the idea of environmental concerns obviously there's been a lot of problems with air quality in china as they still continue to develop so that's a huge concern in terms of the foreign relations i think that's something we're going to have to see play out in the coming months but we already have indications that there are more people within the party itself that are calling for china to go its own way in the east china sea so we'll see how that develops with japan china and the us realize that their economies are intimately linked at this point and i think that in more ways than they'd like to admit they are actually on the same side of this conflict or and i don't think china can allow the u.s. economy to sink any more than the u.s. economy can cut its ties with china so no matter what the political rhetoric might

be i think there's actually more collaboration and there is conflict and and that underscores what's going on in the political arena. on the way the drone debates on the home front america's new tory is on mad cap rogue rahm sparks controversy on capitol hill joining appointment of this cia's new team. plus when they have it becomes a luxury soaring prices are forcing villagers out of their houses we take a look at what's behind the real estate boom in just a couple of minutes here on our team. wealthy british style. time guys. market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with max concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. she good leverage or lead to mukherjee was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which will unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans and work this is why you should care only dot com.

welcome back here are watching r t live from moscow the cia welcomed its nukes. this week as president obama's former top counterterrorism adviser took over the confirmation came after conover's him capitol hill as a republican stole john brennan's can of the sea in fiery exchanges his notorious drone program a was questioned as lawmakers demanded to know whether americans could be targeted by on manned aircraft on home soil grounds appointment was eventually allowed to proceed after officials said that drones cannot be used to kill u.s. citizens not engaged in combat in america what a former guantanamo bay prosecutor says the man attack and data is too vague lacks transparency the way it's worded it's left room for interpretation it clearly is only limited to the u.s. and to american citizens i think they left a lot of wiggle room in the way that they worded the statement again you know sort of their past history they've been pretty liberal and how they choose to define

time when it suits their interests and this is saying that. you know the law permits the president to carry out attacks that basically whenever and wherever he chooses on anyone but they refuse to release the legal analysis that explains how they interpret the law. the u.s. this about claims this week it was behind february drone strikes in pakistan that killed up to nine people phantom attacks are a problem because it means people are being killed but no one knows who's to blame this comes as and i'll tell you a pilot told controllers on tuesday he had spotted a mysterious a man aircraft as he was flying towards new york's j.f.k. airport globalization expert mark mason thinks the increasing availability of drones will make their misuse even greater. report was made it's always the information's not available as to was it a model airplane was it sir.