top stories tonight at ten the u.k. faces a loyalty test in a full close referendum tonight exacerbating the standoff with argentina over sovereignty and now. two years on until nuclear sentiment gets stronger in japan as the country marks the anniversary of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters with many unsatisfied of the speed of the cleanup operation still. also not as well a hostage drama resolved in syria ukrainian journalist kidnapped by rebels as escape after being held with a threat of death for almost six months we've got her story.

in a very good evening which is joins us live from the arctic new center attendance kevin zero in here a top story the disputed fall clint islands are voting on a second day of a referendum on whether or not to remain a british territory but a loyal pro british sentiment among many islanders leaves little doubt as to what the outcome is going to be in a few hours time while argentina still lays claim to the islands has called the vote a sham artie's probably boyko reports of the toxic miss mix of nationalism politics and oil. these are some very far flung islands from britain a tiny territory now nevertheless the islanders are expected to vote overwhelmingly in favor of remaining a british overseas territory but this isn't just a question of national identity we know that the argentinian government's already dismissed the vote as a propaganda exercise cooked up in london but there's the prospect of all that a lot of people are talking about now they're speculating surrounding how much oil there is an estimated sixty billion barrels of oil potentially to be found in the

falklands basin and that's worth about one hundred sixty seven billion dollars to compare that with britain's oil reserves well they seem scant in comparison the u.k. has an estimated two point eight five billion barrels of oil so if this estimation proves to be correct if the falkland islands do indeed have these sixty billion barrels then we're talking about more oil than the reserves of the usa could tar or even libya to talk about this i'm joined in the studio by ken hurst he's a journalist came to what extent is this dispute a question of resources for both the british and the argentinean government well it could be argued that it's always been questionable whether it's morally or logistically sustainable to try to protect. a colony that eight thousand miles away i suppose the argument one could have added to that is economically sustainable

said he wore ships and so on and so forth but of course the oil rather changes all of that but it only changes if you believe it's morally justifiable to go on what we call it you know a colonial plundering mission something we did in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries and personally i don't happen to believe it is but a lot of people are saying that this is a question of domestic politics for the argentinean president because there is a flailing economy at home and. you know picking up the question of that island sovereignty is going to increase her ratings back home well that may or may not be true certainly south america as a bloc may be having its economic issues but it's certainly becoming generally an economic powerhouse a part of the the the brazilian the russian the indian the chinese the rise of those nations and it's part of all of that and we've had issues haven't we about. vessels carrying our flags not being allowed into some some of those ports so there

is that issue around it but you know i don't know how sustainable that is it isn't trying to ramp up. our gentle came to the islands just a way of increasing popularity at home well it may be but you've got to remember that president cristina fernandez actually had a landslide victory herself in the two thousand and eleven election i think it was so she's probably more politically stable than david cameron is and finally do you think the referendum is going to resolve this dispute referendums don't resolve disputes actually negotiation resolve disputes and that's what really needs to happen down there in the in the falklands or the melbourne or whichever you call them well no doubt there will be ongoing but the vote is being counted as a speak now the spose to be announced to run about twenty three hundred g.m.t. the final result of it will bring it to you we know more let's hear a british perspective on the referendum go talk to a conservative m.p.

nigel evans is live on the line from london good evening to you mr evans bookies have called this reverend this referendum the biggest certainty in political betting history ever do you agree. i do agree i've visited the falkland islands three times since i've been a member of parliament and i've spoken with people who live on the island some of them have had families on there for generations i'm in no doubt whatsoever that the people of the fault and ireland's wish to remain british doesn't really matter as frozen arjun's argentina is concerned it doesn't does it. well it does matter to the islanders that the rest of the world knows exactly what they feel the argentinians have laid claim to the islands for a long time. but the argentinians must know themselves what the people who live on the islands feel and the arjun must also know that the rest of the world know

exactly what the people who live on the islands feel and i believe that their view something changed since i was last there a few years ago i'm expecting an overwhelming victory in favor of the falkland islands residents remaining british and i hope that the argentinians will respect that view while it kind of sounds like they're not going to doesn't it at this stage anyway oh you've been calling for drunks to be sent there why is that city or rather it appears at least to be quite heavy handed. well no the fact is that the argentinians i hope will not resort to any other tactics other than. the one you say negotiate while you know july ating now rather than having a referendum. because we believe that fundamentally the people who live on the islands themselves should be the ones to determine their own sovereignty now if they voted and said that they wish to become part of arjun teena then we would

respect that indeed in two thousand and fourteen in scotland we will be having a referendum there where only the scottish people or those who live in scotland will vote as to whether they should remain part of the united kingdom now if the people living in scotland decided they no longer wish to become a part of the united kingdom we would respect those wishes and all we're asking is that argentina respects the wishes of the people who live on the island i hear what you say it's a laudable cause but why your colleagues in the us for example for example the e.u. that normally go along with what britain wants not seeing eye to eye with you on this one what are what are you seeing that they're not in argentina is not seeing well i'm not sure that the united states of america would ever say that the people who live on the island should not be able to determine for themselves. they are associated with and it's the same with the european union the fact is that's why i suspect that this referendum which is being called by the fall and ireland britain is really isolated on this some sort of international again has insisted upon i'm

sort of pressure again but britain is pretty isolated on this. no i don't believe that the united kingdom is isolated on it but you know even if we were i still believe that it is right that the people who live on the fault and islands should turn in for themselves whether they should remain british or not i thought the big mistake for argentina in one nine hundred eighty two was when they decided to invade the full blown dial and and and sadly two hundred fifty five british servicemen died three fold and islanders died and over a thousand fold and islands troops died as well we don't need to go back to that sort of tactics that were used in the one nine hundred eighty that. the wishes of the that's the extremely unfortunate history of it back up today much more recently of course huge oil reserves have been found off before clinton's billions of barrels were britain at all interested in that as well well the fact is that in the

one nine hundred early one nine hundred eighty s. it was an oil that got britain sending a task force down to the atlantic to be able to protect the fulton islands but it's not lost revenue now sir. no it's got nothing to do with oil it's got everything to do with the wishes of the people who live on that island and i believe that we should respect the wishes now. they've always talk spoken about oil reserves being found there and they've been looking for some time no i don't know whether there's any oil or due to come on stream i think for twenty seventeen. there were i really don't know but you know that doesn't affect my views and i don't think it affects the views of the british people and it wouldn't affect the views of the fault and islanders as to how they wish to be associated they wished in the one nine hundred eighty s. before there was any talk of oil they wish to remain british then having a referendum now which we expect will show yet again that their views have not

changed if anything solidified and all i would say to argentina is forget banging the drum themselves that they should just respect the wishes of the fall and islanders to remain british and you know i believe that britain and argentina working together can ensure that you mentioned yourself in earlier report that argentina's economy is growing strongly they should concentrate on that as opposed to basically looking backwards in time banging the old drum which is really got quite boring for everybody nigel final ten seconds quick answer if you can when the results of this referendum is in a couple of hours time is it going to make dialogue with argentina any easier the end of the day as long as argentina recognizes that the falkland islands which is a non-negotiable then i am absolutely certain that relations between argentina and the united kingdom can improve his conservative m.p. noise levels of pleasure the folks making here are thought to clear their lovely.

my pleasure thank. you what do you think is next steps going to be now a fall from volunteers decide to stay british let's take a look at the pie chart this is what you're telling us is actually not been a lot of change of the last couple of basically thinking the same thing. as you can see the forty three percent a clear the vote rigged or legitimate thirty four percent moved to britain sixteen percent written off the screen the calling for a new referendum and thirty percent finally backed off from its claim ok thank you for taking part if you have done already we'll bring you up to date with more of that of course as the evening progresses now meantime domestically in the u.k. economic hardship appears to be sparing no one coming up we've got the story of world war two veterans whose families are forced to sell the momentos of memories just to pay the basic care.

japan is screaming with their for over nine hundred thousand people killed during the devastating earthquake and tsunami two years now since the tragedy was also triggered the world's worst atomic disaster in twenty five years the fukushima plant so a nuclear meltdown in the release of a lot of radioactive material thomas was in japan and witnessed the aftermath. when i first arrived what struck me the most is that the scale of the disaster was much larger than what many people may even remember in fact what you had was you had the earthquake you had the tsunami then you have the nuclear disaster and then the lingering disaster after the fact so traveling to the coast homes destroyed

villages decimated and the people doing what they could to try and pick up their lives people we spoke to have a great distrust for the government they don't at that time they don't feel that they were getting all of the information that they needed to for their safety and i can tell you that from the get go there was a lot of mistrust in the government about how the situation was being handled on the ground the nuclear tragedy also sparked massive protests all over the globe against the use of atomic energy and investigates if the world is ready to wean itself off nuclear power. if you look at japan first of all there before the before this leak nuclear energy made about twenty five percent of japan's energy needs afterwards all nuclear reactors were suspended some have since been restarted to try to cope with blackouts far away in germany the public and politicians were

horrified by what they saw unraveling in japan and that led in part to the tags decision in may two thousand and eleven to end all nuclear power in germany by two thousand and twenty two in france a very different policy since the one nine hundred seventy s. france has really pushed nuclear energy as a clean and safe provider of energy it still makes up nearly eighty percent of france's and edgy needs and there although public opinion has changed slightly it's still more in favor of nuclear power than it is in japan if we look at japan again the new government is more pro nuclear energy than the previous government was but they're going to have a big a big time trying to convince the japanese population that it is worth it one thing they have on their side is that nuclear power is demonstrable cheaper than other

alternatives and fossil fuels or renewables there just isn't enough of those renewables yet to try and cover the gap tomball there on the debate for nuclear or not you can read more on how japan's fixing the consequences of the fukushima tragedy on our website r.t. dot com as well as read expert opinion on the country's nuclear fugitive. after almost six months in rebel captivity ukrainian journalist working in syria's escape plan is reportedly on the way to damascus the captors were threatening to kill or unless they got a ransom from the ukrainian government artie's really has more details. the information that r.t.d. causes coming from on hard question was ex-husband who cost contect our channel and said that his but his ex-wife seems to have escaped her captivity in home sincerely after she has made a post in her live journal a column saying to and i'm quoting alice is back with more details to follow on her question as ukrainian journalist who has been taken captive in october by the free

syrian army rebels who threatened to kill her and her question was incredibly critical off of the syrian rebels next to tease us throughout the entire conflict and she has been very active in showing her support for the syrian president bashar al assad to now when it comes to syrian opposition the syrian opposition of course has been largely disjointed in their efforts to overthrow the regime of the syrian president aust said but they haven't shown any unity whatsoever and one of the as one of the leaders of one of those fragments of the syrian opposition has been lost go on monday talking to a to russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov there have been reports in western media very recently about u.k. france and the united states military personnel training some of the still syrian arab red ball forces in jordan primarily training them to use anti-tank weapons and this sort of training according to this of member of the syrian

opposition is something that is only is only making this syrian crisis worse in an interview to our tease arabic channel he has made that statement. oh good two of them and i want the opposition to be united for at least we would know who to negotiate with but unfortunately there are many small armed groups we are trying to establish contact with the most rational and far seeing opposition representatives who respect international humanitarian law and the basic constitutional principles that unite us as syrians whose actions aren't based on religious beliefs or malicious murders there's much. aside what is your view on the main political problems of the syrian crisis for example the preservation of assad's presidency civilian death and their position being supplied with weapons when a couple had so hello to well first the arms supply should be stopped completely

both for the rebels and for the syrian army second concerning the presidency we need time syria needs a boat ten to twenty years a parliamentarian ism to eliminate the idea of destroying one person and the role of the president so we can see that the majority of syrians support our program that will redistribute power from the president. so fun to afraid of clashes with the government which is going to be formed in istanbul and it is considered to control so-called free districts mostly now you have. we are far from it still i think that if a project starts with the french foreign minister statement and then was discussed in istanbul's lobbies over three months the project doesn't have any future it is likely to be a farce and it will actually be much better if it is not realized at all because it won't gain any support or respect they still don't have

a worthy candidate for prime minister they don't have any political modesty the correct way of thinking or political experience. put appears if god's will is preventing some from going to war anger among secular jews is growing as the old excluded from compulsory military service claiming credit is equally important for the country's security. like don't you think of the brake. hard face of freedom fighter. to clean up a new sort of. liberty .

not. to be treated this way. with. science technology innovation. developments around russia. the future covered. israel's witnessing a widening religious divide where the difference secular jews who have to do military service claim is unfair that the ultra religious are excluded from such

duty the latter though say their contribution to the country's security is no less important are to fall asleep the people on both sides. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is struggling to form a government five weeks after parliamentary elections he can't get potential coalition partners to agree to stumbling block whether or not ultra religious orthodox jews should serve in the i.d.f. the religious parties are certainly beginning to understand things have changed they're going to find themselves challenged on many fronts military service is going to be one of them and as a result they will have to conserve their political capital to fight on the things they care about most most ultra religious jews have never been in the israeli army and religious political parties have never been pressed on the issue like they've been now but january's parliamentary elections saw new play is coming to the fore on yahoo needs in his coalition if he's to form

a majority government but they're insisting the religious played a part. like this woman who spearheaded a campaign with other like minded israeli mothers they're fed up with what they call an injustice that the children should serve one others don't we say to know that if something is very unfair that we are going to give our children to the army not knowing if we are going to get them back in fifty percent of the mother is in israel do not have to warry because their children do not go to the army iran is twenty eight years old married with two children while others his age were doing their national service he was here starting far from being apologetic he feels the contribution he makes is as important if not more for him. the backbone of the jewish people i think viable occasion first of all is to preserve the jewish intellect and the jewish mind for our city for this country's sake and for the generations to come and yes while i might be not putting my life at risk and also

contributing to this country's security they also say which doesn't make any sense for me that it is good in that study the torah is soldier is not getting killed so if you are taking the twenty two thousand eight hundred soldiers that were created until now for independent. what are the queen we didn't study enough but the frustration among secular israelis who make up most of the population goes beyond just army service they complain ultra religious jews don't work or pay taxes while receiving disproportionate government support just about every city in israel has a religious neighborhood like this one in ten israelis is all too also dogs the challenge remains how to include it in a society that is increasingly hostile to them whether netanyahu eventually chooses to include religious partners or leave them out of his coalition there's no running away from the growing internal divide in an already divided country policy r.t.

jerusalem. online few surprising claims that hitler was almost half of austrians anyway poll recently think that they claim that they see some benefits to those nineteen thirty eight an exaggeration of a country when we differ much from mine also live or to another high ranking both gary and priest two thought selling is pricey rolex watch to pay church bills is a good deed but is cash strapped congregation thinks otherwise why tell you online . having fought for their country's freedom some world war two veterans in the u.k. and are struggling to financially survive or sterrett in skyrocketing living costs are leaving even the most decorated heroes with no other choice but to sell their medals just to make ends meet so first got the story i fired a short burst from five hundred feet producing strikes on the porch and a dull flame appeared soon it began to dive steeply exploding into the ground these

are the private extracts from the flight logs of world war two night pilot brand burbridge despite being a highly skilled and decorated pilot his story has remained largely untold until now ninety two and suffering with outsiders prances in a nursing home and his family struggling with high care costs have put the incredible memento for sale i said that these are your medals we're selling them and there was a smile and there was a sort of recognition that you know this this is what he things were his so i have no doubt that he's probably got some understanding of. this happening the family are hoping to raise more than one hundred thousand pounds at the auction with their father's nursing home costs averaging around fifty thousand pounds a year and service that is the money will go a long way to paying for their father's treatment the ice and tell the remarkable

story of a man he began the war as a conscientious objector but he wended it is arguably one of britain's most prolific night flies and the story goes one short absolutely true you never really because you only have room for the engines hoping that maybe lives will be so. pleased to see. a parachute emerge from any time so this is prince's pilots flying logbook and slowly unusually he also includes his combat reports now this particular one you can see describes one of his exceptional achievements during the war where one night alone he shot down four enemy german planes now that was absolutely remarkable and was described by a fellow night flying eighth as one of the most exceptional sorties flown during

the war from now and he looks at playing there's that recognition that that's part of his life of all of the. people so quickly so those that. i think is yes the elderly care needs to be more funding for old really care so that they don't have to sell all their possessions and all their that what they fought for of their home you know in order to pay for that i think that's that's the hardest thing which is spectrum's do receive a tax free pension but with sky high living in care costs and often that's simply not enough. shockingly and it's estimated that x. service person. account for around one in ten the u.k.'s homeless politicians are criticised for abandoning but shien's in the hour of need leaving it to charities to pick up the slack and we have hundreds of people who come to veterans and their

dependents who contact us every year who need help with care looking at the ageing population it's not likely that those the number of people we help would go down anytime soon every year in the u.k. there are a key take a page from the people for their country but in a nation where everything else is only added to the number of veterans needing them brown fervor to story is an important reminder that for the rest of the year away from the ceremonies and the cameras many british buttons are facing daily personal challenges to find love go unnoticed serve aussie london. don't go stories on our website as well r.t. dot com if you want to comment on what you'll find there just hit the have your say section as well right scott twenty nine minutes past ten at night moscow time thanks be with us the touches he had no them a shoulder and this means business tom already the reflow natasha now. governments all around the world clamping down on taxes because times are tough at the moment

is hasn't been too but in russia people don't have to pay the tax but they're going to look over the shoulder now absolutely it's about to change in fact now russia wants to make it a condition to give some financial help to cyprus it wants cyprus to reveal the identities of the russians who parked their money there absolutely all the details in the business bulletin after a very short break ok. choose your language.