stories tonight the cleanup continues in the central u.s. a suburb that's been swamped with oil after a ruptured pipeline sent tons of crude flooding down the streets and got the latest . to debate the tax man its claims wealthy account holders in cyprus managed to avoid strict capital controls and grabbed their cash before the plan to swipe sixty percent of the money came into force. on the brink of conflict the united states sends fighter jets to be used in military drills for south korea while the north beefs up its border missiles after declaring a state of war. the new center tonight our top story then as you just heard of the state of our console

right now a massive cleanup is taking place to tackle thousands of barrels of crude oil that's cascading its way through a residential area it's after an exxon mobil pipeline sprung a leak last friday so that's concerning environmentalist of course and the people naturally evacuated from their homes let's get the latest from garnet should she can she's in washington the any time all is involved it's always a big old mess a big mess for the environment and of course a catastrophe for these poor people that have had to move what is the state of play there tonight. well kevin they're not saying exactly how much oil spilled onto the streets of this neighborhood in arkansas but you could see the images of streets flooded with crude the company said they had so far picked up around twelve thousand barrels of oil and water from the streets twelve twenty two homes were evacuated but as bad as the leak was environment police say the aftermath could have been much worse there is

a lake nearby and the crude luckily didn't get there the pipeline was carrying canadian heavy crude to the south of the u.s. to the country's gulf coast refineries this latest incident has yet raised the opposition among many police to the new project in that is in the works the keystone x.l. pipeline which would carry eight hundred thousand barrels per day just to compare the pipe that leaked in arkansas carries six to six thousand barrels per day so the consequences of a leak could be devastating the keystone pipeline pipeline would also carry canadian heavy crude to the u.s. refineries in the south the project doesn't have the final green light yet toilet giants are pushing the administration very hard to go ahead with it saying it will drive down fuel costs in the u.s. but people know from experience how devastating consequences of pipe breaches are and how hard it is to clean up this is certainly not the first incident of course

everyone remembers the disaster in the gulf of mexico in twenty ten when after an explosion and pipe was leaking oil on the ocean floor for several months before the well was capped an estimated four point nine million barrels of oil had leaked into the gulf then so a years later the gulf is still not ordered free in july twenty. five ply and rupture spewed more than twenty thousand barrels of canadian tar sands. crude oil into the michigan waterway on wednesday a train carrying canadian crude to rail in minnesota spilling fifteen thousand gallons of oil so this happens all the time just last week the u.s. department of transportation. has fined x. and find x. the mobile corporation one point seven million dollars over pipeline safety violations relating to

a twenty eleven oil spill in the yellowstone river that is in montana montana so exxon the has a month to construct good to contest the violations in that notice many believe that or giants that get away with violations like that all too often in the west and all the it takes is a team of excellent lawyers to do sad that at the end of the day it's the people affected who pick up the slack indeed sadly gunshy count thanks very much for updating us there. now not everyone in cyprus is having their money held to ransom apparently it's claimed that wealthy clients were tipped off before it was announced that up to sixty percent of their cash would be tapped while the shutters came down for ordinary savers who are strictly limited in how much of their own money they can lay their hands on millions of euros are believed to be transferred out of the country's official investigation into the cyprus crash will be wanting to look at one hundred thirty companies and individuals who may have jumped ship

joining us now is george culture galaxies in athens greece professor of constitutional law think you've been with us now is the money end of the day even if some of it looks thickly suspect surely if you're in a position you want to get your money before somebody else no of course that's your normal but it was not really big you know this group learned it was a punishment that punishment for somebody who was not guilty because those. people were not guilty. you know used to say that you took your union you look at this. people but of the banks unfortunately it's becoming more and more europe of the north and banks as in many you that's a pity well now some of the money apparently has escaped that the government was banking on has it got a plan b. that it's going to be down on its figures well the problem is that exactly the political system was not able to present a plan b. it was completely unprepared of course it was before me but one can expect from

his leaders to say i know what i meant george what i meant or should you just following up this story they have kind of got a plan in place by putting these restrictions on now but it seems that a lot of the body got out before these restrictions were in place so that's kind of dented their plan b. no. this is of course absent it was limited of course to the few people that they knew before that beforehand what's going to happen when i'm speaking about a plan b. i'm not speaking about i'm gonna frisk you is a good divorce it's of some of the cyprus elite but the real political or tentative to the blackmail presented to this type of government and unfortunately there was not such a plan. we're hearing that the cypriots in dealing with it best i can with hearing that it's already causing hardship to families these unprecedented capital controls are going to be in place to further notice ever longer but a strike could be up to

a year or two if you believe the cypriots love enough patience to bear with them well goodnow separate i would it's has showed a lot of for old blood or george i think we've lost the enlargement to you this sorry about that will try and get back to george later will record something a bit better a george country girl is a professor of constitutional more live from athens. now lawyers representing guantanamo bay detainees say several of their client's lives are now in danger as the mass hunger strike never come near is the two month mark but the u.s. military continues to deny reports that more than one hundred captives are starving themselves officials claim only thirty seven detainees refusing all food in the level of being force fed inmates launched the hunger strike to draw attention to their prolonged detainment without trial and inhumane treatment including intrusive searches the white house insists it's committed to shutting down the prison but the military says congress has decided to keep guantanamo open indefinitely meanwhile

hundreds of gathered in protest at the u.s. embassy in yemen are t's really good explains. they're calling for for the majority of those who are of where actually can find a good moment jordi of those inmates are actually from yemen and most of them have been there for more than a decade ever since the invasion of ghana stunned by the united states even the yemeni government itself has actually issued a request to the u.s. government asking it to send the yemeni prisoners to sanaa the capital of yemen so they could at least be tried or hill there or they are here or in for possibly hearing to be held there as well but that request has been heard or at least it hasn't been hasn't received any response from washington so the people when you have it of course are outraged that their compatriots who as you have as we have mentioned how some of them have been cleared of all charges are being held in prison and they're starving themselves just to prove their point and these are not

the only protests that we have seen across the region you may say there's also been numerous protests in kuwait on sunday now there are two kuwaiti nationals being held it gets mo. they're both there both of them have participated in the hunger strikes and given all before and both of them have been forced to bed and again lawyers for them as well are saying that their situation is just as dire. as that of the other detainees who are dissipating in the hunger strike and it is clear that they actually are prepared to die before their requests are being met so we're looking at the we're looking at a situation which is spiraling out of hand as people in the countries from which the inmates are there are starting to support the people and they are literally outraged at the way that their compatriots are being treated. coming up shortly a draconian cut comes into force in the united kingdom that will see some of the

country's poorest of the benefits reduced if they're deemed to be taking up too much space in social housing is a bedroom tax. for

about international airport in the very heart of moscow. north korea's parliament has approved plans to expand the country's nuclear weapons program the regime has been ramping up its rhetoric since the united states sent stealth fighter jets to south korea to joint military exercises there that infuriated the north which says it's now in a state of war with soul along with the military drills over the border the regime in pyongyang scream and good. the latest round of u.n. sanctions to over its nuclear test that was carried out in february the communist

states put its missile units on standby and says it's ready to bombard u.s. bases in the region but south korea's want it will retaliate quickly if the north launches any attack on its territory it a pet agendas james cole but thinks u.s. defense contract is hoping to benefit financially from this situation but was that washington's playing a dangerous game i think that the most likely scenario here would be some sort of wonder or misinterpretation on one side or the other because everything is on the knife edge as as i've said before i think that really the all of the players here have a vested interest in keeping the tension up but not allowing it to spill over and i think that obviously works for north korea which could be easily wiped out in a in a military confrontation but it also works for south korea and america and all of the allies here in this region that are that also serve to benefit from this and we've seen this directly for example with the announcement of more missile defense on the western coast of the united states that there are now going to be fourteen

new ground based interceptors deployed at fort greely alaska at a cost u.s. taxpayers a one billion dollars by two thousand and seventeen so this is this is doing a fantastic business for the defense contractors who serve to to to feed into this tension and play off of it so i don't i think that honestly there isn't a lot of plans for preemptive strikes at this moment i think it's more a question of if this will accidentally spill over into something more. the worry is they will tell us what you think r.t. dot com is the place to do it on our ongoing web poll there let's see what you're telling us so far today we're asking the question what do you think is behind this standoff but forty nine percent. think that the u.s. has. plans to destabilize china in east asia. twenty twenty percent think kim jong un is building his power base at home he's new to the job he wants to make his mark eighteen percent slightly fewer think it's ongoing brinkmanship. we've seen many times before and thirty percent think it's only way

of developing western aid work before question is how long can it go and will it be a final point r.t. dot com let us know what you think. in mali the national military backed by french intervention forces fighting is the mistress of the country's north rebel fighters have launched a series of attacks on the city of timbuktu as talk more on the security situation and west africa and the french plans for the region with independent sure to call money's on the line from paris or other high the mali has presidential elections of

course coming up in four months why is france in such a rush to stabilize the region before that. well it's questionable whether they actually do want to stabilize the region i think probably because they want to do just the elections i think the multi-party elections are a way of legitimizing french power in the country the new colonial regime that is now installed in fact this was a continuation of the french miracle new cloning since one thousand nine hundred. two. i think the multi-party elections are designed to just made this. spill and she does political enemy that the european union and the united states are now imposing on the market people whether there will be stability there in the next few months is unlikely i think i doubt it's going to the stability in mali again for four decades because. quite

frankly the french little. islam is terrorists are coming in from libya in two thousand and eleven and they did absolutely nothing to stop them so i think. they probably want to not go after the next few months she legitimately election through their instability will remain for the next. president saying is me that about a thousand soldiers are going to remain in mali by the end of this year what are the chances that they're going to be successful in bringing the country of those islamic. also very unlikely i mean. the question is do they really want to i mean do they need a pretext to stay in the country for a few decades. there are long long long term plans to i think possibly divide the country there is a lot of talk of partition now so that he has a wife project could go ahead he would have a partition of the country are most likely to have two french rooted bases one

interest looking the north one in march to be the center of the country you could have basically conflict between the. the two rigs in the north and the listening in the tell another other ethnic groups in the south so there is already talking fact of harlowe french. accompanying u.n. peacekeeping forces so far this is the likelihood is that they'll be there for a long time they don't think what's your prognosis this is all for the good or for the bad of security for that area. well there is the security business i think that it's good for the security business and it's bad for the security of the people. the country was systematically destabilized this intervention could have been prevented in fact they prevented a national army from fighting the rebels in the north for a long long time and when there was a putsch or

a coup or in two thousand and twelve for the twenty second of march you actually had a lot of popular support because a lot of people wanted an end to the destabilization of the country an awful lot of people in mali were against the intervention in libya and they were hoping that the day when they suspected that the terrorists the north were being we pushed into the country by nato intelligence and so the hope at the time was that general to the leader of the coaches would actually we storm order in the north and prevent the partition of the country now they suspect that the nato strategy is to actually partition the country so i think the instability will be a factor in not impose six one or the next two decades and how much is going down french soul the french at the moment heavily under pressure of course with all the cuts that are happening with this turns out to be a long and prolonged and costly engagement where the french public going to say about that you think well the media hype vision of the war has been very very

effective so far it's difficult to gauge french public opinion because of course we read. fishel public opinion all the time for example in two thousand and eleven during the nato bombing campaign in libya the official french public opinion was sixty percent in favor of the war this was in a period of extreme crisis of economic crisis and yet he was supporting a war aggression against other countries under the pretext of humanitarian intervention and so on in libya or sorry in mali now. i think. it's going to be difficult to justify long term presence but i think at the same time. i think one way of looking at really while the internal economy the french economy is being deconstructed a lot of these funds are going to transactions you know foreign wars and you know what you are some corporations so all the question is how long can that continue how long can they continue to impose austerity at home and impose wars

congressional brought. it will depend really on whether or not european populations actually wake up and realize what's going on that these are wars of aggression they are the only wars they are involved sources of articles to teach you can if you know we control of these countries that are nothing but resource qualities for western corporations and so i think the consensus changes then it'll be very difficult for the french elite to continue with this with this charade there's a conversation we could have all night isn't it together but thank you for your inputs not could see you on the line there from parts of the planet and i think your common thank you. it's a perfect just about an hour after go still in moscow but a tax that's just come into force in the u.k. is no laughing matter the so-called bedroom tax will see social housing tenants of the benefit slashed if they've got a spare room feel gives a councillor in sheffield a city that includes some of the more deprived areas the country says the

government's crushing those most in need of help. two million households across the u.k. are going to be directly affected by these taxes they're the poorest people in this country this government this tory government is attacking the poorest people on the people who can't afford to pay and they're not people are not working they're up but most of these people affected are people who are working but in very low paid jobs and they need these benefits to help them survive and get by where i am in sheffield we have hundreds of disabled people who are going to be directly affected by this sees people can't work they're physically disabled through no fault of their own they survive on benefits of very low benefits and not they're expected to have to pay for an extra room in their house that they need for their carers to stay in or they need to because they've got children that don't live with them or for whatever reason they're the people most affected seventy five percent of the people affected by this are working people i think is the most devastating thing

this government has ever done anything in the week that they're giving one hundred thousand bucks a pound back to millionaires they're changing the national health service or imposing taxes on the poorest people in the country is going to have a devastating effect to most people in this country. the bodies of thirteen civilians mostly women and children have been discovered in syria's western province of homes syrian state media has blamed the violence on rebel forces and the victims have been involved but it's not been independently verified this case from dallas is from gerald horne he's an author and political story i've got to say as well these pictures coming out may well find him in a very upset and we played the most best we can other gerald state media blames the rebels who in turn playing government forces it goes around a circle how is it possible to properly to properly verify what's becoming increasingly ferocious attacks that now. it's going to be very difficult to verify this horrific attack but i do find it rather curious that on the day after the most holy day in the christian calendar and speaking of easter did you find nations like

united states of america for example that how it's christianity and its alleged protection of christians worldwide or saw it different to the plight of christians in syria likewise you see there in the states which has been supposedly a good friend of israel has been rather indifferent and callous to the plight of the jewish people of syria you may have seen the recent report about a synagogue sacked in syria by the so-called rebels which is testament to the kind of ferocity there and we've seen on the battlefield today. interesting too is going to be quiet about that alleged chemical attack in aleppo couple of weeks ago the west was quick to say does all that to condemn the government do you see any danger of the same thing if it happened happening again now after this atrocity. i'm afraid so i think that this quiet from the north atlantic countries about this chemical attack speaks volumes and speaks loudly because we all know that if this

chemical attack could be pinned on the damascus regime of president all a saw that they would have been shelling from the rooftops about it the fact that they're now quiet about it out frank says all that we need to know well moscow says it wants russian and chinese experts to be part of the u.n. investigation into aleppo is that likely is going to happen any time soon you think well i think that if the investigation is relative to the united nations security council it is possible to have experts from beijing and moscow on the ground investigating but we all know that the rebels and their backers in turkey and in israel and in gutter and in saudi arabia or putting on a full court press we all saw what happened at the arab league meeting this past week where they were able to maneuver the rebels to take the heat of the all assad regime we all know about the recent on talk between turkey and israel which does not bode well for

a peaceful resolution of the syrian crisis therefore it seems to me that an attack of this chemical and investigation of this chemical attack in moscow and beijing in particular managers who want to see this does have an insight into this jigsaw jerrold series accusing level of not doing enough to stop rebel fighters being channeled it was negative got got to gain in. well keep in mind that washington and israel or rather hysterical about hezbollah and instrument in lebanon keep in mind that washington in israel see has a lot of this political military force in lebanon on its ally with neighboring the wrong during your history. in the or about has belonged there for from their point of view to make. you feel in crisis into lebanon on and that is precisely what's happening as today as we speak. ok thanks author and political historian thanks for

taking the time to be with us this. now coming up it's a puzzle what's the point of a defense system that can't defend well online red faces in israel as commanders admit the fabled can't fully protect civilians about more that. cause such a lot of money it's not very effective apparently also what's next for wiki leaks going to be quite lately isn't it. is all going to discover the whistle blowing sites next moves we consider what they may be on our web site r.t. dot com. as a treat if you border the bahamas lucky you are maybe tired of the tropics and new holiday destination could be on the horizon soon if you fancy it the mood and how much there is to see there. takes is that on a virtual trip. almost half a century since neil armstrong's giant step ended the race between the u.s. and u.s.s.r. to put a man on the moon earth's only natural satellite is once again in the spotlight

while america has directed its attention to mars russia's central research institute for machinery announced the launch or rather relaunch of the new program according to the ambitious plan a russian space ship will fly to and circle the moon by twenty thirty but this promises to be only the beginning and here is where it gets very interesting the next step as these are claims will be the construction of an observatory on the moon experts believe earth's personal space rock is simply the perfect spot from which to research space so if this idea proves to be a success expect a laboratory there to the observatory and the lab may soon be followed by a helium mining shaft and if the moon really holds ice as scientists believe this could produce both the water and oxygen which would make the earth's satellite inhabitable by humans hotels with rooftop swimming pools grocery stores and a hospital all this could be possible this would not be easy of course expect some competition from the u.s. and china but in five six decades flying to the moon and back would not be just one

of the songs but a real quality option. as a show i don't know what fancy that k.t. would you want to go to the moon on holiday would you first in a bit more exotic yeah i'd like to get a tan i'm going to town city on the beach personally i like it very. much of an action ok. big story of course we're talking about cyprus the ongoing there the six percent rate on people's money to talk about the ongoing problems in the u.s. and of course therefore it's finally maybe no knocking on to the euro is a popular it's not at the moment not a choice that you've been losing value for the last four months i was going to talk about the cyprus situation how about have an effect on the common currency as well and of course we always write in on the fact that it's a lot of roughs the money that is sitting inside his banks and will people have to get this back so have full analysis the euro cyprus russian money coming up after the break.

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