towering inferno almost all the floors of the tallest building in chechnya capital grozny turned into a massive blaze. of rocket attacks following the ongoing palestinian prison riots and street clashes over the death of a former hamas member in israeli custody. the war of words soars on the korean peninsula with many south koreans fearing conflict as pyongyang suspends access to a crucial industrial zone jointly run with. the presidential race now underway in venezuela we take a look at whether any of the main candidates could fill the shoes of the late. top stories this hour.

live from our new center here in moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day. we start with our developing story a fire is raging in the tallest skyscraper in the chechen capital grozny located in russia's north caucasus the forty story building part of a new multi million dollar complex as been reduced to little more than a burn talent shell more details now from our correspondent lindsey france. around six pm local time reports came in that a large fire has started around the thirtieth floor of the one hundred forty five meter tall olympus building now that is a part of the cross in the center complex that was just completed in two thousand and eleven the luxury hotel and apartment building now this building contains the largest clock to sit on top of the building and the entire world helicopter from

neighboring areas is being flown in to battle the flames for the top of the building because local fire brigades are unable to reach those floors now according to local police everyone had been evacuated from the building before any injuries could occur and so at this point no injuries are reported in this incident whatsoever the cause of the fire is still under investigation i had a criminal investigation has actually been opened to see whether or not fire safety rules have been violated now this entire complex cost around two hundred fifty million dollars to build and it actually contains the apartment that the french actor gerard depardieu received as a gift drug chechen leader runs on. just a short time ago so at this point we do not know the cause of the fire no reported injuries there are more than three hundred people on the ground there fighting the fire and keeping an eye on the situation we will also be keeping an eye on it to

bring you any details as the situation unfolds. reporting that transmission from grozny on the web site of the moment. and you can head online to see the events as they unfold that. have once again flared up on the border between israel and gaza as well as in the west bank palestinian militant rocket attacks on choose danny early this morning with israel return easing you'll going hostilities and street clashes with the difficult for. israeli custody. the details over the past forty eight hours there has been increasing auscultation in in the mood all over the all over the western and of course in gaza of course we should start with that that's where fire took place between the palestinians and israeli armed forces. have a reportedly shot several mortars into these early territory israel retaliated with

an air raid the first the first such raid since november since the november cease cease fire and then and then palestinians from the gaza strip. have sent several more rockets into israel we don't know about any we haven't heard about any damages or injuries or deaths because of the fire exchange but. remained so that the tension is running stream lehi the clashes continue they were specially raging today in hebron which is the hometown of the. palestinian prisoner who died in an israeli jail wasn't appropriately treated according to his family he wasn't treated by medical by medical professionals until february of this year when he was finally told that he has terminal cancer and that he literally has days to live not leave a lot of people happy and obviously they're going to continue with their struggle and we will see more protests in the february is thirty year old prisoner dying

from a heart attack that caused a flurry of protest among palestinians palestinian prisoners themselves went on strike they went on a hunger strike in fact they have done so in this case two you have to understand there is. almost five thousand palestinians in israeli jails right now and palestinians during their protest continuously ask israeli officials to either release those prisoners or at least treat them appropriately however it doesn't seem to be the case at least according to the palestinian authorities because as you as you see the palestinian prisoners keep dying like in this particular case it looks like there was no like no medical aid was given at an appropriate moment and this of course leaves palestinians incredibly frustrating and then of course there is the issue of in israeli occupation of several palestinian lands as well as the issue of settle settlements so obviously all of these issues just piled on top of one another and the mood obviously grows with every day. palestinian journalist

khaled i'm not a who's in hebron which has seen some of the worst clashes over the past two days explains why the people on the streets are refusing to calm down. a state of widespread anger and diggnation or that of the. what many people here. a primitive. israelis palestinians think that the death of my fellow was a direct result will be really criminal negligence as well as moral powerlessness this is the second person. to die in israeli jails in less than sixty days so the israelis cannot be given the benefit of the doubt at all potential for. all out confrontation with israel. it's always there but i don't think that hamas in particular is eager to escalate the situation to.

the time at least everyone expects both sides to maintain a semblance of self-restraint and we hope that the situation will not. deteriorate into an all out confrontation in gaza. north korea has barred workers from the self from entering a jointly operated factory zone it's pyongyang's latest move in the conflict between the neighboring states which has been simmering in recent weeks he's on industrial park has been one of the few successful efforts of reconciliation between the two koreas from which the economies of both countries benefit south korea based journalist joseph kin has more. the south korean president is newly elected north korea doesn't want to test her limits and perhaps she's willing to change her policies towards north korea and the game's main objective is actually

to start a dialogue with the u.s. with north korea's recent. what the u.s. calls provocation it's actually been easier for the united states to convince its military back into the studio something that the pentagon has said that it was wanting to do to rebalance back into the station so because of this we've seen a larger increased presence of military expansion by the u.s. into east asia during these annual drills something that we haven't seen before we're seeing a lot of money spent despite the eighty five billion dollars budget cut that the u.s. is currently going through these threats from north korea or what people say are perceived threats have actually become common and lending to many people in south korea but this time around the rhetoric has actually gotten a lot harsher so many south koreans are actually getting more of an eerie feeling on what this might turn out to be i don't feel a direct threat but i'm getting

a little anxious sense can't even the south korean government is taking a coup worse this time so it feels like it is getting closer when the u.s. is more forceful it has a less positive effect from the perspective of a south korean citizen i feel anxious and it doesn't feel like protection buying on the net first of all it's not the first time north korea has issued threats so to us we don't feel the threats we don't perceive them to be dangerous but it seems there are a lot of things happening inside kim drones regime it seems that the u.s. is doing those things to make correct evaluation on king john so that the nuclear problem doesn't see it and i'm putting stress with south korea with the joint military drills but i don't think it is really helping in terms of into korean peace. well let's get more not a sense of the situation around north korea from war correspondent and columnist eric margolis he joins me live now from canada eric pyongyang is heavily relied on

told that he's some industries in that produces something like a billion dollars a year by closing it to work on the self isn't north korea in effect shooting itself in the foot well it is certainly you know iran it's north korea's largest single earlier of our currency previously this is the main source of our currency used to be parlors and japan like pinball machines that were run by the korean sort of gangsters and japan and a lot of the money used to go to north korea now it was from a song industrial area quite right but you know as part of this war of words waged by. the south koreans and the americans he can't have business as usual and make his threats sound very credible so no obvious he had to close down his joint venture personally i think it would be temporary but another threat of course is the relaunch of the yongbyon nuclear facility what sort of repercussions could that

have well saying that everyone will get angry everyone in the area is going to complain we're going to be back to square one that we were really nine hundred ninety s. there was a deal between us and north korea to shut now this operation. should do to sort of deal rail neoconservatives in washington and also with the participation of the fourth koreans so it increases the tensions but in my view the nuclear issue is not the primary danger here the fact is while this rhetoric rhetoric hollyer back and forth the chance a chance of an inadvertent clash in the air at sea or along the military. it is increasingly seen as a dangerous way to start a war if you're talking about conventional warfare or a clash and in that respect happening somewhere along the border that's correct you

know the north koreans between eleven. thousand pieces of heavy artillery in iraq dug in along the d.m.z. i was there recently looking at some of the caves the groups that are sheltering these pieces most of which are rangers at least are not all of seoul south korean capital who love people north korea has repeatedly threatened to turn so over to us of fire as they say over everything but look if that happens how would the u.s. react and if the u.s. because it says it's going to defend its allies if it got involved in a conventional war then what would that mean for china. china would be very distressed and put in a very difficult position and china doesn't want war on its north of the border but at same time china really doesn't want to see the north korean government collapse

and see north korea taken over by south korea which is a very close american ally possibly with american troops bases moving north towards the river so that's very dangerous i think in the end if the chips are down there china will probably give limits its work to north korea even though it's not happy with the regime in pyongyang i'm just briefly we seeing threats from north korea before now and of course we did see an attack on the south korean back in two thousand and ten but while we're actually taking all this rhetoric in this war of words seriously this time around just briefly oh well we are because it's politically convenient first of all you know u.s. asia. president obama will turn to us attention to the region suddenly the threat puts it all into context we just announced today that a major american anti missile system is moving into one which can pivot us up or

ancient's a region so that the timing is right and you know the. u.s. has been challenging the north korean remember the u.s. has been waging economic war against its creators it has against rack. for example and you run it's doing it it's testing the young kim jong un just as he's testing this new president of south korea so there's a lot of bluster and swagger i call it the game chicken on the korean peninsula hitch side is trying to test for. really interesting eric thank you very much and a war correspondent comments eric margolis joining us live effort thank you for your time and your thoughts cheers. well coming up on the program with open arms the u.n. adopts a treaty exports of conventional weapons hoping to adult humanitarian concerns the critics say it's phrasing leaves too much room for interpretation of the break.

about international and world in the very heart of moscow. continues here in r.t. the race for the top job is kicked off in venezuela as the country's acting president nicolas maduro prepares to take on his main opposition rival in the week at capri let's both to replace the country's late charismatic president hugo chavez who died last month following along. battle with cancer but during who's the former confidant is equated to challenge is looking to continue in the footsteps of his predecessor clinton while most interesting governor has vowed to deliver

a free market economy and strengthen ties with the institute in washington an american legion of unknowns spoke to dr francisco domingo and of latin american studies at middlesex university he says despite good intentions the chances of securing the top job a slim nicolas maduro has demonstrated to be a formidable communicate so easy so person this able to use him for the land which he is the masses very he conveys very good messages he's very good very astute politically and i think he's doing very well that's why he's leading in the polls is gaining if you like from the spontaneous outpouring of grief or for chavez is he capitalizing for one of a better word on the grief oh i'm sure there is a lot of sentiment about it i mean chavis was a figure of atrazine the international media now the population of venezuela

realize how much he was loved two million actually that came out in the streets to be with him a fair world as he possibly was the debate is a demonstration in the history of the country and any candidate whoever they are will be foolish not to use it however the key point is that i think is the message people are saying you know mother was saying to them do you want the continuation of what you had with him for forty years improving it perfect you need or do you want to go back to the bottle they sell for the public which the british represent and the message in that says is very clear that. isis is living between ten to forty percent in the polls. well you've just seen the footage on this very channel and they going online the newest member of the video agency ruptly is now working at full speed and you can find their brand new website dot tv is designed to give the world's media access to stories and perspectives mainstream news providers

ignore the project kicked off less than a year ago but it's already creating waves in the news making world providing real time and archive footage from a world wide net of stringers police headquarters in berlin and now operating twenty four seven with state of the art technology so do go online and get involved with the new generation of video news content. dot t.v. . the united nations has adopted its first ever treaty designed to control the global trade in conventional weapons the act was already dubbed historic although the document has no enforcement mechanism let's take a closer look at what it's aimed at achieving while the treaty bans countries from exporting arms to embargoed states and it's the surge of weapons to those who could use them to carry out war crimes or acts of terrorism the document also requires states to prevent conventional arms reaching the black market. the un chief said that the document will become

a powerful new tool to help prevent human rights abuses but some states point out that the deal is with us i'm lacking clarity on he's got a car in the ports and what it means for the world's major exporters. the u.s. accounts for thirty percent of global arms sales russia twenty six percent germany france china seven six five percent respectively the figures are provided by the stock on international peace research institute they cover the last four years of arm sales by the way this global. is worth around seventy billion dollars and four out of five of the world's largest stakeholders in this business happen to be permanent members of the u.n. security. council two out of which abstained from the vote that is russia and china they cite a lack of clarity in the language of the treaty in the part where it says arms transfers should be subjected to risk and human rights assessments first so it's supposed to tie arms sales to the buyers record on human rights which sounds like

a very good idea but then this raises all kinds of questions like do brain or saudi arabia have a perfect human rights record so the treaty leaves lots of room for all kinds of interpretation is russia being actually supportive of the effort to regulate arms sales says it abstained from voting for the treaty also because it has not been arms sales to non-state actors. despite the calls of a number of states what was not reflected was the ban of the supply of weapons to non authorized state and cities this is a significant shortcoming which will inevitably have impact on the effectiveness of the international arms trade treaty. even though the united states supported the treaty at the way congress has made it clear that they will not let anyone tell the us who to sell arms to so it would be like the kyoto protocol the one that set obligations on industrialized countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases the u.s. also signed it and yet never ratified it gun manufacturers like lockheed martin or

a northrop grumman have an army of lobbyists on capitol hill to make sure that their ability to sell weapons and profit is not constrained in any way but then thomas countryman the system secretary of state at the american delegation to the talks defended the treaty saying it will actually give american weapons manufacturers a better competitive competitive position in the world so maybe the u.s. government is actually trying to help it's done producers by supporting the treaty anyway the international community seems denied it on one thing and that is something has to be done about the unabated flow of arms in the world but as they say the devil is in the details in washington i'm going to. without charge and starving for justice because they're going to move by have been engaged in the desperate act of defiance for nearly two months now the risk to their health is growing rapidly but u.s.

officials continue to downplay the scale of the crisis and now reaction and insight from federal public defender carlos warner he's a lawyer for guantanamo detainees called us we spoke what about a week ago when we were on air you read a letter from one of your clients you said he was preparing to starve himself to death what is the news of your client is he still committed to that. he is still committed first of all thank you bill for having me he still committed as are one hundred twenty nine at least one hundred twenty nine of his brothers so we're confident as you said that the military is underestimating the number by at least two thirds i think we have at least one hundred thirty men on hunger strike in guantanamo as we speak today the resolve has not changed in a week the other new development is that the military is stated yet once more that it will not allow the men surrender the crowds as i said last week at the military

were to do this the strike would end today and the military is saying that they will keep force feeding detainees to prevent them from dying so how much longer could this strike continue and will it achieve anything. well i don't know again we don't want to achieve anything at the cost of our clients' lives we want our clients to be alive and we are confident as their attorneys that we can bring light to the subject and we can and guantanamo we can close guantanamo this is all about president obama as i said the military can force feed them they are playing a game of chicken with an opponent who is ready to die and you can't do that you will lose that game of chicken the military doesn't seem to grasp this logic but let's be clear about this this is about president obama and his administration that's what this discussion should be about but it seems as a conflict of interests that the white house has said that they are committed to closing guantanamo and yet the pentagon now wants to renovate the facility so there's

a bomb in the. well again the white house says it's committed to closing guantanamo it said in a briefing and it says it in various places said it when they transferred transferred abu ghaith to new york city but there's nobody in the administration charged with the job so at this point it's premature to even ask that the president close guantanamo we're just asking that he charge somebody with with the responsibility just one person if president obama gives us one person we can talk to and gives that person the strength of his office we can close guantanamo we said that there are places for these innocent men to go remember eighty six out of the one hundred sixty six men in the vast majority of those hunger striking have been declared innocent by our government with there's places for them to go and we could do that in six seven eight months if the president would just wake up and cooperate with us i happen to believe in president obama i think that he is ready willing and able to

do this i don't know what's preventing him i what is not visit i'm going to go to pentagon blocking the way for you lawyers because i've spoken to a lot of lawyers who are saying we need to talk to somebody about this this is the military gets to. yes the pentagon is is is the pentagon general kelly from the southern command went on the record and said that look this is frustration because the president broke his promise that's unprecedented in our society to have a general tell the president that look this is what's causing it it's not about the qur'an it's about the frustration that is kuantan so look at a very small level the people running the prison are making huge mistakes and they are without logic and they're playing chicken as i said before but but the real issue here is at the foot of the president it's whether or not this president who said guantanamo is weighs on his conscious those were his words apparently it doesn't weigh on his conscience any more because he's been totally silent on it and

we've heard nothing but for one or two comments in a briefing that that he remains committed to guantanamo we're just asking that he step up reaffirm it i want to hear it from his mouth just briefly in front of the we've got people here clearly you know being held without charge for a crime also we don't know how long they're going to be indefinite release we don't know how i'm going to be that fall under these circumstances from the lowest point of view is the will being broken is somebody accountable for that is who could they be yet yes well first of all this is the guantanamo is the creation of dick cheney and the neo cons and it saddens us that president obama is following the lead he's going into court next week and he's arguing once again in federal district court here in washington d.c. that the courts have no place in guantanamo that it's a legal is no man's land that's not the president that we know that's not the

constitutional law scholar that we know we need the president to bridge the cap and come over and cooperate with us to close guantanamo so yeah as it stands now there is no longer want on a mole you have people that everyone even the ones that have been declared innocent are there for life until they die they are indefinitely detained federal public defender called us want to thank you very much indeed for joining us live. thank you. thank you for that to bring up that for the moment cross talk is next here and all to more news with me in the team in half an hour from now. we speak your language anything about the war not advance. music programs and documentaries and spanish more matters to you breaking news that will turn it into angles the stories. you hear. say

that troy altie spanish find out more visit. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images called world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are all today. only one. isn't.