american warships jets and missile systems stream into the pacific because the war of words with north korea reaches a fever pitch in response says its military is now approved for a nuclear showdown with the u.s. . concerns in the u.k. the country's leadership to seek a more sophisticated nuclear deterrent in the face of what it calls the evolving atomic threat. in the west bank as palestinians bury a long term prisoner who died while in israeli custody triggering a wave of bloody confrontations. u.s. authorities impose a no fly zone over an oil spill in arkansas. dozens of homes with crude oil company says it's to provide safety for the clean up local suspect they just want to keep cameras away our top stories this hour.

live from moscow this is r.t. with you twenty four hours a day. a nuclear attack on the u.s. has moved a step closer with north korea's military saying it has now been authorized to wage atomic warfare against what it calls washington's aggression says war could break out today or tomorrow when american missile warships are reported to be streaming into the pacific the war of words between the errant sides took a turn for the worse last week when nuclear capable u.s. bombers skirted the north korean air space what is going to check on as the latest . this is how it's been so far the u.s. and south korea were having their usual war games in the region annual joint military exercises that is to north korea's bellicose and very aggressive threats washington has been responding with an even more intense buildup of military power

in the region to sack north korea has responded with even more threats so we saw patients rising to reach the point where now a pentagon official told one of the news channels here quote we accused the north koreans of amping things south now we are worried that the same thing if social was not named in that report apart from f. twenty two fighter jets and other bombers that washington sent to the region for the ongoing military exercises with south korea the pentagon is now just going in offense missile defense system to why one host of major u.s. military bases in the north korean army has just announced that it has the final approval for a nuclear attack on the west or. as they say north korean rockets can tweet the u.s. mainland but they can potentially attack u.s. bases in the region there twenty eight thousand u.s. troops just across the border in south korea but even though the rhetoric has been very hostile no one really believes that north korea is actually going to carry out an attack as young as the north korean leader is he doesn't

a stand that it would be suicidal of him to do that and that is an opinion shared by almost all pundits and experts on the issue both sides know they're making threats that they're really not going to carry out north korea itself knows that at the. tact the united states it would be committing national suicide the united states would retaliate in a tremendous fashion north korea does not want to commit suicide i believe north korea is doing all this so it can get to a point to actually negotiate some kind of peace agreement with the united states the international community is very much critical of this kind of saber rattling and even china pyongyang's ally north korea has allegedly asked china to send a high ranking on what it was china. rejected according to the same reports china said if they want an envoy north korea should send their envoy to china first however north korea hasn't done that so far if they do the chinese likely to pressure them to stop saber rattling and return to the six party talks but with all

this war talk from north korea and u.s. military buildup in the region some say all it may take is for one of the sides to snap or some kind of a mistake before everything spirals out of control. is not all talk though on the korean peninsula with imports of activity among the north forces southern intelligence sources claim at least one mid range ballistic missile had been repossessed to the east coast so based journalist joseph kim says showed may yet be on the cards. we see that they use words like the attack has been cleared or the attack has been authorized as well as the beginning of the warning they say we formally inform washington so we see that this rhetoric has actually been repeated by north korea and north korea has used this in a way to actually say we want to start dialogue it's and lag period which can use this into getting washington to come and perhaps get on the dialogue table we keep

hearing from other people such as secretary general honeymoon or secretary u.s. secretary of state john kerry that dialogue is the next step while both north korea and the united states seem to be interested in dialogue it doesn't seem that either side are wanting to back down now with april fifteenth in april fifteenth it is going to be north korea's founding father cutie's hong kong is earth day and we've seen last year that they did their first satellite launch attempt so i can i heard dick and i think as well as many experts they say that something might happen in mid april whether that would be an attack or whether that would be a celebration an easing of the tensions we aren't quite sure yet but it can be seen that historically be done celebrations to mark to mark certain things to happen whether it was the anniversary of thousands others that was the third nuclear test

so we can see that something will probably happen in the next week or so a specialist on security and nuclear weapons at the massachusetts institute of technology doc to jim walsh all for this his view on the risks and payoffs of america's engagements in korea. so what is the u.s. doing the u.s. is for sending a signal to the south koreans it's treaty ally saying we've got you back you don't have to worry it's also intended to send a message to the north koreans have a we can reach out and touch you you know be careful what you wish for and then it's also a message to the united states the american public saying look we're doing something about this we're taking it seriously i do worry though that you know all these moving pieces and plus all this new leadership a new leader in south korea a new leader in north korea all this stuff going on someone could make a mistake and that could light a match that would lead to a conflict that no one actually wants to have the north the north koreans are crazy

. they're not going to deliberately start a war but they are they try to stay just below that level of provocation will they react the way we want them to react i just don't know we don't know what's inside the minds of north koreans it's the most closed country in the world but when we brandish arms and do that we are taking a risk that they will misunderstand that and respond in the wrong way. well with the korean crisis headlining across the world would like to know what you think about this issue what do you think is driving the increasing tensions there in the korean peninsula we're asking you on our web site on the home page poll what you think could be behind all of these are the responses so far almost forty nine percent believe that this is a u.s. ploy to keep china and east asia on its toes we can see that twenty percent of believe this is brinkmanship which could perhaps lead to a disastrous conflict eighteen percent believe that north korea the regime there is attempting to build up its power base with its new leader and. it's

a way of them demanding more. thirteen percent of. the bunch of this could lead to some sort of peace talks and then some aid coming from the u.s. and the west for many of its impoverished people in north korea that's what you think at the moment. you think. today. these are the images from. the west bank city of hebron has been flooded with of those coming to attend the funeral of the former palestinian security officer who died while in israeli custody his death has triggered

a wave of clashes between palestinians and israeli forces which resulted in two teenagers being killed by the soldiers. at the funeral procession which was later followed by st scuffles. we are in downtown and there are clashes going on between the idea forces and the protesters and i have to say most of these protesters there's about a hundred hundred fifty of them so not everybody who was at the funeral actually went to protest but let me just because step away for now you can see what's happening behind me now a majority of the protesters see they're lining up along along the wall there the idea forces are on top of the building on the right and also are also in another building at the end of the street behind the tree and now it's looks like for most of these people who are actually rather young i would say a majority of them are teenagers and they're very early teens there has been exchange of rocks which they were throwing at the idea of forces they were rude they were met with some rubber bullets as well as flash grenades and

tear gas canisters from the idea forces there has been running scenes between gaza and israel there have been numerous protests like i said to the scene you have been killed in northern in northern west bank so this looks like it's going to continue for some time this is what this is what's happening in hebron in this is the hometown of the men who just died in israeli prisons and she was able to cora love for a life essentially to ninety nine years for his ties with terrorist organizations dog blood to when his health started to get out the palestinian officials have asked israeli officials to release him early and according to israeli officials the people were questioned processed fast enough and he died before that release could come and of course his death just heard this anger among palestinians who have long been protesting the the fact that there are literally thousands there's almost five thousand palestinian prisoners in israeli jails right now and one hundred of them

have been there for more than two decades and a lot of them actually have not have not received the proper handling of their cases they've never even been charged with anything just basically put in a jail and slammed their behind bars. when i spoke to the eldest son of the prisoner whose death has provoked the turbulence in the middle east he said the case of his father is yet more proof israel is not seeking any long term peace plan with the palestinians it was left and delis death without any treatment or anything you started to complain last august from a swell in his neck and their severe being and hoarse and his voice and their neck and nothing is being done to him actually us sent to one of the clinics and he was surprised that us sent up to me in a state of someone a specialist. to see is getting my father's case give us a message to the sub conscious of all the other stimulants bigos it show to us.

those who has to be very human but the doctor was an excellent the doctor was in israel. the palestinian b. shunts like b.s. then with whom are we making peace the public discontent palestinian prisoners of stage a massive hunger strike across israeli jails and rocket exchanges between hamas and israel have taken place a palestinian human rights advocate dr mazin can see it says the people a second time and of living under the occupation. last summer. the palestinian authority in ramallah are interested in maintaining quiet try to keep quiet respective areas the problem is they're very very. scary thing the violence against the palestinian people and the palestinians three. continue to tolerate the situation of injustice perpetually quiet is the main. purpose

of the north. all the. palestinian authority in the west bank the palestinians three the people honestly want some movement and we do not see any movement toward liberation what we see is continued occupation intensification of settlements intensification of abduction and killing of people china is mobilizing resources to combat a new bird flu strain for have died from the virus already alerting neighboring countries to the threat but fear seems to be spreading faster and wider than the illness itself when the scare in a few minutes here in r.t. . the first the u.s. federal aviation administration has imposed an indefinite move fly zone over an area in our console recently affected by an oil spill it's the exxon mobil all

company maybe trying to keep the t.v. cameras away from the scene marina point has more for us now live in the states right up why would a no fly zone be imposed over an oil spill it's not exactly a war zone is it. it's not a warzone whatsoever but the federal aviation administration they say that the indefinite no fly zone which they're calling a temporary flight restrictions was put in place as a hazard warning officials say this is so emergency support are able to respond to the disaster immediately now the f.a.a. is online posting notice that only relief aircraft operations on operated under the direction of mr tom are all are permitted in the area now according to his linked in profile mr sir off list himself as an aviation adviser for exxon mobil he is not an emergency expert or a safety officials this of course has caused many critics to speculate that the real reason behind this. is to minimize news coverage that can further damage the

reputation of exxon mobil now on april first the day the first day that this indefinite no fly zone was put in place and aereo aerial video surfaced online revealing the extent of the horrific damage of this oil spill according to exxon mobil's press release the spill has totaled upwards of ten thousand barrels of crude oil as of monday the company has deployed fifteen vacuum trucks thirty three storage tanks and one hundred twenty workers at least to the cleanup site we also know that at least twenty two homes have been evacuated so far leaving dozens of residents seeking shelter elsewhere and. already putting out compensation so who's getting this money. well that's what exxon mobil says but artie recently spoke with a fellow mayflower resident chris harrell now mr howard told us that he has not received any indication of any kind of compensation or settlement offer settlement

offer from exxon mobil mr howell said that on sunday when he went home briefly who served in the states he received a letter on his front door from exxon mobil that apologized quote apologized for the inconvenience mr howell said that those have that have been evacuated are being provided the hotel rooms paid for by exxon mobil but at a community a meeting that took place over the weekend with some exxon officials mr howell says that very few answers were given and all those in attendance were very frustrated very angry exxon mobil has not indicated how long cleanup will take mr howell told r.t. that the major concern for many people in the neighborhood is the longer term impact of from the spill both environmentally and financially what will this circumstance do to property values in that area most residents according to mr howell who we spoke with didn't even know that exxon mobil's pipeline ran through that streets

and the pipeline was specifically referring to can carry more than ninety thousand barrels of canadian heavy crude oil per day from illinois to texas so that is something that most residents in the community were not even aware of that that pipeline was was going through their neighborhood just that have been big oil spills and this in the past was the usual reaction from officials of the companies involved. well look at the bigger the oil spill the bigger the news coverage and of course this oil spill taking place in arkansas is not as big as the one that took place in the gulf of mexico a few years back but the concern for many people especially residents that are directly affected by this oil spill is that it's not going to receive the coverage that it needs to receive to find those responsible for this oil spill accountable this is still a very disastrous oil spill that's going to harm the community harm the environment

harm as mr harrell told r.t. property values and if the media does not and is not given access to cover this oil spill to cover the extent and the damage and the circumstances of it then there may be less accountability and that is the major concern and at the end of the day those that are affected by this and i think citizens all throughout the united states want to know why it took place what could have prevented it and if someone is responsible for this they should be held accountable live in new york. thank you very much indeed for that update. sri is the eurozone in a massive exodus with all pulled out in. any month in almost two years coming up after the break we look at what it is that savers and investors are running from and return to the epicenter of the euro crisis to use on stay with us on the break .

international at the very heart of moscow. continues here in r.t. the u.k. government is determined to pour billions of pounds into upgrading its nuclear deterrent evolving frets from north korea and iran the intention by the country's prime minister david cameron comes hot on the heels of pyongyang's readiness to unpack its nuclear arsenal in a move against the u.s. or to talk more on this i'm joined live by our correspondent in london sara for. what exact concerns here. for the prime minister with in scotland today on board the hate victorious which is one of the four vanguard

submarines that make up the tritone twenty four hour around the clock and he cleared the terror that always sees one submarine out now he made the case in a nice paper. renewing britain's new kid the tyrant i think it was underlined by what's happening in north korea at the moment and the escalating tensions and he said it would be foolish for anyone to think of coopting that needed a tyrant right now at a time of such global uncertainty and not try to. quite an old system it's being used for bank on suddenly being paved out by twenty twenty and the conservative government the prime minister arguing for a like for like for placement where base submarines are not tried fifth will be replaced that decision is going to be made in just a couple of years' time and it's thought it's going to cost the british taxpayer tens of billions of pounds going up hundreds of billions over the lifetime of that new project now they're liberal democrats have argued that they want to see

a cheaper alternative there's a review ongoing at the moment say quite surprising that he came out with a very strong comments today many would still perhaps if that the far he said he questioned in the article how anyone could now at this time talk of surrendering the nuclear deterrent well funny hundred someone should have told the liberal democrats that no one can argue that we're not going to have much to talk about all way of course people do argue yes that's true i mean i think that the lib dems will be completely blindsided by cameron's approach today because they clearly want to cheaper turn to sort of the labor party and cameron is basically using the current crisis in north korea to say we have to take this step because look what's happening in north korea and i think it's kind of disingenuous because north korea doesn't even have near the capabilities to even cameron says in his article so you know we are basically giving them far more credit than they deserve i mean we've

actually got a graphic that i think we can get up to do is to look at that ses kind of chart of the range of the missiles capabilities that milk with maybe has maybe doesn't have an operational about three thousand kilometers in development six thousand kilometers you take one thousand kilometers away nearly i mean why are we waiting into this debate well i suppose i mean that's exactly right it's not a conflict however you could argue in that sort of. mistress' arguing is that this is a long term decision to make and so in about ten years time if north korea does have that capability then we have to take precautions against that but then also i mean that's still a bad argument to make for several reasons firstly the north korea is not a threat you know we have other threats purely mostly from small terrorist groups for example those are the ones that we should be focusing on so we're focusing on the wrong enemy we're focusing on there with the wrong. defense systems because we

need smaller more cost effective targeted sort of intelligence and you know defense rather than something which is big and really like this this is what i think the really interesting part of the debate we think spot today as speaking to a retired army general no advance here thankfully there's people inside the military right now he say trident a complete waste of money this is tens of billions of pounds at a time that they can't you know afford that cash why is the prime minister coming out at this time when there's a debate going on and making his point say strongly and tying it something like north korea i mean it does that not undermine the whole argument itself yes it completely undermines the military establishment because there is a debate as you said going on within the military establishment about what is the cost of tried and what are the alternatives can we do any better and also what are our threats going to look like in ten years time in fifteen years time and we have

to take those into account and no one is saying that it's going to be another cold war no one is saying there's going to be a nuclear standoff with anyone so it makes no sense to then come in at a time like this in a crisis where actually trying to ratchet up. you know the tension with north korea can be harmful because if they don't care about how much nuclear warheads the u.s. house why would they care about what's going on in the u.k. so you know it doesn't make any sense for not. fantasy us of obviously there is enough of them to take some action and to respond in the way that they have so there is an argument i guess that you know the u.k. we are right to be being cautious you're completely right in that the us has taken precautions however they also feel now and yesterday there was an article in the wall street journal saying that that actually if we ratchet up the tension with north korea it could backfire on us because our thinking is they will back down because we have more nuclear weapons however they from their perspective they can't

be seen as backing down because they will lose face so they might actually want to go all the way so that's the that's the risk we can take and if they're willing to take that risk with the united states it makes no difference whether the u.k. has fifteen nuclear weapons or hundred or two hundred right so it makes no sense for us to spend all this money against an enemy which doesn't care how much nuclear weapons it has it's just about how we manage them and so i think it's the wrong debate at the wrong time and pushing the wrong strategy and i think thank you very much for joining us or you know the trident system the weapon of last resort in a study had mentioned that huge amounts of money that we're talking about hit this something that many people say could never be used thirty thing to ponder as a british taxpayer could well in the not too distant future be being asked to stump up that vast amount of cash so thanks very much indeed for that live in london. the british defense ministry keeps silent on abuse unveiled by its soldiers it

denies any wrongdoing and gags war veterans try to expose torture that allegedly took place in a secret prison in iraq we've got more on that story and plenty of other stories coming up this hour here on r.t. . but first china and neighboring countries are mobilizing resources to fight off a new strain of bird flu four people have now died from the virus out of the ten infected so far it's not the first time flu panic has swept the country take a look at how the flu is spreading not just across the population but the media as well and some of the headlines from previous cases a variant of flu and the fear they caused bird and swine flu have both emerged in recent years seemingly causing more concern in the press and in hospitals arteries alexy to shove ski has more in the hype and the numbers. in almost a decade the bird flu has claimed three hundred seventy one lives the swine flu of

course killed far more people but if we look at the statistics of common flu which happens every year it kills almost half a million people every year and this is not a one off it happens every year and it's not a single epidemic and moreover the common flu has vaccines has no medication against it but still people are dying in huge numbers and nobody is ringing any bells about it not to mention of course scores of other diseases which are not causing concerns by the media and by the societies worldwide certainly the numbers the huge difference in numbers between deaths from a common flu and the swine flu and bird flu has caused many to believe that this is being orchestrated by the pharmaceutical companies in two thousand and ten german m.p. was going to describe the epidemic as the biggest scandal in the history of medicine in two thousand and ten also the british medical journal and the daily mail published a list of people there were twenty people there who worked as advisors to the world health organization at the same time they had financial ties with pharmaceutical

companies even last year an independent research suggested that the the death toll from the swine flu was exaggerated by as many as fifteen times so definitely we'll have to wait and see whether this situation in china will become another case of huge worldwide caused by the epidemic of the of the flu. next year shows your important now let's get more on the bird flu scare from journalist on the vine he is live in new york ten infected four dead out over looked out of over a billion people living in china isn't the just a little premature. yeah it's a little early to call in the epidemiologists you have ten people confirmed out of one point three four billion people which is zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one three four percent of the population if anything is testimony.