russia says the alleged chemical attack need to mask is aimed at disrupting peace efforts and that any military intervention triggered solely by unconfirmed claims would violate international law. meanwhile the u.s. and its allies gear up for a possible strike on syria despite the u.n. inspectors still working to establish whether a chemical attack is taking place. other top stories like the scandal around the american surveillance leaks gains new momentum threatening to influence of tempus german election while fresh revelations claimed the n.s.a. even tapped into the un's headquarters. i'm from triumph to despair we look at how libya is resurrected the same control methods used by the toppled regime as the

country dragged back into chaos two years after the revolution. just joined us here is kevin owen here at r.t. h.q. tonight the time now just stuff to eight pm moscow time first and russia's foreign intervention in syria would be a mistake that would further destabilize the country and the region in a news conference in light of the u.s. and its allies considering military action foreign minister sergei lavrov said there's no proof that the assad regime used chemical weapons he's shown thomas has been following that briefing. sergey lavrov was very direct in his press conference outlining key concerns about the rhetoric that the west is using in fact he says that they say that they are sure that chemical weapons have been used by the assad

regime but they have not yet presented convincing evidence to support that it was assad's regime that used the chemical weapons but they keep saying that they crossed this red line the famous red line and it's quite clear that the syrian government had neither political nor military reasons to resort to chemical weapons during which u.n. experts were working with when the regime had the upper hand on the ground and when a russia u.s. meeting on preparing the geneva conference was to take place how exactly would the syrian government benefit from using chemical weapons in such circumstances he said that mass hysteria surrounding the syrian crisis is aimed mainly at disrupting the peace process and that would include the new geneva two talks that were orchestrated by russia and the united states jointly and that this is just basically an attempt to derail that also using force in syria without any u.n. sanctions is a blatant violation of international law and that is something that just should not

happen and lavrov went on to say is what we're witnessing now is a massive fear mongering campaign something that we have seen before using it as an example ten years ago in iraq something that did not end well drawing the united states into a drawn out quagmire there one thing whatever i've said it is that it's an illusion to think that regime change in syria would end of the civil war also that bombing infrastructure would simply lead to more bloodshed and actually that western strategy in the region is aimless this is what he had to say is on the part of many key players started to take sides and act based on the principle of winner takes all betting on those who they saw reese potential winners but then the winners turn into losers again this is an example of. so-called ad hoc policies as opposed to logical and integrity policies you cannot for example declare war on one regime because you personally don't like the dictator in power that and be friends with

a dictator in another country countries need to divert from their personal preferences and determine the main threats to the region which are terrorism and extremism and that's what we need to talk about and agree on one just like the russian foreign minister or the syrian you're also not so long ago brought out of the problem fighting terrorism so what more can you tell us about that well certainly in an interview with a russian newspaper bashar al assad was very critical of the west in the united states in particularly directly refuting the idea that his forces used chemical weapons against his people saying that it just doesn't make sense about the close proximity of close quarters fighting that they would basically be killing themselves if they used chemical weapons but about this idea of military intervention from the west he said that this is something that has been on the table the entire time they just don't have the support to go through with it that's why they've been sitting on the fence and taking such a long time listen to what he had to say about that another obstacle to

a military intervention is that everybody understands the syrian conflict has nothing to do with the nation's revolution and demands for reforms it's terrorism in this situation whiston leaders can't tell the citizens we're going to syria to support terrorism so bashar assad continuing to stand up to the west a very defiant and sergey lavrov in russia saying that all parties involved need to exercise caution and go through legal channels to find a solution to the problem in syria sean thomas there well the u.s. and many of its allies seem impatient to wait for the u.n. findings with american warships already converging near the water on state the british are prepared to join into. looks next to where their confidence comes from in blaming the syrian government for using chemical weapons and where it might lead . united nations experts are in syria to investigate whether chemical weapons were used during the ongoing conflict finally but even before they start a senior u.s. administration official has said there is very little doubt that chemical weapons

were used by the syrian regime against civilians these are the arguments we have told were given to president obama as proof the reported number of victims talkin the number explain how they see during world war two up to eighteen million people were killed what does that tell us about how they died the next argument the american administration says leaves them in little doubt assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons is the reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured symptoms of course speak for themselves but how does that answer exactly who was behind this u.s. intelligence cites witness accounts that is hardly a reliable argument for syria since the beginning of the conflict there almost two and a half years ago each side has accused the other off to a queen each other while covering events from different cities in syria those

undercover manto or rebel control i often matt and talk to witnesses from both sides whose accounts contradicted one another the truth was never easy to find even on the ground well it would if chemical weapons were used in syria why doesn't automatically point to the syrian regime isn't that still to be investigated it all appears to be based on assumptions we still believe that they don't have the capability to use chemical weapons that has not changed again we're looking into the facts on the ground but there's no reason if there's nothing to hide for the regime not to let the investigative team do you know with the u.n. team is a greeting and they do seem assumptions that the opposition doesn't it. to use these people yes they are. meanwhile major world media are bombarding audiences with pro task pictures of dead people including children allegedly killed by chemical agents allegedly used by the syrian regime and all that during the

military escalation in the region the pentagon is moving its naval forces closer to syria three destroyer is already in the mediterranean ready and for a variety of attacks all of them carrying up to three hundred cruise missiles more scope warns the west against repeating the tragic mistakes all these is remiss and of events of ten years ago in which he was in false information that the iraqis processed weapons of mass destruction the united states launched a reckless enterprise with consequences that everyone is well aware off russia's foreign minister spokesperson set up well this small tube colin powell the u.s. secretary of state at that time presented to the u.n. security council as proof led to disastrous consequences will history repeat itself . marty moscow well you can follow the circuitry william hague's refused to hold back on the possibility of military intervention so

in washington can fully count on britain support serve covers that sort of it. well foreign secretary william hague said this morning that the west could take military action against the assad regime without the backing or support of the united nations security council now he was speaking to b.b.c. radio four s today programme and he said that the united nations security council has not been united on syria and has not shouldered its responsibilities on syria and on the question of whether it was possible to act without complete unity on the united nations security council he replies oh dulcie yes it is now no firm decision has been taken on what the response will be or indeed when it will be but the timetable if you like for the next couple of days is this prime minister david cameron has cut short his holiday and he'll be returning to lungs and that's it and then on wednesday he's going to be chairing the national security council meeting

and it's going to be there that you'll have all the key decision makers and after that meeting on wednesday you can expect that we'll have perhaps a clearer idea of exactly what the plans will be moving forward now we're still not talking about direct intervention here so no boots on the ground in syria what is being discussed they is a more limited form of military action in the form of it's thought pinpoint tomahawk missile strikes now by no means has the political dialogue been abandoned but that limited form of military action certainly something that is now on the table being very seriously discussed of course a huge concern is we're now meeting ever closer towards getting involved in a conflict from which there isn't a clear exit. you know a lot of are unanswered questions of that a lot of or not as in brussels he's a journalist who's widely covered events of series also a former deputy speaker to belgium's parliament. so we're seeing

a rock music of all of the of war rhetoric by the u.s. and some european states is it time or is it be. amateur given this alleged chemical attack is that really what should be happening now or not do you think. this is absolutely totally premature i mean if you look at the things that happened in the past with all the allegations this is this is really a time to keep your head cool and say let's look at the evidence and so far the evidence only points to massive killings by some chemical agents we do not know who did it we do it what kind of agents this is definitely not the time for such rhetoric why is it so difficult to prove who has all not done this i mean if you read the papers in the all of the western press isn't there a couple of days ago a lot of pointing fingers and i decide here but still there's no definite proof as you say why the. well you have to distinguish between for encik truth which is just

a matter of chemical testing and so on and getting there in the places knowing that you are in the right place knowing what the people who say it can happen there are correct and that's that's the difficulty and the thing is also i mean is this really about. an event that causes that the west to act like this all this is just an excuse a pretext i do believe it's pretext so why not wait then for the just more proof because you think it's an excuse you think they're going to jump the gun here. but . they grant they're going to jump some kind of way we do not know yet let's not forget first of all we're talking about a possible different kind of intervention there is already an intervention on the ground there are american and british and french trainers on the ground there that the rebels have arms that there was a little to saudi arabia qatar let's not forget these countries do not produce arms they just buy them from western countries so in that way there is already

a strong intervention in this conflict so the question is what kind of proliferation is there going to be that's exactly my next question how do you think this is going to pan out that if it happens. well i do not like what the what if i do not like to have to guess my idea is that there's going to be some kind of air force operation but that is going to be very very tricky and that you should not you should keep in mind that you cannot bomb chemical stockpiles you can bomb exacerbate the situation so that to do other things they will do some kind of thing that they will then call meaningful but i do not believe that in this in this situation there is any way that a military intervention can solve mattress and defeat this is not going to make matters worse if it did happen would it be a short term or a medium or a long term affair do you think. oh my guess and i emphasize it's

a guess it's going to be a short kind of thing that they're going to do because they know very well that the long to operation in syria is going to put them in a quagmire in it's going to be held i mean they already have the experience of what happened in other in iraq in libya and they're not going to take that risk i do not believe a final thought it seems dismally doesn't it the political way out of this isn't going to happen any time soon it seems we're getting further away i mean today the russian foreign minister sergei lavrov said the claims of the chemical attack could be a bit disrupting any prospect future talks about peace the syrian opposition entirely said there isn't going to be any talk so i guess that's not geneva on the head year . well when you see d.c. an opposition that's not entirely correct there is also a very little talked about talk about the civilian and aunt nonviolent opposition who are willing to put are not allowed by for example the british and the u.s. to participate i mean it's one thing to say we're going to organize talks and then

tell your allies but don't come means that it that it shows bad faith and that is what it happening for the moment of course what is happening now is it's probably like like the foreign minister russian foreign minister is that some kind of creating a situation that alters that the things on the ground go to journalists a former deputy speaker both in parliament life brussels there thank you very much . and it out si dot com are interested in what you think the preparations for a military response could mean this is what you're telling us about dot com if you have voted thank you so much most of you believe it's a trying to distract public attention away from its own problems at home forty six percent in just under a third of you think the u.s. will go ahead with the attack despite president obama's cautious words we've heard so far anyway thirty percent where the rest of it between a believing it's being done to get leverage over the u.n. investigation or whether it's just the pentagon's plan b. have your say altie dot com. edward snowden's

revelations that the u.s. has been spying on its european allies could have a bearing on the political race in germany where there's been an election planned in just under a month's time chance right locals main rival is promising to freeze trade talks with the united states until it comes clean on its espionage programs if he's elected more from people all over in belin. what peer steinbrück the head of the leader of the s.t.p. and the only real candidate who has a chance of challenging angle of merkel in the in the upcoming elections what he said is that should he become chancellor well he'll put the brakes on ongoing talks on a a free trade agreement between the u.s. and the e.u. now these are trade talks that have moved at a pretty pace at the best of times and they are potentially worth multiple billions of dollars worth of money to both sides but there are sticking points and it's what he said during an interview on german television was that how can we trust our

american allies and colleagues when it comes to talking about the best trade deal for both sides when how do we know they don't have microphones under our desks and they are listening to everything that we are saying they are one of the only few issues in which the which the opposition can can attack angle of merkel on she remains incredibly personally popular here in germany and is pretty much expected to be to be returned as chancellor but if stonebridge is to get in there and is to have a good chance this is the option what he's what he's gone for because this is one position where anglo merkel has. we can go on because she is the chancellor of the book stops with her and it seems that not only did she know that the united states was conducting espionage activities on on german civilians and on german businesses but it seems that at some points according to the leaked documents that edward

snowden forward that the german security services may have actually helped them to do that it's seen in the past these documents coming out. the b.m.d. the german security services were very forthcoming with trying to help the n.s.a. in their spying activities so this is a major issue if not the major issue going into the election and well being the politician he's seeing he sees an element of weakness there and they're rounding on the current chancellor. they're all over in berlin it seems even the united nations is demeaning to being snooped on by america's scandal plagued national security agency uni published information leaked by edward snowden indicates the world body's new york h.q. was caught in its controversial spy net with the un's internal video conferencing code cracked by and they say agents one former u.n. director of communication told us that the united nations can't do much against acts of espionage like this without the help of its members the u.n. secretary that has limited resources not very sophisticated techniques that it's

basically dependent to the techniques that it does have this technology that it does have on its member states so i think that this operation was that if the especially the united states which is a host country where their headquarters are located be very advanced superpower communications technology if they really want to crack whatever encryption the secretary at is adopting they will probably be able to do say it's unfortunate because of course diplomacy does need to be confidential and for the sector general to do his job properly he needs to have the confidence of the heads of state and government at alba's but he's having conversations with a little to mention his own colleagues but you know these are some of the unpleasant facts of the world that we live in thanks being with

a small news after this quick break. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything is. hard welcome to the big picture. which. we could know if you. choose to consume. choose to get. to.

choose the stories that him. choose. to. live in his old rooms which led to the fall of colonel gadhafi two years ago still open the country's grip by militia violence islam a squabble over territory and a bigger share of plummeting oil revenue on top of all that the government's trying to revive some of the tactics used by the former regime to keep dissent is a bad day all this explains. anniversaries are often a time of celebration for two years on libya has precious little to be applauding. with the us i'm not sure it will be right to assume that there's a government in libya there's no army no police armed militias are in control is

violent chaos the. militia violence stalks the land jihadist groups are growing strikes threaten to cripple the oil industry and economic stagnation is everywhere with all the bad negative things that they will say about that they thought was. controlling by force the situation of these divide the by the countries libya post khadafi is far from the haiti days of the with the new should never before in human rights watch says a wave of assassinations has killed dozens of politicians activists judges and members of security agencies all we hear is very. very troublesome because we hear about clandestine detention centers. detention centers that are run by militias that are not accountable to anybody these armed militias reportedly have more power than the government turning the country into a new hub please nomic extremism over the past few weeks we all kind of can see the

need to be open to the south libya is becoming the main base for al qaeda in the maghreb we also know that as a direct result of the libyan intervention that the civilian government and bomb a ko mali was overthrown in the north of the country and certain islamicist took over creating a humanitarian disaster leading to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons not to mention tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into mauritania linked to burkina faso basically creating a mirage and if that's not bad enough. the much promised constitution has failed to materialize politicians are deadlocked over the role of sharia law and but a regional rivalries. libyan society consists of arabs berbers and taboo so the constitution should represent all segments and if any group is ignored then this

means exclusion. the berbers who make up ten percent of the population are threatening to take up arms against the government there is a real danger that libya may break up you have a severe problem in libya with regard to the darker skinned nationals of the south of the country not being except equal by those who are lighter skinned in the north and the deteriorating economic situation isn't helping commercial banks are closing their doors imposed test against the current armed robberies in a desperate attempt to keep a good plan things the new government has reportedly using methods that were popular during gadhafi time libya's transitional government has quietly reactivated the surveillance technology it inherited from the depths of the sea it uses it to protect the mobile phones and online communication of the deficit to enlist the two machines it seems on the back to front after all except that oil production is down

with libya unable to promise crew deliveries next month as on off strikes paralyze its major terminals two years on and many are asking was it worth destroying libya to get this broken state when it's not clear who won it definitely doesn't seem to be the libyan people policy r.t. to level. striking workers in the libya's oil industry to its knees with production more than half during the protest artie's kitty pilgrim explains now the collapse of fuel exports and how that will make the economic turmoil even worse. according to the libyan oil and gas minister nearly one point six billion dollars has been lost in less than a month because of the security guard strikes libya's two main crude oil export terminals remain sharp which means the country's financial recovery after the twenty eleven brest has been very old become trees reliant on oil exports accounting for ninety five percent of all output your produces shipments have been

cut to the lowest level since the civil war of twenty eleven more than half of libya's it's what capacity with some estimating just three hundred thousand barrels per day and now being shipped out of the country and as a consequence libya's government to have said it will use military force if necessary to stop the striking security guards from selling the country's or independently but the root of the problem remains so is the ousting of gadhafi his regime the country is still plagued by chaos this time the cause is economic and norse. making matters worse libya's become a hotbed for some of the most violent swathes of fear of being largely lawless and he was overthrown attracting al-qaeda affiliated groups to establish themselves for good newswire expects the crisis to only deteriorate further. this counterrevolution has been detrimental to the well being of the libyan people what we've seen over the last two years is

a total disruption of libyan society in the area of the economy it has been the most pronounced we've seen the production of all cut in half because of the strikes and rebellions have been going on there is no plan for the national restoration of libya many of the key political players involved in an attempt to run libya right now divided over tribal regional as well as political levels and until the general national council of government there are reigns in the militias and tries to bring about some type of national reconciliation process the economic decline and consequently the social instability will intensify. global headlines in brief three palestinians have been killed fifteen reportedly wounded in clashes with israeli border police in the west bank according to israeli officials security forces arrived at a refugee camp to arrest a terror suspect but were attacked with rocks and why we mentioned palestinian

witnesses did neither saying they didn't shoot the soldiers the instant the palestinian negotiators to pull the plug on these two of these well emotions and although they are expected later this week. in india a rally in support of tape indeed nationalists leaders and supporters turn violent when hundreds of protesters clashed with police security forces resorted to water kind of interior gas to disperse the demonstration the protesters were defying a government ban on a pilgrim march a disputed holy site that's been the cause of deadly clashes with muslims. thanks but with herself the break crossed talking america's position these days in the global economy page when the team they're here in a couple of minutes. sometimes

it seems like in the face of giant corporations people are just sort of helpless i could be pretty pessimistic myself about what a few individuals with no real money or power can really do against the system but you never dull in fact if you remember toward discussion about ammonia doused pink slime being used across america and frozen fast foods well shift jamie oliver has actually managed to shame mcdonald's enough on t.v. to get them to back down and stop using this ultra processed form of quote meat at their establishments also we recently discussed gamer rage at the rather racist portrayal of russians in the game company of heroes two well all the rage actually worked and thanks to the seventeen thousand signatures on the change dot org petition that game has been pulled from russian shelves by the developer the thing is that massive corporations do a lot of bad things because they have no morals and are obsessed with profit but because they have no morals and are only obsessed with profit the second.