what if the. sign. ukraine's president signs up for closer ties with the but it was his predecessors failure to join the club which ignited this deadly february revolution on the ongoing armed conflict in ukraine's defiant east. just hours before it's set to expire ukraine's president extends a cease fire in the east for another three days but it's a true special ready seen both civilians and national guard fighters killed in the latest confrontation. with. syria's embattled rebels are now in line for a five hundred million dollar military aid package from the u.s. but there are fears the weapons could end up on the wrong side of the barricades.

also coming up this hour in the latest setback to blight berlin's already notorious new report is revealed a fake engineer was hired to design the fire safety system causing the opening to be delayed yet again. it's just gone seven pm this friday evening here in moscow you're chewed into r t international i'm you know a lot our top story ukraine's president a trade agreement with the u. the failure to sign the deal is what triggered the toppling of his predecessor while the terms of the agreement ultimately led to the ongoing bloody standoff in the country's east wherever petro poroshenko says he's currying out the will of the nation the people demanding european future. very clear every single region of ukraine support one candidate demonstrating

we have a different form we have traded for europe we have to be for peace. well i financially challenge europe still doesn't appear to be quite ready for ukraine the e.u. commissioner for enlargement still needs to prove its european credentials now the blocks energy commissioner he's warned about the bailout for greece is peanuts compared to the billions brussels would have to cough up to save kiev ceiling economy the president of the european commission he says the e.u. is not ready to integrate a country like ukraine at this stage and that sentiment is also echoed by the foreign minister of europe's powerhouse germany which comes as no surprise to financial expert particular ukraine which last year was in a catastrophic position how that signed a free trade association this year is going to associate with the european union out the point when it's on the brink already of economic disaster this is

a counter strong move for the ukrainian economy the only winners either this or a few sadly deluded egos whether they're in brussels whether they are in washington who believe somehow rather they've achieved a great deal political victory for the people of ukraine there are no jobs to be hired here there's only going to be job losses there is no economic growth to be had by suddenly having western european goods dumped at low cost onto your marketplace this deal is a disaster it's a very very tragic day for the people of ukraine who want to improve their economic outlook. ukraine's president has extended the cease fire in the country's restive east until monday just hours before it was set to expire meanwhile overnight exchanges of fire near the city of slavyansk have left casualties on both sides of the conflict a woman on her twenty six year old son were killed in army shelling on the skirts of slovyansk they died after their heist was hit by one of the rockets i'm nuts not

the only time when the truce has been broken residents of the defiance to be of kramatorsk they claim their city was shelled continuously throughout the week there was ongoing artillery fire in the village of semyonov which was almost razed to the ground the city of sloviansk also came under fire numerous times during their week long truce also the village of profile noir so one of the worst spikes of violence with one woman reportedly killed there are casualties are also mounting in the pro-government count more than twenty national guard fighters have reportedly been killed near the city of slavyansk in an overnight bottle among cost more for us battle took place last night and according to reports at least when t. soldiers that's when the fighters of ukraine's national guard were hurt were killed as a result of that the national guard well it's mercenary called back division

formed specifically to aid the ukrainian army and its military operation against a defiant east all think country now the we also learned that the anti government forces have destroyed two armored personnel carriers belonging to the national guard. the timeline of ukraine's ongoing crisis and more expert analysis is available for you online right now at r.t. dot com. we've been on the syrian rebels are losing the war against president assad's forces but their look could soon turn thanks to washington president obama wants congress to dish out half a billion dollars to train and equip syria's moderate opposition but there are fears the move will flood the region with weapons that could fall into the wrong hands as marina now explains. the obama administration is requesting for

lawmakers to approve five hundred million dollars in spending for the purpose of arming the syrian opposition the white house claims that only appropriate vetted elements of the moderate opposition would receive direct training from the u.s. military and be equipped with american weapons and ammunition u.s. officials insist that the weapons would serve to empower the syrian people and help them push back against the government as well as the militant extremist group isis which actually has been fighting to topple bashar al assad since the civil war began more than three years ago however as recent events have shown american weapons may very well end up in its enemies hands just two weeks ago isis an all out assault on iraq's second largest city mosul causing a reported thirty thousand iraqi soldiers who were trained by the u.s. military to turn around and run as a result sunni extremists have seized stockpiles of american weapons and ammunition as well as u.s. humvees the bloodshed being unleashed in iraq by isis has arguably been

strengthened by the fact that militants are fighting with u.s. weapons in afghanistan the taliban is now armed with u.s. made stinger missiles which according to reports were originally sent to libya when the obama administration was arming the opposition rising up against former leader moammar gadhafi for more than a decade the u.s. has been drowning the arab world in weapons arming locals to help them overthrow governments not only how is it created absolute chaos and bloodshed it is arguably help to strengthen terrorist organizations because the weapons at least some of them are ending up in the hands of the enemy as for syria the devastating civil war has killed some one hundred fifty thousand people and the international community does agree that something should be done question is is sending weapons to one side of the conflict which includes terrorists the best solution reporting from washington d.c. marina. r t. the bipartisan tug of war in washington

a seen the white house change its mind several times over intervention in syria direct non lethal aid to the rebels was given the green light about a year ago but in december supplies were suspended after a lion share of the u.s. equipment was seized by job is to ever earlier this month washington admitted it's been converted sending lethal aid to the opposition antiwar campaigner brian becker states america's middle east policy is simply inconsistent it shows the united states appears to have a schizo front foreign policy there they're saying they demand unity in iraq behind the central government which is fighting what they call islamic extremist from isa's and at the same time they're funding these same armed groups in syria to take down an independent nationalist and sovereign government in syria what the u.s. is doing and has been doing this finally in money guns and more occupation tools in a region that it considers to be vital because it's resource rich that's about it

meanwhile the u.n. is pleading for action over what's being called the in human suffering of the syrian people the world bodies a chief sees almost eleven million syrians needs humanitarian help that is of the country's population but some are now at least being able to return to their homes as maria financial reports. police road in central syria used to be beset by snipers and anyone driving here could be kidnapped that's when the smallest western area known as the moon was controlled by armed drug take all your brother next to the syrian lebanese border is just eighty kilometers from the capital damascus but it is like a state within a state that has its own security forces police and even the army you can see is symbols of new authorities here everywhere graffiti or three stars that means free syrian army is controlling this area a syrian military cannot enter six months later return to the

main square. feet of the syrian army expect the town after months of fierce battles and numerous offensives. officers say i can take off my flak jacket my dear friend if. it's friday today and the officers tell us that they're all the shops are closing the restaurants a close eye roll lots a lot of people on the streets but there is another reason actually many residents fled this town and entire area of cologne in an attempt to escape from atrocities. at the city's mosque the heart of this predominantly muslim town friday prayers have just finished. most of these people who only returned to their town recently my heart outside. my home was hit and destroyed thank god the army is now back here mood is also home to a big christian community

a different face he used to live in harmony here for years until islamic rule was imposed by the rebels many being religious zealots some linked to al qaeda or free syrian mostly officially they were religious groups jihadi islamic but in fact it was no religion or anything else their religion was money. for this young man shows us what used to be a jewelry shop it was looted and then set on fire. made or bouyeri they were on motorbikes they call themselves the free syrian army they used to also take food coming to town from damascus often they were also kidnapping people locals hope the dog days a gun just a week after we left the town attacked the army positions in the region again several other areas across syria still remain house by rebels or jihadists it seems that despite the army's recent success it's still too early to say when there's

devastating war will be over rich nationality from syria. still ahead this hour the world turns a blind eye to thaw asians of african refugees held captive in egypt's sinai peninsula. in. the mission. we report shortly on one is really activist who's trying to drum up support for her campaign by putting the terror of human trafficking on torture on the silver screen not suffer a short break. economic red tape for. her.

office now right and. what if the public sometimes. says ukraine struggles with a ceasefire the regime in kiev says it is committed to an association agreement with the e.u. the impact of which could be truly painful for the ukrainian people dividing ukraine continues to. cut.

thirteen minutes into the hour welcome back now maintaining a royal family doesn't usually come cheap with palaces elaborate world tours and high level security arrangements it's not surprising the price tag is high but do commoners really know what they're paying i for. christopher out of takes a look at whether britons are getting good value for money or not. over eighty percent of brits believe the royal family brings in a significant amount of revenue for the country each year some five hundred million pounds according to the case national tourism agency but those have been campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy believe that figure is incorrect and they're ready to show british taxpayers just how much of their money really goes towards funding live oils their public group claims the estimated annual cost of the monarchy is almost three hundred million pounds which is around nine times the official figure published by the of oil household why this disparity apparently the official figure excludes a number of costs including security royal visits and lost revenue from the dutch

cheese of lancaster and cornwall if the republic's figures are to be believed it would mean the british head of state is one of the most expensive government institutions in the world the important point is that the want to close is a lot more than many people think. but even if those figures were made public there's every chance that the majority of the british public would agree that they want to he was still worthwhile in fact a poll last year found out forty five percent of the british public shelters strong support for the monarchy up from twenty seven percent in two thousand and six a survey released this month showed that prince william has grandmother and his father are all more popular than the country's top rates of politicians remember the crowds falwell's wedding but more people are now saying not having the option to choose who benefits from taxpayers' money is also important so there's also a principle of democracy about whether it's right that the head of state should be

. ready to treat position rather than one's chosen by the people and it's also a question of the message it sends to the young people growing up in this country i would rather that the young people growing up in this country were told that no matter who you are too much away you're born matter who your parents are you can rise to the highest office in the land and that would be the case is going to have a really tremendous even though i'm. spirits love their queen there's a growing number of those who would like to see their money go towards improving the country rather than the country's palaces marina call survivor ports or from london forty here in r t we've done our sums come up with over eighteen million pines while luck goes on keeping the royals fade and dressed to impress and it's equal to two thousand pensions more than thirteen million pounds is spent on the upkeep of royal residences could provide four hundred forty students with scholarships and the money spent on the family travel could feed more than three million homeless people graham smith believes the royals are an insult to people

suffering from a sturdy. well though the spending by the world family is going up even by their own official figures it's going up you know they spend four million pounds. renovating a house for prince william. no the public does not owe these people a living it doesn't owe them a house and they need to start cutting by tens of millions not increasing their income and their wealth whilst we are cutting public services and public jobs government simply hands over millions of pounds to the world's and the world's then get to choose how they spend it and then report on how they've spent it themselves countering it and a lot of spin. and misinformation of course if you look to other countries in europe they have similar heads of state fraction of the price so the republic of ireland for example they get to choose their head of state does a similar job and it costs less than ten million pounds every year so clearly you

know having had to stay for three hundred million pounds it's a bit of a nonsense. moving on for thousands of israel buying refugees from africa in search for a better life ends up in torture camps they fall into the hands of ruthless smuggling gangs and then simply vanish in egypt's sinai desert more than three thousand migrants per month come from the east african state of eritrea alone many of them are kidnapped for ransom and tortured until their families pay if they don't human traffickers reportedly execute the hostages more than four thousand people are estimated to have been killed since two thousand and eight and run to thaw and are thought to be captivity right last month the president had demanded an investigation but the international community has remained largely silent with israel in particular ignoring the problem on its own doorstep its prime minister wants even described the refugees as infiltrators estefan us is a swedish eritrean activist who tried to raise awareness about the victims of

torture by putting their plight on the big screen. there were melting plastic bags and dropping it in their backs this is the burns. bush on sodium. chairmanships. as the pharmacist spoke to and he said now in our program in she believes there's a big difference in the way captives are treated i have seen kids children that are two years old being tortured. there were some kids that have to watch their mother being burned alive and they survived so this was a kind of people that i talk to the torture is it's not any as or tortured like you see a horror movie or something it's where people are tortured twenty four hours

a day deprived deprived of food deprived how is there not more international weirdness about what's happening in finite be amount of deaths the type of torture and the millions of dollars that have been made by these hostage takers who. also have to do is race you know we we have seen americans getting kidnapped in the sinai. it took only twenty four hours to release them last year a norwegian woman was kidnapped in the same area and it took about a week for her to be released. we've seen last year also any man being kidnapped and also it took few days for him to be released so this happens all quite often to westerners as well but they're out with them base and they don't get to experience the torture as a free country. it has to do with was race. and look at some other stories from around the world some fifteen thousand people have protested over what they say was mass fraud during afghanistan's presidential election pride's gathered i decide the

presidential palace in kabul voicing support for one of the candidates. he dropped out of the race after a vote rigging allegations during this month's runoff final results are due in july amid a taliban insurgency that's still raging on the pulling out of nato forces. a gas pipeline blast in southern india has killed at least fourteen people and left two dozen injured the flames rose high up into the sky engulfing buildings and forcing people to flee to safety the pipeline belongs to india's largest state only gas company authorities have ordered a probe into what caused the explosion. long queues stretched outside a couple of iraq's oil rich kurdish region because the ongoing security crisis in the country has led to severe fuel shortages in several cities the largest oil refinery was shut down last week amid severe clashes with isis militants have already taken control of huge areas across iraq the army is now in control of the

site put pressure on supplies is growing. in clashes between police and protesters over the eviction of refugees continue in berlin hundreds of people form blockades to prevent people being forced out of their squad only forty asylum seekers remain there has been occupied for more than eighteen months. by staying in berlin the construction of one of the largest airports in germany is turning into a fiasco corruption claims per plumbing on a budget that's gone through the roof have meant berlin's new terminal is now four years behind schedule ortiz peter all of the reports on the latest scandal to grow in the facility. at this time of year an airport should be bustling with holiday makers jetting off for their summer vacations not here though at berlin brandenburg the airport's two years behind schedule the only people the construction work is still working on the project with costs spiraling out of control it's really become

a comedy of errors the latest scandal involves the fire safety system moreover the man that designed it it's a merge that he didn't have any qualifications to be in a position to do so what he did have though was a business card that said that he was an engineer turns out that wasn't worth the paper that it was written on but how does a man with no qualifications find himself in a very important position on a multibillion euro project to find out more on this i'm joined by steve from the party of reason safe if i had a business card that said i was an astronaut would that mean i got to go into space quite likely for it was the space agency was run by the same people that are running this airport wouldn't surprise me at all what's going on here what's happening with this project right now cost overruns without end technical disasters political decisions being made and in my opinion it's probably due to the fact that government agencies bureaucrats are trying to make a huge project which should have been better left off to

a private consortium to build as it was initially intended to be i mean we don't even know when this airports could open next year no sixteen seventeen maybe eighteen maybe never who knows thank you very much there we go we don't know when it's going to open some estimates of put a final cost of around ten billion euro on finally getting this airport it berlin brandenburg open it certainly hasn't gone smoothly here. a lack of trust in the world bank and the international monetary fund has led china to establish its very own global financial institution beijing is starting with one hundred billion dollars in capital means to overtake a similar project in the region which is highly influenced by japan so far twenty two countries have shown interest in the new lender including some rich states in the middle east but china has vowed to go ahead with be ambitious project even if no one else joins so one of the first time will be setting up a new version of the silk road connecting the country to europe china expert

professor believes beijing is right to fund its own projects i think that this is just a further extension of what china's been doing china has come from pretty much a backwater country thirty years ago to now this world's second largest economy and china is basically showing the world that if there is a will there is a way china has been somewhat frustrated with the world bank and the agent development bank in terms of. the funds coming out of these entities to support infrastructure projects so china i think basically decided that if they want anything done here they're just going to have to find that themselves and bring along a bunch of partners so i think that's the prime motivation it's largely to expand their trade and economic influence. that's your news for now but up next we take a look at europe's attempts to shift away from nuclear power it's up to.

the federal migration service of russia has recently received more than five thousand requests for political silence from ukraine its citizens these requests come from refugees who are fleeing the conflict in the eastern part of ukraine in fact i personally know people who are from ukraine who are now essentially trapped in russia because their native regions are at war with the kiev government there is a classic mainstream media talking point about russian aggression and russian imperialism which gets repeated constantly in fact so often that is not even a question but if you stop to think about it if you were trapped in a region at war and you were going to escape odd thought where would you go into

the heart of the aggressors in imperialists no you go in the direct opposite direction interestingly enough in both this conflict and the two thousand and eight war in georgia the overwhelming majority of refugees flee towards russia excluding some sort of bizarre stockholm syndrome it seems that for people in break we republics and ukraine and georgia russia is a safe haven they often say that people vote with their feet and in the case of the most recent wars in european history it is clear whose feet are voting for whom and no mainstream media talking points can deny that but that's just my opinion. all told you my language is what i react to situations i have read the reports for . instance the no i will leave that to the state department to comment on you not employ them. so it's.

no more weasel words. when you question me prepared for a change when you punch be ready for a bad. freedom of speech. than the freedom to cast. hello and welcome said old europe dates is the end of all it's all but not supposing in moscow but luckily for us the sun hasn't been east everywhere so we

thought we pop culture by going search for a song winter's knocking at moscow's door between normally sit on a long johns just yet so we travel to europe to soak up some rays imbibes a culture and see what's going on in the world of technology fronts was europe's largest exporter of electricity last year but despite this upon the steam power the country is still looking for new energy sources and even hosting the power that drives the song. there's a lot of energy in france i'm not just talking about the street dunces the country ranks second in the world in terms of nuclear power stations but with growing environmental and safety concerns the sun may be setting on nuclear energy as we know it so ministers from around the world have come to discourse of possible shift away from nuclear fission. there are currently one hundred eighty five nuclear power plants in europe and another seventeen on the way france has almost a third of the total with fifty eight plants produced.