we're not going to. take. a series of deadly explosions reportedly killed at least two hundred seven people and injured. targets. churches and house the christian minority were celebrating easter sunday. in the weeks mean stories from there was. between. the reports. on. the heart of. the straw its roof spire.

with the big stories from the past seven days on right up to the moment updates as well welcome to the weekly on our international. we begin with the latest developments from today a series of easter sunday bomb attacks in sri lanka local police say the number of deaths from the churches and hotels has now increased to two hundred seven well this is video showing the first blast. church in the heart of the shoreline can capital colombo a total rock the country on sunday a twelve hour curfew was to clear it immediately afterwards and access has temporarily also been blocked to social networks including facebook and instagram many of the victims were from the christian minority who were celebrating the

holiest day on the christian calendar dozens saw foreigners are also among that we should warn you that the following images are disturbing. i was . was. i was i was was seven people are currently under arrest this video shows for one can special forces raiding a house in colombo the prime minister has promised that those behind the attack will face a stern response. the first blast occurred around nine am local time in the capital one church three three hotels were

targeted another place of worship that was hit was in the city of new gumbo that's around forty kilometers or so north of the capital a further blast happened on the opposite side of the island a popular tourist destination. and a seventh explosion then hit a small hotel close to the capital after that an if it took place on the outskirts of colombo there are reports it was a suicide bombing which took the lives of three police officers who were conducting a raid on the apartment block in pursuit of the attackers let's show you some of the the aftermath of one of the explosions on to reiterate no group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attacks is a mainly by this country less than ten percent of the population are catholic who make up a large proportion of today's faith teletubbies many world leaders have condemned the attacks on express their condolences for speaking out the easter service at the

fall took in pope francis denounced today's offense as a cruel act on expressed his support for all those affected. i wish to express my heartfelt solidarity with the christian community effected while it was a prayer and with all the victims of such cruel violence. we also spoke to a political and geostrategic expert to jump ahead to years of the view there had been disquiet between religious communities in the lead up to sunday's atrocities. i think there was a level of uncomfortable. among different communities of the do good only off there was a some sort of lighting between some of the nationalist groups and oddly should not forget the phenomenon of terrorism and violence is not at all good that. it was heat from one thousand you could. cause in mind when there was an insurgency

particularly not east of. sitting in government that it's all over two thousand nine hundred of that insurgency and then did they alter the development of the suicide bombing not that is this something again has happened now off the nine nine nine years but at this particular point point of time there are new dynamics to the situation in syria link there are other factors like dash dash has been operating everywhere in the board well i think the message is quite good out who did christian community which make up at all and seven percent of the student in kentucky. the message is to defy them to keep them obvious from places and also the messages to the foreigners who have been doing this for the linka i think it is going to come down hard on this link in economy it is going to be negative really disturbing when it comes to putting sri lanka the situation is a pos changing. after

a two year investigation and almost nonstop media coverage of the so-called russia gate scandal the heavily redacted moana report finally sorted out the document dropped on thursday revealing that there was no cooperation between donald trump or any american with russians in the twenty sixteen presidential election. the special counsel's report states that his quote investigation did not establish that members of the trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the russian government in its election interference activities. pretty clear a statement donald trump isn't off the hook in the eyes of the democrats on many media outlets a few days ago the u.s. house judiciary committee issued a subpoena for the ducted report to be made available as many parts of the published version being blocked and the focus now shifts to the possible obstruction all of the investigation by the u.s. president more and all but from our senior correspondent. two

years america waited for this hoped and prayed it would unmake trump or exonerate him that the new report would end this two year long drama about collusion hacking and conspiracy people would get closure what america got was this page off the redacted page censored into illegibility obviously some of this stuff could pass for modern art and as with everyone interprets this report how they want and they're having a good day i'm having a good day q it was called. no collusion no obstruction if it is incomplete or they were going to blow the report outlines disturbing evidence that president tripping gauged in obstruction of justice and so there is kind of confused so was mueller

trump may have been cleared of collusion but obstruction of justice kind in the air mueller writes that it's so complicated he couldn't decide whether trump tried to obstruct justice or not the guilty no innocent the conclusion the congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law specifically you have found in never been instances where trump potentially tried to obstruct justice and democrats have jumped on it the miller report prints a disturbing picture of a president who has been weaving new web of deceit lies and improper behavior and acting as if the law doesn't apply to him it's a very interesting and very disturbing read that does not exonerate this president

the whole repercussions for the country of having a president. who lies to the country who misleads the country you urges others to do so a president who. to my reading of. the report almost certainly obstructed justice certainly intended and attempted to obstruct justice and if true this alleged trump tantrum is only making it so much sweeter. the president slumped back in his chair and said oh my god this is terrible this is the end of my presidency i'm. you know this report has trump political the democrats smell blood they have trump now and like blood hounds still mercilessly dog him for obstruction and anyone that gets in the way the messenger included they ministration has a new face and any message or and long with a lot more stature he's the country's attorney general he said half

a dozen times no collision no question no lawyer no legal presentation presenting its conclusion six times the attorney general getting out there and getting his narrative his take on it as vigorously as possible because attorney general barr wants to represent our trouble i think he should resign they are calling for bud to resign a traitor a sellout they scream and they want mueller himself the darling just a few months ago to be hauled before congress the mueller reports and did nothing those who hated trump hate him more and vice versa if anything this report is going to america and americans further apart but they got to tell you at least incapacity a factor is a happy. because the as well as for russia itself the report claims they're a fox of meddling in the twenty six the elections in quotes is sweeping and

systematic fashion most correspondents saying the investigation shows no evidence of such actions as expected there was a wave of reaction to the release of the report here some of the views are against shared with us. they still can't get to a point where the president clued in with russia in fact they say quite categorically it did not happen so then why would the president knowing he is innocent abstract buller put that in as a matter of pure politics as a sop to the democrats who are on the commission twenty five attorneys all of them democrats most of them hillary supporters a large number of them hillary donors and we had to do something in the report to make them happy why did this investigation even begin i mean was there wrongdoing there was there you know falsification of documents to get pfizer warrants there's a lot of embarrassment here we're talking about millions upon millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars of time wasted if things happen for something that legitimately

had no basis in fact and any evidence that might have been presented to start this similar investigation all last night we had chuck schumer saying that well how dare william barr you know come out and speak before we get the report what kind of report with this be after that we're going to start hearing about how the redactions are the way a way to hide the real truth and it's really never going to end we're going to continue to see one thing after another with trump but they went immediately from russia collusion to trying to access trying financial statements and william bars obstruction so i mean the arguments haven't stopped yet they're not going to stop but we do have what seems to be a very conclusive case of absolutely no collusion. ukrainians are choosing their next president it's a million usual choice i think we can say the face of the ballot box the incumbent leader is facing a serious challenge from a count of those whose hard your run of the mill politician he is in fact in the stand up comedian well across the election for this is. so you know let me just put

it like this we've had the. the life imitating art it's usually the other way around this debate we saw this weekend as well all the leading up to today's runoff how's it playing out so far give us some of the details well you mentioned the debates on the stage will come back to that a bit later debates between the current president petro poroshenko and the comedian both dimmers and then scale let's focus on the turnout a little bit it is quite good roughly the same as in the first round so we are expecting probably a bit more than sixty five percent of the people eligible to vote. we were hoping that roughly the same number will cast their ballots this is a runoff because there was no clear winner in the first round. was a bit more than thirty percent and sixteen percent somewhat like that for petro poroshenko the current president and by three pm it was clear that almost a half of the voters came to the polling stations which is five minutes before they

close again and rather good result petro poroshenko who was relying a lot on the anti russian sentiment and nationalist sentiments he called on all voters to show up in ukrainian national shirts known as. however he appeared had a polling station wearing a classic suit well that's his choice when it comes to all the words alinsky look a bit more casual he was wearing a suit too but. there was just a plain white t. shirt he was very happy and great mood and one of the reasons for that according to mr bennett was that his wife played that song for him in the morning. though he couldn't remember the actual lyrics of that then he perhaps got a little bit carried away with all the success that's expected according to opinion polls and he actually flashed his ballot which is a legal he showed it to the cameras and now gets. what he's facing

a fine something like thirteen dollars. that much but yes anyway let's come back to the debates they happened on a stadium which was very unusual and it was expected that petro poroshenko is going to use them as his last chance to turn these things around again because he scored two times less. votes yesterday even if it was a big defeat for him and pinion polls warren in his favor either at one point he was really counting on these debates at one point he appeared on a t.v. show and demanded the hosts to call mr didn't go on the phone live on the air and demanded that he appear in the studio that didn't happen though but then finally the debates happened on friday and. really people were thinking that because mr didn't get experience he might have some sort of problems but he didn't and there was no clear winner so something rather strange that happened just hours before the

voting started seeing. it's widely seen by journalists and by the observers in ukraine as a last ditch attempt to go to turn things around and i want to show you a short video that we prepared for you which explains what happened at. if they try some dirty tricks people will have no choice but to stage you might down the price.

i'm thinking about whether to appeal if i can prove that this was a form of photo bribery then there's no point appealing to the supreme court. just a without theme of sorts. just watching a live blog here of what's been going on and i keep seeing people who say they want to be able to cast a vote not being able to cast a vote can you expound on what's going on not respect well if we're talking about irregularities in general hundreds have been reported now the number has almost gotten very close to one thousand but just like after the first round perhaps they will be dubbed as minor and won't affect the actual result of the votes and the

votes the deal action itself. won't be the results will be counts or anything like that but there is one massive irregularity as it's seen here in this country we have to remember that not a single polling station was open in russia where it's believed that. possibly even millions of ukrainians are living and working and we also have to remember that in the far eastern regions of ukraine which are still war that's part of the. regions not a single polling station was voted either and again the point is that nobody was able to vote here but i've seen huge lines in poland in krakow seen huge lines in prague in the czech republic people ukrainian citizens being able to vote but not. not here well that is because it is seen by the way as one of fortune close

achievements we know that ukrainians can now go to europe without visas for ninety days so apparently there are a lot of ukrainians working there now that's why we saw the lines there but definitely we would have seen loads of ukrainians one thing to cast their ballots here in this country but they couldn't do it and here in russia. politicians have been saying many things about that and that's why they see this as more than just an irregularity for the vote in ukraine ok so we have a couple of hours or so just around three hours from out of those first exit polls giving us a better idea of who will be the next president of ukraine thank you very much. for a good ok we are coming up with more news that it's just come up to twenty minutes past five pm here in moscow stay with r.t. interims.

thank you. no one else seems wrong but old world just don't call. me old yet to shape our disdain comes to educate and in again train a close to a trail. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

a world treasure up in flames from the rest of the world this week helping coming to terms with monday's devastating fire that ravaged not the dumb cathedral in paris investigators believe the blaze may have been the result of ongoing restoration work or possibly an electrical fault saturday evenings easter vigil normally held on it's a big occasion and not that dumb was moved to a nearby church president has pledged to rise the building from its dramatic scenes of the historic spire collapsing shook the world. law. law was.

the most result of france which is burning reidy says caesar hoto from caesar to fire is and so that's a part of we are losing tonight says city of pure not true down is the heart of paris it is grander it is monumental it is horrible to see writhing we have learned growing up in smoke centuries of our heritage.

was. gay. it's very sad it's one of the great monuments of france i'll leave that far away so it's devastating but a monument like this is burning. and then most of. i say this to you solomon us and we will rebuild this great cathedral together we will appeal to the greatest talents to help restore not trim because this is what the french people expect and it is what our history deserves it is our

destiny. drone advantage of tain by our video agency ruptly shows where the fire tore through the eight hundred fifty year old building and as you can see from the images the damage is extensive. the cathedral is one of the most popular tourist attractions in europe pulling in thirteen million visitors every year the spire on the roof collapsed but the famous twin bell towers as well as the north rose window both of which were both in the thirteenth century were saved so too was the cathedrals most precious relic the proud of thorns well the former deputy director of culture at the u.n. heritage agency unesco sais the not the damn cathedral will now have to go through reconstruction rather than restoration. now destruction that. yesterday i will use has gone. completely different very. well you have to be. really

a major reconstruction. major construction project this will. say today. much of course certainly you don't know that many many hundreds of millions if not even in a way was also a symbol of orwell more than society can do for. those who know about one hundred years ago hundred years ago if you know when two major players. and there's been. through. to you generations so now you know my feeling is. that we have to continue to search for rich and be able to. bring it to the future generations. a former prime minister of new zealand is today's guest on worlds apart program starts in moments to stay close.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond chill and i'll be speaking to. politics . i'm sure i'll see you then. the housing crisis was the result of securitizing mortgages that were resold to dozens of times like goldman sachs was. a fraud again bailed out by timothy geithner and his friends and now they. controlled demolition of the housing market all the housing is concentrated in a few blocks down as a gift from their friends at the central banks and the result is many. bests. were for books with the under fifty.

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of welcome to all the parties there is a lot of talk about reform at the united nations podium and a lot of working against it in the u. n. korea there's that's not simply about the u.n. members have always guarded against the system being hijacked by. the united nations after a change when its own system is structured in a day to cement a status quo as a means of ensuring neutrality to discuss that i'm now joined by helen clark a former prime minister from new zealand and a former administrator of the u.n. development program but i'm such an honor talking to you thank you very much for your time the last time we talked you were in the process running for the post of the new u.n. secretary general the job that you did in four out of five permanent members supported someone else and i know that you believe that it was partly because you

were a woman what made you reached out conclusion well i think gender was an icepick but i think there are other major aspects as well one of them is just straight. geopolitics the person who succeeds must not in the end have a veto from any permanent member of secondly there is the issue of style of general and in reality the great powers have never knowingly selected a sixty general. who was going to speak truth to power some have surprised. coffee anon for example on the issue of the iraq war but generally people who are. known as strong leaders like myself. they're probably a little bit threatened particularly when they're women because strength and women assume a little bit differently from the strength of men but having said all that i have no regrets i think it's important that many women ran the majority of candidates

were women from what i know it was the u.k. that supported your candidacy i am. one hundred percent sure that it was only due to your professional qualities and not their change of commonwealth solidarity. the u.k. always said they thought it was time for women secondly they also were on the record as saying they were looking for leadership qualities so i wasn't the only person they supported they would have supported others as well but certainly they were very open to me you said in a very well qualified for the job a former prime minister you ran the largest u.n. agency but other people also have pretty much what similar characteristics i mean i'm tony harris and had almost an identical resume you sound a little bit like a maybe the impression i get from how you describe it is that temperamentally.