they faced it this is not a prohibition but more of. a forty let me show you some celebrity you sure disapprove retraced because they have no idea about the hardships the face. plate wanted the says it all go to some pretty army the life of the usaf is the most precious thing in the world. years of self-sacrifice and heroism of those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from world war two six. victories nineteen forty five don't auntie dot com. etna.

split. but. it was. lawyers for wiki leaks founder julian assange claim he could be facing time in guantanamo bay or even the death penalty if he's tried in the u.s. this comes as he appears in court in the u.k. a swedish extradition war. portugal insists it does not need a bank bailout as it comes under pressure from germany and france to head off

a potential euro zone crisis. icebreakers reach of the last for a fortnight in freezing waters off russia's far east coast. it is six o'clock in the morning on a wednesday in moscow this is r.t. and we're glad to have you with us we can leaks founder julian assange has a briefly appeared at a london court on tuesday he's fighting extradition to sweden over sexual assault accusations he claims the charges have been fabricated in order to eventually prosecute him for espionage in the u.s. over the release of government documents defense lawyers argue that a son could be sent to guantanamo bay where even face the death penalty if tried in the u.s. archies lore and it has more. it was essentially what they call

a case management herring today which is when they set the date for the main herring and just check that all the evidence is in course of being prepared in a timely fashion we do know know when the full extradition extradition hearing is going to be that is going to take place on the seventh and eighth of february so we've got to wait another sort of three weeks for for the full herring to happen and julian assange has appeared in court on tuesday for this case management hearing after it was over he made a short statement to the media outside let's hear what he had to say we are happy about today's outcome. i have a record to make available to members of the press. skeleton argument which we've had to produce in very short time over christmas what happened before christmas was that julian assange is was released on bail that happened around about the middle of december after after

a fight release to be released on bail in the end the bail sum was set at over three hundred thousand dollars and he's been staying at a friend's house in the east of england ever since then waiting for this extradition to happen and that of course follows the issuing by sweden of a european a rest warrants on sexual assault allegations made by two film a wiki leaks supporters i'm joined to talk more about the details of this case by gerald batten who's a member of the european parliament for the u.k. independence party he's also a valium and opponent of the european arrest warrant which is of course the legality under way students ourselves his extradition to sweden is being requested joe budden thanks very much for talking to us so we now know that the main hearing is going to be on the seventh and eighth of february what what do you expect to happen that will you see if the lawyers on mr sanchez so i try to challenge the evidence against him which i might do and say well it's not sufficient to justify extradition on judicial surrenders and now he's only judged. to consider the

evidence i'm not allowed to take into account the only grounds that you can oppose extradition very narrow you have to be old enough to committed the crime it has to be not a distant past you know twenty five years or something and it mustn't be because you're being prosper persecuted on the grounds of your sexual orientation very narrow grounds like that which he was qualified for and of course i have sat through a case where it seemed fairly obvious to the core and indeed to the judges hearing the appeal that the evidence had been manufactured by the police but of course another important element in this particular case is this pressure that we understand is coming from the u.s. to eventually extradite us are there to face espionage charges what you think that will bring oh yes i'm sure there's lots of political maneuvering inside the powers that be a very difficult position the americans want to get their hands on a song which authorities now think the game's up people can see what the european arrest warrants are about. so my guess is our car know what they're going to do but

i'm fairly confident that they're going to come up with come some kind of cynical fix that will allow him either to go back to australia or possibly to go back voluntarily to sweden if some kind of deal is done about what charges will be laid against him all right john button thank you very much that member of the european parliament gerald batten will be back here of course on the seventh and eighth of february to track what's happening in the main extradition hearing. reporting from london and sticking with the same story. from the committee to protect journalists says if julian assange is prosecuted in the u.s. it could have huge consequences for the freedom of the press worldwide. the first amendment of the constitution. guarantees press freedom in the united states and the espionage act has generally has never been and there's never been a successful prosecution of a journalist or anyone for disseminating information and so the notion that

somebody could be prosecuted for disseminating information under the espionage act in our view would open the door for subsequent prosecutions potentially of journalists and we in the protection of journalists in this country currently enjoy should they decide to pursue criminal charges under the espionage it will be applied expert territorially in other words outside the united states so potentially journalists around the world who report on or publish information about classified activities of the u.s. government might feel that they too could be subject to prosecution that was joel simon from the u.s. based group the committee to protect journalists portugal is maintaining it doesn't need outside financial help to prop up its ailing economy prime minister jose socrates said his country won't request any help and praised his government's efforts but critics say europe will have to assist in lisbon to prevent the continent's financial crisis from spreading which is widely seen as the next zone

country that bailed out after greece and ireland it country represents less than two percent of the blocks gross domestic product but experts fear its fall could affect the much bigger spanish economy financial advisor marco peter probably says a bailout wouldn't solve the fundamental flaws in the concept of the eurozone. this is not in any kind a way a final solution for the european debt crisis it is just buying time for these countries so that hopefully they will be able to get control of their fiscal situation and the markets will start to to believe in them again that they're able to service their debt moving forward in reality what's happening is burden in this country with these countries a lot more debt to service and the jury is still out on whether they can actually turn their fiscal position around over the next few years you can't save all the banks and save all the countries because at some point someone's got to file or

which is the other option which we've been pursuing so far is that we just carry on printing money and everybody carry on printing money and we end up with hyperinflation and most currencies then become worthless so at some stage someone's got to fail but what we're doing is patching up patching up patching up hoping that the issue's going to go away pushing the can further down the road now the europeans have to start thinking about a complete reform of the european structure. portugal mulls over its economic woes others are being more practical max kaiser and stacy herbert to hear how one european government has incited the wrath of fiendish powers with its new tax net kaiser report is coming your way later this hour right here on r.t. . he is which is curse income tax ruling so because of the financial crisis and the collapse of the banking systems and g.d.p.'s around the world romania's government has started taxing witches and fortune tellers from the first of january this year

and because of this the witches are basically cursing the government now queen which brought terror because they is furious about the new law and she says that she plans to cast a spell using a particularly effective concoction of cat excrement and a dead dog yet well goldman sachs collateralized debt obligation most of it is cat extreme it and then dogs this is what they're finding the federal reserve bank's balance sheet in washington the reason why they're afraid to do an audit at the request of ron paul is because they know that they've got basically dead beetles eye of newt some old chicken bones some dead cat excrement that's about all they've got at the federal reserve because the u.s. is technically. insolvent and so these witches are fighting fire with fire yeah they're fighting extreme it with dog poop. of course you are with r t coming up later in the program we look at how

a country bent on fighting terrorists appears to be sheltering one instead. of us is accused of protecting a former cia agent who's it wanted in latin america for deadly terror attacks all the details coming up in just a few minutes. two icebreakers have reached in the last ship that's been stranded for almost a fortnight off russia's far east coast with more than three hundred crew still on board this comes after they successfully tota smaller vessel to safer waters so first has the details of this ongoing rescue operation. it's a slight change in strategy that we've seen in the final stages of this rescue operation they've managed to free up a small refrigerator vessel and they've started tools. but what happened is that they managed to dispatch a helicopter pick hydrologist from the album micro ice breaker and they managed to see the area idolise the ice and they managed to find distasteful to leave this refrigerated vessel and that's freed up these two ice breakers to now back the same

route that they've come down which means they can avoid having to break free further ice coming back we had stand a press conference a federal fishing agency say the final part now going in freeing up by this large ship is going to be the most difficult now the estimate as to when the final operation is going to be finished still very dependent on these weather conditions that we seeing we know about the hole at this operation that it's really been very tricky for these icebreakers they've come up against very late temperatures incredibly. bit as they've now been able to continue back along the path they'd already broken not ice so it's now entering the final stages and. that was sarah first reporting international investigators are to deliver their final report on last april plane crash which killed the polish president lech kaczynski and ninety five others the document is expected to reveal new facts and point to

those responsible for the tragedy follow the full coverage of the results of the investigation on wednesday right here on our tree. the tragedy that shook the. church which killed president. will be. hitting lines in the kaczynski plane crash. a former cia agent alleged to be one of the most notorious terrorists in recent history has gone on trial in the u.s. luis posada is wanted in cuba and venezuela for masterminding a number of deadly terror attacks including the one nine hundred seventy six bombing of a passenger plane which killed over seventy people but none of these episodes are among the charges he faces in the u.s. are his. explains. the. miami florida

white sandy beaches miniskirts and bikini. this vacation spot is also home to a convicted international terrorist police put side a cookie list coined the bin laden of the americas the anti castro cuban was the cia's dirty secret in south and central america trained as an explosives expert at the new tory a school of the americas side as acts of terrorism spanned five decades it impacted half a dozen countries. over seventy people were killed when cuban airliner for fifty five was bombed in one thousand nine hundred ninety six a terrorist act posada plans from venice wallah and according to cia documents the agency was aware of it before it happened either cutlass was a mastermind of the or the one we know the of the of the crew on a flight and still he's here posada was convicted him stenchy and been

a swell of masterminding the bombing however not only did the us government refused to extradite but started to venezuela to serve his term the cia. continue to employ him as a key element of the contra wars which clean lines of seventy thousand civilians in nicaragua. he was a leading figure in the iran contra affair in the one nine hundred eighty s. had the cia stop assad in his tracks just off in my shoes my brother was killed in libya the still most brother fabio would still be alive put yourself in the place of the earth as a victim of the family victim of terrorism and its absurd distil mo an italian businessman was murdered in one nine hundred ninety seven bombing orchestrated by posada it was one of a string of hotel and nightclub bombings in cuba and it wasn't the only acts of terrorism put side to was involved in there was the two thousand assassination attempt on cuban leader fidel castro and a series of attacks across latin america after jailing posidon upon entering the

u.s. illegally law enforcement agencies warned the justice department up aside as terrorist past but he was set free anyway was now prosodic is on trial in el paso texas the charges against him not international terrorism but immigration fraud and perjury we unleashed him on the world peter kornbluh of the national security archives obtained dozens of documents pertaining to preside his involvement with the cia he says the case is about whether the united states truly can hold real terrorists although in this case a terrorist who was once our terrorist accountable livio acknowledges the importance of posada on trial but insists it's going to be too little too late the legacy of luis posada is that he is a cia created frankenstein and he went out and committed murder and mayhem the cia once described posada as a reliable asset to the u.s.

government a man of good character pro-u.s. who would make an excellent official in a post castro government half a century after post a lot of. again doing the cia's dirty work in latin america his bloody legacy lives on for the countless victims and as the u.s. government continues to fight the so-called war on terrorism extraditing kidnapping and assassinating suspects in other countries it continues to harbor one of the hemisphere's most notorious terrorists jan how first r t washington d.c. the work of the u.k.'s border agency has been slammed in a report by british m.p.'s the document suggests at least sixty thousand asylum seekers will be left to live illegally in the u.k. because the agency has lost all trace of them robinson cox a research fellow at the center for social cohesion says the situation results from the u.k. as open door policy and its obligations as in you member. britain has essentially

lost control of who is coming into the country and once you consequent borders you can't secure your country this is a outrageous situation that's allowed to develop i think is a huge problem with the brits inability to deploy generally. being part of the european union we often call in to pull people but country of origin because it may come trivia in the european convention on human rights on top of this there's a systemic problem where the huge backlog of cases and we have something like a hoffa million backlog of cases simply can't be processed and can't be dealt with quickly enough so you have a lot of people and that's immigration last year in the u.k. was around two hundred thousand people more coming to the u.k. than leaving it. on top of the assignment seekers on the backlog and of course going to have a massive problem we just need to be much straight to lay down much stricter criteria on who should be allowed into the u.k. and i don't think we've got it in control in any. amount enough because it is a. time now to take

a look at your world news from our team. evacuation efforts are underway in queensland that capital brisbane as it is bracing itself for its worst flooding in over a century with the brisbane river overflowing its banks and flood waters rising officials warn that the country's third largest city may be inundated in the next few days affecting some fifteen thousand people it follows a violent flash floods that david did town in queensland killing at least ten two thirds of the australian state has been declared a disaster zone. in ivory coast for opposition supporters have been killed when forces loyal to incumbent president laurent gbagbo opened fire on a crowd ignited nation as a convoy which tried to rush to the area and calm tension was blocked by a militant group despite international condemnation threats of military intervention has refused to cede power to his rival in recent elections he's also a key. the u.n. of bias he maintains control of virtually all security forces and has been accused

of killing hundreds of opposition members. at least thirteen people have been killed in the mudslide in the city of brazil homes were swept away and major roads flooded across the city. earlier this week caused rivers to burst their banks officials say rain in the first few days of january has been equal to the monthly average. memorial service has taken place in haiti for the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake which claimed the lives of more than two hundred thirty thousand people and left more than a million homeless haitian president rene preval made a mass grave where more than two hundred thousand victims are buried a year on less than five percent of debris has been cleared of outbreak of cholera killed more than thirty six hundred people the haitian government is blamed for its weakness in handling the situation but advocacy groups also point the finger.

failed to keep their pledges of support china has confirmed it has conducted a successful test flight of its new stealth fighter following on the heels of the u.s. and russia it is now the third country to put a stealth prototype into the air but. director of russia's center for the analysis of strategies and technology says china still has a long way to go before it can boast having a next generation jet. normally every six falling generation should be much different in capabilities from the previous one it should be multi-functional multi-role the aircraft which is able to be reconnaissance aircraft intercept in the dark and also for the chinese machine we should probably call demonstrate of technology all brought prototypes because we already had little or assure both because. they had

a prototypes which they used to work on sort of technologists but they never start serial production and i think these chinese machine they are more comparable to these demonstrators of technologies of design bureaus than the real current american in the russian federation aircraft i'll be back with a look at your headlines in about ten minutes but first as tuesday marked nine years since the opening of the u.s. detention center in guantanamo bay cuba we turn the spotlight on washington's controversial practices their next artie's laura and it talks to courtney bush human rights lawyer who reviews cases at camp delta and international secret prisons.

thanks very much for talking to us now you've recently come back from guantanamo bay tell me a bit about what you saw there what the conditions were like unfortunately we no longer meet the prisoners in the camps so we don't see the conditions in the camps any longer what we do is meet them in a separate holding camp whereby were brought in the detainees are brought in separately and we meet in trailers so what we know is what we hear from them and what the conditions are like unfortunately there is a lot of building more going on in guantanamo right now which leads us to believe that it's nowhere near closing as obama promised back in two thousand and nine when

he took office a lot of the details that we've heard about the treatment that terror suspects have been subjected to in guantanamo bay has been truly shocking i'm told that waterboarding and other forms of taught have you met people who were subjected to these forms of interrogation absolutely these these methods of interrogation the enhanced interrogation techniques as they are so referred did not happen to the minority they happen to the majority so what happens is you get instructors who earn tera gaiters and guards who are trained in these techniques that are actually use in military training to help army men and women resist interrogation being used on these men in guantanamo bay what does. reprise make of these methods of interrogation from a legal perspective while they're illegal under the geneva conventions the geneva conventions afford prisoners of war the right to be treated humanely and without degradation these treatments obviously do not stand up to this standard of treatment it is illegal but unfortunately in two thousand and two after the prison

first opened george bush declared that these men were not prisoners of war they were enemy combatants and therefore did not fall under the geneva conventions we still hold that this is a legal and if it's not illegal it's completely immoral anyways there are one hundred seventy three prisoners left in guantanamo what are the stories give me some examples of what some of the most opposed to a lot of them are ridiculous charges as for instance running away from the incoming northern alliance well that's because the northern alliance is bombing the cities they're in so obviously they're running away from the bombings in the conflict that of course is now being held against them as a charge and holding it up to say that they're terrorists you have people who have lost their passports or are on forged passports for asylum reasons and this is being held as proof as they're terrorists so it's a lot of different charges you have associations which in in laws not supposed to

convict you is not a sign of guilt but it is in their cases i believe the purpose of your work there and do you feel that you are able to sort of progress towards your goal to make a difference our goal is obviously to find a safe home for every man and get them released from guantanamo unfortunately we keep hitting walls for instance we've always held that people who won their hadiths cases about it is people who have been declared by the courts that they've been held illegally that they would not be forcibly repatriated to countries that will persecutor torture them that they have a better chance of being resettled in a third country that will offer them a good new home. unfortunately on thursday far he who is a winner was just forcibly repatriated to algeria so that's just another instance of a roadblock that we continuously run up against closing guantanamo within a year it was one of president obama's campaign promises two years it's now paused

and it's still open why was this promise broken and can you see any signs of him making good on it is part of the problem is that european countries are sick and tired of giving these men homes in the united states has done nothing to offer them the home considering that the united states is the ones who made the problem so obama's kind of run into this problem where the congress and the american people by large do not want to get mowed detainees brought into the united states but without that he's got nothing to do as for the future of guantanamo it's looking less and less likely that it will be closed any time in the future on thursday he signed the national defense authorization act which is for the fiscal year of two thousand and eleven which made it harder for detainees to be brought to the united states for criminal cases and that's just another roadblock in his closing the camp that we talk a lot about closing guantanamo but at the same time it is at least a detention facility that we know about isn't there

a fear that if it was closed detention secret detention would just go underground that is a worry but that is a worry whether or not one tunnel remains open and united states has used underground prisons for years and we know of these to transfer men to and from before they go to guantanamo they're held in secret prisons or only just finding out about some of these prisons and facts that were used years and years ago and the united states of course is changing it's ammo in secret detention it's doing proxy detention instead of secret detention so you're always going to run into that whether or not on tata motors open and we've been hearing more and more reports of secret cia facilities in europe do you what do you know about. there are ongoing investigations in many of the eastern europe countries for instance in lithuania last year there was a parliamentary inquiry which found that there were two secret prisons in the country that held that the secret prisons were probably not use.