the u.s. house of representatives voted down a measure giving president barack obama the authority to continue american military action in libya. declassified documents reveal the u.k. was happy to hand over terrorist suspects from iraq to the u.s. with little regard to what could be waiting for them in secret prisons. mourning the euro the fate of the common currency is in serious doubt as europe griese another played out the debt laden greece urges the country to get behind savage spending cuts. the former prime minister of ukraine goes on trial for abuse of power that's a lesser cost the country millions of tolerance. around fifteen hundred supporters

of units of a son called gathered in front of the court building to protest what they describe as a parsifal hearing join us for the latest details from the ukrainian capital kiev. international news and comment line from our studios here in central moscow this is . the lower house of us congress has voted down a resolution which expressed support for the american military action in libya the white house has never sought consent for the operation something which the house of representatives says is illegal and lawmakers are now threatening to cut funding for the campaign altogether because he's got a report that's unlikely to. it's just a resolution it's not a bill but it's meant to sort of reprimand the commander in chief for his policies but there is another proposal on the table of the house of representatives and that

is to cut off funding for u.s. participation in combat missions such as drone strikes in the needle led air war analysts say it's a way for the congress to show their frustration over the white house refusal to come to the lawmakers to seek authorization for the military actions under the us constitution only congress can declare war except the obama administration doesn't call it a war although it lasts more than three months and involves many civilian deaths that too is frustrating to many on capitol hill but is the thought the measure proposed by the lawmakers is unlikely to result in an actual the finding of the u.s. participation in the review or because it has to go through the senate and some of the leading voices in the senate both democrat and republican have made it clear that they are in favor of the u.s. military intervention in libya and would authorize it so the move of the house of representatives is seen more like a message of review sends to president obama rather than an actual war stop or even

those who really truly wants to stand up against the military actions in levy out there is little they can do as one congressman said here and i'm going to quote him you can't do resolutions until you're blue in the face but still be ignored by the white house but it seems it's not just resolutions that can be ignored it's also the voices of the american people the majority of whom are against the u.s. involvement there is also one interesting point that some explosive made was regards to the public perception of the war in the media and get is it's off the headlines american news channels of for weeks been focused on congress and viewers who are trying to there's fear that certain inertia develops in the public perception with regards to the war in libya inertia which some say could be very dangerous. and it's come reporting there from washington the u.k. failed to track detainees handed over to the u.s.

neglecting to protect them from possible torture in america's secret prisons that's been revealed after an agreement between the two states on the treatment of terror suspects captured in iraq was declassified twenty eight year old pakistani yunus rahmatullah is one of the victims of this deal in the seas by producer just in iraq in two thousand and four as a suspected insurgent and secretly sent to a u.s. detention camp in afghanistan processed of extraordinary rendition the man's lawyers are calling on the u.k. to help free him as britain was the detaining authority or a crowd or from the reprieve charity he's fighting for from a trial is released told r.t. that britain's friendship with america blinded to the truth. there are hundreds of prisoners but what makes you know special is that eunice was actually picked up by the united kingdom in iraq in february two thousand and four the u.k. handed him to the united states in march and april there were discussions between the u.s. and the u.k. because the u.s. wanted descendant of a problem in the u.k.

didn't object despite the fact that at this time even the photos broke making it absolutely clear to anyone who had any doubt what was happening to prisoners in u.s. the township the u.k. says that it learned quote unquote in june of that year june two thousand and four that my client had been sent to bob graham and although there was an m.o. you kind of deal between the u.s. and the u.k. that permits the u.k. to get him out of custody and never bother to do so so we've had to sue them in the united kingdom courts in haiti as corpus to tell them you have to get this person or vacuum never should have been so on top of iraq he was rendered unlawfully in violation of the geneva conventions and you have a responsibility to him he's your prisoner when we first started to go see the prisoners there shortly after the supreme court allowed prisoners to go in we had heard all kinds of stories of people being roughed up in a few years at this moment the clients i don't see there are going on ten years in detention they've lost almost a decade of their lives and there's no prospect of a trial and no prospect of release and congress is going on saying we need to have

gone forever so that's the real need that they go through at this point uncertain future no prospect of leaving i think it's one of the saddest parts of the whole war on terror story the way various european nations for the kind of witting or unwitting handmaidens of us torture practices we know about cia secret prisons in poland romania lithuania the u.k. is the us its closest ally let's be clear and we saw time and again in the war on terror the u.k. getting just a little bit too close to the illegality of george bush and his cronies. but britain is not the only state that's been supporting the us to carry out its illegal treatment of prisoners back in two thousand and one leaders gave america be a green light to go ahead with its vision of battling terror and since then hundreds have gone through torture with out a trial of these daniel bushell as one story. was arrested on the streets and sent to guantanamo for torture after five years america released him without charge to

this day the u.s. has given no explanation all said story couldn't as is suing george bush's lawyer alberto gonzalez for ruling tool sure is legal interrogators from the land of the free are free to cause quote simulated drowning reply instrumentality impairment of bodily function organ failure and even death. on myself. because i want science. i was forced. and i was not the us refused to even reveal the will hold income earners he's muggles disloyal to find her son it took several years there was no chance to get in quantico. it's really a shame for the united states what happened in. puerto concerning

national law and it's simply impossible that twenty first century. put in the extra. room. and saying you have no right push for moves to end the practices they are imposing a set of standards on our intelligence communities in terms of interrogating prisoners that our people think would be ineffective in the classified memo gonzales did warn us gods it was legally safer to perform torture on foreign soil as in the european union were glad to oblige the e.u. agreed to help arrest and transport people to countries where they could be tortured in a meeting here at nato headquarters in two thousand and one detainees may or may not have been guilty since they never received a real trial we just can't know for sure. obama was elected on the promise to show

. but he's even appealed us school rulings which give detainees some royds two years on the prison still open for business we're all watching ministration guilty of. crimes against humanity sociopaths this ration it's always helpful for participating and support exactly executives from bush down and they'll figure going abroad and of the foreigners food lawsuits over torture when the world america's doing said bush's advisor we will all be ashamed don't you bush shorty braman. the euro is dead and buried quite literally according to skeptics who held a mock funeral for the ailing single currency in brussels they argue that attempts to bail out greece are too little too late and athens economic failure would leave the eurozone dream in tatters the members have agreed on the terms of

a new bailout pressing the greek authorities to tighten the purse strings once again if the money is to be handed over again will vote on the proposed twenty eight billion euro budget cut over five years next week if approval mean another twelve billion euros in rescue money after eight years parties are in english joined those were. economic worms. this is a funeral procession in the center of brussels where the european leaders are meeting to discuss the future of the greek debt and of the eurozone itself they believe the euro can be salvaged but most people including euro skeptics believe that it is impossible and there will be no resurrection of the euro well to me and i think a lot of people it's beginning to collapse around the really seeing bailouts billions of pounds of taxpayers' money especially from the germans putting a lot of this bill and i think the public about enough of it and i don't know if the leaders of the european union have presented greece with to konya conditions in order for the country to receive the remainder i think to be allowed unfortunately

for greece they will have to take extreme measures which are incredibly unpopular in the country and that presents a major challenge for the greek government right immediately after it has just been for shuffled the leaders are you know mostly wrong again. maybe i'm wrong about greece from the very start she should never have been allowed to join the euro in the first place she wasn't suited to it they were wrong to bail her out first time they're wrong drawn by the second time and if the greek parliament on tuesday except this package this time next year i'll be talking to you i will be a third bailout so while the european leaders are extremely excited about the fact that the future of the year old could still be resurrected most of the people in europe do not believe so and unfortunately for the european leaders the common europeans believe that the end of the euro is near. the third lot of sanctions by the european union over syria have come into force the new round of measures target syrian companies but also members of iran's revolutionary guard and other four high

ranking syrian officials were put on the black list which includes thirty people the syrian president and his brother talking about this well let's talk more on this development with journalist danny who's in london thank you very much for joining us here in the u.s. probably keep threatening syria only with sanctions but do you think these measures will have any influence on assad's regime. i don't believe so. i think any further economic sanctions on syria will have almost no impact whatsoever on the current situation in syria and on the current crackdown and let's not forget that series already subject to american sanctions including age restrictions and export brands. has recently put economic sanctions on the country as well and has gradually extended those sanctions sanctions to members of the family including

the president himself and that hasn't proved to be enough to deter the last ad regime from cracking down on peaceful demonstrators who are turning to a. perhaps bring about change in the country mainly. have access to more freedoms so why this soft approach to syria in comparison to libya which of course is now being rained on by plenty of bombs by nato every day so is this really a case of the west not really wanting assad to go. i think syria has proved has exposed in fact the double standard in the international community's approach to all these revolutions sweeping across the arab world in the middle east let's not forget that. nato went to war against libya because fear that there would be a potential killing of innocent civilians in benghazi now we are witnessing an

actual massacre taking place in syria and yet the international community has been rather cautious in its reaction towards syria because of its crucial strategic position in the middle east israel is of course one of its near neighbors and close friends include countries like iran and iran is said to her playing a role in the crackdown in syria so sorry to interrupt just just what you don't so therefore what you're saying is if assad does go he's the one who really is in this some effect holding the country together with regards to stability in the region but if he does that regime does collapse it could lead to civil war and then what's . well i think the international community the western end the obama administration in particular has an interest in maintaining our side in power is faced by

a dilemma because american interest in the region are yet again the challenge of course. it would i mean it would be it would welcome president alaska to go if somebody else could colleen that we would sustain and indeed maintain americans interest in the region where there is unlikely to happen because when the moment you have a democratic or you introduce democracy in a country then the clout and the weight of the public opinion is of course much more important and i don't think that the public opinion in syria would be. willing to support american interests in the region what about this development where we understand the e.u. sanctions are so targeting members of the iranian revolutionary guard what does that mean in the way that iran is involved and what are the implications. well the

implications are that they are a very close ties between the syrian regime and indeed the reigning regime as i said the reigning regime seems to be very much involved in suppressing the opposition movement in syria so. basically the international community would like. is very cautious in its reaction to what's happening in syria because it doesn't want iran to become involved much bigger scale. in in the region because it also means not just iran getting involved but we understand the tensions between turkey and syria over the refugee crisis yet another country is being drawn into this problem. very much so i mean turkey has always been a very close ally to syria and not least of all because their trade partners i

have to say that the turkish reaction to the refugee crisis has been very impressive providing all the majestic to welcome what is believed to be more than ten thousand refugees who have fled syria to find refuge in neighboring turkey so this if the refugee crisis is a pit in my eyes is the the the critical point. of the situation in syria really interesting to hear we have to say that's all we got time for thanks so much for joining us. joining us live from london thank you. let's return to our top story now the vote by the u.s. house of representatives to deny president obama the authority to continue america's military involvement in libya let's not get reaction from the u.s. now and speak to phyllis bennis she's the director of the institute for policy studies in washington for us thanks very much indeed for joining us well the house

has just voted on a bill to cut funding for this operation in libya right after refusing to approve u.s. military action there some real mixed messages coming out of washington tonight can you explain what's going on. well it's a lot of mixed messages as you say both of these votes were really symbolic the vote would have been very significant if the house had voted to cut off funds but even that would not have had any direct impact on the ground because of course the senate been aided by president obama's own democratic party would never have approved that one earlier vote was in some ways more interesting the vote that refuse to indorse or give permission to the commander in chief president obama to continue the war in libya and what we were seeing here was actually a coming together of three or more different forces there were republican forces who will vote against president obama for anything just for partisan political reasons there were people from both parties whose concern was over the legality

that the the law passed in one nine hundred seventy three at the height of vietnam requires the president to get congressional approval when he sends troops or military resources abroad within sixty days the president can do it on his own for sixty days but after that he must get approval that sixty days has passed days ago and he has not asked for approval and this was a statement from the congress that they don't want to approve it that makes it a very illegal action within the context of the u.s. constitution itself and then of course there is a core level of opposition from both parties anti-war democrats an anti-war mainly tea party or extremist republicans rather isolationist on their side who are against the substance of this war in libya and do not feel that supporting the nato action in libya is a useful operation so you had all of those coming together to send

a message to president obama one that in fact reflects very strongly public opinion which is largely against u.s. participation in the war in libya and it's going to be interesting now to see if there's any serious response from the wife was going to last you just will respond what sort of reaction. well there could be a number of things there could be a statement saying i'm aware now that the congress is not in favor of this does not recognize it as legitimate that means i have to begin the process of withdrawing u.s. support for the nato operation that would be the best situation i don't think that that's very likely what we've seen in the last days regarding afghanistan of course in a similar situation without the congressional aspect but where public opinion has turned decisively against the war in afghanistan it's now sixty four percent of the american people say that the war is not worth fighting and yet when president obama

spoke the other night he did somehow reflect that new reality by acknowledging that the debate now the discussion now is over how many troops to withdraw and how fast to withdraw them rather than how many new troops to send in how much to escalate but there was not a serious drawdown it was really a token drawdown that he announced only ten thousand troops to come out this year that leaves for the rest after this year most of the two hundred thousand u.s. troops and u.s. paid mercenaries that are now occupying afghanistan not to speak of the forty to fifty thousand nato troops so it's a very small amount even when you add to that the twenty three thousand that will be withdrawn sometime next year you're still talking about leaving in place at least sixty eight percent sixty thousand of the u.s. soldiers twice as many as were there when president obama took office and leaving unchanged apparently one hundred thousand u.s.

paid pentagon paid. contractors that are backing up the u.s. military so we're talking about going through the end of next year still with a huge massive mobilization of troops occupying afghanistan so therefore there's not really a reflection of the shore just directly also you therefore we are seeing still a continued commitment to afghanistan surely there's going to be that continued commitment to libya despite what's the status of the. well we're seeing that in afghanistan i think the situation in libya is more fluid the commitment of the united states has not been nearly as strong to to libya the u.s. went in rather grudgingly this was nationally and initiative by the brits and the french far more than the us the us joined it it could have been start if russia and other countries had actually voted against it rather than abstaining in the in the vote in the u.n. security council that might have done something to stop it but right now it's

moving forward primarily with the brits and the french in control the u.s. providing very crucial support but from behind i don't think that there is anywhere near the same level of commitment in washington to this short war that's going on now for three months in in libya as there is to the long standing now ten year old war in afghanistan thanks so much for giving us your time here in our to live from washington. institute for policy studies thank you. other news now the former prime minister of ukraine has gone on trial for abusing power during a term in office in two thousand and nine units a mission to secure the gas deal with russia which is claimed to robbed the ukrainian economy of millions of dollars she's dismissed the cases fabricated but faces up to ten years in jail if convicted. is in care for. the atmosphere inside the courtroom and around the court building is absolutely electrifying around fifteen hundred supporters of you as you can see here gathered in central

kiev to protest what they describe as a farcical hearing of the farcical case against their leader i guess. i really give you credit politics first started this child with a little bit of controversy she refused to stand up when the judge entered the room and then she said that this judge was completely unqualified for the case and that it needed to be dismissed clearly the tension is rising as this case says it's for . station units much angle has been summoned to the prosecutor's office for months now for questioning now this case is being taken to the courtroom and we will be hearing some developments in the next several weeks or so the crane's former prime minister yulia timoshenko is being charged with many different financial crimes including the amateur or professional as described by the prosecution gas deal with russia in two thousand and nine the prosecution claims that due to those deals

ukraine lost more than four hundred million u.s. dollars and this is clearly the main charge against the country's former prime minister it is something of a full from grace for the woman who was once one of the most powerful and prominent politicians in the world several magazines describe your expression glass as one of the most important female politicians on the planet now she she could become a convict and if convicted she could face up to ten years in prison even if this is that this would be suspended for her then still she would be unable to run for president for the next presidential election twenty fifteen this according to thomas and co makes this case political and she describes it as the one being orchestrated personally by president because you have a quote which it is not the first time that putin was shango is his on the trial in two thousand and one she was charged with smuggling the russian gas into ukraine clearly the supporters of you too much and co are ready to beseech the court

building until they hear any news coming from inside and will clearly be seeing more public unrest due to this case in the next several weeks or maybe even months but we'll be following all the details and bringing you the latest details as soon as we get it. and we'll be back with a summary of all top stories for me in just a five minutes but of the business with you to stay with us life and. hello that's right time for your business update and oil prices have stabilized after dropping almost five percent on thursday that was on the back of a surprise announcement by the international energy agency that sixty million barrels of world would be released from strategic reserves so all of the search time in history the i.a.e.a. has sanctioned the release of reserves the moves intended to offset the loss of production from libor currently engulfed in civil war and meanwhile some. possible counter measures to prop up the world price christine from standard and poor's

explains why she thinks the i.a.e.a. has taken the unusual action. i think it's three things one it is trying to ensure that when the northern hemisphere is going to the driving season there will be enough supply now a lot of the opec member countries have said the reason of supply and that is correct but what you need is to make sure that prices don't birol up the second is to ensure that there is a soft landing for the economy what they are trying to ensure is that the world economy does not go into a guard or recession and thirdly there has been a lot of frustration from oil barrels that have been taken out of the market on speculation so what the thing is listen guys we are going to jump in the market so don't try to get prices are because you're going to lose money so these should put a barrier to oil prices a cap which should hopefully ensure that the world continues to. planned and recover from the recession. a quick check on the price of oil light sweet is

trading at just under ninety one dollars a barrel vile brand is at over one hundred six dollars. a look at the markets u.s. stocks opened lower gear down now this despite a slight up with provision of first quarter g.d.p. figures on the corporate front micron technology. what a disappointing results for us that's what they're saying chip sales all week. and european markets were mixed this friday that c. narrowed it's early gains investors confidence and banks are shaken by this is a bunch of trading and some lenders in easily under pressure from europe step crisis techs was in the red point four percent. and here in russia the markets rebounded after thursday's shut losses both a.r.g.s in the my six finished up one and a half and one point six percent respectively. russia's biggest social networks contacted argues going to hold an initial public offering in new york the company hopes to

get the listing completed jury twenty twelve and analysts say the company could be worth up to three billion dollars given the high demand for tech stocks come back to the house around sixty million users worldwide with half of those in russia last month russia search engine again that successfully listed on the nasdaq raising one point three billion dollars. who have time for now join me next hour.