well they can do as one congressman said here and i'm going to quote him you can 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 being b.p.'s there is also one interesting point that some explanations make with regards to the public perception of the war in libya and that is it's off the headlines american news channel so for weeks been focused on congressman weiner's crotch shot there is 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 the classified twenty eight year old pakistani eunice

is one of the victims of this do you see produce soldiers in iraq in two thousand and four as a suspected insurgent and secretly sent to a u.s. detention camp in afghanistan process 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 of from the reprieve charity who's fighting for his release told r.t. that britain's friendship with america blinds it to the truth. there are hundreds of prisoners but what makes you 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 descended to the u.k. didn't object despite the fact that at this time even the ghraib photos broke making it absolutely clear to anyone who had any doubt what was happening to

prisoners in u.s. detention 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 and know 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 bothered to do so so we've had to sue them in the united kingdom courts and maybe as corpus to tell them you have to get this prisoner back he never should have been sent out of iraq he was rendered on lawfully in violation of the geneva conventions and you have a responsibility to him he's your prisoner when we first started to go see you prisoners there shortly after the supreme court allowed prisoners to go in we had heard all kinds of stories of people being roughed up and abused at this moment the clients i go and 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 agony 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 and poland remain in 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. 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 the leaders gave america the green light to go ahead with its vision of battling terror and since then hundreds have gone through torture with out a trial ortiz 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 instrumentality impairment of bodily function organ failure and even death but i was one of those who survived those kind of torture. myself electroshocks because i was. i was forced to agree. and i was. the us refused to even reveal they were holding his mother his lawyer to find her son it took several years there was no chance to get in contact with mr corners it's really a shame for the united states what happened. is what concerned that national law and it's simply impossible in the twenty first century to put

someone in the extra. room. saying you have no right bush 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 will be ineffective in a de classified memo gonzales did warn us gods it was legally safer to perform torture on foreign soil ministers 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. barack obama was elected on the promise to show. but he's even appealed us cool rulings which give detainees some royds

two years on the prison still open for business. all is the washing inspiration guilty of criminal. crimes against humanity sociopaths ministration and so is your plea for participating and support these that executives from bush down no fear going abroad of the foreigners fold lawsuits over torture when the world learns what america's doing said bush's advisor we will all be ashamed the new bush will r.t. braman. the euro is dead and buried quite literally according to skeptics who held a mock funeral for the 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 even members have agreed on the terms of a new bit of pressing the greek authorities to tighten the purse strings once again if the money is to be the government will vote on the proposed twenty. five years

next week if approved. and rescue workers. join those warning the economic ones. 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 see in 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've had enough of it if the leaders of the european union have presented greece with draconian conditions in order for the country to receive the remainder of its bailout 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

shuffled the leaders are unanimously 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 out first time they're wrong drawn by the second time and if the greek parliament on tuesday accept this package then this time next year i'll be talking to you. so while the european leaders are extremely excited about the fact that the future of the euro 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 . a third block 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

topping that list well let's talk more on this development with journalist nabila ramdani in london thank you very much indeed for joining us so that even the u.s. well they keep threatening syria only with sanctions but do you think these measures will have any influence on assad regime. i don't believe so at all 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 let's not forget that series already subject to american sanctions including age restrictions and export bans the e.u. has recently put. on extensions on the country as well and has gradually extended those sanctions to members of the family including the president himself and that hasn't proved to be enough to deter the regime from cracking

down on peaceful demonstrators who are turning to or. perhaps bring about change in the country and 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 the 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 incan 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 new neighbors and close friends include countries like iran and iran is said to her be playing a role in. in the crackdown in syria so sorry to interrupt just just to ask you then so therefore what you're saying is if assad does go he's the one who really is some effect holding the country together with regards to stability in the region but if he does go fit that regime does collapse it could lead to civil war and then was. well i think the international community the west and the obama administration in particular has an interest in maintaining. power is faced by a dilemma because americans interests in the region are yet again a challenge to of course. you would i mean it would be

it would welcome president al assad to go if somebody else quit kamin that would sustain and indeed maintain americans interest in the region but it 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 and what about this development where we understand the e.u. sanctions are also targeting members of the iranian revolutionary guard what does that mean in the way that iran is involved here what are the implications. what the implications are that they are a very close ties between the syrian regime and indeed the iranian regime as i said the iranian regime seems to be very much involved in suppressing the

opposition movement in syria so. basically the international community would like to. very cautious in its reaction to what was happening in syria because it doesn't want iran to become involved much bigger scale. in in the region but of course it also means not just iran getting involved but we understand the tensions between turkey and syria over the refugee crisis yet another country perhaps being drawn into this problem. very much so i mean turkey has always been a very close ally to syria not least of all because they are trade partners i have to say that the turkish reaction to the refugee crisis has been very impressive of providing all the logistics to welcome what is believed to be more

than ten thousand refugees who have fled syria to find refuge in neighboring turkey so the syrian refugee crisis is a pit in my eyes is the the the the critical point that the of the situation in syria really interesting to hear we have to say that all we've 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 when they did buy president obama's own democratic party would never have approved that one earlier vote was in some ways more interesting the vote that refused to endorse 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 thousand 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 interest. now to see if

there's any serious response from the white fellas for the last few just we'll 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 eight thousand of the u.s. soldiers twice as many as were there when president obama took office and leaving unchanged apparently the 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 it was not really a reflection of the sure just directly ask you therefore we are seeing still a continued commitment to afghanistan surely there's going to be that continued commitment to libya despite what has happened to 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 an initially an initiative by the brits and the french far more than the us the us joined it it could have been stopped 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 for this thanks so much for giving us your time here in our to live from washington phyllis bennis in the rector of the institute of 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 and that she is in care force. the atmosphere inside the courtroom and around the court building is absolutely elektra find around fifteen hundred supporters of you too much i can see here gathered in central kiev to protest what they describe as a farcical hearing as a farcical case against their leader against unity much ankle now the i really give

you credit politics herself 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 and does its final stage you to assemble has been summoned to the prosecutor's office for months now for questioning now this case has been taking to the courtroom and we will be hearing some developments in the next several weeks or so the cranes former prime minister yulia timoshenko is being charged with many different financial crimes including the amateur professional as described by the prosecution's 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 you. 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 sent this would be suspended for her then still she would be unable to run for president for the next presidential election in twenty fifteen this according to you it's a machine called makes this case political and she describes it as the one being orchestrated personally by president viktor you have a quote which it is not the first time that you have to a sham go is. the trial in two thousand and one she was. charged with smuggling the russian gas into ukraine clearly the supporters of you to assemble are ready to besieged the court building until they hear any news coming from inside and will clearly be seeing more public and rescue 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. we'll be back with some of our top stories we just have five minutes but off of the business with you to stay with us life in moscow. 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 oil would be released from strategic reserves is all of the thirteen in history the he has sanctioned the release of reserves the moves intended to offset the loss of production from libor currently engulfed in civil war meanwhile some warn of possible counter measures to prop up the oil price christine says corona 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 there is enough for fly and that is correct but what you need is to make sure that prices don't spiral 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 double recession and thirdly there has been a lot of frustration from oil barrels that have been taking out of the market on speculation so what the saying is listen guys we are going to dump oil in the market so don't try to get prices up 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 soft land and recover from the recession. and a quick check on the price of oil light sweet is trading at just under ninety one dollars a barrel while 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 report. disappointing results were the same chip sales all week and european markets were mixed this friday the foot sea narrowed its allegations investors' confidence and banks were shaken by this is a bunch of trading and some lenders in italy under pressure from europe's debt crisis techs was in the red point four percent. and here in russia the markets rebounded after thursday's shot most as both the r.t.s. in the my six finished up one and a half and one point six percent respectively. russia's biggest social networks come back to dot argues going to hold an initial public offering in new york the company hopes to get the listing completed during twenty twelve and analysts say the company could be worth up to three billion dollars given the high demand for tech stocks contactee has won sixty million users worldwide with half of those in

russia last month russia search engine yandex successfully listed on the nasdaq raising one point three billion dollars. i will have time for nod join me next hour . culture is that so much different and there's a huge music history and on top of that if one takes it strategy bomber's long

awaited plan to start drawing down troops levels in afghanistan is in play but is that a real drawdown or just a rich. from the russian capital with you twenty four hours a day top stories now at half past the hour the u.s. house of representatives has voted down a measure giving barack obama the authority to continue american military action in libya it seems a merely symbolic falling out between congress and the president as the house later rejects a bill to cut funding for the campaign. declassified documents reveal the u.k. was happy to hand over terrorist suspects to the u.s. with little regard to what would be waiting for them in secret prisons once out of washington's jurisdiction hundreds ended up being tortured and abused without a trial. mourning the euro the fate of the common currency is in serious doubt as europe agrees on another plane out the debt laden greece just the country to get

behind savage spending cuts over some experts argue it's too late says the euro already has both feet in the grave. plus the former prime minister of ukraine goes on trial for abuse of power that's alleged to have cost the country millions of dollars from the shanker faces up to ten years behind bars if convicted in kenya. that brings up state of the moment. in fifteen minutes from now in the meantime moscow wild explores the divisive figure of the father of the russian revolution. that's next. hello and welcome to the show on this week's program exploring life the boss that

lead to change the course of the straight and starting off red square next to the magnificent kremlin. as we take a look at his epic journey and visit various landmarks associated with his life and . chose his studio. as one of the leading. revolutionary think. he changed the world. bullshit takeover of power in russia in one nine hundred seventy the communist party. he came from and. what is the soviet. leader you know for the developments in syria who. might say. those guys were really about.