the people who are as they are there at the source of this call are the you to serve illusionary alliance which is comprised of more than fifty political groups six of the six of them are the most probably revolutionary groups in the country a lot of them are university students for whom it is the first day of the semester and they're staging sit ins and walk outs they're not going to lectures they're not going to classes they're boycotting exams they're saying that they do want to see some real changes towards democracy in the country which they haven't seen yet they're also calling on workers for massive strikes to go on indefinitely until the military council steps down but a lot of the parties that have made it into the parliament. during the recent elections are actually not supporting the strike primarily or we should know it's the muslim brotherhood who are saying that these are the does these calls for a massive strike are actually destructive to the country because that will only judge egypt into further poverty and disarray also the religious leaders in the

country are not supporting the strike as well but students the young people who work behind this site really sit well with the workers who wanted to see some real differences they are saying that things must be changes immediately more on the why it's absence are going to strike here is my call it very thing else not. around a thousand killed at least six thousand injured and even more still missing egypt's people have paid a high price to leave in a new country but despite all the sacrifices the shadow of the old regime still lose launch during mubarak thirty years of mubarak's rule the estimated number of people try them under military tribunals where one to two thousand now you know within about ten months or eleven months we have twelve thousand which is of course a humongous number for a country ruled by the military the supreme council of the armed forces or scaf that's no surprise but surprisingly enough those discomforted over from who'd previously right. in the country are not themselves before military tribunals. for

. suspected killers. thought. to be simply a court system. or ordinary people there may be. medical records this is a better way and this is in the. hasty with no proper investigation usually with no lawyer and behind closed doors and with no right of appeal human rights activists complain military trials provide no justice and violate human rights you know you have a nineteen year old getting a twenty five year old center your centers because he had a box of molotov cocktails and people who are found guilty of killing somebody by brutally beating him up and torturing him until he died these are getting seven years in jail so i mean it there obviously there's something wrong with this

picture a lot of these people i've tried for absolutely no reason i mean someone just just being in the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to get you in trouble that's exactly what a man says is his case september the time the israeli embassy in cairo the place. began screenplay writer was present at clashes between the army and demonstrators and began helping the injured arrested he was brought to military barracks after summary trial which lasted just twenty minutes he was taken straight to prison to serve almost four months for terrorism he says the military dishes out a very rough justice. in the emerging a seventy two year old who's been in the army for at least thirty years it must be hard for him to take off his uniform in this large stall and this was the only way they know how to deal with problems. for several days what did know her son's whereabouts. when his sister came to me and said i have to talk to you i knew it

was about him hoping for the best i prepared myself for the worst. a month after ahmed was released he now faces yet another trial from the same incident at these really embassy. go is to intimidate people the message is clear if you go to to really you'll be arrested and it makes us even stronger how is it they don't understand that mad is no working on a book he wants a title you must shut up he explains if people didn't give up after been beaten and humiliated they'll never give up until their voices a herald. the citadel in cairo egypt and medieval symbol of power and strength it was fortified centuries ago to protect the region from his enemies at that time crusades and persuaders today egypt's rulers are doing the same striving to defend themselves and to keep power with thousands in jails and dozens killed

the concern here is that they may have been working too hard. and written off now t. cairo. well let's get some more perspective on this joining me live now is bell true she's a freelance journalist based in qatar and i understand you've been closely monitoring the developments there so why are gyptian protesting are the military rulers promised a presidential election in june now that's just three months away why they run out of patience. well i think first start people are unsure about whether you actually transfer power in jean and so far the military the ruling military council has yet to fulfill any of its promises that said since they came into power also just generally on the streets we're seeing massive human rights violations towards protesters were people expressing their freedom of speech and we've seeing excessive use of tear gas and cartouche they call it here which is birdshot and

maiming protesters there's been absolutely no reform of the police as it exemplified by the football disaster a few weeks ago which saw over seventy four people die so essentially we've seen very little reform since mubarak stepped down and people are a basically anxious that nothing will change and it will just slip into a new new dictatorship it's interesting isn't it that the party that won a majority in the recent elections the muslim brotherhood they are not supporting the strike the protest why is that considering just a few days ago they were pressing the army to replace the current prime minister with their own candidates. it's a strange move from the muslim brotherhood but we've seen as continuously not backing revolutionary actions so for example during the bamber in december there were sit ins in tahrir square against the military and the most of brotherhood refrain from getting involved and because they were actually sort of doing their campaigns for the elections and there's a brotherhood of playing a safe game at the moment i think people here saying that in parliament they want

to stay in parliament it want to rock the boat. they were calling these strike actions is destructive and i'm going to cause the ruin of egypt so i think for them they're just protecting their own interests which is to stay in parliament where they have a majority and what is the future then for egypt with that muslim brotherhoods majority in parliament. it's a difficult one to predict exactly what's going to happen i mean the parliament itself as quiet reduce alleged power thanks to the constitution that gratian written by the ruling military council so it's difficult to say how much effect the muslim brotherhood is going to have on egypt as we hear what you have a constitution in place we're not really sure what the role of parliament is and they're really finding their feet at the moment so i think for most egyptians parliament really isn't the issue it's the government and he's actually in control used who's in control when the constitution is written really it seems that nothing has changed since the fall of mubarak and we're seeing of course these very strong

protests and i'll always perhaps seeing the chance of another revolution happening in egypt. i think most people here would would say they do say that the revolution never ended but it's called the continuous or the ongoing revolution really since january even after mubarak stepped down this time last year they've been continuous sit ins and protests and violent clashes with egypt's security forces pushing for protestors pushing for change they have sent yes so really we are looking at a continuous revolution just very briefly your your experience of life there in egypt just how is this unrest affecting the economy and the people there at the moment just very quickly your own personal observations. it's seriously affected the economy obviously. the stock market crashed massively this time last year and the people feel it on the ground people are desperate for food on the table and this is what's turning opinion against the ongoing revolutions that definitely the

economy fact is we're hoping it will pick up seeing true thanks so much for your time there cora based journalist joining us live there in egypt. a draft resolution on syria has been circulated at the u.n. general assembly by saudi arabia it's similar to the text vetoed in the security council last week while calling for an end to violence by all sides it lays blame primarily on the syrian authorities state t.v. says government of assassinated an army general in the capital damascus the first killing of a high ranking military officer since protests began in the group port of ongoing fighting in the country the city of aleppo suffered twin blasts on friday that killed twenty eight the free syrian army initially claimed responsibility for the attacks but later denied involvement in the government meanwhile syria's opposition says it expects official recognition from arab gulf states later this week. with no u.n. mandate to intervene in the crisis the u.s. is now said to be getting

a coalition of states to support the opposition with calls from washington to arm the rebels well for more on this i can now talk to sarah marusek she's from the university based in beirut syria's draft resolution it's reached the un general assembly moscow opposed the discussion of a similar text veto just a week ago in the security council how do you see this latest attempt by western and arab states to unite international pressure against. well it's kind of expected really it doesn't seem like they're ever willing to negotiate or compromise on any of these issues and they're just always interested in forcing their own interest and their own agenda down other people's throats no matter who they're dealing with it's always comes down to their interests and really it's been very well known that united states and european allies are interested in regime change in syria and they won't stop at anything. that does not deliver

a different government that they hope will be more sympathetic to western interests which is quite naive really when you think about it because the people in syria are likely not going to be more sympathetic to american and israeli aggression throughout the region and so it's interesting that they seem to be so hard hard hard core with pushing these resolutions through either through their own. diplomats or through their puppet allies in the gulf states so i don't think that if the if the resolution was already vetoed by china and russia once before i don't think that this is going to change anything it just shows that this is not a negotiation it's not a compromise it's again an act of imperialism trying to push through poor interests in syria that syria's population and syria's people you know the syrian people in a poll recently said that the actually favor assad staying in power because they

fear the consequences of him leaving fifty five percent and of course this doesn't get published by any mustard media and no western diplomats or politicians would ever think to take seriously that kind of information let's talk about the way the u.s. some of the arab countries and nato allies are trying to pursue their interests there we do know that the roll calls from washington to. the rebel groups but we also know that some of those opposition groups are being linked to al qaida does the u.s. and its allies really intend to support them directly or indirectly in that way. it's absolutely fascinating hearing the contradictory reports coming out of washington recently there were you know u.s. politicians saying oh these are just peaceful protestors they're not armed at all they're not doing anything violent we must support them we must back them and basically take down assad and then you have reports yesterday regarding the blast in aleppo saying that you know by u.s.

intelligence officials saying that this was the work of al qaeda likely coming through perhaps iraq or something like that but it is so yes of course you are right it's very ironic that you know maybe we have another case where libya a situation where the united states is just so naive in pushing through this policy that they're willing to overlook intelligence that proves that they're going to be supporting our our sworn enemies you know this is we kill people constantly with drones you know suspected terrorists and here we are going to arm the russian of course russia of course is saying this is a serious matter to be decided by the soon some souls pushing for negotiation now we're seeing the free syrian army looking for recognition from the arab gulf states this weekend well how significant is that by picking out one element of the opposition the gulf states doing that. help in any way to promote future negotiation efforts. i don't see this actually being very good for the syrian

people at all the free syrian army is the armed opposition it's conducting very violent acts against civilians in syria against both the government and you know innocent syrians we don't know who the body counts you know what politics people have who are killed and it's just purported reported by the media that these are like anti assad civilians but they're not they're also pro assad civilians and so i don't think the syrian people are really going to appreciate you know an outside exile group that's doing acts of violence you know suddenly undemocratically declaring that they represent the people and that they should be recognized as syria's true leaders but you know again this this probably reeks of you know suggestions of washington suggestions coming from the capitals of europe you know arming and training these people in different quote unquote democracy exercises training they're going to basically say to them look you have to get legitimacy you

have to convince people that you're really representative but they're convincing the wrong people or convince in the arab states are not convincing the syrian people and it's just grateful to think of what could be coming next if an externally force power is is suddenly implanted in syria that is not at all representative of the people and the violence is just not going to and we see it happening in iraq neighboring iraq sectarian violence that is catastrophic and nobody is reporting on that they're reporting on syria and they're not focusing on the potential problems that syria could lead into another iraq so it's just really quite devastating right now the way things are progressing from the sort of queues university based in beirut thanks for your support. the prime minister of greece cleared one major hurdle all the way towards more e.u. rescue cash issues cabinet approved the deep cuts. needed to secure it however he

lost six ministers who resigned in protest at the deal now the plan is to be given the green light by parliament so my peas from two major coalition parties are afraid to vote against the deal while conservative of calling for an early election a new deal includes foreign fifteen thousand civil servants and learn the minimum wage is being pushed by e.u. leaders who put the next one hundred thirty billion euro bailouts on hold trade unions are in the second day of their forty eight hour strike with crowds outside the parliament one on friday protesters clashed with police used tear gas in response to stones and bombs and to journalist deeply believes the greek leadership is not acting in the people's best interests. the government's doing what the people's best interests it's just doing what's in its own interests and the people don't trust the government the government had an option it could have just said no we're not going to accept these measures and will go to default and by the way there's no reason that a default has to equal an exit from the euro zone i don't see that that connection

other people have made that point and that's used to intimidate the population of greece to scare them to say well if you don't accept these measures that are going to default i'm going to be part of the chaos i'm on the drachma hyperinflation disaster and. these are scare tactics the only way that they're bailing out greece with more debt so more debt exacts more interest payments exact more exact more interest payments and the end result of that is neil feudalism you get to a point where you have no there's no capital and everything you have is credits that you get from your overlords who are the banks or who are the political elite who own you basically so of course the only solution is their appreciation default bankruptcy it's to write off the debt let someone else deal with it let the banks deal with the losses they extended the loans they had a great time making profit making fees with their with their buddies in the greek government and the greek politicians made a lot of money and now the greeks have to pay because everyone someone has to pay down the line but now then they instead of making the people that made all the money in the past pay they had a really great time you know it's. should be greek families and people on pensions

and seven year olds and couples that can't afford to get in make money and they have to lose their living standards and not die very gracefully because people before them are kleptocrats and still are so it's actually quite outrageous. more analysis on europe's debt woes on our website for comment what do they here's what else you can find online at the moment you can find out how the cia website has become the latest victim in a series of hacker attacks from the anonymous group to suffering a crush on friday night. and one dollar could help delay any military strike on iran is ready activists are urging the government against an offensive ahead of the queen of pop's massive gig and television may that much more for you at all to dot com. america's mighty military presence around the world is leaving many locals with a bad taste in their mouths the pentagon is accused of causing massive and sometimes deadly pollution not just in other countries but at home too. as this

report. the united states department of defense the planet's biggest polluter with hundreds of military bases around the world the department is responsible for more ways than any other company or country this is a consistent pattern of a lack of concern for the environment and for human life and of course that's something that's part of an imperial mindset the problem has persisted throughout history from nuclear testing in the pacific in the fifty is fire. to nato attacks dropping depleted uranium in libya it gets into the water table and it does damage to the kidneys and the liver is very very highly dangerous some countries say they've had enough like japan which is pushing for the ouster of u.s. troops stationed in okinawa what looks like ninety thousand people in okinawa and thousands others across japan seems to represent people saying as they have been for quite some time that. they have just had enough others suffer in silence it

tends to be connected at least conceptually to environmental racism countries are being occupied and just leveled or destroyed afghanistan and iraq now libya and if you look at history in the late twentieth century i mentioned vietnam earlier. is another place where you're going to see the sad thing this is going on a vehicle with naval bombing in puerto rico and it happens in our own backyard like campbell is you north carolina where for three decades people bathed and drank contaminated water. only. through. veteran gerry adams mayor believes he lost his nine year old daughter to cancer causing radioactive toxins he and his family were exposed to while base there they were told that they have these and ten minutes in there anymore or have years before they ever even bother to test their well and he's not alone one in ten

americans live near a military site are something superfund site because military bases that extreme and putting in not only radioactive pollution also you know jet fuel was how's this able to happen the entire politics is controlled by fossil fuel interests wall street interests and military interests and though the contamination is costing lives the cost to clean up the mast may be too big for the pentagon an estimated three hundred twenty billion dollars that's almost half the pentagon's budget instead the money is being spent here on wars in afghanistan and iraq and military operations elsewhere. and in today's climate in congress the environment is not at the top of the agenda this is the most environmental house of representatives in history so far this congress. the house of representatives has

voted again and again to block action to address climate change to hold their efforts to reduce air and water pollution while president obama recently announced his plan to boost military presence in australia a military buildup also happening and why and a province in south korea with the pentagon splurging on expanding their military reads there seems to be a little funding left to clean up existing basses around the globe and washington liz wahl. some world news in brief you this now in our world update and we begin in the newly independent south sudan of side a non aggression treaty the agreement aims to relieve tensions over disputed territory on the border and the sharing of oil revenues split from the north last year and the decades of civil war in which some one and a half million people. iran's president has to make

a major announcement on the country's controversial nuclear program in the next few days gave no details but said it would never hold its program to enrich uranium which he says is for peaceful purposes he was speaking on the thirty third anniversary of the country's islamic revolution tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators gathered across iran to mark the occasion. lithuania has become the latest country to see public discontent with the international anti-piracy accord known as actor hundreds of rallied outside government buildings in the capital vilnius critics of the treaty which aims to protect intellectual property say it would harm freedom of speech and lead to censorship similar rallies are expected in london with poland and denmark staging protests over the past few weeks by most e.u. states actor has yet to be ratified by the european parliament which is set to debate it in june. as russia city of sochi gears up for the winter olympics some of the biggest. winter sports have gathered at the resort to try out

the slopes with just two years now until the big event now sampling the runs for the downhill cup but just before the race kicked off russian president dmitry medvedev took to the snow to showcase his skiing skills. honest and he's been reports test for the twenty four teams such a games are in full swing. so she's been known to have warm february's in the past but not this year blizzards and temperatures well below zero may be great for some winter sports but with downhill skiing you want good visibility and less snow that's already on the ground and not still falling preparing that this in such conditions was a challenge but will be weather is of course a key factor in blizzards can hold us up and cause delays but it hasn't affected overall preparations in the resort it is now ready to host the world ski cup. despite bad weather delays were minimal and as the mountain skies cleared domestic

competitions began in earnest to put facilities to the test the venues here on the slopes and bridges across napoli are now are undergoing this sternest examination yet the head of the two thousand and fourteen winter games for both the organizers and the athletes it's a perfect chance to fly in tune their routines ladies were the first to compete on the slopes for russia's downhill ski cup some compared the experience favorably with the two thousand and ten winter olympics in vancouver and i knew it wasn't going to be live peace here can be compared to what i signed canada except there was ice in vancouver too which made it even more difficult but the overall conditions here are good questions. alexandra burke came out on the top of the competition she says smaller events like this one offer an important rehearsal before the main event in sochi two thousand and fourteen. and it's a chance to train more and will have the advantage in comparison to other skiers who only come here for the olympics with thirty kilometers of new posts and world

class accommodation the organizers hope to make the test competition something together both for spectators and athletes a lawyer but above all this experience is priceless for the salty two thousand and fourteen organizing committee that will use this competition as a dry run to give olympic preparations a boost. sochi. more sporting action is coming your way about twenty minutes from now here in r.t. before that moscow well it's urgent an update on our top stories with me in less than a minute or so stay with us live here in moscow. the

but if there's a strike for failure australia you know the new zealand know we're going to see the film on the screen if you want to have sex go and have sex.

r t here in moscow top stories now egypt's streets and squares are alive with running crowds once again exactly a year after president barack was forced from power protestors are calling for the military rulers to step down immediately accusing them of hindering reform. or pressure is piled on the syrian regime as violence escalates in a new resolution blaming it lends at the u.n. general assembly state t.v. says an army general was assassinated in the capital damascus the first killing of a high ranking military officer since protests began. to brussels with more cuts in exchange for bailout cash people vent their frustration on the streets of athens

six ministers have resigned in protest of the plan which now has to be given the green light by parliament. i promise next because advice on how to keep your mind and body active through the russian winter moscow out is next here on r.t. . well some people embrace the winter and all the frost filled it's beauties that come with it others like to hide in tools staying in from the dark nights and zero temperatures. sleep and relaxation just like various animals that hibernate is an escape for many yes but still outside.