yes we can barack obama's pledge to shut down guantanamo bay still rings hollow with more than one hundred sixty people held over the tories prison without charge or trial eleven years after it opened. western media reports syria's uranium stockpiles may be at risk of falling into the wrong hands but some analysts believe the heights just an excuse for an armed intervention. and the cool catch for a russian scientist drilling deep into the antarctic caught hold of some glacial ice which could reveal some twenty million year old secrets about our planet.

hello good evening from moscow my name's kevin now in this is r.t. it's going to be company our top story at eleven pm moscow time it's one of the most notorious detention facilities in the world which has seen abuse deaths and hundreds of people held without charge on trial america's guantanamo bay still open after eleven years with barack obama extending the military's authority to keep the camp running to despite his own pledge earlier to shut it down a long time ago what small calls to stop indefinite detention of largely died down in the us as well where even torture is getting acceptability is gone if you can explain. president obama's call to look forward not backward has resulted in attempts to sweep the past under the rug including some of his own promises i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that colonel morris davis

was a chief prosecutor at guantanamo and to george w. bush he later became a vocal critic of the practices there and strongly supported president obama's pledge to shut down the prison he says the perception of guantanamo in the u.s. has come a long way since two thousand and eight when he was a burning and highly controversial issue with the nation demanding action he gets a free pass on i mean the public largely could care less the mainstream media now here in the us. you know is more interested in car dash and then they are and what happens at guantanamo. so who's going to challenge it if we're looking for the biggest threat to america right now she's right there her name is kim carr does she and her america has moved on and so has its perception of torture polls by the american red cross show the majority of americans now find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago torture was largely condemned

in the us. hollywood has arguably contributed to that evolution of public opinion in the movie zero dark thirty they or trade the information that led to the capture . and killing of osama bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture and in fact is simply not true the actual information was obtained through a report based interrogation techniques the government classified everything related to its torture practices which allows politicians pundits and filmmakers the freedom to perpetuate all kinds of myths although a slew of washington insiders including the senate intelligence committee point out how torture has proved to be ineffective but in america it's often fiction not facts that make history this is more important than reality this is the movies where americans learn their history and today the history in the making is the

drone strikes this amounts to the administration executing people without due process often in absolute secrecy in foreign lands with a remote control but will obama's drones generate as much of a backlash as guantanamo did for george w. bush that we've now got have a generation that only knows the post nine eleven era. where things like guantanamo and the warrantless wiretapping that's all they've ever known you know for decades now and i think it's just become an accepted part of life unfortunately judging by how the guantanamo controversy evolved here is what may transpire with regard to drone the urgency of the issue will subside in the u.s. because there will be no american for dying there will be no strong public movement program there may even be a movie or two out of the top no logical capability of the drone and once the controversy dies down it will become the new normal in america will want.

in washington i'm going to stop. just a bit earlier this evening us but with more at conus who was held in guantanamo on what turned out to be groundless accusations he was released after the u.s. military failed to force him to confess to crimes he never committed but some others weren't so lucky you tell me if you are not a terrorist they want life to try to make you or terrorists in i should example i must say if i should agree that i am be a member of. that i did fight with probably want to go against american soldiers between the war. and i should i should sign papers that i am be a member of but what the charges first. there were there was no and no reason for just the. pakistani people they saw through some dollar to the americans. that this man he's a terrorist and very soon few months later they found out that i'm innocent and they want me. that i'm going to sign papers they forced me to sign papers that i

should make me that i'm be a member of al qaeda because because they didn't have anything against me in their hands and you're saying for you how do they force you say what were they doing to shoot to do that. they used torture techniques like waterboarding and electroshocks they sought after this i'm going to sign and agree that i'm being a member of al qaeda and every time i refused to sign they tried another kind of torture they saw i was one time can you tell us the worst thing one of a better word that you saw going on there. example i saw. i had naples they used to be just nine or if you're sort of child. i think it was the worst ice over there. there was not treating better than us i didn't saw that they getting tortured but. to see children in the same camp it was better for me

and also i saw people the got killed on the torture the bigger portion of the. kill so. i mean i have seen many things during this five years many thinks this is just a couple of those how do you feel after what you've been through in guantanamo through no fault of your own how does it make you feel as a human being. of course nobody can be happy after after all this happened but. i myself am trying to support human rights organizations to fight against torture around the world not just going to normal. around the world exists more than more than twenty one secret prisons where people getting tortured and guantanamo is just one of course will stay with canada bring

you more reaction more analysis more firsthand accounts of the grim eleven year anniversary now of them obey. your borders and beyond the courts eleven years on guantanamo remains open for business marty looks at the interrogation nerve center of america's war on terror. for barack obama hits the afghanistan. for his kind about how would karzai there was gratitude looking forward to taking care of the country themselves the two have been meeting in washington this hour to thresh it was perceived to be the final stage before american combat troops leave and only a support contingent remains as cohort said at this news conference that's happening as i speak it phyllis bennis is on the launch director of the new internationalism project institute for policy studies on the line from the u.s. capitol i for listening to you both president said that ensuring the security of the country will fully lie in the hands of the afghan forces starting this spring

to really think cobbles ready for. you know i think it's quite clear that afghanistan is going to remain a very unstable and dangerous place for its people for a long time to come the u.s. years of occupation as happened during the soviet occupation have thoroughly destabilize the country there is a great deal of violence it's going to be a very very difficult time but that's going to be true with the u.s. troops pulled out tomorrow or if they pulled out in one year or in two years or in ten years that is the reality and i don't think that the time frame is going to change it i wonder how the taliban are preparing for the spring how. well i think we have to be clear that the what is being talked about this idea of the spring transition in the spring of two thousand and thirteen just a few months away we're talking about an official acknowledgement by the two governments that now the afghan military is in control what that means is anybody's

guess but what it does not mean is that the u.s. troops are going to be pulled out early there was some hope i think that there might be a possibility of an announcement that the end game date for the withdrawal of the vast majority of u.s. troops there are now about sixty six or sixty seven thousand u.s. troops in afghanistan occupying the country there's another forty thousand other nato troops and there's almost a hundred thousand u.s. paid contractors or mercenaries as you choose to call them so there's a huge occupation force in the country that's not going to be brought out in twenty thirteen in the spring what we're talking about is it's a claim that as of that time the afghan people the afghan military the afghan government will officially be in charge they will be in charge of the military now the idea that the u.s. forces still there or the nato forces still there are going to take their orders from the afghan military i think is rather spurious that's certainly not going to

happen but i think what was more significant in the at least initial part of the discussion at the press conference between president obama and the afghan president karzai was on the question of immunity for what u.s. troops will remain after two thousand and fourteen because remember the end of two thousand and fourteen is seen as the date for withdrawing officially acknowledged combat troops it doesn't mean the end of the entire u.s. military presence in afghanistan there will still be training troops there will be counterterrorism troops there will be rapid assistance troops there will be a lot of troops the numbers are unclear the pentagon proposed different scenarios five thousand ten thousand or twenty thousand to be to remain in the only numbers the obama. straiten admits to consider is ten or five or perhaps even less but the big question will be will those troops have immunity from prosecution for any war crimes they might commit under afghan law this was the reason that president obama was forced to go ahead with the complete withdrawal of all troops and all pentagon

paid mercenaries out of iraq because the iraqi government although it tried could not get the parliament to agree to allow the troops to stay without a grant of immunity if the same thing happens in afghanistan the obama administration will have no choice but to withdraw all the troops because they will not leave them there without that kind of immunity and do you expect any message to come through about the very question any time soon. well it was discussed by both president obama and president karzai at the press conference today but i think that what we saw was a scenario in which both sides were saying what they would argue president obama said that as commander in chief he would not put any troops in harm's way without a guarantee of immunity president karzai said that we will that he now has the ability to ask his people to respect some kind of immunity but that's a big ask that doesn't guarantee that the afghan parliament will go along that the

afghan government will agree to it and president obama can say all he wants that the agreements with every country military agreements always include immunity but in no other country right now is the u.s. officially on officially yes but nowhere else but afghanistan is the u.s. officially acknowledging a combat role in its military agreement so the possibility is very strong that afghanistan will not agree to immunity and the u.s. will be forced to pull out all of its troops and virtually all of its contractors as you're speaking we're looking at live pictures from probably we're going to go and we're looking at live pictures of karzai speaking it strikes me that he's between a rock and a hard place the deaths of. dozens of afghan civilians american where primary is increasingly dog president karzai and recent years but you know which is worse in general an ongoing american presence or taking over too early. the problem that he

faces is that i don't think his government has the capacity to survive without massive u.s. support that means both economic support and crucially military support but his reliance on that support leads to one massive corruption which is widely hated throughout the country cars i had very little public support in in the country and militarily his his very large army isn't capable of standing up to the other militias it's one more militia government militia called the afghan national army but it's essentially one more militia and without the u.s. backing it has very little possibility of standing up to the other competing militias who are vying for influence power territory access to resources all those things throughout the country so he's in a very very difficult position where massive public demand is on the rise urging that he get the u.s. troops out because there's massive resentment of the u.s. for its drone raids its killing of civilians the kill or capture raids throughout

the country all of that that has continued for these eleven years at the same time he knows that if he does that the u.s. leaving will leave his government and his own position in a very and in a very precarious moment and he may well not survive that politically the press conference continues as we are speaking from for this but he's thank you very much director of the new internationalism project institute for policy studies on cue. serious now accused of having tons of uranium enough to make five nuclear bombs maybe with a few minutes we'll report on what some experts fear could be a pretext for intervention. fall under the western microscope and also beat some of the british family struggling to feed themselves as they suffer at the sharp end of low wages and welfare cuts the stories i had to.

thank. join me on a journey to the heart of the problem to a place is hidden from the tourists you're going to meet some real crime insiders although they may not be the usual news makers you see on t.v. . but it was.

again thanks for being with r.t. no matter what's on special offer in the grocery stores eating well is still a luxury for increasing numbers of british families low wages and slashed welfare mean food banks or even theft to keep the children fed and his police got the story of the people living beneath the bread line. for this struggling mother it's a hand to mouth existence with the pressure of two hungry mouths to feed gemma receives has small shop assistant wage and to state benefits every choose day some of our weapon of fun though we have far far more growth and i think what. other five lb not much when you're living on the breadline one in five mothers in britain just like gemma regularly skip meals just to feed their children you want to make.

you hear it all the time when to be how they should be in the five but they can freshen me but you know sometimes you just can't do it and you have to buy them seventy seven p. basic classes part because that's who you can afford for the single mother managing a tiny budget is turning into a puzzle that's harder and harder to solve we are seeing a lot more families telling us that they have to make this difficult choice between things like eating and heating putting food on the table or paying the bills part of this is driven by problems in benefit administration sanctions being applied often in appropriately that leaves people having to go to food banks food banks such as this one run by the trussell trust that charity first started working with abandoned children involved area but they switched over to the u.k. when they discovered what they call hidden hunger in britain three fruit banks open

every week in the u.k. now and in unexpected areas like kensington and chelsea where houses like these distribute store cupboard staples and tinned food to families that are in need of emergency provisions in fact over two hundred thousand people had to turn to food banks last year in order to get bread that's double the amount of the year before so if the sad dynamic persists food banks like these are going to have to get a whole lot bigger in order to feed britain's struggling families charities say that some parents are so desperate to feed their. children that they consider stealing has become such a reality that police have been known to take hungry shoplifters to food banks instead of arresting them a lot of people that come to the banks have stories which are really heartbreaking and we've had people coming to food banks who've been forced to choose between eating and feeding their children and that's something we see very regularly just like jammers over half of britain's impoverished children have parents that are in

work and the issue of putting food on the table eats up their lives on come to on monday. on a monday evening waiting to take the violence to others right when i exude there is . it kind of controls you a little bit kind of takes over your lives because when you're going week to week to week on a small amount of think you are going get this money and you say and i'm not i'll do a list like this is what we paid out this quarter played out like that leaves me that much for shopping and it takes over your your thinking for most of the week and with the cost of basic necessities including food rising all the time gemma lives on a diet of daily struggle and worry about the future bali boyko r t london. activists in syria say islamic militants to seize a strategic helicopter base in the north and was perceived as a blow than to government forces becomes as u.s. a middle east expert says syria's internal conflict is putting the country's uranium stockpiles at risk that's according to

a report of the british financial times newspaper says damascus has up to fifty turns of and enrich to rarely nuff maybe to create five nuclear bombs kerry was thought to be close to complement pleating a reactor in the east of the country one stage with help from north korea and the facility was reportedly destroyed by israeli jets five years ago now there are concerns that iran serious closest ally in the region might be trying to seize the stockpile for its program this all coming amid fears syria's chemical weapons could fall into the hands of islamic extremists meanwhile britain says it's not excluding giving military assistance to the rebels should the conflict worst political analyst says western media only gives a partial picture of what's really going on. there's a lot of noise about it there was a bombing in two thousand and seven the israeli jets bombed the site in syria claiming that it is a nuclear site there was no indication yes the i.a.e.a. visited the site the i.a.e.a. said that there were traces of you're a norm of depleted uranium but they did not confirm that there was any quantity or

at least you know this huge quantity that is being publicized i mean they're saying fifty tons of uranium this is this is i don't know where they come up with the number. obviously i did some research and it appears that they came up with the number because they they feel they are coming up with the story that this site that was there that was bombed in two thousand and seven would actually require fifty tons that doesn't mean that the syrians actually have fifty tons and that doesn't mean that the site is actually for a nuclear program the syrian central government was able to control more. past six months there is an advance of the syrian army and the syrian official police and they are controlling most of the country there are only some areas in the country's . rebel fighters in some areas in the countryside where the syrian army withdrew from these areas because they thought that these areas were not important strategically but over all this area and central government under the leadership of

president assad controls most of the syrian territory obviously it's difficult because there are many fighters infiltrating from outside syria there are many a lot of money being infiltrated being pumped into syria through these rebel groups by neighboring country especially by by turkey by qatar by other european and by the united states there is a sponsorship of these terror groups united nations peace envoy says there can be no military solution to the conflict in syria has reiterated again the need for more diplomacy but made the statement after meeting top diplomats from russia and the u.s. in geneva efficient looking for ways to end the almost two years of bloodshed in office been following. the violence in syria for too long and a solution is needed first but according to international envoy on syria lakhdar brahimi met with russia's deputy foreign minister and the u.s. deputy secretary of state the solution can only be a diplomatic one and based on the agreements reached in geneva they called both sides of the conflict to put their weapons down immediately and simultaneously

begin a political process including forming a transitional government one of the biggest stumbling blocks remains the refusal of the opposition to compromise in fact they have been saying that they will not take part in any negotiations while president assad remains in power while he himself has been saying he's open for dialogue but is not planning to go anywhere so there's an evident need for the international community to look for new ways to persuade both sides of the scaffold to stop the fighting and start this political process and when it comes to. he said he's not giving up and we should expect him to make another visit to damascus. more of the world news headlines now in pakistan security forces are on high alert tonight in the country's largest city korat cheap the string of bombings targeting shia muslims across the country left at least a hundred fifty people there so the extremists have admitted carrying out the deadliest attack that was in a crowded billiard hall in the southwest it killed eighty one injured more than one hundred twenty shia muslims are

a minority in pakistan of the target of violent attacks which have seen recent. presence alone and has confirmed the french troops are taking part in operations against islamist sin northern mali to halt rebel advances it comes after the un has called for a swift deployment now of international troops in the country following massive clashes in central town the security council's already approved a plan to deploy three thousand african soldiers in spring islam is captured northern mali they've since claimed further advances to. after friday prayers thousands of sunni muslims have rallied in iraqi cities against the shiite leadership in unrest as ruptured in recent weeks with sunnis enraged by what they see is this second class treatment the focus of frustration appears to be towards the prime minister who was elected after the u.s. toppled saddam hussein critics say he's a new dictator in the make up. secrets from our planet's prehistoric past could now be uncovered soon after russian research has managed to retrieve

ancient ice from antarctica is because subglacial lake wasn't easy to get hold of though they had to drill down over three kilometers to get to lake stock which had been sealed up for some twenty million years tom barton told my colleague to buy more say it's not just any old frozen lake. not all ice is the same we consistent pictures here from last year in february when the first breakthrough was made down below this huge thick ice sheet to what's called a sub lake there and some samples were taken here we go this is the the water taken out then. it was found then they hoped that they could sample that water and see the composition of what was inside that frozen lake deep underneath the glasses sadly that was contaminated they couldn't work out where precisely that water had come from now they've gone back down again and they're looking three thousand four hundred six meters they drilled down as you can imagine

a lot of work in very difficult conditions and now they have this amazing piece of as they described it white ice with rich with bubbles it sounds almost tasty doesn't it doesn't taste it now we understand that it's been a russian team of scientists who've been there it's actually it's not an international team so what sort of things that they trying to find out from this water that they've just discovered yeah i mean you know as a as i said earlier it may may think ice is ice is ice not the case and it's a huge place here in tactic at absolutely so but what they think the scientists think from this team and from other teams trying to do similar things with different in different legs is that perhaps this huge ice sheet for twenty million years has locked this underground this sub glacier lake essentially sealed it off from the outside world and that means that if they can extract the air in those little bubbles they can try and form a better picture of what life was like on earth if there was much of it around to

that place twenty million years ago they may even be able to find traces of bacteria maybe even more complex life forms that would show as amazing insights into the process of evolution all that time ago. tom reporting for us there well from the icy waters of the subducting to the heated debate in cross view after the break a team taking on europe separate his feelings and how they could shape the continent cynics program tonight. because of recent events guns have again and again become a big issue all over the usa both sides are throwing their talking point ammunition back and forth and we hear a lot of conflicting stories well in australia they got tough on guns and crime

went down but then again others say in the u.k. they got rid of all their gods and all hell broke loose i've heard stories that you are way more likely to be killed by a deer in your headlights than get taken out by a maniac with a tech nine but then again i've heard that soon deaths from guns will exceed even deaths from car accidents japan is safe because it has no guns but switzerland is even safer because automatic weapons are all over the place the information is all very contradictory but ultimately it doesn't matter what facts and reports you throw at the other side the gun question is a philosophical one some people would rather at least feel like they have their fate in their own hands even if there is a chance they will shoot their own dog in the middle of the night and other people are so concerned with safety and are so full of fear for their fellow man that they'd rather disarm everyone and leave all the weapons in the hands of the criminals or have them legal or not anyways and in the hands of the government who was seems pretty happy to use force at home and abroad.