today's news on the week's top stories on r.t. loyalists clashes across northern ireland headed for a six week. decision to fly the union flag for just. the french president orders tougher security at home following the country's days old intervention into mali. and airstrikes have left eleven civilians dead. but as well as a supreme court. intensifying speculation over the leader's health and the future prospects of his country. and current.

pledge to shut down guantanamo still rings hollow with more than one hundred sixty people still held. without charge or trial now eleven years after a first. for the stories that made headlines this week you're watching the weekly with me rory sushi in moscow welcome to the program. at least twenty nine police officers were injured on saturday in belfast as loyalist clashes in northern ireland a reach into a six week rest was triggered by the belfast city council's decision to fly the union flag above city hall for only eighteen days a year but it's clashes broke out after about a. city hall were attacked by locals in a catholic area and police were forced to use water.

following the protests right. here. recreational rioting some people are calling it. the director. is working with young to try to calm the tensions

kids are doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister in terms of control. in terms of. the play station. on the streets. just want our flag back up on water and pays to get off their back ses peter robinson least you're not silly not them he was the one that had to start. their day forty thousand they floods for us to come out on the street to protest against their land a nice scent on his back save maybe take all the flak he's called was rubbish and. you know when he wanted also it on the streets for his own actions we can make for

anything the protesters would put it that any kind of call for life when it comes to this is the flying the flag of it's the flag not said. we know we're not going to get a back up plan or an election because it's the law of majority rule. any unionist warns now holmes to try to reengage politically but we're told much more will need to be done. a quick fixes here i don't think there's any silver bullet i think there's so many different things need to happen economic. investment political investment community investment by and by all the stakeholders in these communities to try to resolve the wide draft of issues that are a blight here it's a fall there's been a one hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business revenue. they these

what is have been highly localized the damage has already been far reaching. this is a new generation printing back onto the streets of belfast it's a far cry from the darkest days of northern ireland's complex that doesn't make it any less troubling. a rebel spokesman in mali says french aircraft bombed targets in two central towns of the country at least eleven civilians including three children have been killed in airstrikes and fighting since the french intervention was made public on friday now the first french casualty in mali came on saturday when the pilot of a helicopter was shot down by islamist rebels was killed the first task of troops in mali was to help the government regain control of the key central town of kona the neighbors of the west african state are also sending troops to help battle the

militants francois hollande said the military operation in mali will continue quote for as long as necessary but france based independent journalist robert han is says the country's foreign policy ultimately contradicts itself. i think as long as the french people aren't too bothered by the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite has a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to interfering other people's countries but if you if limited starts to get nasty i think you'll find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion the sort of islamic extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find that these people have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of their intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going

to find it's a very dangerous place to intervene that mali has requested help and they get it instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told are no we can't interfere to tell any particular regime were neutral. it to do even if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions in what they do also this week two french soldiers died in somalia during a failed mission to rescue or hostage to was also killed by the raid began hours after french troops began the intervention to get rid of the islamist rebel groups in control of the northern part of the country and there are currently nine french people held hostage across northern africa. the people of venezuela are still in suspense over the health of their leader hugo chavez who's recovering from cancer

surgery in cuba earlier this week tens of thousands held a rally at a symbolic inauguration ceremony as chavez's official swearing in date was postponed indefinitely by the country's supreme court pepe escobar from the asia times online believes that with a protracted absence of the charismatic leader there's a severe power struggle well underway chevy's war is not a monolithic saying like us would dare to say the communist party in china there at least four or five different factions fighting for power and this is one of the problems a for we have an unsteady situation in terms of his house because there will be an eternal struggle for power inside share is more in that the same time we're going to have more possibilities of foreign interference trying to you know louvered this process and i mean specially our friends in washington all the news he will

see an opening well maybe this is the beginning of the end of just of shabbiest work let's get it out. this is r.t. and a new round of diplomatic efforts to solve the ongoing syrian crisis has failed to reach a breakthrough at the un's international mediator lakhdar brahimi reiterated this week there can be no military solution to the conflict and moscow again voiced its support for a political transition adding that president assad's departure cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the war i mean while on the ground rebels seized a large air base in the north of regime forces bombarded opposition fighters out of the suburbs of the capital damascus earlier western experts claim the government might be hiding up to fifteen tons of raw uranium enough to make roughly five nuclear bombs and after recent fears the regime may not control its massive stockpile of chemical weapons is not concern your reign you may fall into the hands of islamic extremists but middle east commentator blogger culture shero things the

issue is well simply put being made up now there's a kind of a sequence a chain of alarmists in our use that are being produced concerning chemical weapons and nuclear granules so if the syrian regime there's a process of planning for the day after as out as western powers very miserly get i think they're buying up all these different reasons for them to step in and take control of stalin tree a country should doubt happen i do want to start is that so now they're afraid that iran might get this you're in your minor injury and you know and in fact be conducting it now had showed us and how did so i think it's another in this long list of possible reasons for going to our western states to intervene and it seems that there's a lot of preparation for pretext for stepping in truth i stand for and taking control of this situation including the u.k. when the u.k.

government decided to plan for that possibility so you see that there are multiple failures engaged in that process which is kind of oh really shocking don't the fate of syria could be decided outside this blatantly. still to come here on the program eleven years of indefinite detention without charge or trial we take an in-depth look at the infamous. prison which remains open despite barack obama's long running pledge to shut it down. whether you die from high or to the depths. catch the power of the wind or drift in the beauty of the currents. the well prepared is a must and if you're lucky. you'll never forget your experience we only need

a screen that's going to be heaven. see. below the ice on our team. a pleasure to have you with us here on r.t. today on brewery sushi in moscow one of the world's most notorious detention

facilities mark its eleven front of us are in this week with more than one hundred sixty people still being held there without charge or trial the closure of guantanamo bay is a promise that barack obama has so far failed to keep what small calls to stop indefinite detention have largely died down in the us even torture is perhaps gaining acceptability as ati's gun h.-a 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 a 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 a 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 daschle and. 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 day. or trade the information that led to the capture . and killing of bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation

techniques or torture and in fact that's is simply not true the actual information was obtained through reporter 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 it 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 . there may even be a movie or two out of the top no logical keep the withdrawal and once the controversy dies down it will become the new normal and americans will move on. in washington a man is talking. earlier my colleague spoke to more that could not sue was held in guantanamo bay prison and talked about exactly what turned out to be ultimately groundless accusations he was released after the u.s.

military failed to force him to confess to crimes he never committed but he says there were many others who weren't quite so lucky if you are not a terrorist they want life to try to make you were terrorists i should example i must say if i should agree that i am be a member of. that i did fight with taliban together against american soldiers between the war. and i should i should sign papers that i am be a member of what were the charges first. there was no and no reason for just the. pakistani people they saw through some taller two americans. said 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 agree 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 force you have they force you to 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 walked one time can you tell us the worst thing one of the 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 i saw 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 bad enough 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 i'm 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 i will get to the article topic shortly but for now thousands of russian opposition activists have marched in moscow to protest against the law banning u.s. citizens from adopting russian children. going off was right there in the heart of

it all. the protesters are demanding that the e.u. the authorities abolish the law passed recently which bans americans from adopting russian children now this button is part of the russian lawmakers response to the money's gak to pass recently in the united states which gives the green light for sanctioning russian officials suspected there in the states of violating human rights are the reason why russian lawmakers chose to ballot marigolds from adopting russian children is due to the meaning of pieces of abuse and sometimes even deaths of russian kids after they were adopted and brought to the united states in fact the whole issue of the option has been quite a problem between russia and the united states for several years now and officials in moscow say it's not only the key pieces of abuse themselves but also the lack of a proper legal reaction from american authorities including the lack of heavy jail sentences which could have prevented these cases from happening again so

authorities say that banning americans from adopting russian kids is actually aimed at protecting them and it's fair to say that they do have quite a large number of supporters in society in the washout just recently about why the russian girl in her blog online wrote a personal letter to president putin for signs the bill in the end asking him to change his mind to abolish this law she explained it by saying that in many cases the orphans which are being adopted by americans many foreigners but americans in this case they are disabled and they are simply not able to receive the proper medical attention here in russia and we both already heard from the president's press secretary that need to be scoffed who said that i was going to put in will review this walk post even though it's not an official request but also right before the end of last year one of the russians newspapers managed to gather.

around one hundred thousand signatures protesting this law and under the decree of the president the parliament also has to review this protest but it's also needed to point out that to due to the current agreement between moscow and washington on adoption all those people who have already been able to find the children who are going to be adopted and brought to the united states they're going to be able to finalize this process so these kids who are already sort of approved to be adopted the will be able to go to the united states all the way until two thousand and fourteen. percent of reporting right now the family of internet freedom activist aaron swartz has blamed the u.s. criminal system for his death the twenty six year old co-founder of social news website reddit hanged himself in his new york apartment on friday let's get some more on the story now we're joined live by a representative of the pirate group from the berlin parliament of reinhard coming

live on our t.v. a pleasure to see you today thanks for spending the time to join us the schwartz family has said in a statement that aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy but the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach i what's your view on that. well thank you for having. think it's very hard to judge especially so shortly after this tragedy what exactly was the motivation how exactly did it came with did it come to i wouldn't go into detail about it but it's seems to be sure there are and what's a lot of pressure and i think. i'm sure it's not the only case you see we have a very new group of internet activists of political movement fighting for the preterm of the internet and a lot of these. people some of them are very young are very much into what they're

doing they think they're good they're doing a good job and sometimes the society doesn't give them enough or certainly there are many out there that are trying to do a good job perhaps but also feeling under a lot of pressure from the government for example the u.s. attorney's office pursued a spread of charges possibly leading to over thirty years in prison and a million dollar fine this ultimately for downloading and re distributing mit academic papers do you think the punishment is justified. no i definitely don't think this plan is the same as mine was justified it is completely ridiculous people are being charged with fifty thousand dollars fines for just are not into music on the internet or in swat was putting flyers on the internet that should have been on the internet. a long time ago and actually j.-star. where the fire came from and said they wanted to put the fire on the internet anyway and aaron swartz just did a perfectly good job doing it and he actually took

a lot of effort from them which would have been there for the fraud i mean as you say as you say there certainly are some that are questioning the severity of frankly redistributing academic papers from mit but i must ask you because because it is situations in one way or another do you have the right to protect their own intellectual property so i mean some would say that activists in some way or another have to accept the punishment they face or do you disagree well i think the system brought in this case whenever it comes to internet freedom whenever it comes to copyright infringement then other senators other people in the house of representatives in the united states on the same side there is no differences. there they are from same side as hollywood does they are actually fighting for hollywood and making the last of them it's sometimes it's ridiculous what they what they are thinking what would be a good law because these people are making laws they should have should always think what they are but the laws actually have an effect on society and some times

the effect is just that they're completely innocent people have to pay a lot of fine or go into jail because they are making information public because they are just downloading some music and he think that you think at this point i'm very quickly i'm so sorry i'm running very low on time but d.g. think there are enough activists out there to carry on mr schwartz as fight sorry company repeat the g.d. thing she thing there are enough activists out there now who can carry on mr schwartz's fight. well. it's carrying a very heavy legacy that would be difficult to do. but there are a lot of people that fight for the same goals that were tried to. go into what he was fighting for and i think they're the political movement that is fighting for. is this strong and we will get stronger in the next months and years and there is no. risk that. this is

a very heavy loss for the entire community will. bring a. real bring a stop to political movement. with the suicide of mr schwartz is certainly sending reverberations around the online community for your reinhart a representative in the pirate group of the berlin parliament live from berlin thank you very much thank you very much. is the world update now starting with the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has pledged to continue building settlements in the west bank is just hours after the country's police evicted around two hundred palestinians from the site marked for construction at the outpost made up of a twenty tenants were set up on a friday to protest israeli housing projects in the area known as anyone televisa building plans are illegal under international law and would split palestinians away from land they call their own activists now are promising more camps in other areas. egypt's former president hosni mubarak who was ousted in

a popular uprising two years ago will be retried. twenty eleven. pealed by mubarak and his. because of recent events guns have a 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 thought oh no i'd rather risk the unpredictable actions of some idiots out there in society but at least have the ability defend.