syria purchase to retaliate while it's close on the warns of dire consequences after israel launches a bombing raid on a target near damascus also. i took a strong stance in a very public and that's what got me into trouble he exposed america's torture program and got thirty months behind bars for doing so decorated veteran who turned

against the agency tells r.t. of his predicament. recruited services over there is committed by modern troops as reports on civilian casualties remain hard to obtain made french plans for military handover to local troops. and british prime minister david cameron defies warnings of an imminent threat to u.k. interests and travels to libya. to help train the country's stretched security forces. live from our new center in moscow this is r.t.m. kerry johnston. syria has threatened to take action against israel whose fighter jets allegedly violated the country's airspace by bombing

a military research complex close to damascus meanwhile the u.s. has warned syria not to transfer weapons to lebanon's militant group hezbollah says american officials claim that israeli jets had bombed a weapons convoy inside syria but meanwhile the first video footage apparently showing israeli planes bombing the research facility has appeared on the internet it was uploaded to the web by activists who are thought to be from a district close to the target and shows bright flashes in the night sky. has the details now from television. now we are hearing from syria that israel did launch a military strike inside their country israel has not commented neither confirming nor denying these reports the syrian ambassador to lebanon did say that it was not clear when ever tell you what happened and that it was up to the powers that be to decide on such decisive action but he did say that it was an option and that it was and would be

a surprise now the iranian foreign minister has also stated that this israeli attack has serious implications for the israeli city of tel aviv and those are indeed quite harsh warnings what we understand from syria from syria and sources is that the israelis hit a research center not far from the capital city of damascus and that at least two on site workers were killed there are also reports that the strike hit a convoy of weapons that was making its way from syria to lebanon and now washington reportedly was warned by israel obvious intention to strike inside syria this kind of comment coming from a high ranking american official who has spoken on condition that he not be named it is important to mention that a couple of months ago iran's revolutionary guard did say that assad had friends in the region who had not yet entered the fray the quote was that these planes were poised to strike out in case there was an intervention in syria earlier this month

is well deployed if i am going to face in the south the system to its border with syria necklace of a growing concern that they could be some kind of use of chemical weapons as i mentioned earlier we have no comment yet from tel aviv there also has been no comment from washington moscow has said if indeed these reports are accurate that the israelis did strike inside the syrian territory it is a gross violation of the united nations charter the arab league for its side has slammed is roll for these alleged strikes saying that they are a flagrant act of aggression and a glaring violation of syria's sovereignty. the hauen in the contributing editor at foreign policy in focus says israel is creating chaos on purpose sit in the spotlight from other hot spots. the israelis have always kind of maintained their power in the middle east by keeping people fighting with one

another or are keeping a level of tension very high they have used invasions of levanon in the past to do that they've been threatening iran if they attack syria at this point you create a sort of chaos in the middle east for instance what does the arab league do in this case the arab league has come out and condemned the attack at the same time the arab league is supporting the overthrow of the asada regime you've got a country that recognizes that high levels of tension create conditions in which the israelis can continue. to recall in ization or the colonization of the west bank and can basically take themselves out of the spotlight in terms of the crisis in syria in iran they make a bombing attack they step back they take no credit for it chaos ensues.

well while israel has taken a step closer to confrontation its border with syria continues to receive harsh criticism over its settlement activity that's according to a french u.n. report that say validating palestinians human rights un human rights council says israel must move all of its half a million settlers from the occupied territories nice to sleep on the west bank details of that just ahead. a decorated cia veteran turned torture whistleblower and agency outcast is now awaiting a summons to start a prison sentence john kiriakou was one of the first to confirm the existence of washington's controversial waterboarding program that's been sent to jail for two and a half years for revealing the name of an undercover agent we're talking to r.t. he himself said his true crime was speaking out against the government. first of

all my case was not about leaking my case was about torture when i blew the whistle on torture in december of two thousand and seven the justice to department here in the united states began investigating me and never stopped investigating me until they were able to patch together. charge and force me into taking a plea agreement and i'll add another thing to when i took the plea in october of last year the judge said that she thought the plea was was fair and appropriate but once the courtroom was packed full of reporters last friday she decided that it was not long enough and if she had had the ability to she would have given me ten years in this post nine eleven atmosphere that we find ourselves in we have been losing our civil liberties incrementally over the last decade to the point where we don't even realize how much of a police state the united states has become you know ten years ago the thought of the national security agency spying on american citizens and intercepting their

emails would have been anathema to americans and now it's just part of normal business. the idea that that our government would be using drone aircraft to assassinate american citizens who have never seen the inside of a courtroom who have never been charged with a crime have not had due process which is their constitutional right would have been unthinkable and it's something now that happens every every so often every few weeks every few months and there is no public outrage i think this is a very dangerous development. they are lively and heated session in the u.s. senate as president obama's secretary of defense nominee makes a new turn as a possible military action against iran is on the table still ahead. he has gained exclusive footage of what's believed to be atrocities committed by the mahdi an army in a town it liberated from is a mystery bills with the help of french forces and information on civilian

casualties in mali has been scarce spoke to local journalist gonzalo one chap who told us of the origins of the disturbing tape as we continue moving north we find reports of extrajudicial killings and evidence of more crimes we have heard of the murder of a few citizens by molly and soldiers in the town of survive not only did they kill them they shoved their bodies into the drinking water well located in the center of the town making the rest of the population watch rules are hearing of cases where people are being prosecuted for trying to earn a living under the rule of militants sixteen year old adama says he was unknowingly employed as a cook and butler by jihadists and is now being accused of terrorism. after i started working as a cook in the town of do when i went to surveyor there i met an old man and i asked him for a drink of water he said that he won't share water with terrorists i said that i was in a terrorist and i was just thirsty and then i was put into prison i am no terrorist

i didn't even know that i was working with militants i only realized that through the rumors i started hearing it and then when everyone went on to the frontline i was just cooking food for them no one even talked to me i think persecution is also reportedly becoming widespread in the area arabs and said to be persecuted on charges of allegedly collaborating with the militants you know the government and the french troops are fighting against our contacts in timbuktu also told us that shops belonging to arabs are being looted. and there are also fears of sectarian revenge attacks in mali following the french led military campaign more on this as well as images from the conflict on country or available at r.t. dot com. now throwing his own government's warnings to the wind the british prime minister david cameron has touched down in tripoli for a surprise visit he promised to stand by libya as it rebuilds even as his own

foreign office warned britons of a growing threat to its interests there artie's under farmer has more on what the pm hopes to achieve. did arrive initially made very tight security and then he stressed that he wanted britain to try and beef up security in libya and try and help it improve its own economy there's no doubting that things have deteriorated in this country since twenty eleven when mr cameron last made his visit here just after the overthrow of colonel gadhafi the new libyan government is struggling with a lack of resources it's also struggling to its authority over militias and on top of this recently the british government admitted that there was a threat to its own embassy in tripoli and that it had advised british nationals to leave benghazi because of security concerns so mr cameron is well aware that there are problems and no doubt he will be talking about these when he meets with the libyan prime minister and the president during the rest of his visit but there was one telling moment today because apart from all this he did make a fifteen minute walk about around martyrs square which was the center of the

revolution and he did come in from algeria today in his visit to our jeery was of a similar purpose really he was trying to show that britain has support for this country and he also made reference to algeria today and also talked about the terrorist attack at the gas plant there which saw which saw thirty seven foreigners killed he mentioned that that was a reminder that what happens in other countries affects us at home too so i suppose putting it simply he's trying to show that britain still cares about these two countries mr cameron does have his critics though there are those that claim that really what he's trying to do is protect britain's own interests after all libya and algeria are among the top five producing all countries in africa and reform a bit earlier my calling it a bearing what spoke to ben harris quiney a chair of conservative think tank the bow group who insisted that david cameron's visit to the area was a move to support democracy in the country. i think the reason for his visit there

is is to show the support the britain and the u.k. government wants to give northern african countries that that wish to tradition to democracy although not necessarily in military terms there are other ways we can give support to libya algeria in the top five advocate of oil producers together pumping out eighty five percent of the continent's black gold do you maintain that britain's interests in them has nothing to do with that i mean we are rich in this facing some economic tough times right now so are we moving back to north africa for that no certainly not british petroleum and other oil companies had interests in libya before. the colonel gadhafi but now that they own genes that hasn't changed it seems to be easier for your government to go back and say well we've helped in the region changes so now we can come in and start talking about how we can work together again because that's how we looks like from no actually the else is sitting. well while i don't think it doesn't look like that because actually

it's more difficult it's more difficult to do business in libya after the revolt but the i think the important point is that whilst tony blair felt that he could deal with colonel gadhafi david cameron didn't feel that the united kingdom could acceptably go on dealing with a sponsor of terrorism terrorism very ambiguous term these days isn't it some syrian rebels that terrorists yet the west bank they've cause where do we draw the line well al-qaeda is clearly a terrorist organization that is and the rev i think it's a way of i remade those comments he was he was referring specifically to. or made those comments in light of what happened in algeria and that makes the point very clearly that british lives were lost in algeria. so there's not only threats to lives abroad but there's also a threat to lives at home because where al-qaeda training centers have been subdued

in afghanistan they've now moved to northern africa. well while david cameron pledges funding abroad it's a different story at home but if taxpayers if our relations of back. further complicating what some say is a tax system. that's coming up shortly. it's technology innovation. developments from around russia we've. covered. the story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you. are welcome to the big picture.

today. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. here with r.t. live from moscow with more stories for you now president obama's nominee for the country's next defense secretary has gone out of his way to persuade the senate he's fully committed to preventing iran from developing nuclear weapons and the

confirmation hearing positions on the majority of issues were in the white house well she's going to has been listening to the session which turned into deflection of rather than just defense. chuck hagel bent backwards to show how mainstream his views are the senators kept accusing him of not being mainstream enough and they kept using the word mainstream over and over again during this hearing chuck hagel has walked back on a number of positions he had taken earlier he kept apologizing again and again and chuck hagel went to great lengths to show that he is in no way going to challenge washington's core foreign policy beliefs as one of the senators put it it was quite an exhausting hearing considering the senators were asking almost the same questions and roughly eighty percent of them had to do with chuck hagel previous statements on israel and iran and there was so much mentioning of israel that at some point they were confirming him as secretary of defense for israel i couldn't

count how many times he said all options are on the table with regards to iran again and again saying a strike on iran is an option an option that he had previously called irresponsible by the way here's what chuck hagel test repeating throughout the hearing get the united nations behind you get the international sanctions behind you keep military options on the table if the military option is the only option it's the only option one of the senators pointed out during the hearing that in a private conversation senator hagel recently told him that he thought sanctions didn't work and previously chuck hagel voted against sanctions but today's chuck hagel as we found out during this hearing is for sanctions to those who believe mr haye go was in favor of direct negotiations with iran as he had previously claimed he was he offered a correction a very vague one he tried to blur his response as much as he could here's what he said i don't have a problem with engaging i think great powers engaging in gauge mint is clearly in

our interest that's not negotiation engagement is not appeasement engagement is not sure under so no direct negotiations with iran here's another example of how chuck hagel had to walk back on some of is. statements at one time he said and this has become a famous quote the political reality is that the jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here i've always argued against some of the dumb things they do because i don't think it's in the interest of is world and of quote here's chuck hagel during this confirmation hearing noted that i. thought i should have used another term and i'm sorry and i regret i mean do your use of intimidation. i should have used influence. i think would have been more appropriate i should not have said dumb or stupid. because i understand appreciate their differing views and these things it was like torture watching the

hearing because it seemed as if the senators were not there to question chuck hagel but they were there to break him because they kept going back to his previous statements and pushing and pushing until he said what they wanted to hear and he did it so whoever thought chuck hagel was going to offer a new outlook on u.s. foreign policy after this hearing would seriously doubt that the u.n. human rights council has released a report saying israel must move all settlers out of palestinian territories the paper says the settlements are a violation of human rights destroying palestinians property and crops driving them off their land but israel has refused to cooperate with the investigation calling the report biased and counterproductive to peace efforts human rights activist and blogger my aunt says ten of it is a road in its own credibility. israel has been complaining for many years that it's being singled out by various. organs. the human rights council one

of the things that it was formed to do was to have a more equitable process which had the same level of scrutiny for all you would members and although this report did single out israel it's boycott of the human rights council is comprehensive it refuse to participate in review process which every other un member tends anybody israel attended four years ago and that undermines not only israel's international position but the whole human rights process in general and we have a nice view on dot com a craving for coal energy hungry china is almost as much carbon again as a rest of the world combined with levels of pollution in the country rising faster that's online feed. and the media presidential candidate has been seriously wounded in the assassination attempt sixty we will petition has been hospitalized after a gunman shot him twice after another stories on our website.

u.k.'s government has raised taxes twice as fast as cutting them according to a new report putting a damper on that david cameron's pledge to create a tax country because show almost three hundred g.t. hikes from the ruling coalition complicating an already a tory system is pretty boy takes up the story there. by the end of this parliament the u.k. public cuts to some one hundred nineteen various taxes that all sounds great but for a government that's promised to create a lower tax country news that they've actually increased some two hundred ninety nine all this hank says might be somewhat confusing the brits assume going to see an extra levy on carbon dioxide emissions that means energy bills are going to go up they're also going to see an increase in. which means more expensive air travel and then some of the recent changes to u.k. tax law quite simply bizarre revenue and customs recently increased.

for hairdressers renting a chair in the south lawn and then who can forget the recent. good scandal when u.k. tax code stated that it pasty would only be taxed if it was sold at above ambient temperatures critics say the system is simply too chaotic britain has one of the most complex. jobs increases prices and wages so the time when families are struggling with the rising cost of living. so many tax increases. difficult for them it's clear that the british government is in desperate need of cash to deal with the dismal public finances which means that by trimming a little bit of tax hair and adding more tax burden that by twenty fifteen the u.k. treasury hopes to get an extra eighty four billion pounds in tax compared with the

year before they came to power but critics say that once again is the british public which ends up out of pocket. london. i said only britons are unhappy with their leaders financial policies in france tens of thousands of public workers took to the streets in a strike demanding pay rises three years long salary freeze that leaves almost a million civil servants struggling at minimum wages and in greece workers have gone on a two day strike with hundreds on the streets protesting against austerity measures that will make deep cuts to their pay doctors port workers and public transport staff to part a number of different demonstrations across the greek capital. fourteen year olds and the teacher had been shot at a middle school u.s. city of atlanta a teenager was taken to hospital. conscious and alert the suspect who is reportedly also

a student at the school has been taken into custody is the second incident of gun violence in the past few days with a shooting in arizona office leaving one dead and two others wounded the gun control debate has taken center stage in the country after a deadly connecticut elementary school massacre claimed twenty six lives in december. at least fourteen people have been killed and more than eighty injured after a blast hit the mexico city headquarters of mix the country's leading oil company dozens reportedly remain trapped inside the building officials say in machinery explosion in the basement of the skyscraper in one of the blast in september explosion at the company's natural gas facility within mexico at thirty people dead . debate surrounding genetically modified foods has been sparked once again in the united states one of america's leading g.m.o. giants is facing a protest calling for it to come clean on its production lines well we're i spoke

to months shareholder. he says as long as companies such as monsanto financially support politicians there's no chance for an in-depth investigation. these chemicals may be what's causing higher rates of cancer in a nationalized nation nations across the globe we know it cause tumors in rats that were fed in long term food studies last year i was able to speak during the meeting and this meeting is closed to the public and we one of the things are asking for is in the future this live streamed people around the world care about what's going into the food they may not want to own monsanto stock i only bought the stock so i could speak at the shareholder meeting the company knows already about there are genetically modified crops which many say food activists believe make us more reliant on herbicides and chemicals that the company also sells the genome companies give his massive donations to politicians on an annual basis they are

very active in the political system so by spending tens of millions of dollars even hundreds of millions of dollars on elections. that it's not the politicians are not going to prioritize rejecting crops. well after the break we'll take a look at a day in the life of those suffering from brittle bone disease stay with us. mission. critical take three. for charges free. range and

free. free. you free. download free blog video for your media project for free media oh god r.t. dot com. it was born doctors told us she had multiple fractures they also said lisa would be a difficult child to handle she was bedridden the first year after she had to you can sleep on a cushion because she would cry when we touched her. yes i probably fell from the chair and i think from the sofa and that didn't hurt at all but then i fell off the arm chair and i broke my leg. i

cried for a while. and then at those sleep too but why why why why did it have to be. but i have. to cheat. to simper factor is one of the most common congenital bone disorders affecting children if we're talking about those that are present from birth to believe i suppose the sufferers have brittle bones and are at risk of multiple fractures but they are mineral metabolism is in good order the ailment is due to faulty college information. as the main protein in.