that's the stories that shaped the week the death of another russian toddler in an adoptive u.s. family leads to allegations that he could have been killed the stoking anger here in russia. fresh rallies clashes and hunger strikes in the west bank the death of a palestinian in an israeli jail for other fuels week long protests against the plight of palestinian prisoners. and italians choose their parliament in one of the most unpredictable votes in the country's history which could see a comeback by showmen berlusconi or a breakthrough by a former comedian. thanks for tuning in on lucy cough and when you're watching the weekly here on our t.v. it's our recap of the week's top stories as well as today's news well it's been

revealed that another russian child died after being adopted by an american family it's the twentieth such death since the mid one nine hundred ninety s. the news that three year old maxim cruz man was found bruised and killed partly dead at the home of a texan couple caused outrage here in russia the boy's adoptive mother claims that it was an accident but there are some suspicions that maxim could have been abused and murdered artie's an associate takes up the story twenty russian children in the last seventeen years died in their adoptive american families most recently here in texas mark she was mean known to locals as max shadow. was just a kid had such great. that's all i know three year old mark sam and his younger brother keel lived in this house with their adoptive parents in a rather secluded neighborhood it was from here that on the afternoon of january twenty first the boy was taken away by an ambulance never to come back his legs had

an internal organs were allegedly severely bruised. it could mean could if this is confirmed as a result of the investigation that maxime's death was a result of certain violent actions but specific circumstances of his death have yet to be announced i can't get into that because it would be speculative. for the results to come back russian officials had no knowledge of the incident until almost a month after the boy's death it wasn't a little bit later that we started getting some suspicions of what was going on and that all developed from talking to the parents the people that live there it just took a little more time moscow says this is far from the first time it has been left in the dark about an adopted child stuff. even unfortunately it's usually months after russian child has died in the u.s. that the american side informs us about it in one case it was five years after a boy died a probe is now being conducted in texas and russia has an ongoing investigation of

its own. if as a result of the investigation it is determined that maksim was killed by his mother for example underscored if this is the conclusion of the investigation naturally those responsible for the death of the russian boy will have to suffer the most severe punishment meanwhile at the u.s. state department we obviously take very seriously the welfare of children particularly children who've been adopted from other countries according to moscow little cooperation was shown until it was demanded. well when one. with almost two dozen deaths caused by abuse and even manslaughter russia in a move often criticized recently imposed a ban on american adoption of its kids. i've always believed that russia should stop these adoptions and i hope that they maintain this ban and don't yield to pressure autopsy an investigation results are expected to take weeks if not months to be announced no arrests have yet been made the dead boy's younger brother's

destiny is yet to be determined for now he continues living in the adoptive family where his brother died while the investigation is slow paced and the alleged information on the little boy's life and death extremely scarce one of the questions that demand an answer is why should it take a rigid push from abroad for the us to pay attention to yet another tragic destiny of a hopeless child to whom it promised a better life on its soil. r.t. after county texas well miles who have been from the pound legacy a group that monitors children placed with new families so the case highlights shortcomings within the u.s. adoptive system. the united states has a very complex adoption system where the state department has federal responsibilities which is. properly executed because adoption itself is performed at the state level in america the federal government has no control over who

actually happens. you need to have a proper system in place that checks. adoptive parents much better before the adoption which has posts option monitoring all that is not really in place there rescreening but it's not properly done most of the monitoring is impossible. especially in america it is impossible because a right to privacy well the treatment of russian orphans by their adoptive u.s. family is on a subsequent russian adoption ban against the us have sparked a fierce debate on r.t. dot com we're going to find more stories from both sides of the perspective and you can also leave your own comments there. tensions are escalating in the west bank or the death of a palestinian in an israeli jail has triggered a fresh wave of violence thousands of palestinian prisoners are refusing food in a show of solidarity with the dead man palestinian youths have also taken to the

streets in a protest that the israeli side says the prisoner died of a heart attack by palestinians and says that he was tortured during an interrogation his death has furthered angered palestinian twelve already been rallying for a week against the conditions in israeli prisons and in support of hunger striking prisoners at a protest repeatedly ended in fierce clashes with israeli soldiers who had used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. the brother issue wasn't the only one causing divisions this week more clashes have erupted when george sadler's attacked in demonstrators in the north of the west bank shooting two people that have passed their reports there could be no end to this confrontation as long as israel continues building a land considered to be palestinian it's rugged and remarkable landscape largely empty but full of meaning this is one of the west bank's most sensitive pieces of real estate for fourteen years plans to build here have existed but were kept on

hold but all of that changed last november less than twenty four hours after the u.n. general assembly recognize palestine is a nonmember observer state tel aviv fast track to construction plans here prompting the palestinian government to call it a slap in the face of the entire world. this plan to build here is not legal according to international law which states that when one country occupies another it countered change facts on the ground israel is doing exactly this while also getting people out of the land soley for the benefit of the settlers. known as the one this controversial patch of earth exists between east jerusalem where palestinians aspire to establish the capital of a future palestinian state and the huge israeli settlement of ma'ale adumim it is the last remaining corridor between the large palestinian cities in the west bank and if plans go ahead in the israelis extend this area it would cut into a big chunk of the west bank effectively driving a wedge into the middle of any potential palestinian state critics have warned that

filling the space with jewish homes amounts to a doomsday scenario effectively striking a fatal heart attack to the two state solution but for now the plan is to build a garbage dump in this valley with the waste that comes from jerusalem and then in about twenty to thirty years when it's full to build a park on top of us here you can see that palestinians fear it's part of a long term strategy to extend the one and to build new israeli settlements it's not surprising this is not the first time that such a plan is submitted it is a birth of ongoing policy that has been going for years now in at them to grab palestinian lands but first the israelis need to get rid of the people who live here among them around three arab jerusalem neighborhoods and a hundred and fifty bedouins for whom this has been home for nearly half a century tel aviv complains the bed when camps were set up eagerly without permits

and stand in the way of urban planning but critics say this is just an excuse for a land grab it makes me furious this dump site is going to harm the environment and it's going to harm the health of the people and they make it harder and harder to find a solution for the situation demolition orders have already been issued threatening to destroy the last remnants of bedwyn life in these hills and while israeli officials say the construction anyone if it happens at all is many years away it cuts to the heart of the israeli palestinian conflict which fundamentally is about the land and the fate of the people who live on it policy r t in the west bank. well plus they are keeping us up to date on her twitter feed as well you can head over to at paula slater underscore r t a to get the latest.

while europe is holding its breath on sunday as austerity had a step italians choose their next parliament from a former comedian to disgraced ex prime minister silvio berlusconi there's certainly no lack of choice on the ballot but as artie's arena reports the outcome may well throw the debt ridden country european union pardon me into even more uncertainty. the streets of rome aligned with posters from various political parties and candidates all smiles and bright colors offering the best future possible for italian voters. i have. been since i was

. thirteen i. was given. the program lo is not the leader but the face of a movement whose plan is simple to do away with the politics that italy has been used to for the past couple of decades and bring about a new type of rule the number saved on my part i don't feel protected by the state i want to state that is visible there is no more state in this country just a bureaucracy of laws that has replaced democracy there isn't anything left among the crowds disillusioned with israelis politics is done the analysis has started small by successfully challenging politicians in his small hometown in the south like many talents he does not trust the current political system if it was possible to feel like you that are getting there you will think it was ok i begin to feel. like you live off the wall. but it is time for

a change at least one hundred thousand people showed up to support close movement in the center of rome the biggest political gathering in half a century people say popular because it speaks clearly and they say it's one of the main thing to say they have to go or home. all. right because the political class has lost in the in. the landrieu part to the population especially young people. the crisis we have a political class absolutely unable to cope with the situation and the situation is a desperate one the longest recession in twenty years more than one third of the country's youth are without a job corruption that feeds organized crime and manages to siphon off as much as sixty billion euro a year by some estimates and declaring wealth divide between various italian

regions basically it was huge a parliament will have a mouthful to chew to avoid choking on the problems which have accumulated over the years perhaps doing away with the old men in suits no matter how respectable they may appear in favor of a foul mouth but seemingly honest comedian may be just the thing to put an end to italy's political drama in rome it in a. circle of strata about the italian elections with political and strategic analyst alessandro poetry live from rome thanks for joining us the program sir of course there's been an election blackout a century since february eighth so i don't quite know how the public a feeling about the choice of candidates but what is your sense i mean are people happy with the variety that you have right now. not exactly they are rather bewildered some of them want to just cost of vote of croppers. they know whom to vote or watch parties that will do it quite convinced

others would like a different course and. they're not terribly convinced by other parties some of them vote because they're faithful to a certain trend and the idea but they're disses does fight with the party leadership all the really you know and body these ideas help us for the comeback you know all glories hoping that they will have some magic wand to solve the problems and this is a bit the sentiment that goes around but many of the people you know with difficulty say you know we have to vote we have to vote you know a lot of us have to call the vote in order to have a different body image well speaking of all the glories we have silvio berlusconi who was basically forced out of office he was actually polling his coalition as polling it is second place for now considering has passed considering the economic

turmoil that his presidency or his leadership has but the country until why do you think people are voting for him today. because it is the last to die especially with the die hard berlusconi people you know he they really think he's a sort of hero a genius and unfortunately he's since they are convinced that way and so they insist i don't know how much the pools are correct but. first let's see what happens in less than one day now well of course but if we if he were to win i mean it really isn't a pretty dire situation here public death amounting to more than one hundred twenty percent of the g.d.p. what would have any victory mean for italy's economy and frankly the euro zone with the placate european leaders are causing more concern the problem of europe is not the problem of public debts this is

a financial assault that has been concerted by private entities to milk money from the eurozone that said schools berlusconi is not really the best choice to drive around these difficult obstacles and the moment he wasn't really so much better despite being well connected with financial world so this is a big. happiness with. him parents must sort of the dark horse here the anti-establishment candidate the former comedian that big rino or graham sorry must be buttering his they don't really write well of course he is talking about nothing less than a revolution here i mean is there a real chance for him in this election. this you come from a land who has been famous for revolution and generally revolutionaries is quite detailed programs he has a wonderful work. but very little continent and this is

a big worry because as soon as he gets a gets in parliament it's not just italian politics he will make politics in the world and frankly for the moment they don't feel he is really well equipped i hope he will make up because anyhow he will come up with a sizeable number of parliamentarian's doesn't have really to study very hard and very fast to come up with something credible. and a final question a very briefly what's on the line and a selection i mean could a wrong result whatever that may be mean economic turmoil for the country it means more austerity which isn't really needed it means more plundering of italian precious industrial us. it means more hardship at social level and yes it could mean oceanus lot of arab revolution if not just the political

class but also the intrapreneur has over their eyes and acts in a responsible way from the arab spring to the italians bring interesting words there thank you so much we're just hearing the analysis from political and strategic analyst on the founder of polity a life from spain thank you sir good evening room. rome pardon me. well one us air and a country into another all right egypt's president struggling to appease protesters what promises his law enforcement tactics meanwhile are causing more anger. just ahead were poured in the alarming allegations of abuse and tortured use by local police while the government handout weapons to lowest ranking officers. plus america's new top diplomat john kerry is setting off on a marathon foreign tour dispersed as the secretary of state after the break we'll look at exactly where it's going and why.

don't you. so choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television on the phone with justin

but not with your mobile device so you can watch your t.v. any time anyway. welcome back i'm lucy calf announce well there's further turmoil in egypt where the government is struggling to contain street violence president mohamed morsi has brought forward parliamentary elections to april twenty second as the opposition leader is boycotting partly calling for a boycott of the vote now protests have been going on for weeks now with the opposition accusing the president of hijacking the revolution and backtracking on reform promises started belled true reports the unrest has also been accompanied by claims of widespread violence pardon me pardon least abuse and torture. in his hometown of tanta the bell gindi points out where local youths have renamed

a street after his son mohammed a twenty eight year old activist allegedly tortured to death by security forces two weeks ago after protesting on to her a square in a little hole on the first time i went to see mohammed in hospital i didn't recognize him seriously his face was covered with his skull fractured when i asked the doctors they told me this is mohamed odeh i know that one would be although muhammad's injuries points to torture his mother sammy says the official forensic report maintains he died after a car crash yet to be about that's what vehicle breaks teeth is there a car that stamps on a person with a shoe shattering the glasses and pushing them into his eyes what car only injures a person's head but not their legs. right now egypt is witnessing unprecedented levels of police violence against protesters rights groups reporting with at least

ten x. a judicial killings by security forces since president mohamed morsi to power the worst divide it often occurs in places like this infamous security directorate behind me which can be viewed from mohammed's own balcony however the most worrying trend activists say is the targeting of children in an impoverished district of alexandria explains how her thirteen year old son up to rahman was detained for over two weeks for being a bystander at a demonstration. the police used violence against children my son has caught some of bruises all over his body a hundred young children because kids can try on away from them. no police told us if anyone tries to contact their family or friends they would beat us despite the scenes like these the interior minister denies security forces use violence against protesters and are a few. it's that torture is systemic in the police force instead the government

says it will arm low ranking police offices sparking fears of other abuses back during egypt's revolution a key demand was police reform but people here say there's no evidence of that until there is crowds of thousands continue to push for change though many fear the worst is yet to come true for see cairo. well germany is valid to renew stalled talks on charkhi joining joining the e.u. as. marco heads there for an official visit ancora is increasingly frustrated over a lack of progress in negotiations with the prime minister calling to delay on forgivable well for more on a story i'm joined by manuel from that i thirty a political analyst and journalist for thanks for taking time to chat with us now the german chancellor has called for a new chapter in turkish e.u. talks after years of stalled negotiations about but she has said that she's still remain skeptical about this so what do we read into this breakthrough or just

a little bit of the same old same old talks. i don't really know if we can call this a breakthrough what it is and think it's a certain change it piece inverts because i'm going i'm ok this is very little known as you said for seeing always this in the note for a full year membership for turkey she was always proposing or competing for the so-called privileged partnership for turkey so this is a deep at least a change in birds but anyway i don't know if her visit is really bringing out all the problem instead of things to discuss and afraid of the wave so we have to see in the. relations between germany and turkey they are of course some problems we have driven troops deployed to the turkish syrian border with patriot into iraq that systems which are directed against syria and we all know what that turkey is a country which is behaving very it riseth towards syria is one example we

know at the problems with this the kurdish minority we know of the programs with cyprus with turkey is doing since thirty years the military occupation policy on the european union membership countries so they would be a lot of things to talk in dollars all the things that will be discussed now in turkey well certainly. certainly a lot of issues between the two countries and frankly if the turkish membership of stalled for this long as you say it's hard to see that things would move forward any quicker but there's another issue that i want to bring up here which is the issue of immigration i mean we've already seen in germany at least three million people of turkish origin if a turkey was to be. dead there would be some of spoken of a threat of a massive wave of my gratian do you think that this is something that's a concern here. i don't know if it is really of glory of the established politics

or maybe a sort of secret talk we have to see as you mention that three million turkish people are living right now in germany germany by the way it's all together a few million people just for us and information and we have to see that there is a very strong turkish lobby working also in germany and they are complaining also for the full legal membership of turkey eight and all the turkish national interests and we have to see that it especially the established parties in germany are now watching that turkish group as a sort of pool for future voters in during elections and when we see that i'm going i'm going to it's party the christian democratic party which is this cry or we can see as the conservative party is now is slowly becoming weaker in the general the no two hearts of for the e.u. membership of turkey we can see that there are certain politicians of this party watching and hoping for the turkish votes in future yes of course. and you know

it's quite interesting i was looking at some of the opinion polls in the press and there's one in germany that had sixty percent of germans were opposed to ankara joining the e.u. meanwhile a turkish poll last month indicated that almost two thirds of the country's thought of them believe that turkey should drop its a new bed so what's behind this push to have to join a lot of them then either country don't really. should well you know this fits very well for this european union because we have to see that european union it's no democratic pro-choice it's a political approach a sort of ideological approach brought together by the european commission and the european politicians it's moralists ideological because when you ask the people in germany if they wanted to have the euro for example fifteen years ago that huge majority of the people who were against getting that you are. ask the people if they want to say troops to the turkish syrian border the scene or ask them if they

want to send troops to afghanistan they say no if they want to. do it with a dollar to countries like greece or italy or the future maybe spain and so on. the european union is a construct with the democratic base it's maybe a lot you can believe in still maybe hopefully we can hope for for the turkish people that they will have the right to take part in the referendum a coach or a turkish you membership because i can imagine that for the turkish citizen to see how the european how the european union does looks now and. doesn't seem very attractive to become a member of that club well not very attractive and yet turkey is pushing for it thank you so much money well us going to right our political analyst and journalist joining us there live thank you thank you. i want to summon other international news right now. to get in afghanistan afghan president hamid karzai has ordered

a u.s. special forces to leave the country of war about problems within two weeks that is or was made due to allegations of murder and torture of civilians a presidential spokesman said the troops were responsible for instability and insecurity in the region the move comes as nato is preparing to hand responsibility for security to local forces by twenty four team. at least six people have been killed in a militant attack in northeastern nigeria that is at least according to the country's military no suspects have been arrested yet the region is frequently targeted by islamic extremists with local residents putting the blame for this attack on the radical sect of boko haram. pope benedict has a liver to final blessing before his resignation to the thousands of people gathered at st peter's square in vatican city he's an ounce of you stepping down earlier this month becoming the first.