an act of defiance more than one hundred one ton immobile prisoners on a hunger strike putting their lives on the line but the u.s. military trying to downplay this scale of protest. peaceful vigil violence in new york protesters have been fury over the police killing of a black teenager blaming the cops for racism and brutality. and anniversary but nothing to celebrate two years of a rest in syria inspired by the arab spring revolutions but it's resulted in the civil war that's claimed tens of thousands of lives. noon in moscow i met a good to have you with us here on r t our top story more than one hundred

prisoners at the guantanamo camp had been on a hunger strike for five weeks now in a desperate attempt to draw attention to their plight the strike was launched in protest against the confiscation of the letters and rough handling of their qur'an to their lawyers and human rights activists setting the alert over their critical condition but u.s. military officials claim no one is in danger artie's also tried to contact one taught him over thirty s but has no response so far or he's got a young has before. guantanamo detainees have been on a hunger strike for more than a month now the facility which is now on strike holds most of the inmates there one hundred thirty people out of one hundred sixty six the total number of prisoners at guantanamo the detainees through their lawyers say most of them are taking part in this we cannot verify exactly how many will left a message with robert deal ran the media person from guantanamo very much hope he will get back to us the attorneys for the detainees are saying their health is deteriorating we spoke with. her client there says he lost twenty pounds is the beginning of the strike at the beginning of february said she and

a number of other attorneys had sent a letter with their questions to the authorities at guantanamo copying the justice department she said they hadn't responded yet. just point the strike is more than thirty days old and by day forty by we understand from medical experts there are serious health repercussions that start happening things like loss of hearing chancel blindness and in a couple of weeks worse than that ultimately you know the chancel is there for this well and it's strikes continue for weeks no response to that letter so our parties also say they want to response from the authorities more meaningful than the few remarks by the prison spokesperson in the media robert duran i mentioned him earlier responded to the allegations that the prisoners copies of the koran had been mistreated and that's what presumably triggered the strike he said it was a routine search for contraband and quote the koran is treated with the outmost respect end of quote it may very well be so from the conversations that we had with

the lawyers i got a sense that this act of desperation is not just about the koran the lawyers are saying that these detainees desperately want to get the word out about the situation that they're in not formally accused of anything not knowing whether they're ever going to see their day in court detained indefinitely the u.n. says holding detainees indefinitely at guantanamo bay amounts to torture four years ago president obama signed an executive order to stop torture there but according to the u.n. indefinite detention itself is also a form of torture it's hard to measure the degree of desperation among the inmates there half of them eighty six to be precise are sitting there with papers from the u.s. government which can clear them for release and yet they're still there are human rights organizations where port hundreds of suicide attempts at least seven of them were successful a detainee named odd non latif took his own life last september he was cleared for release by both bush and obama administrations and yet never released he had spent

eleven years at one tunnel that gives some idea about the level of hopelessness cause. by indefinite detention so it's somewhat obvious that through this hunger strike the detainees want to make themselves heard and it's not easy or one of very few channels to congress this story there is a desire to kind of forget about one problem and it's very much reflected in the mainstream media here and in the scarce we're porting that we have seen on the air in washington i'm going to check on lawyers and want on a most prisoners of sent a letter to u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel urging him to end the mast right one of those attorneys eric montoya both says running the facility and spending millions doing so is absurd with those cleared of all charges by the administration still being held for no reason there are people in guantanamo bay right now that have been determined by the obama administration to be clear of any charges but they

languish down there because we have policies of no transport to certain countries like yemen it's really an abominable you know humanitarian situation where you're depriving these people of life and liberty and for no really valid basis president obama in his first term within twenty four hours said you know i'm going to close guantanamo bay because this doesn't need to exist and yet we sit here how many years later and we talk about you know all of the the budget cuts and all the concerns in the millions and millions and millions of dollars that we're spending upon this facility the medical care the transportation of personnel to and from the upgrade of the facilities this is just nonsense a call it makes absolutely no sense and somebody needs to go down there make some decisions and clear their place out because it has no purpose other than babysitting

a bunch of adult people that have been cleared of any wrongdoing and they just need to be you know sent send help. human rights groups around the world campaigning against the torture and inhuman conditions of wanton mo inmates are allegedly suffering dr mark mason an anthropologist specializing in socio somatic illnesses and studying cultural factors affecting human suffering says just putting people in an isolation chamber is already a torture we are social animals very few of us run off to the mountains and live in a cave not at all to be facetious each one of us has very important schuman interactions ranging from our family members to community and now quite frankly with the internet we are should not put this is side is something trivial to me and many people in our generation in this day and age i have important contacts people important to my life around the globe so putting people

and isolation chamber alone is is unequivocally torture treatment we have the conditions here where they know they're in indefinite detention in debt that context where we have individuals incarcerated isolated from each other and they don't know if they're going to get out tomorrow or never and that sets up a circumstance for extreme a psychological stress. on our on our website we're asking you when will guantanamo bay close click on r.t. dot com to voice your opinion when that may happen let's take a look at how the vote is stacking up right now so far about a fifth think it will only happen when the u.s. runs out of cash to maintain the base almost the same feel it would shut if a new prison were set up somewhere else three percent think it will happen when the u.s. defeats world terrorism the majority though say it will never happen as the u.s.

has no interest in closing it will out of pessimists there are you any optimists out there well we'd like to hear from you then click on our dot com cast your vote . it's been exactly two years since the start of the conflict in syria what started as protests calling for reform and change inspired by the revolt fever coming from the arab spring states has turned into a bloody civil war that's killed tens of thousands syria's been torn apart by violence while some countries abroad have been trying to settle its future they've only helped fan the flames i spoke with artie's marie if an ocean it was been to the country several times she has more. i always compare today syria with the country i once visited before war and hatred and devastation came to these lands what we see today the country is destroyed. and its heritage is damaged and despair is in the and fight is in the air so it's very painful to look at how the country actually has been changed when you're there when the people see you

really want to talk about the culprit of what i've talked wants to do a father whose son was just killed in a fight in the clashes he was he was so-called process side i was like how you feel about that you just lost your kid and he was like i'm proud to be the father of a martyr because this is this is a fight against forces that. want to destroy our country and i want to protect my country and here's my input to this fight the hardest thing for me and my crew was to to understand that to digest if you want. peace and war we're sharing the same reality and gunman killing innocent civilians and children. cutting has of their people and again civilians taking dinners and families walking on the streets in the same

place at the same time and me is part of this reality as well there was there was the most difficult thing to understand. of the future for the people there what do they say they want because they still see the future in syria but not in syria which is right now on the ground but in that syria that they used to leave before it's been a country of an amazing diversity it's been it's been one of the strongest points of assyrians and actually and actually it's it's been a very chilly turned to this. serious weakest points and i've been working on these idea and his model falls apart that this part of syria known as mesopotamia between the tigris and euphrates rivers is considered a cradle of civilization has been home to many ask nic and religious groups living in peace and harmony for ages people here believe this diversity is serious strong point but some warn it could also be used against the country and that's something

to destroy. and the regime slogans in syria have been repeated to the longest of arab spring countries but assad didn't step down within weeks like the leaders of to meijer and egypt nor did his regime fall within months like colonel gadhafi is in libya opposing sides have gone beyond demonstrations and clashes killers have become an everyday reality those want to assign to go both at home and abroad have decided to target would hurt the most serious diversity pitting people against each other after every massacre and every killing rivers of blood have been joined by streams of mutual accusations and hatred. the first blow was dealt to relations between the country's sunni majority and the ruling shiite minority some more ignorant position.

in order to make it six million it's not a move in once that one again. we should keep our unity in all of all of. it gabriel a poise from commercially living in syria's north east ordering sunni dominated turkey and mostly shia iraq says here in about six tarion intolerance is something new for syria and very alarming. with feel this pressure from months now especially from gulf countries trying to drag us to this perilous share soon again it's a big threat because a tear society from the inside. and some say it's been feud from the outside it is part of the u.s. strategy and some of the western strategy is to destroy syria by syrians and by arabs and this they are doing successfully another blow followed with an explosion at palestinian refugee camps in syria and the cold blooded murder of palestinian

conscripts these drove a wedge between the two arab peoples previously on friendly terms they wanted to both weaken the regime and spread despair among palestinians. with kurdish villages in syria's north east targeted the kurdish syrian peaceful co-existence has also been endangered but one and a kind of its approval cations appear in very dangerous moment syrian kurds want to be integrated into syrian society have rights and be respected some turkish kurds maybe do as murder one is killing his own people we've never been treated like that of course when violence targets us it can't not affect relations. and fears that those who wanted to see the fall of the regime. war crimes of syrian rebels said to be on the rise human rights groups raise the alarm over opposition fighters resorting to torture suddenly appear to be executions and

kidnappings i don't moralize it at r t dot com. and still to come all eyes on beijing china ushering in new leaders we bring you expert opinion after this break stay with us. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

news today violence has once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. for asians to rule the day. thanks for staying with us quarter past the hour now people gathered in new york's district of brooklyn for a fourth night venting anger over the police killing of a black sixteen year old the area was packed with police and dozens were arrested

when violence broke out there protesters accuse the n.y.p.d. of systematic racism and were tallied the artes marine important as the latest. and a rage crowd split off from the vigil broke out into the streets and subsequently clashed with police officers dressed in riot gear what fueled all these anger is the fact that the autopsy on come on was released wednesday indicating that the sixteen year old boy was struck by the seven times by bullets and three of those bullets hit him from behind this clearly fuel the anger that that has already been boiling for days many new yorkers believe that this is another indication other example of a police brutality of police targeting minorities according to the new york city police department what they say is that on saturday evening two plainclothes officers got out of a car. and eleven thirty pm it was an unmarked car and were approaching kamandi

gray they said and at that point he was shuffling with his pants or his belts and according to police they say that gray pulled out a gun and pointed it at the under cover officers announce when they fired off a levin rounds the teenager shooting him seven times by friends and family of i spoke with one personally told me that this young boy would never ever point a gun at police any police officer let alone you know two that were there on scene come on agrees mother carol grey as well as other relatives are according to reports planning to hold a press conference in brooklyn thursday afternoon it is not clear what they will yet discuss previously gray's parents said that they would not speak publicly into the violence stop clearly there's been a change of heart in this news is coming from a spokesperson for the families. the chinese government officially reshuffled its

top post assuring a new career in president caring has become the head of the government. in the presidency in a once in a decade transition of power to talk more about what this means for china the rest the world i'm joined by david gossett founder of the euro china forum thank you very much for joining us here on our t.v. so a new leadership is in what does this really mean in terms of changes for the country though. well i think first of all i would like to have a thought going to retire. because i think they have been feeling of a job when you think about deet in food as an end to the french economy then the going to me of china and today the chinese economies more than three dimes the economy of friends so even if you are an eighty of the magnitude of what is happening in this part of the world of course what. young wants to do is to

go on to go into the spa self success of china and i think they will be able to do that of course they have to face they are facing many challenges janet number one gross but we are expecting a gross of seven point five percent. in china in you know or so that the new leader of gen x. being wants to go to the corruption this is absolutely fundamental for the legitimacy of the of the party and to tackle the mounting pressure on the n.p.r. unmanned and i think they will be able to do damage to that he's a team which is extremely experienced and these are manageable challenges of course you know they have to sustain their chinese run a songs they will do

a great chinese education system i think especially the. asian stem. one of the challenges or so they are facing east to the big three of distribution off waiters in the country and from that point of view to be to social safety nets you a very important thing to do for the new. chinese government n.z. on all the challenges food security. security endure relations we do neighborhood and. so do waste i think we are going through a very. to change easy now world again the chinese run a stones being mostly built in fact of change so after a jump in here with one other question china has become the second largest world

economy its growth continues while many western economies particularly those in europe are struggling in going through austerity what's so unique about the chinese model that's allowed it in this case to flourish. well i think the l. not. no consensus or a c.p.s. is they are trying to do what is good for the very unique context and from that the perspective i thing there wasted hours or so to look at the very reasons of the success of china no it's not the vote only china learning from the west but they can the west than they were ordered to do. from china you said that of course. the situation in the waste economic situation needs a dishy cold i what getting you that you know we grew at seven point five percent these year and what is very important to remember is that the end of the gate the

beans the gate by twenty twenty twenty twenty one shine we'll be there not just economy in the word so the sees a very significant change and we are leaving i would say in one sentence the new world which is increasingly most people are any new which south the nations as much as the norse noster relations and it is why at the end of the mons mr xi jinping revisit moscow to discussions we didn't on is a way to do fiefs breaks endure a ban in south africa. unfortunately we have to end it there thank you very much for your time david gossett founder of the euro china for thank you. well it's a question that the dog experts for generations is there really life on mars on the european space agency with a little help from russia is trying to find out the mission exo mars will drill

thirty times deeper beneath the surface of the planet that has managed so far russia will supply rockets and facilitate launches from the bike and extend. the search for past or present life on mars screen to news and this time scientists are digging deep the exo mars project is based on it to freeze exploration first in two thousand and sixteen russian proton heavy rockets are usually used for delivering satellites and space station components should blast off from lack of a cosmodrome in kazakhstan sending a european orbital pool and a stationary test lander to the red planet speech to his plan for two thousand and eighteen when a second proton rocket will deliver a rule were named pastor after landing it will then begin tracing the life on mars this includes drilling two meters deep into the ground that's around six and a half feet to collect samples the mission's other objective is to study mars

a service to find out what dangers there may be for future manned missions barrelful dust storms extreme temperatures radiation and so on are not exactly your ideal working conditions the european space agency has already invested over four hundred million euro into the project which was initially supposed to be conducted with nasa but it backed out due to financial constraints russia on the other hand was happy to jump in and the science providing delivery vehicles including the landing pod will also develop some of the same defect equipment so far the red planet has only been visited by soviet and us vehicles eggs on mars will be europe's first visit to the red planet is going off r.t. . remember artie's not only on screen more online to there you can find this could the price of war that's claimed thousands of lives ever be fully tallied well as a reporter r.t. dot com a new study says yes claiming the u.s.

led conflict in iraq has cost one point seven trillion dollars a figure far greater than previously thought plus. already giving intelligence services access to private data without a court order or skype still being pressured into registering as a telecom agency that would allow intelligence to operate around a series of legal loopholes more on that on r.t. dot com. thirty now to some other stories making global headlines this hour thousands of shia protesters clashed with riot police in bahrain marking two years since the saudi led crackdown innovation's pro-democracy uprising protesters burning tires and threw stones at police who responded by firing stun grenades at least thirty five people wounded. is the most violent scene in the last few weeks already has been locked in political and religious turmoil for years with a shia majority demanding a greater voice for sunni rule it's. a

blast targeting the office of a t.v. network in pakistan's kharaj he has left three dead five wounded the remotely detonated to keel obama's planted near office gates in the poor area of the in the east of the city no groups claim responsibility for the attack ethnic and political tensions in pakistan are running high as the country heads toward a general election in may. ten thousand belgians marched as a u. leaders got together to discuss fresh austerity measures police stepped in to arrest protesters after one hundred fifty activists from belgium denmark germany and italy occupy the european union headquarters demonstrators demanded the bloc leaders refocus on employment rather than fast track public savings by raising taxes and cutting spending. cutting off we turn to our washington studios for breaking the set stay with us here on r.t. .

a un investigator ben emmerson has decided to not let the sins of the recent past go he's demanding that the u.s. government release documents about the cia's program over addition and secret detention of suspected terrorists everson believes that there is now credible evidence that shows that cia black sites were used to extradite suspected terrorists with neither charges nor access to a lawyer you know nothing says protect a democracy like snagging people in foreign countries without even charging them with a crime this huge investigator may have good intentions but the thing is that no matter how much he and his u.n. pals urge the u.s. to prosecute officials connected with torture or expose classified information they really have no power to do anything if you haven't noticed the u.n. is very happy to section and punish certain countries bernie if you out there are

naive enough to think that they will sanction the usa or send a peacekeeping mission to stop the human rights violators in washington not a chance the un really has no business meddling in the affairs of sovereign countries but they do it all the time but there is a zero percent chance that the un will stand up to the bad behavior from the u.s. government no matter how much it's investigators wind and plead and beg but that's just my opinion. to live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous bad luck i got so many i mean the town i know that i've seen the team really messed up. in the old story so personally apologized a. little worse for going through the white house superman. radio guy and for

sale minutes from a quick profit i want you to watch closely about a good job you never seen anything like good times roll. call most thousands of business so i guess martin and this is breaking the set so if you watch the show yesterday you know that i covered the case of c'mon and gray the sixteen year old african-american male who was shot dead in brooklyn this past weekend undercover cops the last three nights of the massive protests in brooklyn where community residents are outraged at what they call this another case of police brutality an injustice that will likely see no accountability last night what started as a peaceful candlelight vigil and it was a brutal clash between protesters and militarized riot police where there were.