u.s. officials in the mainstream media dismiss and ignore allegations of a life threatening crisis at guantanamo where more than one hundred detainees are reportedly on hunger strike for a second month. despite two years of violence and seventy thousand lives lost in syria some western nations are ready to send more arms to the rebels including antitank. weapons. once in a decade power shift is complete in china with a new president and prime minister to impose political policies that will shape the world the top stories this hour. international news and comment live from a studio here in moscow this is r.t.

with you twenty four hours a day. lawyers for more than one hundred detainees on a hunger strike at guantanamo bay say many of them are close to death the situation has become so desperate representatives of the captives have made a direct appeal to the u.s. defense secretary but u.s. officials deny the allegations and much of the mainstream media remained unmoved as reports. 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. the letter with their

questions to the authorities at guantanamo copying the justice department she said they hadn't responded yet. at this point the strike is more than thirty days old and a forty by we understand from medical experts there are serious health repercussions that start happening things like lost hearing chancel blindness and in a couple of weeks worse than that ultimately you know the chancel is there for this well and if strikes continue for weeks we've missed 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 we're one of very few channels the congress this story there is a desire to kind of forget about guantanamo it's very much reflected in the mainstream media here and in the scarce reporting that we have seen on the issue in washington i'm going to check and. let's not get some reaction from human rights lawyer. we heard a number of reasons from a reporter got it but how do you see the plight of these detainees why do you think they are so desperate now threatening their own lives with this hunger strike. well as was said i think the triggering event. was the fact that their qur'an and other personal belongings were being tampered with by the guards that the guards were

also interfering in their prayer sessions and ridiculing them during prayer sessions but i think also as was mentioned you have a situation where you have in these group of people we think about one hundred people on hunger strike are amongst the at least eighty seven out of those one hundred at least eighty seven are people who says two thousand and nine have been put on a list of by the obama administration to be released because they never did anything wrong and back at one time the u.s. government admitted that ninety two percent of the people detained at guantanamo had nothing to do with al qaeda were not terrorists many were caught up in situations where they were in fact cases where they were sold the northern alliance in afghanistan for example and turned over to u.s. authorities your commentator mentioned in fact the ace of our on a duel that he. she mentioned that he might have committed suicide in fact there's

been some question about that about the fact whether united died from being forcibly medicated one time as many of these inmates are he was a case in point he was but what i'm just also you've sought is a number of reasons why these people shouldn't be that you are a human rights lawyer has international oil being broken all the u.s. not have a right to detain these people because they are perceived as a threat to national and international security. they actually do not have a right to keep them because they themselves admitted again in at least eighty seven of these cases these people never did anything wrong they never should have been to detain in the first place and yet they're being indefinitely and they have been so many years people have grown all at one time awaiting to be released when they never did anything wrong in the first place and i think so one you have a violation of international law in my view you have a violation of us lot so these people should have to process rights they should

have a right to challenge this detention and they've been denied those rights and the reason why. the press like yourselves have difficulty even knowing what's happening there is very few people or even allowed to go see what conditions these people are with but nevertheless these people are under suspicion for doing something because as many people say they wouldn't be in there for nothing what if they were released would they be facing then perhaps trials in their home countries and and imprisonment that well some might be i mean there are certainly some there. who are at least are under suspicion of terrorism but as i said i want to make clear that not the american government is admitted that ninety two percent of these prisoners at guantanamo are not in are suspicious of a suspicion of terrorism or of just briefly i would also get what many are endangering their lives will they achieve anything by this hunger strike just briefly. well i think if people like yourselves report on it and make people aware

of what's happening maybe but as you mentioned at the outset of this program this is not being covered in the mainstream media certainly not the west i've seen very little coverage on this in the united states and i do worry about them that they're doing this in the world is not watching and so it's very important programs like yours to be covered about it thank you for talking to us about it live in the u.s. think about it human rights know it. and on our website we want to know your opinion on the matter every voice counts at r.t. dot com where you can tell us when and if you think quantum obey will eventually close well let's have a look at the results so far this hour most of you believe that it will always be open because washington has no interest in shutting it down around the fifth we can see say that the facility will cease to exist when the us runs out of money to fund it slightly less of you reckon that it will close after another prison is set up as a replacement and barely any at the moment think that the painful history of

guantanamo will end when the us defeat international terrorism two percent there well if you haven't cast your vote yet then just head to our to dot com and have your say always good to hear from me we're always interested in what you think. the bloody conflict in syria has reached a third year and yet some european nations want to pour more weapons into the crisis torn country foreign ministers will look at the possibility of lifting an arms embargo in syria next week after france and britain made a major push to put more guns into the hands of anti assad forces the civil war's already claimed estimated seventy thousand lives well earlier we spoke to who has followed the nation's plight from the beginning. 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 has

talked once too to 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 of you've 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 is 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 gunmen killing innocent civilians and children. cutting has of other 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 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 series weakest points and i've been working on these idea and here's my report about 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 african 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. i and the regime slogans in syria have been repeated to the longest of old 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 killings have become an everyday reality those wanting a son to go first at home and abroad have decided to target what 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 countries sunni majority and the ruling she had minority some more ignorant of position sometimes i. think it was never to make a city and it's not the more me once that when i go. we should keep our unity in all of all of. it gabriel a point from commish li living in syria's north east all during sunni dominated turkey and mostly shia iraq says here in about six terran intolerance is something

new for syria and very alarming for your look law will fill this pressure for 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 drive 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 of a cut its approval cations a pure and very dangerous more syrian kurds want to be integrated into syrian society have rights and be respected some turkish kurds maybe do as early ones killing his own people we've never been treated like that that of course when violence targets us it can't not affect relations. and fears are that those who wanted to see the fall of the regime will witness the country's whole instead. from syria. well for more on the arms embargo on the fate of syria let's now cross to political analyst talk to us on the dollies also from the syrian dialogue he joins me now live from london how do you think britain and france will be able to get the e.u. arms embargo lifted when there's such strong opposition from the likes of germany and sweden. i so you care this is a lot to do with the pressure that is being now exercised for gulf countries as

well as turkey on for on some britain there are talks now that qatar is using its financial pressure with sign and. business contracts and billions of dollars with britain to pressure britain towards taking such outs or steps and terms of arming be syrian rebels that's why now we hear rhetorics that britain may even go out of its way and start arming the rebels outside any european union agreement or outside international and what would be the diplomatic backlash if it they go ahead along with france where there will be a diplomatic backlash of course there are many many nations sitting on the fence that house would not accept by any means. arming. the syrian rebels outside any international agreement from security council or from new

united nations of course you have russia and china as measure players in the security council as well as regional powers and we have to remember that such incident happened before in iraq in two thousand and three the british parliament did not want to go into war with iraq and still the government at that time when's a bad phase on the fears that were publicized about weapons of mass destruction and anthrax and it all turned out to be false or i mean it is just yet well let me just ask you rather than britain france actively going to war in syria they'll support the rebels element but their course their argument is look these people need help if you arm the rebels to such an extent they can overpower sounds forces then job done it's all over isn't that the right answer. that's not the right answer because you cannot equate a state that it is to be an armed now and defend itself against. external

aggression and internal terrorism with arming militias and trying to straight to strike a balance between the two you cannot strike a balance between the state and militias who are extremists many humanitarian argument sort interrupt a lot of talk about humanitarian argument i mean they're saying that the number of refugees fleeing syria is risen by ten percent so many civilians are now in danger on the humanitarian grounds for military help. well most of the humanitarian and natural cities that we witnessed in syria are attributed to the ice off them in syria we've seen how even you and reports that we all know that are very very biased against the syrian government. turned a blind eye for a long time against the crimes committed by the terrorists and is now midsts now they are reporting on the crimes against humanity on beheading on recruiting children on rape and on the torture well slowly doing just placement with then

syria and outside syria so the humanitarian pretext for intervention is in a way a direct result of the western intervention in syria by which there are they continue to send armed militants into syria but this is one question your representing steering dialogue hopeless now isn't it too late just briefly. and there's not much of late for dialogue there are crises and a history that last that for longer than the syrian crisis of course it is disheartening for so did the mood of the blood every day is is painful but there is always a chance for reconsideration and there is always a chance for solution the crisis in syria is very complex however the solution may well be simple and only by you by holding on stopping intervention in syria from outside of the cabinet what's. and comes out of saudi fueling the violence in syria and stops and harvests the minute they do so the syrians can come to that

and the political exit exit the dissolution right we'll leave it there dr hassan about to thank you very much indeed from syria that live in london always good to hear your thoughts on this thank you for being with us thank you ben. well coming up after a break presenting a new coalition israeli leader benjamin netanyahu signs a deal to form a government with some likely partners and political peculiarities we have more now after a short break stay with us. wealthy british. time to time. the market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with. the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines

kaiser reports. you know sometimes you see a 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 that everything you. are welcome to the big picture. here most of these continues now the israeli prime minister is funny he signed a deal to form a coalition ahead of saturday's deadline but he had to make some major compromises

to do it tough negotiations binyamin netanyahu kicked a longtime ally out of the bed four out of bed i should say for the sake of keeping power at any cost well let's get the details now from. some of the new appointments in the israeli government are raising a few eyebrows what kind of political changes we going to see. well as you say the new coalition agreement has been signed and this follows weeks of suspicion and mistrust between the various political parties and also turbulent coalition negotiations now there are two newcomers to the israeli political scene the important point to make is that neither has a lot of political experience the first in fact does not mean he is a media personality by the name of you're elected and he is to be the new finance minister which is a hugely important ministry for someone who has no financial background the second is a guy by the name of nothing to be bennett he represents the secular movement and he

is to be appointed the minister of economy and trade his number two will also be the minister of construction and housing now the importance of this is that it is going to make it harder for the prime minister netanyahu to freeze or stop settlement construction and as a result of but also make it more difficult for him to reach any kind of peace deal with the palestinians this is also the first time in a decade that the government is going to exclude the ultra orthodox parties not netanyahu has counted on the support of the ultra orthodox parties in the past he would have wanted been in this coalition he would have also wanted a bigger coalition and now moving forward as part of the coalition agreement a government in the next forty five days will have to present a new law on the issue of draw fitting the ultra religious to the army the new coalition partners are one thing to serve in the army the ultra religious parties of course do not want to serve their own yahoo would also need to cross the budget

in the next few months so he certainly has his hands full all of thanks very much indeed for that let's pause there live there into the v's. in china the shift from one generation of leaders to the next one is complete the new prime minister who chung is now in charge of the second world's second largest economy faces the challenge of boosting economic growth which has slowed in recent years when a recent report from pricewaterhouse coopers says that by twenty seventeen china will match the u.s. as the world's leading economy before surging ahead also set to increase is military spending the struggle for regional influence between beijing and washington is no long standing and now this map shows you just how much that has increased the held them u.s. has increased its military presence and it's a source of concern for china's leaders well c.c.t.v. correspondent kyung weiss says that the growth of american influence in the region is fuelling local disputes there used to be

a superstitious belief almost in china about eight percent growth rate of the national t.v. coverage that net number has to slow down to about seven point five percent it has to be a slowdown never because china is doing this transition from a rose twenty three rows in quality maybe argue it is extremely important to do reform this one really has been the keyword for the new generation of leaders coming into power recently mr leak which outweighs did now the cut chinese premier he's been talking about reform is the largest dividend china can enjoy for its further progress by its president mr xi jinping after being elected was calling immediately to our president obama and he advocated the two countries quit had mutual respect and openness to one another things can be better and he's been talking about a new kinds of relations between new powers and that of course the definition is not being given by the chinese side however it seems that the u.s.

has already got its own definition for example cuba to asia or rebalancing and as a result there has been increasing. number of turturro disputes or disputes in other stores between china and some of these in the neighbors the coming in the united states might be a back up for them in the region but the chinese seems always want to have a neighborhood that seems to get really believe the chinese have been hoarding over the history of the way the current international news. report and. campaign a report suggests the much anticipated. twenty four team leave the country defenseless against militant attacks. just days after the inauguration of the new pope. francis the first never wanted to head the catholic church. but.

the scar in the red planet for traces of life means rising up to some daunting technical challenges and one of the toughest is digging deep into its soil and that's the goal of a brand new mission it's just been agreed by the european and russian space agencies a rover to be sent to mars and will drill thirty times further below the surface than the currently operating curiosity vehicle with more on the ambitious plans. this search for past or present life on mars screen to a new zone 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 rocket to usually used for delivering satellites and space station components

should blast off from lack of a cosmodrome in kazakhstan sending a european orbital probe and a stationary test lander to the red planet speech to his plan for two thousand and eighteen one a second proton rocket will deliver a rover a 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 powerful 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 these scientific equipment so far the red planet has only been visited by soviet and us vehicles eggs or mars will be europe's first visit to the red planet is going off r.t. . to update you on some other world news in brief this hour before the business news when the tash of thousands of students gathered in the streets of spain's capital madrid on thursday this after the country's government slashed education funding in a bid to ease spain's crushing debt burden the demonstrators are outraged over soaring tuition fees at spanish universities tens of thousands of teaching staff have been laid off meanwhile spain faces record unemployment with fifty five percent of young people currently out of work. a bomb attack targeting a television network has left three people dead and five injured in pakistan's largest city karate according to officials an explosive device was planted at the gates to the network's headquarters and designated remotely it's the latest in the

recent string of terrorist attacks in tensions simmer ahead of the country's may general election. and in our world update this hour of the live pictures from the capital of venezuela where thousands of flooded the streets for a final march and honor of the late chavez the procession headed by the interim president and his former confidant nicolas maduro is to escort the body of the former leader to a military museum has died last week following a long battle with cancer. and there's a pictures there from caracas. but if you don't know. what is coming up to half past the hour in the russian capital and i'll be back with more business for in about half an hour from now in the meantime i should say more news for you in about half an hour from now let me tell we have a business from the tasha she is here in the studio seems like we're in the wrong business when in that the banking industry if you if you have.