media coverage and legal appeals forced the u.s. military to admit the number of hunger strikers that kuantan of obey have gone off but he denies more than one hundred are starving themselves. washington const the final part of its european missile defense shield saying there's not enough cash and will put more interceptors on its pacific coast instead. and the size capsule lands safely in the snowy steps of kazakhstan including a five month space mission two russian cosmonauts and their u.s. crewmates. it's five pm in moscow and you're with r t a many so now with our top story this hour the u.s.

military has denied reports of a mass hunger strike at guantanamo bay lawyers for more than one hundred detainees claim their clients have gone without food for over a month the captives most of whom were cleared for release years ago reportedly began the protests after prison guards desecrated their korans kuantan a most spokesman captain robert to round to nine the claims admitting only about the number of detainees refusing all food has risen to fourteen he added that some are being force fed and one is in hospital a lawyer for the inmates told archie that reality is being twisted by authorities to downplay the crisis. how they are defining hunger strikers that is also one clear i think that one ton of mo is being very careful in the way that they're they're denying these claims they're saying the number of men who have refused all food the number of men who are being to. these kinds of things there is a question about exactly how the authorities are defining hunger strikers and

determining when when they need to be. our understanding is that based on previous standards the determination of who is a hunger striker is a discretionary determination that kuantan a moment makes if the definition of hunger striker is entirely in their control and it is a matter of their discretion that that explains how they are able to say that there are no more than a handful of men on hunger strike. on a more efficient most of the alleged hunger strikers are only refusing regular meals while still smacking but lawyers who've been to the base say they're shocked by the deteriorating condition of the detainees and despite the outcry the mainstream media continues to some the story is. now of course when the us joined the united nations human rights council back in two thousand and nine president barack obama announced his intention to close the guantanamo bay detention center now as the island prison enters its twelfth year of operation one

hundred sixty days are still languishing there and a reported one hundred thirty are on a life threatening hunger strike the story has been denied by washington and essentially ignored by mainstream media now is r t first reported on tuesday lawyers for the get more prisoners say the men began their hunger strike on february sixth to protest the alleged confiscation of their personal items including letters personal photos bed. grazers and also the alleged sacrilegious handling of the qur'an during cell searches now the center for constitutional rights says that they've received reports of detainees coughing blood losing consciousness and being hospitalized attorneys say that if this strike enters its forty fifth day that participants can experience hearing loss and

potential blindness now lawyers for the get more prisoners have sent a letter to u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel urging him to help end the mass hunger strike. in the meantime organizations like the red cross have made attempts to check in on the inmates here's what a representative told r.t. the current tensions in guantanamo as far as we can see as we understand are really the result of the uncertainty faced by the detainees in guantanamo and to their feet. to the. lack of clear legal framework for detention many of them don't know most of them don't know what's going to happen and it's always been our position there needs to be a clear legal framework and a transparent process in terms of procedural safeguards. to be transparent and fair to the strains really emotional mental strain this uncertainty triggers for the detainees of the one hundred sixty six detainees languishing get mo more than half

eighty six to be exact have been cleared for release now this week the un said that the us is of violating international human rights laws by indefinitely holding prisoners at guantanamo without charge the human rights council is urging washington to quote bring an end to these illegal practices by either prosecuting prisoners in civilian court or releasing them reporting from new york marino portnoy r.t. . human rights activists are calling for action to resolve the crisis i kuantan a mo amnesty international usually a prominent voice hasn't joined the chorus. spokesperson or why they're not buying the claims of lawyers have recently been to the facility. not having access to detainees is a problem for a human rights organization is something we raise with the operatives we have access you know when when there is

a trial military commission trial we're allowed to go and observe. trials but we have no access to the detainees themselves and yes of course it's a problem so we have to wait until the detainee is released and so we can speak to this of course leads to yes the reporting of. only individual detainee cases and it leads to a time lag because like i say the lawyers themselves not spent you know they're not there the whole time it requires declassification of information when they do get it so it's a really it's a really problematic situation but it's been problematic the whole toy that the guantanamo detention have been in operation. detainees are held at guantanamo indefinitely without charge of trial and consumption can leave despite being cleared for release rod canards was among them held groundless on a gram a sad occasion set free without an apology he shared the harrowing details of his

ordeal with r.t. i have been myself tortured and different than the first there was. the only reason why they brought us to want i was because there's no way any human rights existing over there like in prisons or us and that's mean they could. make with us whatever they like to do and. they specially tortured me to force me for signing papers and every time when i refused the kept just touching in different kind of face just try to really all kind of break us. saw. the logical way and physical torture to break the detainees and the same way with most of. the time if you

refuse to do anything it's also if you punish you for this most of electroshocks and waterboarding and stuff like that but i have seen also. it's life nine years to if you saw the kids inside the camp and of course it was for me more difficult to to watch of those kids how they get getting beaten up in front of me and it was for me really hard to get tortured myself. on our website we want to know your opinion on the matter every boy scouts that are to dot com where you can tell us why you think won ton of always still open after more than eleven years let's take a look at so far what some of you think a vast majority of you eighty three percent say the u.s. which broke its promise to close it basically will continue on that way it will stay that way some blame cuba for leasing the base to america in the first place while other thinks others think the country that refuses to detainees are

responsible although barely any of you actually believe that terrorist attack the us are the main reason forget most ongoing operation if you haven't already logged on to our team dot com and cast your vote. well coming up in the program distribution of defense the u.s. drops a key phase of european missile defense shield opting to put more defenses on home soil. plus the cost of living as britain prepares to embrace new housing costs come april we take a closer look at what the bedroom tax will cost societies worst off. technology innovation all the developments from around russia we've got the future

of covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big. news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to hope racial to rule the day.

here with our t. live from moscow washington has scrapped a k phase of its european missile defense shield citing a lack of funds and development problems the united states will deploy additional ground based missile interceptors on its pacific coast instead and what is said to be a response to pyongyang's recent nuclear threats. has the details. looks like the nuclear threat coming from north korea is now considered far more dangerous by the us than any potential risk coming from iran at least it was pyongyang as missile threat that u.s. secretary of defense chuck hagel cited as the prime reason for beefing up missile capacity as an already existing base in alaska and placing an additional rater in japan at the same time washington officials announced plans to scrap the final phase of a defense shield in eastern europe which would have seen interceptors capable of destroying most of russia's nuclear missiles and that has been

a huge point of contention between moscow and washington for quite some time now in fact going back to march of last year the infamous exchange between obama and then president mr medvedev in seoul that the nuclear security summit with the american president saying he will have more flexibility on the issue after the elections so we could speculate this could very well be the u.s. president sticking to his promises but this doesn't mean russia now has nothing to worry about after all japan and alaska aren't exactly far from his borders and anyway there are still plans to build some facilities in eastern europe though on a smaller scale than originally planned. beijing is yet to officially respond to america increasing its defense shield in china's backyard the communist government has only just completed a once in a decade shift from one generation of leaders to the next the new prime minister the container is now facing the challenge of searing the world's second largest

economy one of the key challenges is boosting growth after a recent slowdown in fact a report from pricewaterhouse coopers predicts that by twenty seventeen china will match the u.s. as the world's leading economy before surging ahead the country's military spending is also set to go grow rapidly take a look at this and you might understand why right china's backyard from south korea all the way down to his trail you know u.s. military presence in a region in the region i should say a source of concern for china and their new leaders c.c.t.v. correspondent ted way says 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 g.d.p. for that let's number has to slow down to about seven point five percent it has to be a slowdown number because china is doing this transition from a growth you want to teach growth in college and maybe argue it is extremely

important to do reform reform really has been the key word for the new generation of leaders coming into our recently mr lake which outweighs didn't know the chinese premier he's been talking about reform is the largest ever that china can be enjoyed for the program by its president mr xi jinping after being elected was calling him a delay to president obama and he advocated if the two countries could have 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. this has already got its own definition for example pivot to asia for rebalancing as a result there has been the increasing number of turturro disputes and or disputes in other stores between china and some of the asian neighbors the coming year in the united states by be a backup for them in the region but the chinese seems always want to have

a peaceful neighbor of what does seems to be a really believe the chinese have been holding over the history. catch up on another story from the world's most populated country on our website right now where we have some stunning birth control data for you the number of abortions performed by chinese doctors since beijing took up the one child policy four decades ago amounts to forty times the population of london. and its blizzards cover eastern europe with monstrous snow drifts buda pass has no other choice but to turn to war machines to rescue trapped motorists. it's easy to. leave.

the u.k.'s found a cheaper way to deal with the housing crisis the so-called bedroom tax means many who live in social housing would either lose around fourteen percent of their benefits if they have a spare room or move out or just probably boycott looks at how the less well off are trapped in a catch twenty two. brian ryder didn't ask for a two bedroom flats when he applied for emergency accommodation it was what the council gave him it was meant to be temporary and he's now lived here for fourteen years it's my home of my dad my home we've done all the work and we've put the wood paneling on the wall. we in fact stopped decorating halfway through when we realize there are more i have to move because i couldn't afford it and what's the point of decorating when i want it to improve but yeah it's more hard not all of my. it will

upset me to move on but bryan who suffers from osteoporosis and can't work has little choice the government's so-called bedroom tax comes into effect from april first six hundred forty thousand social housing tenants with at least one spare room by the have to cough up the cash from their already stretched budgets will move and there is friends bedroom according to the government less finances now officially under occupied that's because he's also got this bad dream. and as a result he's going to have to fork out fifty pounds from his housing benefit every month in order to pay for it that's money that brian needs to go to wards food and heating so he's willing to downsize in order to avoid losing the money he so desperately needs but he's been told that there are no available properties i asked him for problems one was about six months ago for moving to

a one bedroom every time i've been told her can't move me to one bedroom nevertheless westminster says the twenty three billion pound housing benefit bill needs to be slashed people are being told they should move to a smaller flat but in my constituency there are fewer than a hundred places people could move to a much fairly typical across the country as a whole if you can't move to a smaller property you can't avoid it you just have to pay the money and you're left with very very little amount just does seem very unfair the government is saying they won't have a tax on big mansions but they are having a bedroom tax on the poorest people in the country the department for work and pensions declined to comment on the controversial policy the impending changes of course such widespread concern that the government announced the parents of those serving in the armed forces foster carers and parents of severely disabled children will now be exempt from the changes as for the rest of the body in this situation

is being blocked into a corner and until the council finds him a smaller flat brian will have to take the financial hit i haven't had any suggestions from any of them about what to do if and when they do is run out and i find it hard to which i would now realise it's happening now it's coming closer so i have no choice in the matter it has been getting even more stressful closer we've got to the day because i just don't know what i'm going to do with what many are calling black april fast approaching critics say it's those with the least that are being hit the hardest. artsy kidderminster. legend veterans who fought alongside german nazis during world war two have marched to the capital they say they're paying respect to the victims of launching a struggle for independence however the rally is distinct nationalist tone and clear nazi references have sparked concerns inside and outside the baltic country like syria was there for us. around two thousand people have gathered in central

riga to march the streets of the city in the march of the nationalist forces nationalist parties the march which is meant to commemorate those who as they say fought for independence back in the one nine hundred forty s. in reality and this has been said by many critics the people who are marching here veterans of the latvian legion of the waffen s.s. who fought alongside the nazi troops certainly this is creating lots of divide and lots of concerns in a lot we're we've spoken to several human rights activists from europe here on the site who said that they are very sad to see that on the european continent and european union which fought against naziism things like this still exist and they believe this to be nothing else but glorification of the horrible things of the cross the glorification of naziism this march is nothing out of the ordinary for a lot of it happens every year amid protests and concerns by human rights activists

all across europe but the biggest concern that they expressed to us when we talked to several of them was that the number of youths participating in this march is growing every year and. relate this to a rather tough economic branch which largely is experiencing at the moment the neo nazi and nationalist mood getting stronger in the country but we've seen with our own little children aged from three to seven let's say walking together with the veterans the anti-fascist movement which had a rally of their own just close just basically meters to. here to the final point of the march they had their let's say ideological diversion as they called it when the marching veterans of the latter legion approached the square they turned on music and a war sire and this was as they described it their way to protest against what they

believe to be glorification of fascism in europe. still to come this hour unexpected alliances israel's prime minister gives up on his years long alliance with ultra-orthodox jewish parties and seed significant power to rivals just to form a coalition. but first britain and france plan to push ahead with direct weapon supplies to the opposition in syria which is now into its third year of civil conflict on friday both nations trying to get the e.u. to drop its arms embargo to allow guns to stream into the hands of anti regime forces moscow says any such attempt would be a breach of international law however the french president says opposition fighters have offered guarantees arms will not end up in the hands of islamic extremists this comes amid rebel claims that hundreds of their men who've been trained by the u.s. to use anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry and returned from jordan to fight in syria political analyst robert harneys thinks the e.u. will eventually find

a way to get arms into the war torn country. i'm quite sure there will be some modification of the fans to leave the league loophole so that britain and france can actually draw the coach and horses through it they've already been sending weapons into syria so it's it's childish to pretend that this is a new development but they want to do it more openly and more legally few months ago from said oh they were terribly worried about the poor refugees so they sent a hospital to jordan it just happened to be a military hospital i'm at the time various people say that every year we go this is the foot in the door and now there are several different allied armies in jordan and they are training our rebels there i mean i do aries you got the turkish wrong to now you're going to have the jordan from to distract the syrian government to take them on to flanks later this hour we'll bring you a report on the human cost of the conflict in syria on the scale of violence with eyewitness accounts. these

are decent faces of freedom fighters. and. they're ready to clean up a disorder. and bring you liberty any time. if so little play free. not. to be free to sway. syrian diary an archie. israel's prime minister is facing tough political decisions ahead after being forced to form a coalition with his rivals the motion was preceded by waves of deadlocked negotiations and resulted in benjamin netanyahu giving up a long term allies to keep power or just pulse the are reports

a new coalition agreement has been signed in this follows weeks of suspicion and mistrust between the various political parties and also to prevent coalition negotiations now they ought to 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 that the name of the lead 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 would 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 much from yahoo has counted on the support of the ultra orthodox parties in the past who 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 the 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 one thing to serve in the army the ultra religious parties of course do not want to sort of there are now who would also need to pass the budget in the next few months so he certainly has his hands full. with some other world news in brief for you lists our hundreds have marched on the part of them. building in the afghan capital of demonstrators demanding the release of several people a lunch of the detained by the u.s. military and an immediate pullout of american troops from the country's war doc province this after afghan president had given us troops two weeks to get out of

war doc following allegations that locals had been abducted and tortured wardak province has seen a recent surge in american led anti insurgency operations. cyprus has secured a ten billion euro bailout deal from the eurozone finance ministers to rescue with failing economy in return the island state house to boost taxes the banking sector and cut its significant budget deficit so proud banks have been exposed to its austerity burden neighbor greece this comes just ahead of the country's finance minister's visit to russia which could also reportedly lend a helping hand. clashes broke out in the canadian city of montreal after five hundred people attended an annual rally against police brutality hundreds of officers used pepper spray and tattling tactics to disperse the march to claire illegal the protest organizers claimed there were up to two hundred fifty arrests. as have reported that

a bus filled with palestinians overturned near the border with israel killing at least fifteen people including the driver the vehicle was traveling through jordan from a religious pilgrimage in neighboring saudi arabia the accident apparently occurred after the driver lost control of the brakes and skidded off the road after bad weather up said plans to return the international space station crew back to earth on friday two russian cosmonauts and an american astronaut have now landed safe and sound with more on the team's voice home here's our correspondent tom barr. kevin ford oh leg novitsky and you have guinea terror in our back safely on earth after their five month stint up on the international space station on the video screen here at mission control in moscow you can see them being fished out of their soyuz capsule and kept warm after that rough descent through earth's atmosphere and down on to the step in kazakstan their return to worth delayed by a day because of bad weather they're casual came in today over the caspian and

black seas without a hitch to be met by recovery teams on the step in kazakhstan for the first time ever those teams including three women helping to fish them out of their capsule and get them on the road to a climate izing back to the atmosphere here on earth whilst on the international space station they help the crew up there conduct maintenance on the orbiting platform and also research much of that research focusing on the effects of microgravity both on the human body and on various engineering substances the next manned mission up to the international space station in a couple of weeks time will attempt something novel for a manned mission that is to rapidly and drastically cut the time it takes for those three crewmembers to get up to the space station from the current two days down to just six hours and that mission will carry the.