media and legal pressure force washington to conceive the number of hunger strikers have gone tanabe it's higher than first admitted but it denies all the one hundred inmates are starving themselves. washington's put on hold the final phase of a controversial european missile shield due to a lack of cash instead deciding to focus on bolstering its defense against what the pentagon says is the threat posed by north korea. on the long term capital riga plays host to an annual march by over a thousand nazi veterans who served in the s.s. sparking outrage both inside the country and abroad.

you saw russia and around the world this is the with me hello and welcome to the program. now the u.s. military has denied claims prisoners at guantanamo bay detention center engaged in a mosque hunger strike that's despite the laws of more than one hundred detainees claim that clients have gone without food for more than a month and it's been reported that the inmates most of whom were cleared for release years ago began stopping themselves up to prison guards desecrated the cohens so i've gone time a spokesman capital captain of all but a drone denied the allegations saying only that the number of detainees refusing all food has risen to fourteen and according to durant some of the strikers are being force fed and one has ended up in hospital with inmates told the authorities denials cannot be trusted as they are only want to downplay the crisis. how they are defining hunger strikers that it is also one clear i think that went on

a 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 who 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 that our understanding is that based on previous standards the determination of who is a hunger strike there is a discretionary determination that one ton a moment makes if the definition of hunger striker is entirely in their control and it is a matter of their discretion then i that explains how they are able to say that there are no more than a handful of men on hunger strike. so antonymous fishel is claim most of the alleged hunger strikers are only refusing regular meals while still smoking might have been to the base a shocked by the deteriorating condition of the detainees despite the outcry the

mainstream music continues to shun the story as well she's more in a fortnight of reports when the us joined the united nations human rights council back in two thousand and nine as an improper 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 cities are still languishing there and over forty 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 sheets razors and also the a legit sacrilegious handling of their kranz 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. result of the. to defeat what's going to happen to them there is a 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 for those detainees to be transparent and to alleviate the strains of really emotional mental strain 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 u.s. is a violating international human rights law 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 reporting from new york very important party. dr mark mason says that the majority of detainees should be immediately set free

there and only about six of them should stand trial. outrage head being imprisoned in what can be characterized as nothing less than the american sort medieval torture chamber it's nothing less than that we get from the u.s. government along a list of false terms and euphemisms such as detainees and rendition but we have here conditions where hundred sixty six people are imprisoned more than half of been cleared he should be out on the streets free today maybe six should be in a court of law like tomorrow morning dressing specific charges with appropriate opportunity to access to the defense attorneys but this is the condition we have a medieval torture chamber here. for the chinese are how to go on time a indefinitely without charge or trial and some are not permitted to leave despite being cleared for release and murat kurnaz was once among them out on ground with

allegations and set free without an apology and he shared with r.t. the details of abuse and torture he suffered at guantanamo i have myself tortured and different kinds of. their laws. the only reason why they brought us to guantanamo was because there's no 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 they kept just touching me in different kind of face just try to really all kind of way to break us. so. they tried psychological ways and physical torture to break the detainees and the same way with myself. every time if you

refused to do anything they tortured you punish you for this i must have got tortured by electroshocks and waterboarding and stuff like that but i have seen also. it's lights nine years to if you sold 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 harder to get tortured myself. and you can head over to r.t. dot com to give us your opinion on gone tunnel day and there were asking you who you think is responsible for the notorious ascension center remaining open after more than eleven years and perhaps you think the u.s. is to blame for failing to close the facility despite promising to do so or maybe that cuba should never have leased the based america in the first place also maybe other countries are at fault for refusing to take gun tunnel inmates back or indeed

it is the terrorist threat that hangs over the u.s. the main reason the facilities still in operation so let's now have a look and so far the latest results of our online poll they show that the vast majority of you blame washington for not keeping promises and almost equally the same number of you think that others are responsible for what's happening on time of day so do her comment cast your vote if you haven't done it yet. now our cameraman working for us he's our big sister channel in egypt has been attacked with a stick while filming activists adoring graphic graffiti on walls innocent happened there instead russia happened next to the headquarters of the muslim brotherhood party in the capital clever and we got these pictures from the syrian bahrain news channel they were film they were filmed don't reckon up to the assault and which camera was also. injured mine was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital where

he needed stitchers so they couldn't send the may have been islam at least who arrived at the scene a clash with the activists and used tear gas to disperse the crowd egypt is currently in a state of unrest with anti-government protests across the country. distribution of difference washington councils a key phase of its european missile defense shield right after the break else who looks at why be you are suddenly decided to deploy more and to missile interceptors on its pacific coast it's that. old. technology innovation. developments around russia we've got the future covered. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you know. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are the day. this is actually live from moscow welcome back washington has

a bond as the final stage of its european to missile shield saying it doesn't have the cash to pay for it instead it's going to deploy additional interceptors along its pacific host and according to the u.s. defense secretary of the move as a response to the threat posed by north korea the communist state recently tested a third nuclear bomb. as the details. looks like the nuclear threat coming from north korea is now considered far more dangerous by the u.s. than any potential risk coming from iran at least it was pyongyang as missile threats 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 at 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. pyongyang has reportedly threatened surtax south korean islands along the disputed maritime border as the latest threat to emerge from north korea following fresh u.n. sanctions over the country's third nuclear weapons test and former m i five agent and he may can believe the situation plays into the hands of washington allowing it to gain more influence in the pacific region what we're looking at at this point is

north korea being a useful idiot a pretext for america to defend a resource rich part of the world and when i was in my five for one thing we were always taught in terms of assessing a threat from any sort of source or country it was one do they have the capability and today they have the intention now of course north korea is very loudly said they have the intention to trial attack america but they certainly don't have the capability at this point and even if they were to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles the nearest base for america they would hit only alaska but north korea's always been much more belligerent i think iran and this is the assessment of the entire u.s. intelligence community which was iran would stop trying to develop any sort of nuclear weapon if they see it in two thousand and three and this has been stood up time and time again since two thousand and seven so we all know that iran is not a real threat to america's interests we all know it's not a threat to the west and this fake shield they were trying to provide to eastern

europe because they would be in range of any missiles that iran might want to launch was just a fake ploy i think it was used as an excuse so it's interesting now that the focus is moving to an overtly aggressive but very small and capable country away from iran. and coming up shortly because of living as britain proposed to embrace new budget cuts come april we'll take a closer look at what the so-called bedroom tax will cost the poorest people in society. cyprus has secured a ten billion euro bailout from eurozone finance ministers to avoid bankruptcy but the people there are not particularly happy with the deal so. in return for the rescue package they're facing a ten percent levy on their saving establish the budget hours after the deal was announced people started lining up at i.t.n. as a chance to cash out before the levee takes effect so one man was so frustrated he parked his bulldozer in front of a bank apparently threatening to break in and you're one of our own other well to editing chief of trans magazine the deal may set

a dangerous precedent. if that rose because what has been agreed means that on average there will be something like an eight percent tax because there's a difference between small and large at the. next station which is of course a huge shock to the. economy of the power of the people and one of the medium consequences of this of this measure will be a recession which is already quite severe and so it will be much worse but let's not forget that. this also is a message to other countries because what has been applied to cyprus now can you can actually also be applied to other countries and i am very anxious to see on monday what the reaction will be in order so the european prizes countries in the euro zone because of this i think the fear that what has been agreed upon reduce

cyprus now might lead to. greece again in capital flight from these other countries. and of course you can find more on the crisis hit cyprus on our website dot com and where where we have all the latest news and videos from around the world is a quick look at some what we have there for you right now like drone strikes in syria and according to u.s. officials the cia's boosting intelligence gathering on islamic radicals in the country in preparation for their possible arrival of drone attacks later. and also check our web site for the latest pictures from the. angry protests in new york after the fatal police shooting of a black teenager all that so is just a click away at r.t. dot com. so it's the most amount by veterans a world war two is a thing to celebrate not so in last year and more than a thousand s.-s. of air tran's and supporters gathered in the capital reagan for their annual rally

at least four people were detained during the march which sparked controversy and criticism that it's a glorification of announces a leadership skill reports now from riga. one gun silas was born in a prison in franco's fascists he and his parents were repressed by that regime so he was hurt when he learned that says veterans marched through the streets of lobbyist capital riga. all of europe fought so hard to eradicate fashion in spain. where it was one state ideology you would now never see even if the stations which glorify nazism it's considered shameful what happens here in riga is totally incredible and outrageous. marches by former lothian s.s. legionnaires in riga are nothing out of the ordinary since lotty became independent they've been held every year the men who once fought on the side of nazi germany are seen as freedom fighters by some here

a view which divides society in this state for many years this march had been forbidden by the cities of a court decision that overturned it and them are still so place this year the high court decided to strike first even before the mayor had to say the court said that the march must take place and force the mayor to apologize for all the yes he had been banning this march the masterminds of this march a lot of his nationalists say they want the younger generation to embrace their history and recognize their heroes. you know what i'm especially proud to see so many young people today this is proof that we're living in a free country which had been under occupation for many years. but many in europe simply cannot understand what appreciation of freedom has to do with three year olds walking alongside former nazi troops especially given that is a member of the e.u. which has no second opinion on fascism she is

a member of the infamous not for remembrance of the locals and it's a very good book to say it's very easy to non-fans that on one side you are a member of such an. problem organization to remember what happened seven years ago in order to avoid all children to repeat the mistakes of the story and on the other side you will know those people the mob and to read the diversity because he truly believes each aim for the law to be as anti-fascist movement has been fighting these marches for a decade with no success they fear this movement is getting stronger as last year's economy gets weaker and strengthening it is a well planned government tactic chicago but they might it's easy to bring up nationalist ideas to divert attention from economic troubles our parliament even wanted to make march sixteenth a national holiday of the latvian army this day had nothing to do with our army but

in nazi germany march sixteenth it was called a day of heroes praising the army this speaks volumes to what our government does about this lot is anti-fascist have sent petitions to the european commission many times to help get these marches outlawed with no response so far putting pictures of nazi camps and lot to be where tens of thousands perished in the 1940's is yet another attempt to have their outrage recognized. reporting from riga in la to be. on later in the program the five month long out of this well business trip that is finally that sas three crew members of the international space station finally touched down in kazakhstan after a successful mission so we have all the details just ahead for you. thousands of people across the u.k. have protest against this so-called bedroom tax which is due to cake and in april they change will affect over half

a million people who will lose around fourteen percent of their housing benefits if they have a spare room a government claims the new cuts will unleash billions of pounds annually but as as his point of political reports now is the country's poorest who will pay the price . for. 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 live to fourteen year is it's my home of my dad my home we've done all the work and we've put the wood paneling on the war. we stopped decorating halfway through when we realize there are more have to move because i couldn't afford it and what's the point of decorating when i want to uproot but it's more hard not all of my mind 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 fix or wants 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 them for problems one was about six months ago for moving to a one bedroom every time or have been told me to one but 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 i'm not 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 that 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 and i haven't had any suggestions from any of them about what to do if the need to run out and i find it

hard to do which i will do now realise it's happening now it's coming closer. i have no choice in the matter it has been getting even more stressful for 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 is being at the heart. just. artsy. and to some other stories making news around the world in pakistan twenty four soldiers have been killed and five injured when a bus skidded off a mountainous word into the deep ravine the troops were on leave from a garrison in the north of the country so officials say that the crash was most likely caused by driver error or accidents like this are common in a country where many road conditions remain paul. thousands of tunisians have rallied in the capital to mark the fourth day since their sasa

nation opposition leader chokri belaid mourners gathered at the cemetery where bin laden was buried and then marched to the city center the politicians of we do and opposition acts of it led the rally demanding the killer be brought to justice the assassination sparked anti-government protests that caused the islamist prime minister to resign. a female swiss tourist has been hospitalized after being gang raped in central india more than a dozen suspects have already been arrested by police the victim and her husband were on a bicycle trip when they stopped by a knife near a small village so they were than a target by up to ten men armed with sticks and this comes after a spate of such attacks public regret over the treatment of women in the country. demonstrations have broken out in the bahraini city of sutra marchers are angry david blumenthal the foreign troops in the country troops from other gulf states of the station that since the outbreak of poor foreign projects in february twenty

eleven in that time clashes with security forces have left after a c.p. people dead while dozens of activists have been jailed. finally back home after a bad weather upset plans to return to the international space station's crew on friday a five month long expedition has finally ended for three crewmembers on the ice says two russian cosmonauts and an american astronaut and are safe and sound. to work in long beach on the teen's voyage home is our correspondent tom barton. kevin ford oleg novitsky and you of guinea terril kin are 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 earth delayed by a day because of bad weather they're casual came in today over the caspian and

black sees 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 sizing back to the atmosphere here on earth while still on the international space station to help the crew up there conduct maintenance on the orbiting platform and also research much of that research focusing on the affects 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 next three crewmembers up

for their term orbiting earth. and coming your way after the break an insight into the syrian conflict and he brings you the personal experiences and recollections of journalists who spent seven months in the emotional state. the month before the oscars and what annoys you with their predictions and the month after everyone complains about the results but isn't being talked about much as the few hundred people who gathered to protest the glamour filled award show why protest the asker's you ask well although the film life of pi won the oscar for best visual effects effects to you that made the movie look so amazing were the men hugh.