the week's top stories hunger for justice more than one hundred prisoners in guantanamo bay reportedly fasting for forty days now risking their health in a protest over their white. road testing the police new yorkers take to the streets outraged at the cop killing a black teen with a commemoration a rally just setting in to arrest and violence. syria's spiral the country marking two years since the start of the ongoing conflict resulting in tens of thousands of deaths but the u.k. and france are pushing to lift an e.u. arms embargo to get weapons to rebels. a transfer of power in china new leadership taking the reins eyeing to boost a growing economy and assessing military spending as the u.s. pushes for greater influence in the region.

i am in moscow i met tries to bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on our t.v. our top story the mass hunger strike in guantanamo prison has entered its fortieth day with more than one hundred inmates reportedly staging an act of defiance the strike was launched in protest against the confiscation of personal belongings and alleged rough handling of their qur'an well the prisoners lawyers are sounding the alarm over their clients critical condition the camp officials claim allegations are merely a gross exaggeration marina porton iowa takes a look. u.s. president barack obama began his first term announcing his intention to close the guantanamo bay detention center now just two months into his second term the prison enters its twelfth year of operation with one hundred sixty six detainees still

languishing behind bars and a reported one hundred thirty on a life threatening hunger strike and their hunger strikes are the only way they have of even making themselves heard years and years without any hope a release without any real charges this story has been denied by washington and essentially ignored by mainstream media outlets lawyers for the get more prisoners say the men began the hunger strike on february sixth to protest against the alleged confiscation of personal items such as photographs and mail and the sacrilegious handling of their qur'an during cell searches the center for constitutional rights says they've received reports of detainees coughing up blood losing consciousness dropping more than twenty pounds and being hospitalized by day forty five medical experts say hunger strike participants can experience hearing loss and potential blindness and that's in addition to the psychological suffering

they've endured for more than a decade 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 in that sense of the circumstance for extreme psychological stress it's really an abominable you know humanitarian situation where you're depriving these people of life liberty and for no really valid basis the director of public affairs for joint task force guantanamo captain robert duran released a statement to our teeth in it he denies all claims of a mass hunger strike or any mishandling of the koran duran says only fourteen detainees at the detention center are refusing all food. our understanding is that based on previous standards the determination of who is a hunger striker is

a discretionary determination that one chinaman makes what those standards are what the criteria are are questions that they need to be at you know how are they defining hunger striker and when are they determining that someone needs to be to that and if it is 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 lawyers representing get more prisoners have sent a letter to us defense secretary chuck hagel urging him to help and the protest in the meantime organizations like the red cross have made attempts to check on the inmates welfare here's what a representative told r.t. the current tensions in guantanamo as far as we can see and as far as we understand are really the result of the uncertainty is my detainees in guantanamo don't certainty linked to defeat what's going to happen to them you know 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 open and so has been our position and there needs to be a clear legal framework and a transparent process into the procedural safeguards for those detainees and it's to be transparent and fair to alleviate the strains really that emotional mental strain of this uncertainty triggers for the detainees of the one hundred sixty sixteen ease at guantanamo bay eighty six have been cleared for release now this week the u.n. 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 process. getting prisoners in civilian court or releasing the morning from new york marina point r.t. . human rights groups around the globe have been campaigning to close guantanamo or

during president obama to keep the promise he made more than four years ago activist arsene caray she says the clock is ticking inside america basically because there is no real. public resentment at all what is taking place there most of the pressure that's coming is internationally yes you have some groups so what he's very hard to to highlight the issue and to make sure that it stays on the agenda but unfortunately for the also in georgia of america they're quite happy for these detainees to could continue you know detained without charge or trial basically if one tottenham is ever going to close it's going to be within these next four years. obama has the best so pushing to do that this is the second time he cannot have the. you know and where hoping and it might be misplaced hope but basically that he will try and use these last year is

his presidency in order to do the right thing in a situation where the only thing that has ever happened is the wrong. time or prisoners are struggling to draw attention to their plight there's been no reaction from one of the world's most powerful human rights movements and it's the international which is more than three million supporters around the globe has remained silent r.t.s. the group's usa researcher rob freer why. not having access to detainees is a problem for a human rights organization is something we raise with the authorities we have access you know when when there is a trial so-called military commission trial we're allowed to go and observe those trials but we have no access to the details 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 some of the reporting of. on individual detainee cases and it leads to

a time lag because like i say the lawyers themselves are 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 time that the guantanamo detentions have been in operation. earlier this week a group of lawyers defending the guantanamo hunger strikers expressed concern in a letter to u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel the pentagon said it was aware of it but was refusing to discuss it stephen true at one of the lawyers involved tells us more. indefinite detention is itself against the geneva conventions so yes i would have to say that it is against international law and it is binding on the united states and starting in the summer of two thousand and twelve there were various clampdowns and restrictions first on attorneys traveling to the base and that was rejected by

a court but there have been other more recent events where those abuses have involved seizure of personal materials seizure of attorney client materials and most importantly improper handling of the koran which is to that very sacred book and which when it is mishandled it is a an act of sacrilege and that is what has kindled the immediate reaction which is led to a hunger strike i think. despite the condemnation the detention camp at guantanamo bay's been operation operation for more than eleven years now on our website we're asking on our online poll who you think is to blame so far the overwhelming majority eighty percent are blaming the u.s. government for not sticking to its promise to shut down the facility eight percent

are saying it's the fault of the terrorists who attacked the united states back in two thousand and one a little less think cuba is to blame for leasing out the base in the first place and a minority five percent say it's other countries for refusing to take the one time tomorrow inmates back if you haven't done so yet click on r t dot com and cast your own vote. well stay with us here on r.t. still ahead this hour pope francis approves his name saying he wants a poor church for poor people while he also hopes to cleanse the catholic church is tarnished reputation and washed the holy sea clean of its sex abuse scandals also coming up. we were aboard about the bond between the falkland islands in the u.k. as the territory overwhelmingly votes to remain british about twelve london comes under fire for being hypocritical in its overseas policies. before we get to any of that the killing of a black sixteen year old teenager in new york by new york city police has prompted a week of protests in brooklyn resulting in clashes and some arrests people vented

anger at the n.y.p.d. accusing them of systematic racism. has more. oh. sixteen year old kimani gray was killed by police shot four times in the front and three in the back the n.y.p.d. claimed the team had pointed a gun at them however this remains uncertain that there was a weapon that no one saw and not his friends his family didn't know he had a weapon and there were a lot of witnesses outside who were able to see it that this individual to show didn't have a weapon on him as these candles burned in memory of yet another killed youth an entire community rises up night after night to demand justice and to police brutality for three nights in a row peaceful vigils turned chaotic clashes broke out. leaving one officer hospitalized after reportedly being injured with a brick a total of forty six arrests were made wednesday. but no violence erupted thursday

night tensions however still ran high. i mean this is no different than what's going on the polish you know so it's like it's like another country a lot of people are just tired of the period with solutions to stop the violence nowhere in sight deeply seated issues between the police and the community remain unaddressed leaving many worried children parents are not supposed to bury their child and this must be obsolete and hearty new york as we mark two years since the start of the conflict in syria what began as protests for reform and change inspired by the revolt fever from the arab spring states turned into a bloody civil war that's killed tens of thousands syria's been torn apart by violence and while some countries abroad are been trying to settle its future they've only helped fan the flames wary of emotional reports. this part of syria known as mesopotamia between the tigris and euphrates rivers is considered a cradle of civilization has been home to many asked 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 the longest of all the arab spring countries but assad didn't step down within weeks like the leaders of to measure 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 both 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 country's sunni majority

and the ruling shia minority some more ignorant position and sometimes executed. in order to make a city and it's not the more the once the one again. we should keep our unity we live in all of all of. it gabriel a point from commercially livin in syria's north east bordering sunni dominated turkey and mostly shia iraq says here in about six tarion intolerance is something new for syria and very alarming your. will 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 northeast targeted the kurdish syrian peaceful coexistence has also been endangered of a kind of its approval cations a pure and very dangerous moment 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 of course when violence targets us it can't not affect relations. and fears that those who want to see the fall of the regime will witness the country's fall instead. from syria.

after almost six months of captivity and in constant fear of execution a ukrainian journalist escaped the to safety from syria's rebels and he assad fighters had repeatedly threatened to kill her demanding a fifteen million dollar ransom for release on her coach and have a share the details of her escape inside the captors mistreated her. you know. at some point i realized that either i'd be killed by the army is i was held in a location from where the bandits were firing rockets or i'd be killed by the rebels the treatment was very bad i lost some twenty kilograms and received no medical attention so i decided to take the situation into my own hands and escape i picked a time when it was possible to escape and one early morning by the guards was sleeping i sneaked out dressed as a civilian i knew i could be beaten up or even killed if captured again but i did have an idea of where to go and some passer by asked me who i was i told him the

truth and luckily he didn't turn me in and help me get out thank god he did that i was afraid to terry terry was mind. news of the escape britain and france have made moves to try to directly arm the rebels the two states say they want to lift anyone bardot and warn they may still supply weapons despite the ban russia's responded saying any such attempt would be a breach of international law r.t. contributor russian a town c believes it will eventually backfire on countries if they are fighters by definition that would be supplied by the french and british governments would be in the wrong hands because they are supplying rebels in a civil war and therefore they are the wrong hands no matter who britain or france and so this is i think what's interesting here is that washington is much more nervous about the rebels because they are obviously concerned that the afghanistan scenario is beginning yet again but it is so sad the leaders of countries like

france and britain can think of these lists because the blowback will be phenomenal . white smoke ability and white smoke billowing from the roof of the sistine chapel wednesday signaled the new head of the catholic church pope francis had been chosen the seventy six year old argentine has become the first pontiff ever from the americas and the first from beyond europe for more than a thousand years here a place benedict the sixteenth of the vatican who unexpectedly stepped down late february but francis certainly has many challenges ahead of him leading catholics at a time when the church is facing a deep crisis a string of child sex abuse cases where the most damage or the most damaging let's take a look at some of the statistics the largest number of reported cases of children abused by priests in the u.s. allegations were made against more than four thousand priests and deacons more than

a billion dollars have been paid out to victims and settlement cash in ireland which comes in second in these numbers the church had been turning a blind eye to allegations for thirty years in germany two thirds of all the diocese were allegedly involved in sex abuse scandals and in austria is an example of how these scandals have led to people's disillusionment with the church almost ninety thousand austrians have deserted it in only one year italian journalist franco all of a thinks there needs to be a large spiritual rebranding of the church but it'll be a tough task especially in the current crisis hit europe. the program is the new property nobody told you it comes from south america disagree since. well before the start no progress but the issue of who to freeze the nobility of the old there's of germs which will you root for you appreciate every. moment your moral crimes. can be. many people especially in europe they are getting away from the church didn't find their needs you know the church in the region.

is going to be could be problem if the world did you know they were richer so that through you know the poorer countries. a camera working for our kids arabic sister channel in egypt was attacked while filming activists drawing graffiti on walls had to r.t. dot com to see the footage of the incident that happened next to the headquarters of the muslim brotherhood party in cairo at another click away online right now bringing you. china's new leader xi jinping is pledged to fight for the great renaissance of his nation he says in his first speech after assuming the presidency china's been reassigning its top jobs this week in a once in a decade transition of power as beijing based correspondent john mayer reports it comes amid many challenges and promising forecasts also. there used to be

a superstitious believe almost in china about a eight percent growth rate of the national g.d.p. number has been slowed down to about seven point five percent it has to be a slow down number because china is doing this transition from a growth in quantity to a growth in quality many argue it is extremely important to do reform reform really has been the key word for the new generation of leaders coming into power recently . child who is did now the cut chinese premier he's been talking about reform is the largest dividend china can be enjoyed for its course for the progress the new president mr xi jinping after being elected was calling him a delay two of 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 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 territorial disputes and or disputes in other stores between china and some of the asian neighbors with the coming in the united states might be a backup for them in the region but the china seems always want to have a peaceful neighborhood that seems to be a really believe the chinese have been holding over the history. being said economic development may be the top priority of the ruling communist party and he may be very happy with the latest forecasts. a report from pricewaterhouse coopers provides that proves the task to boost g.d.p. is within the country's reach it predicts that china now the world's second largest economy will match the u.s. the current leader by two thousand and seventeen and then over take it one of the top spending priorities announced by the new leadership is defense is comes amid

the u.s. intends flexing its own military in china's backyard as we can see on this map u.s. efforts to gain a stronger foothold in asia and the struggle for regional influence in beijing has put the country our has put beijing on edge in recent months trying to export martin jake's things more china grows as a power the more concerned the u.s. may become. the whole way now in which the chinese leadership is constructed i mean if it's going to shift it's not a shift now it will shift you know several years down the road i think what would it mean for nations with the united states i mean relations with the united states have to be getting more complicated and i think the reason for that is because the fool you know china was very much still a developing country a much weaker global power down the united states but china of course has the growing like crazy is more and more prisons around the world different continents

and different countries so. interests are larval to be in conflict areas that was previously the case and i think this is the reason why it's getting more complicated. turning now to some other stories making headlines across the globe in tunisia thousands marched against islam is government the use of assassinating shokri belaid a prominent secular politician it was the biggest rally organized since believe was shot dead exactly forty days ago this is spec to political motivations of his murder sparked public outcry and forced the country's prime minister to resign friday although the ruling party denies any involvement in the crime yesterday's rally was the biggest to shake tunisia since the jasmine revolution two years ago. in egypt hundreds of hardcore football fans rallied in cairo for the release of their recently detained comrades known as ultras thirty eight were arrested and charged last week after attempting to set fire to a court where one of their fellow members was being tried tensions have been

running high in the country since twenty one people were given the death penalty for their roles in the two thousand and twelve football riots during which seventy four people died. auckland islanders have voted overwhelmingly to remain a british territory with only three votes going against the idea in a two day referendum u.k. prime minister david cameron's called on argentina to respect the landslide result of buenos aires maintains a briton stole the islands from it two centuries ago the continuing dispute sees some critics questioning britain's overseas policies as r.t. sarah firth reports. this is the story of an island a proud and spirited people displaced and i government he put it devastatingly high price on paradise shockingly for many it will be the first time the stories ever being heard. of the happiness. living to each other and away when been treating here. we discover

a moment it's very hard to go says a british colony in the indian nation and the largest of the chaebol silence has a population of roughly two thousand people about the same as the. good memories. there you go it's a home a real paradise today they da gusty is one of america's biggest military advices because we it's our land. it's not for them. you know when you see them you got this anger because they are enjoying the island. we are suffering back in the one nine hundred sixty s. and it is shrouded in secrecy bush cynically to learn the islands to the us but there was a problem the island had for generations been inhabited by the chikezie and people they'd built schools hospitals

a whole life and what did the british government they simply pretended none of this existed by fixing the entire population from their homes secrets lies deception dishonesty all the way through it in fact in one thousand nine hundred eighty as a person went to war protecting the folks and islanders from argentina in training first sums of money and costing precious lives the exact same time it was also using extensive resources preventing the people of the chakan silence from attending the falkland living in the homeland and they have a choice to say where they if they wanted to stay under. the rule of the british or if they wanted to go to the fork. time rules they have a city. and we don't have the city it. gave me the impression that there's not just this event the british government is the one like you every now and then use you

here in the news talking about human rights justice social justice and so on but they are the one that many people in the justice that she can see in community have been fighting for their right to return to the islands ever since they winning some of their cool cases persist. government have continually appealed blocking their progress every step of the way how differently the chikezie and people have been treated there's been a government balloting on knocking on doors on their behalf well asking what they want the h word comes to my mind page for people corsi for how long are you going to punish us for how long we're going to leave this life. we don't want to be here we don't want this life. we want to go back home where we belong that's all we're trying to send us back home perhaps the most

shocking thing about this story is this isn't simply something that happened decades ago this past injustices have been compounded by successive british governments right up to the coalition of today he continued to fight against the chuckles since returning to their island and so their stories remain largely consigned to the shadows and yet you persist in people continuing to bravely fight to return to their home. says. sarah. and still to come after a short break anger over argo jasko winning movie pauses a region in iran which is planning to sue over hollywood fear mongering in rewriting history after it claims the film wrongly portrays the storming of the us embassy in tehran back in one nine hundred seventy nine what. is there life on the red line at russia europe.