taking a look back at the week's top stories hunger for justice more than one hundred prisoners in guantanamo bay reportedly fasting for forty days risking their health in a protest over their plight. protesting the police new yorkers take to the streets are arranged at the killing of a black teenager with commemoration rallies turning into arrests and violence. syria is the country marks two years since the start of its ongoing conflict resulting in tens of thousands of deaths while the u.k. and france pushed to lift an arms embargo to get weapons to the rebels. and a transfer of power in china new leadership taking the reins i mean to boost a growing economy and increasing military spending as the u.s. pushes for greater influence in the region.

it's ten am in moscow treasure bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on our t.v. we begin in guantanamo cuba where a mass hunger strike as of the prison there has entered its fortieth day with more than one hundred inmates reportedly staging the act of defiance the strike launched in protest against the confiscation of personal belongings in a rough handling they say of their korans while the prisoners attorneys are sounding the alarm over their clients condition camp officials claim allegations are gross exaggerations are marine important 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 life threatening hunger strike and their hunger

strikes are the only way they have of even making themselves heard years and years without any hold a release without any real charges this story has been denied by washington and essentially ignored by mainstream media outlets lawyers for the good no prisoners say the men began the hunger strike on feb sixth to protest against the alleged confiscation of personal items such as photographs and mail and the sacrilegious handling of the 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 such of a 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 kuantan i'm a 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 no 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 where those detainees and it's to be transparent and fair to alleviate the strain is really that emotional mental strain that this uncertainty triggers for the detainees of the one hundred sixty sixty teenie zach one time obey 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. r.t. . human rights groups around the globe have been campaigning to close guantanamo urging president obama to keep the pledge he made more than four years ago

activists seem corish he thinks 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 very hard to to highlight the issue and to make sure that it stays on the agenda but unfortunately for the boston george 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 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 thing while prisoners in good mo are struggling to draw attention to their plight there's been no reaction from one of the world's foremost human rights movements amnesty international which has more than three million supporters has remained largely silent r.t.s. the group's usa researcher rob freer as to 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 the trials but we have no access to the detainees themselves and yes of course it's a problem so we have to wait until a detainee is released and so we can speak to this of course leads to yes some of the reporting of. only individual detainee cases and it leads to a time lag because like i say the law is 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 time that the guantanamo detentions have been in operation. earlier this week a group of attorneys defending get no hunger strikers expressed concerns in a letter to the u.s. secretary of defense chuck hagel pentagon said they were aware of it but refused to discuss it further analyst ryan dawson who wrote extensively on guantanamo says the secrecy surrounding it could lead to violations. it's hard to get lower than guantanamo bay a lot of these men are detained without trial some without even charges and it doesn't mean they're innocent but it doesn't mean they're guilty either and the problem is secrecy when you have this level of secrecy you just creating a environment for abuse because they are basically human beings with no rights and they can defer stonor strike was over beatings from the i.r.s.

this is the end made response force this one again confiscating their items this is the little freedom they have and so this is a really a low point but i don't know if it's a new low point because it's continually low despite condemnation the detention center at guantanamo bay has been up and running for about eleven years now on our website asking and. asking who you think is to blame for that so far here's how the vote is stacking the majority eighty percent blame the obama administration for not sticking to its pledge to shut down the facility eight percent say it's the fault of the terrorists who attacked america first 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 inmates back if you haven't done so click on our t.v. dot com and have your say well stay with us here on our t.v. still to come this hour pope francis or proves his name saying he wants a poor church for poor people as well you also hopes to cleanse the catholic

church's reputation and wash the holy see lena of sex abuse scandals the story coming your way after this break stay with us. technology innovation all the developments around russia. that's huge you're 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 everything. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. operations to rule the day. are dijon faces freedom fighters. and. they're ready to clean up a new sort of. liberty and. salute free follow. up. to be treated this way.

and. thanks for staying with us twelve minutes past the hour the killing of a black teenager by new york police has prompted a week of protests in brooklyn resulting in clashes and arrests people vented anger at the n.y.p.d. accusing them of systematic racism and brutality artie's anastasio churkin as more . 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 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 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 it was. 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 and children this must be obsolete and artsy new york this week marked two years since the start of the conflict in syria what began as protests calling for reform and change inspired by

the revolt fever coming from the arab spring states turned into a bloody civil war that's killed tens of thousands syria's been ripped apart by violence and while some countries have been trying to secure its future they've only helped to fan the flames so far as are his worry if an ocean or 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 to regime slogans in syria have been repeated to the longest of arab spring countries but assad didn't step down within weeks like the leaders of to 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 she had minority some more ignorant position and sometimes. the group. needed to make a city and its not a more once the one i don't. keep our unity we live in all of all of. it gabriel a poise from commercially livin in syria's north east all green sunni dominated turkey and mostly shia iraq says here in about six tarion intolerance is something new for syria and very alarming. with feel this pressure 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 few 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 a 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 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 god we've never been treated like that of course when violence targets us it can't not affect relations. and fears that those who wanted to see the fall of the regime weakness the country's whole instead. from syria. after almost six months of captivity in a fear of execution a ukrainian journalist escaped to the safety to safety from syrian rebels at the assad fighters who repeatedly threatened to kill her demanding a fifteen million dollar ransom for her release on her coach never share the details of her escape and said the captors mistreated her. you know. at some point i realized that you thought 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 this 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 it could be no good not for even killed if captured again but i did have an a.t.m. 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 the territory was mined. news of the escape comes as britain and france made moves to try to directly arm the rebels the two states say they want to lift any barbeau and war and they may still supply weapons even despite the bad russia responded saying any such a tab would be in breach of international law or contributor ofter aton see things it'll eventually backfire on countries if they are mad to assad fighters. by definition that would be supplied by the french and british governments would be in

the role of the head as they are supplying rebels in the civil war and therefore they are the wrong hands no matter who britain the of runs 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 that leaders of countries like france and britain can think of these limits because the blowback will be phenomenal. the white smoke from the roof of the sistine chapel on wednesday signaled the new head of the catholic church pope francis had been selected the seventy six year old argentine cardinals become the first pontiff ever from the americas and the first from beyond europe in more than a thousand years he's replaced benedict the sixteenth in the vatican who

unexpectedly stepped down in late february francis will certainly have many challenges facing him leading catholics at a time when the church is facing a deep crisis a string of child sex abuse cases most damaging let's take a look at some of the statistics the largest number of reported cases of children being abused by priests in the united states allegations were made against more than four thousand priests and deacons more than a billion dollars have been paid out to victims in settlements ireland coming in next in these statistics the church had been turning a blind eye to allegations there for thirty years in germany two thirds of all dioceses were allegedly involved in sex abuse scandals austria is an example of how these scandals lead to people's disillusionment with the church almost ninety thousand austrians having deserted it in one year alone italian journalist franco all of us thinks there needs to be such a large spiritual rebranding of the church it will be a tough task especially in crisis hit europe.

no but google comes from south america to disagree since well before the start no progress but the issue is who to freeze the new. terms which will be europe for. the moment you move through. many people especially in europe they're getting. their needs you know that you're in the region. is going to be could be problem if the world did you know they do choose to do that through. a camera for artie's arabic sister network in egypt was attacked while filming activists spray painting graffiti on walls like on r.t. dot com to see the footage of the incident happening next to the headquarters of the muslim brotherhood party in cairo also a click away. expert opinion on the primary goal of u.s.

plans to bolster missile defense and alaska it might not just be about the threat from north korea find out more on our dot com. the new chinese leader xi jinping has pledged to fight for quote the great renaissance of his nation in his first speech after assuming the country's presidency china's been a reassigning its top job this week and once in a decade shuffle of power as beijing based correspondent john away reports comes i made many challenges and promising forecasts to. there used to be a superstitious believe almost in china about that eight percent growth rate of the national g.d.p. for that little 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 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

mr leak which outweighs the now the cut chinese premier he's been talking about reform is the largest ever this china can enjoy for its course for the progress i need president mr xi jinping after being elected was calling him a delay to our 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 people 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 of 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. president xi said

economic development will be the top priority of the ruling communist party and he may well be thanking his stars according to some forecasts a report from pricewaterhouse coopers shows that the task to boost g.d.p. growth is within the country's reach it predicts that china now the world's second biggest economy will match the u.s. the current leader by two thousand and seventeen and overtake it one of the top spending priorities announced by the new leadership defense this coming amid the u.s. flexing of its own military might in china's backyard u.s. efforts to gain a stronger foothold in asia and the struggle for regional influence of put beijing on edge in recent months china expert martin jakes thinks the more beijing grows of power the more complex its relations with washington. 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 in several years down the road i think what it means 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 its course has been growing like crazy use more and more presence around the world in 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 global headlines this hour in tunisia thousands of people marched against the islamist government big of assassinating choke a prominent secular politician it was the biggest rally organized since bin laden was shot dead forty days ago is a spectum political motivations of his murder sparked public outcry and force the country's prime minister to step down friday although the ruling party denies involvement in the crime yesterday's rally was the biggest to shake tunisia since

its jasmine revolution two years ago. in nearby 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 trying to set fire to a courthouse where one of their fellow members was on trial tensions were running high in the country since twenty one people were given the death penalty for their role in the two thousand and twelve football riots during which seventy four people died. so how do you think you'd fare if you fell off a siberian train in minus forty degrees celsius wearing almost nothing at all that happened to valeri who managed to survive the chilling experience his story coming up stay with us.

the month before the oscars and what annoys you with their predictions and the most after everyone complains about the results but it is a big talked about much is the few hundred people who gathered to protest the glamour filled award show but what part does the us. well although the film life of pi won the oscar for best visual effects effects to you that made the movie look so amazing rhythm and hues has filed for bankruptcy quickly after the film's release you know that seems like a bit of a discrepancy i mean the group that made the best visual effects in the world in two thousand and thirteen is flat broke how can that be this reminds me of how the lead creators of call of duty modern warfare two were let go directly after the release of the game which to date is the eighth highest grossing video game of all time this was done supposedly to dodge paying them the royalties that they you know earned through hard work the problem is that we live in a world where only the bottom line count making as much profit as you possibly can damn the consequences it's just good business practice they say well it might be

profitable but it's bad for society and it's very bad for visual effects and videogame artists but that's just my opinion.

this was a routine train following its regular route from one siberian city to another. in the vestibule of the last carriage a man was smoking a cigarette. as he turns to go back to his compartment he pulled open the door and stepped into emptiness. a moment later he found himself lying on the track there was a crackle of frosted b.m. it was forty below zero and he was wearing just a t. shirt sweat pants and slippers so began his struggle against extreme cold.