detainee's desperation r t following the mass hunger strike at the guantanamo bay prison entering its forty first day now with seven mates claiming it's a do or die protest prison officials insist the reports are exaggerated. a protest plagued country clashes in tear gas in cairo and another episode of unrest as crowds protest against muslim brotherhood members attacking journalists. you're very lucky to meet. in person remembering something. again that's what the president of belarus alexander lukashenko answers to the media which loves to hate him in an exclusive interview with r t he says his ambition for his country is to live life as a normal european state. nine

am in moscow i met tries a good to have you with us here on our t.v. our top story the u.s. is continuing to downplay a mass hunger strike at the guantanamo bay detention center more than one hundred detainees reportedly fasting for more than forty days in a desperate act of defiance they say is sparked by the confiscation of personal items and the desecration of their qur'an prison officials though insist the reports are quote outright falsehood saying there is only a handful of prisoners who were refusing food here's how the camp spokesman captain robert duran described the situation in guantanamo in response to our team's request for information he said their mission provide safe legal humane and transparent care and custody of the detainees adding that joint task force guantanamo takes its role very seriously and it seeks to ensure that it stays true to the highest standards earlier though my colleague bill dodd spoke with former

get most guarded brandon neely and earlier asked him how the detainees were treated during his time at the facility. there are you know we were told before we actually got swan's on a model that the geneva convention would not be held. on the detainees when they first arrived they will now go walk around in their cells or cages i call among the dead they were allowed to pray they were allowed to do nothing when the international red cross came also some constraints you know loosened up and they were able to talk and stuff but you know that they were treated horrible you know they were they were abused by you know by us guards when it came to the inter reaction force team into it was just mistreated all around especially at the beginning do you think the detainees are treated any differently today as just to remind you as you were that over ten years ago has anything changed. i think from the outside looking in a strange as far as the p.r. the way the government tries to spin it because the facility is a lot better but speed guards have been there over the last few years all the dream

inside of the internal reaction force team and the way the koran is treated in a stuff like that not much has changed maybe the outside is changed but inside hasn't changed too much order and sixty six detainee's being held at guantanamo at the mic at the moment eighty six of them have been cleared for release since two thousand and nine but unable to go home because of a transfer a stretch and they want to obey camp has been operating for more than eleven years now despite president obama's promise to close it or he's eager piskun of takes a look back at his attempts to shut down the facility. the story of around the closure of guantanamo bay prison has stuck to president obama ever since the brahmas to shut it down and here are some of the key dates on the way in january two thousand and nine when obama was inaugurated he ordered the facility to be closed within a year and banned certain into regression methods after the us government admitted torturing some of the detainees but in me the same year the u.s. senate refused to fund the closure until the president provided more detail as to what he would do with the prisoners in mid october appear the situation changed as

congress allowed some detainees to be moved to the united states for prosecution but at the end of two thousand and ten congress approved the defense spending bill which prevented u.s. base trials for guantanamo detainees and in january two thousand and eleven hopes a bomb would keep his campaign promise dimmed further when he signed the defense of the result bill which ruled out shutting one tunnel be down and prevented the transfer of prisoners from the camp in march obama also signed an executive order resuming military trials for guantanamo detainees a move seen by many as a complete reversal of its previous policy while in december of two thousand and eleven the president failed to veto the national defense bill believing the way for prisoners to be held indefinitely and without charge and extending the ban on moving them from the prison finally in july last year the pentagon announced its plans to leave forty million dollar fiberoptic cable from guantanamo bay to the

u.s. mainland not exactly a sign washington is planning to wrap up its operations in the controversial detention center lack of information in secrecy surrounding guantanamo only make the situation worse as london based human rights activist mine are explains her group aims to uncover what really goes on at the camp and she says the media and u.s. officials have done their best to contain scandals there. there's a lot of things that get officially deny the half the night guantanamo bay for example last year when. one of the prisoners died in a strange circumstance and it took time for the truth to actually come up he actually died we still don't know exactly what the circumstances were in which he did die and then it was made impossible for there to be an independent autopsy because some of his organs when they returned to his family months later. had generated so much that it would be impossible to know what the actual cause of death was so there's a lot of secrecy surrounding what happens at guantanamo bay if there are requests for information they get covered up by national security issues and also there's

just a lack of general interest in actually one is happening on time to move what i'm curious things that has come out over the last couple of weeks is that one of the deterioration of the prisons complained about. is that in january the bullets were fired out of prisoners. held this was corroborated by the pentagon and again it's just it's incredibly curious this has been admitted a couple of months down the line but there has hardly been any outcry in some of the more tellus of press that there's been some coverage in the mainstream media it's managed to get a couple of comment pieces but it's not she's been considered as a news worthy item. we're following the situation in guantanamo on our web site as well put on our t. dot com for more analysis and opinion varial find that the lawyers of the hunger strikers expressed grave concerns over the worsening health of their clients detainees claim most inmates are now involved in the fast. and more common from activist psychologists and one former detainee who says he saw boys young as nine

being beaten by guards at the base. believes fired tear gas and clash with crowds protesting against an assault of journalists in cairo a camera man from. among those attacked by the brotherhood members while filming graffiti artists spray painting near the muslim brotherhood headquarters belcher was following the unrest. we've had reports that tens have been arrested including one journalists as fierce clashes continue between anti-government protesters and

security forces outside the muslim brotherhood headquarters here in the capital the police have reportedly been firing birdshot but it's tear gas hundreds who gathered to protest against an attack they said happened against journalists by muslim brotherhood members groups with the rising at the area outside the main headquarters of the mission brotherhood arriving with sticks and knives on the journalist attempted to film anti-government protesters spraying anti brotherhood slogans on this main headquarters newly elected said journalists in that i had one who said this was another example of a crackdown on freedom of speech by the most brotherhood's he called on the supreme guide which is the leading spiritual figure of the regime but they had to apologize to the brotherhood for their part say that this occurred after groups attempted to break into the building it's still not clear how the story's going to end we're seeing significant unrest and lots of anti brotherhood sentiment across the country this protest happening almost on a daily basis and

a lot of skirmishes even here in the capital by to her square on the banks of the nile we're seeing a daily fights between the youth undercover protesters and security forces the president is fighting many different problems at the same time in addition the parliamentary elections have been suspended after the admission of courts said there was a problem with the electoral law putting the future of the political costing in doubt this economic problem is a major economic problem is the president is trying to secure an unpopular four point eight billion dollar loan from the i.m.f. which could see subsidies cuts and tax hikes that people have been protesting against of course you've got a situation of poor saeed's and here the capital over this very contentious verdict in the port side football trial which saw several people die in the last few weeks so what we're seeing really is continual protests continue on to government sentiments and with not any solutions on the horizon. well stay with us here on r t still ahead cyprus a great with panic over the rescue bailout offer from the e.u.

is a controversial offer of assistance has huge implications with people using large chunks of their life savings. and israel's attempts to bulldoze away a bedouin settlement proving problematic now in the running for a guinness world record as a village destroyed the most number of times its inhabitants of our never back down that and more after a break. when their own country can't offer them a living even loving mothers sometimes have to leave their children behind. i don't like to live just. it's a dream of millions of migrants the children might choose their motherland.

i want my children to win over moscow. russia has become this step. to find a way home. with. technology innovation all the least of elements from around russia. the future covered. thanks for staying with us here on r t twelve minutes past the hour now looking for its place in the sun and wanting to live as a normal civilized european state is how the president of belarus alexander lukashenko aligned out the future goals for his country in an exclusive interview with us here on our t.v. he's the man many media outlets love to hate and there are many and they're more than happy to slap him with a label europe's last a dictator that says he takes it on the chin because he knows it's just not true in

fact the interview points out that when he eventually does step down he doesn't want to be replaced by someone ruling to the extreme but someone just continuing he was the president of the former soviet republic has been repeatedly criticized by the west for violating human rights and oppressing the opposition it's back saying democracy at home is as good as that found in europe or the u.s. take a listen. i can prove it right here right now that there is no dictatorship in belarus. very simply in just a few words this is the argument i used to convince my western partners in order to be a dictator like starlin one has to have the resources resources of paramount's you need to understand that i have any nuclear weapons exactly i do not do i have as much oil as hugo chavez did in venezuela no no i have as much natural gas as russia number two and so on and so forth do i have so many people as china does one point

five billion people would know the words in order to be a dictator in dictate one's will one has to have the resources economic social military manipulation and so on we have none and i am being objective about it i am telling you that we have no claims of global importance and don't see ourselves solving major global problem we don't have the resources to do so what we want to do is find our place in the sun and live as an average civilized european state that's all i want so i ask for dictatorship i say to them you're very lucky to meet europe's last dictator alive in person we remember it is that something you probably won't see again. for scores or any of you with belarusian president alyaksandr lukashenko coming up eight thirty g.m.t. here on our website any time at r.t. dot com. the tenth anniversary of the start of the iraq war two car bomb

attacks affect the country killing at least ten overall the war claimed thousands of lives and cost many billions of dollars a decade later the arguments continue over one of the most controversial u.s. policy decisions our he's got a shipyard takes a look. i know there's no point to cost you know more than shatter human lives the u.s. invasion into iraq resulted in the deaths of almost two hundred thousand you rock six according to theory assessed the deadly metals released by bombs and bullets continue to kill in fallujah more than half of all babies who were conceived after the start of the war were born with birth defects the infant mortality rate there is disturbing. on the u.s. side the war took the lives of four thousand four hundred eighty six soldiers when you talk a country the size of iraq everyone knows someone that was killed. in the states

when you're here less than one percent of people participating or so at this point most americans have turned that off it's as though it didn't happen ten years of death and destruction and it's as though in this country we're done with that we've moved on and it's difficult if not impossible for any veterans and iraqis to move on from ten years of death and destruction in iraq is still struggling to rebuild itself much of its infrastructure was destroyed during eight years of war an insurgency having bombed the country to rubble washington did not hurry to rebuild it president george w. bush asked for twenty billion dollars for this is around two thousand and three after twenty billion dollars for reconstruction. there was paul wolfowitz and then . doing rumsfeld said twenty billion maybe too much because of our program because of iraqi oil. iraq will be able to pay for reconstruction itself when more of the

of the promises made it is a still on paper but out of almost sixty billion dollars that the u.s. did eventually spend on iraq reconstruction much was squandered the most recent study puts the total cost of the war at two trillion dollars that the u.s. the authors of the reports say the country will continue to pay and over the. next four decades that cost could reach six trillion dollars yes to me accounts with both government expenses on treating and compensating disabled veterans and the wars brought impact on the u.s. economy but on top of the human loss and dollars spent there's also been a political price to pay for american credibility and influence went down well iran's went up and we're still living with the consequences of this ten years later so law of unintended consequences are you know polar moment ended when we went into baghdad but we didn't know it from the berlin wall to that time we destroyed the earth like a grand colossus and after that it's all been very different colonel lawrence

wilkerson who served as chief of staff to secretary of state colin powell at the time of the patient says you walk has changed the way the world sees the us people look at what we do they do not judge us by our rhetoric our rhetoric is high and lofty and we talk about human rights and human dignity and freedom and democracy and then what do we do we mount a war of aggression on iraq kill a couple hundred thousand people and mess it up majorly including the region much of what is happening now is a result of what we did in the right with the world looks at that and they say this is not something we need in the world this kind of absolutely inept leadership and when this happens in the world of international relations the world stands up and begins to balance the headroom up today many of those who cheered for the iraq war on t.v. shows and in their memoirs struggle to justify the decisions they made and the actions they took yes history will hold them responsible and render some sort of indictment but there is no accountability for people who make grievous errors in

high office in the united states or in the united states of amnesia as gore would also aptly said the tendency to get into one could prove dangerous with you war talk brewing in washington with many of the same people who pushed for the iraq like your answer now pushing a dragon. they're going to another concert in the it's going every you have the situation where it will you have a force mindset and. as you get in the early two thousand two thousand and three period on iraq or as you did actually in the early in the the ability to judge it it was very early use of the had known or you did with iran in one nine hundred seventy nine and that period when we were only getting information from the survivors and we weren't allowed to do a little bit the opposition you create an environment for the politicization of intelligence and i think we have that know with regards to the middle east for a number of thing fighters from the bush administration have come out and said the desire to topple directly government trumped all other considerations at the time

of the invasion there was no credible intelligence that saddam had weapons of mass destruction or ties with al qaida and yet the administration wanted to invade at all costs but we see from these policymakers today are just different shades of denial in washington i'm kind of. policy adviser fergus hobson thinks there are too many warring factions in iraq for to see peace soon the problem is that prior to the invasion it really was a difficult situation already the no fly zones in force by the british u.s. and french military and a very difficult sanctions meant that iraq prior to the invasion was already in a very poor state and so it's hard to say it remains in a very difficult situation one interesting point to note though is that recent gallup survey in iraq said that the people gave the message that basically i thought the place was small secure now and when the u.s. forces were present in greater numbers people should know that there are still many

u.s. contractors there so it's not as though there is zero presence the united states and many people still see that as a presence which they want to fight against also iraq already was a very divided nation you have could you have synergy of many different minorities who are necessarily happy with each other or with the prevailing leadership. over the weekend cypriots rushed to a.t.m.'s in a panic over a planned tax on savings accounts as part of the european union and i.m.f. bailout the so-called rescue plan for the tiny eurozone country would see a one time levy of up to ten percent on deposits to avoid a national default in exchange the promise to a ten billion euro bailout deal to heal the economy under the proposed terms people in cyprus with less than one hundred euros in their accounts would pay a tax of around seven per cent on it and those who savings are greater would be hit up for a ten percent tax is the first such move or private depositors are forced to sacrifice their money to foot the bill bell conditions were deeply criticized there are

expected to hit mainly the poor people and pensioners and also affect the rich russians who are known to invest in the country and members of the british forces who are stationed there moreover fears are mounting over the intense cash outflow from the country people's anger is caused the parliament to vote on a parliamentary vote on the deal to be delayed until today dr helen sound really from a leading british think tank the british group thinks the tiny island state is feeling blackmailed and uncomfortable under the e.u. umbrella they will have to try and make it go ahead because they really do desperately need the bailout money on this of course. the alternative which is actually drop out of the euro and probably default at some point which will not necessarily be the worst thing that can happen but that doesn't seem to appeal to any of the governments in question i mean we've had this problem with greece and we've had this problem with other countries that is how it's all been going on about the about the bailouts the way things have gone we see greece is that you know these these bailouts happen. to you susteren any never works and then after

a while there is another request for another bank. whether it will actually work over the cyprus will be rocked into riots is something we shall see in the next few days. turning now to some other stories making global headlines e.u. countries continue to make the headlines as constitutional amendments in hungary threaten democratic rights according to protesters a demonstration in downtown budapest scattered hundreds of activists is the government gets set to clamp down on the election campaign writes homelessness and family values the government wants to pass constitutional amendments that will threaten democratic rights according to protesters the government proposed amendments go as far as banning grant students from seeking work abroad after they graduate the ruling party controls two thirds of the parliament and has come under fire from the e.u. recently for decisions that the fighter democratic values. thousands of yemenis

demonstrated in the southern city of aden yesterday against the un back national dialogue due to start soon reconciliation talks are set to start next week but with regular u.s. drone strikes in the region locals are projected the dialogue you say it doesn't include a real representatives from the north or southern regions general strike left the southern half of the country paralyzed as troops were deployed to protect government buildings last wednesday two people were killed when police and protesters clashed in aden. one palestinian prisoner on a hunger strike since july has been released by israel on the condition he not leave the gaza strip for ten years i am unsure warren a has previously been held by israel and was arrested for a second time last february for violating the terms of his release though no evidence against him was disclosed a second hunger striker went to cardiac arrest last weekend still being held prisoner in a televised hospital despite his critical condition. staying with the middle east and how it is of a rural bedouin village say they're not going back they're not going to back down

in the face of israeli bulldozers it's already been razed to the ground forty seven times with officials saying the bedouins have no proof of ownership of the village but this community claims they've been there for more than a century and have no plans to surrender it or reports. there's not much here but what there is within hours is destroyed. part of an israeli plan to win the negev desert of its bed when residents. had if they even demolished the village a thousand times i will rebuild it as long as i'm alive i will keep struggling i will not give up my living in fear all the time whenever somebody calls us and says there bulldozers in the main street we take all our stuff outside the tent and take it to the cemetery and now they're threatening to demolish the cemetery. village has become the focal point of tel aviv's plans it started with the first demolition

more than three years ago and since then most families have relocated to neighboring towns but well meant that we're not the freight we're waiting for them to come again. a steadfast few who live near the threat and symmetry wait to rebuild their homes after the bulldozers leave there is a lighter side to the story residents here have asked the guinness book of world records to enter them as the village that has been demolished the most times in history forty seven and counting. nearly half of the big one population of the negative around ninety thousand people live in forty five villages and recognized by the israeli government they don't appear on any map and have no official signs marking their existence when they're not being torn down they're being torn apart through the government's refusal to provide sewage systems roads electricity water schools or hospitals but television says it's ready to change that if the bedouins

move to recognize villages it promises to provide them with basic services and compensation. they are living on alarms that belong to the state israel is a country of law and institutions and when you claim land belongs to you should be able to prove it through legal papers the better ones don't have these papers so it's very hard to accept their claimants. but shake saya all to a disagrees he says his ancestors are buried in the cemetery where graves date back at least one hundred years. we have papers from the in one thousand and five we paid taxes for this land from the year one thousand twenty one until nine hundred forty seven we have papers from the british in one hundred twenty nine and we even have papers from the year of nine hundred seventy three signed by israel itself all these papers prove that the land belongs to us. these weighty government is expected soon to possible that will see more than twenty and recognized big win villages destroyed and some fifty thousand bedouins displaced about two thirds of

the land is threatened with confiscation the government trying to organize their vigilance against their will the bed was pretty fair to live in are going to go to the villages to brazil a bit more a way of living and to brazil of their own culture it's only a matter of time before the village gets demolished for the forty eighth time and the people living here hope for more than just the guinness book of world records will take note policy r.t. our kids village in the negev desert. after a short break taking a look at the secluded lives of a group of all believers who left latin america to start everything new in russia children of the schism still ahead stay with us.

a clear image of iraq after eight days or. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the road to. clear evidence from north to south. the route of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. taxi on our t.v. . what's really happening to the global economy. headlines. is a report. building

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