detainee's desperation is following the mass hunger strike at the guantanamo bay prison entering its forty first day with some inmates claiming it's a do or die protest the prison officials insist the reports are exaggerated. inside as the news controversial offer of assistance has huge implications with people losing large chunks of their life savings. plan is unfair and unprofessional . the legacy of war still haunting iraq nearly ten years since the us invasion two car bombs have killed at least ten people in the latest spark of violence made ongoing criticism of washington's decade old decision. very lucky to meet. remembering. the president of. those who love to hate him and in that exclusive interview with

r.t. he says his ambition for his country is to live a normal european state. you're watching live from moscow it's two pm in the russian capital for forty one days they've gone without food in a desperate bid to draw attention to their plight more than a hundred detainees at the guantanamo bay prison have reportedly been starving themselves the action was sparked by the confiscation of their personal items on the desecration of the qur'an but prison officials however insist there's only a handful of prisoners refusing food is how the spokes person described the situation in guantanamo in response to our. he said

their mission provide safe legal humane and transparent care and custody of detainees adding that the joint task force kuantan m i six to ensure it stays true to the highest standards when my colleague bill dog spoke to a former guantanamo god brandon eighty earlier and i asked him how the detainees were treated at his time at the facility richard horrible. you know we were told before we actually got to want to animal that the geneva convention would not be held. i would say when we first arrived there when he will now go walk around in their cells or cages as i call him on it did they were allowed to pray they were allowed to do nothing the international red cross they also some of the streets you know loosen up and they were able to talk and stuff but you know if 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 viewers you were that over ten years ago has anything

changed. i think from the outside look at it in a strange as far as the p.r. or the way the government trusted it because the facility is a lot better but speak guards of been there over the last few years all the dream inside it or is the internal reaction force team and the way the koran is treated in a stunt like that how much has changed maybe the outside is changed but inside hasn't changed too much well one hundred sixty six detainees are being held there at the moment eighty six of whom have been cleared for release since two thousand and nine but on able to be sent home because of transfer restrictions the guantanamo bay camp has been operating for more than eleven years now despite president obama's promise to close it. looks back at his attempts to shut down the tories facility. the story around the closure of guantanamo bay prison has stuck to president obama ever since he 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 burned to 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. based 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 reason which ruled out shutting one tunnel b. 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 fails to veto the national defense bill grieving 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 a fourteen million dollar fiberoptic cable from guantanamo bay to the u.s. mainland not exactly a sign of washington is planning to wrap up its operations in the controversial detention center or the lack of information and secrecy surrounding guantanamo are only making the situation worse as london based human rights activists are money or explains her group aims to uncover what really goes on at the camp and she claims the mainstream media and u.s. officials have always done their best to contain any scandals that. 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 out he'd actually died we still don't know exactly what circumstances like 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 one of the curious things that has come out over the last couple of weeks is that one of the deterioration of the prisoners complained about. is that in january the bullets were fired out of prisoners during a protest that they had 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 time to suppress it there's been some coverage in the mainstream media it's managed to get a couple of pieces but it's not actually being considered as a news worthy item. well we're closely following the situation on our web site as well for more opinions.

over the weekend. as part of

a european union. the so-called rescue plan for the country with a one time levy on deposits to avoid a national default correspondent reports from the halls of the. well today is a crucial day for parliament votes on ratifying that new one time bank deposit tax that has really come as a surprise when it was announced over the weekend the people in cyprus already having reacted with a bit of a panic no this came about as the e.u. finance ministers as the and the international monetary fund had agreed upon a ten billion euro bailout for the country on the condition that this. bank deposit tax be imposed now this could amount to up to nine point nine percent of those who have more than one hundred thousand euros in the back and for many people there it's their entire life savings that they have that are they feel are now in trouble and the panic that has been stirred over the weekend people trying to get money out

of the cash machines but electronic transfers have been stopped and the machines have been running out of money and people there are calling this essentially unfair unjust and simply robbery their their savings being taken away from them the president of the country however have been painting this acceptance of the bailout as crucial for the country says that if. this requirement is. therefore some people feel that the country has really been put in a position where it has no choice but to accept everything that has be handed down by brussels by e.u. leaders by the meetings that they have here as far as the people are concerned again they really see this as as an infringement for what is supposed to be various and this is unprecedented in the sense that this is the first time that a requirement for a bailout is actually actually means dipping into the personal savings of citizens that this is the first time it has happened officials here say that this is not

going to be a precedent that is not going to be a trend to whatever already there is doubt among the e.u. citizens to whether or not this law and the red line that they thought would never be cross has actually already been crossed and if we look again at what may be the biggest factor in disrupting the very fabric of the european union is this kind of social dissatisfaction kind of a protest from the people where there are where they are not happy with the kind of decisions that their leaders are making as a directly impacts the very quality of their lives. or the short reaction to the move has been russia correspondent tom barton joins me now. among the woods then from russia. hi there paul unfair unprofessional and dangerous were not a mere putin's words through his spokesman dmitri peskov regarding this surtax on deposits that the e.u. regards the regards necessary for that ten billion euro loan to be given

to cyprus russian banks companies and exceptionally rich individuals hold billions of euros worth of assets in cyprus a lot of those in deposits it is very difficult to know quite how many billions that is it is partly because of facts like that that the eurozone wants to levy this tax because of fears of money laundering but a lot of reaction from russian holders of investments and deposits they're raising questions over whether those deposits are going to stay in cyprus or whether russian investors are going to be scared away because of that and also questions over whether a two point five billion euros loan from russia to cyprus will be extended because of this or perhaps not. tom barton thank you very much artie's tom barton reporting there well i'm now joined live by global market analyst patrick young who will no

doubt have plenty to say on the controversial bailout plan patrick thank you so much for joining us of course this levee will be painful for many to swallow but surely it's in the interests isn't it for everyone better to live with a little less money now than walk around in a bankruptcy surely. of course it's always going to be better to be living in a state of the soul than to not bankrupt but i think the question that must be a lips of every single cypriot sanford today is the idea of why did they have to pay and why did the ball and holders not have to pay that is what is inherently so physically wrong with this deal is proposed you see bourne's government debt and so on those people are investors they take a risk and at least it should be a relatively safe investment but in this case it's all gone horribly wrong what is appalling about this particular instance is that the european union the eurozone have taken a step forward beyond their creepiest policy where they always said individuals

will not be harmed we will not take money out of the minds of pensioners and actually they've done that they're stealing money from pensioners from savers in order to support board holders which of course is the grip hypocritical irony of this because essentially you're turning around and saying our cyprus last paper in sight read just activity in the course of recent years fiscally well actually what the germans also want to do is support their own banks who hold these bonds that is what is entirely immoral reasonable and is ultimately a potential are your reserve between safety and panic. and obviously it's you know you the cypriots are unhappy but is there a danger that they could be slapped in the face twice could this lead to further austerity could this be the tip of the iceberg oh this isn't mauling situation for the cypriots because essentially what a separate being told is that if you're lucky you got

a leaky lifeboat in order to manage to escape the titanic but all of the now nobody's coming to your rescue nobody's really going to try to help you out what we're going to do is we're going to try and make sure that the good ship bureau ultimately seals all entirely safely so yes it's a horrible situation in any case there's already de facto austerity taking place in this measure you cannot take three percent five percent ten percent of the savings of either cypriot individuals or indeed the principal businesses and expect them to be able to just take it on the chin there is a horrible economic climate in the side of the mediterranean the origins of cyprus problems come from their big brother next door greece and we all know how terrible the situation is there so it's more hysterically coming up salute it's not going to end here but ultimately the cypriots have been left with essentially a little bit revolver with all six spirals full and being told to go and play russian roulette. mentioned that the individual cypriots in the small businesses as

well but it's nonresidents and could get by head as well isn't it oh absolutely i'm actually this is a very very worrying precedent because the eurozone and the european union have looked at the overall cyprus situation and said a huge swathe of deposits here come from people outside the european union and whether they've done it entirely cynically or whether they've done it entirely consciously we can never be absolutely clear but there certainly looks to me to be a lot of politics behind this move essentially the euro zone the european union have said who can we manage to take a haircut from that are actually not our citizens not our voters or not our beleaguered banks who are largely incompetent that also is a terrible precedent to set because ultimately any banking system is reliant upon foreign deposits and all foreigners whether they're russian corporate russian oligarchs or whoever they are it matters not one iota because the whole point is

that from today on people will be aware that there is a precedent for burning investors who want to hold the euro and that is not good for the status of the euro for the status of the euro zone and indeed for any bank in the european union that has foreign deposits you mentioned their russian investors president putin has condemned the deal saying it's not good news for russian investors if russian cash flows away from cyprus what repercussions could that have for they are the entire european economy well look what we're seeing here is the idea that president putin is absolutely correct i mean what he's saying from his perspective is essential there has been a smash and grab armed robbery over the weekend by a group of people based in brussels and around the euro zone who decided to steal money from russia considers and russians businesses and so on what is that going to mean first of all obviously these people are going to lose money so they're going to. less money to invest that's a problem that's a huge problem whether you're

a boutique in knightsbridge in london which enjoys the fortunes of oligarchs whether you're potentially one of the many football teams or sports franchises fail within the european union but ultimately for business per se it's a very bad sign because right now in moscow people are going to be looking at where others see places to place their funds ironically one of the safe places may well be to repopulate back to moscow the most the financial center huge amounts of money being spent very very state of the art i'm too soft and start legal system being set up perhaps ultimately that's where the money's going to go but it is going to flow out of cyprus about i have little or no dogs patrick thank you very much for your time global markets on is patrick young here and i'll say thank you very much . now still ahead for you a rescue plan that's causing products. not a war of aggression on iraq killed a couple hundred thousand people and mess it up majorly including the region. is

after the start of the iraq war which was far more costly than the u.s. ever expected there's still much public questioning of whether it was worth it we report shortly after this break. they've been living this way since the seventeenth century. during coups and strict. their communities on the side. they clearly distinguish between their home and the media. and guard their families and things in the trash. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so please. think you understand it and then something else you

hear see some other part of it and realize everything you. are. you're watching out in live from moscow i have the tenth anniversary of the start of the iraq war two car bomb attacks have hit the country killing at least ten people overall the war has claimed thousands of lives and cost many billions of dollars but still a decade later arguments continue over one of the most controversial u.s. policy policy decisions he's gone she can report what's behind the years of death

and destruction. there's no greater cost to the war then shattered human lives the u.s. invasion into iraq resulted in the deaths of almost two hundred thousand iraqis according to various estimates 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 participated in the war 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 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 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 as the law of unintended consequences are you know the 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 i have to 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 invasion says iraq 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. what we did in the right world looks at that and they say oh 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 began to balance the hedge among today many of those who cheered for the iraq war on t.v. shows and then 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 where the united states of amnesia as gore but

also aptly said the tendency to forget and to move on could prove dangerous with new war talk brewing in washington with many of the same people who pushed for the iraq war certain now pushing to drag america into another conflict in the middle east a number of insiders 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 they've missed gratian wanted to invade at all costs what we see from these policymakers today are just different shades of denial in washington i'm kind of. a policy adviser and believe there are too many warring factions in iraq for it to see peace anytime soon. the problem is that prior to the invasion there really was a difficult situation already the no fly zones in force by the british u.s. and french military and the end of 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 a 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 and great a number of 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 looking for its place in the sun and wanting to live as a normal civilized european state not saw the president of belarus. the future goals of his country in an exclusive interview with r.t. dubbed as europe's last dictator lucas shango freely admit may said he won't give up power lightly but denied speculation his youngest son would succeed him as

president the president of the former soviet republic has been repeatedly criticized by western states for violating human rights and oppressing the opposition to hit back saying democracy at home is just as good as that found in europe or the us 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 you need to understand that do i have any nuclear weapons exactly i do not do i have as much oil as hugo chavez did in venezuela no do 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 know the world in order to be

a dictator in dictate one's will one has to have the resources economic social military population and so on but 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 problems 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 remember it is that something you probably won't see again. or you can see the full exclusive interview with the better russian president alexander lukashenko at thirteen thirty g.m.t. or on our website r.t. dot com it's there right now. now coming up we take a look into the secluded lives of a group of all believers who left latin america to start a new life in russia stay with us you're naughty.

there was a time in america when buses were officially segregated and today if they tried to resegregate the wall next to it there would be outrage throughout the usa every t.v. channel and newspaper so segregation in america was wrong but no america funding segregation no for via foreign aid seems to be a ok and jim dandy arab language leaflets have been spread around west bank in palestinian areas asking residents to start using special bus lines plans to put palestinians on separate bus lines were first announced in november of two thousand and twelve after some complaints by jewish settlers of trouble on the buses between passengers of different ethnicities

in regards to the special bus lines it's really human rights groups but so i'm said the attempt to put segregation is appalling and the current arguments about security needs an overcrowding must not be allowed to camouflage blatant racism you know when south africa had apartheid they were slammed with sanctions including from the us but if you're israel go ahead and segregate all the buses you like and you'll still be the u.s.'s top recipient of foreign aid at three point one billion dollars a year if there's one thing i don't like it's hypocrisy like this but that's just my opinion. we're old believe us when not supposed to be public people we'd rather not be filmed or shown on television we're supposed to live a quiet life and keep distant from worldly masses that's what we need if we're to

keep our traditions we be glad not to be disturbed too much. in the world when we. will be it. is. a. yeah this is a small community of orthodox traditionalists returned to russia just over a year ago their ancestors emigrated to let in america in the one nine hundred forty s. coming back to their homeland has been their cherished dream.