raiding the piggy bank cyprus delays a decision on whether to impose and you and i.m.f. plan to plunder the nation's bank accounts. russia slams the proposal as unfair and dangerous with some experts saying if the tax is brought in moscow may have to rethink its helpful ailing europe. plus state of denial the u.s. military maintains there's no mass hunger strike at guantanamo bay where more than one hundred detainees a report of the starving themselves in protest at mistreatment. and also the. peace we ask what washington and its allies have left behind in iraq as more deadly bombings strike the nation ahead of the ten year anniversary of the u.s. led invasion our top stories this hour. international

news and comment live from our studio center here in moscow this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day the parliament in cyprus has delayed until tuesday a decision on whether to and. which will cost its citizens millions of their hard earned euros every bank customer will have their cash taxed if it goes through the prime cause panic over the weekend with people and a.t.m. machines fearing their life savings could be plundered correspond to reports on the implications. 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 tax back deposit tax be imposed now this could amount to up to nine point nine percent of of those who have more than one hundred thousand euros in the bag and for many people

their 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 the president of the country however have has been painting this acceptance of the bailout as crucial for the country says that if. this requirement is not passed then the country will might be forced to get out of the euro of the euro zone area and 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 an infringement of what is supposed to be there 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 of 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 line that 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 this 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 it directly impacts the very quality of their lives. cilia there will for more on the story i'm now joined live by leave the room he's author of a fate worse than debt well they keep putting off making the decision do you think the government there will ultimately accept the terms well that's an issue for the province to decide ultimately and rightly so because or although

a number of it you control in our living and here is zero and i remain democracy down to the people decide but it is the right decision isn't it because if they don't make a decision they accept it they're going to go bankrupt and possibly be kicked out of the eurozone well they have a choice to do one of two things either accept it or not to accept it and fundamentally what's important is that the people are the ones who feel as if the decisions we made and they they have an appreciation of belonging that and that's their decision but in many ways you can't get something for nothing if this is a small penalty to pay in order to save not only your own personal savings in the bank but the banking sector in your country shouldn't the people accept it. well there may well choose to do so but fundamentally you have to remember that this is a bigger problem than simply the euro in a sense the problem has been that the cypriot government like many other like majority of governments actually in european union and in many across the world of

responding more than they've been noting and if we can put this into context a separate economy is to say the g.d.p. is about the equivalent of two month's worth of the u.k. deficit so on a scale of that you can see how big the problem is not just within the eurozone but also globally but you're quite right i mean it is a huge problem it's something which the cypriots government has failed to come to terms with it we are today that it the government received a warning from the european central bank as far back as two thousand and ten saying that there were there that management economy of interest or not where they were running an increase in state sector employers or wages of six percent when the economy was contracting which was simply unsustainable and so it's proven but so what you're saying that this one of solution in a very small economy could actually have a major impact on the european banking sector as a whole and indeed confidence in the euro zone. that's certainly true and you're

making an assumption this is this is a war not far not even sure that's the case what you mean it could happen again that we're probably going to get tax you mean this could be actually implemented and then that should have implemented elsewhere then in other bailout deals where are i wouldn't want to cause a vote in the markets and that's i think many were a lot of people looking at a look at well exactly exactly but it was not laid at my door it's it's a big problem the central bank back in two thousand and ten said that too much emphasis is being placed by the government on an expectation that tax revenue was going to fix the fiscal deficit that clearly hasn't happened there's too much reliance upon the taxation and not getting to grips with massive public sector deficit deficits these are things which need to be fixed and simply a one off tax albeit an illicit one on people's savings is is not going to do with that and i thought i was looking back at the press releases which came out when cyclists joined. the finance minister said that it would benefit both consumers and

businesses alike he's now if i were to find that either he can with the with this tax he can either put the emphasis on the businesses or on the consumers he can do both and the commission itself said in two thousand and eight it's time for people in these two countries that small to in cyprus who are joining to empty their piggy banks and jump yards and dig out any spare cash they may have stashed away for a rainy day when this rainy day is coming very differently from what the commission was promising and what is interesting about cyprus of course those it's not just the investors they're the cypriots but it's international investors many from russia the british as well they've got a huge amount of money there that's going to surely suggest that european banks as a whole are not any longer a safe place to put your money because the legislation seems to come back and bite you where in effect some of your money stolen to save these economies. that's a risk and certainly it's true that there was no democratic mandate as far as i'm

aware for anybody to levy this tax it is a not so much a stealth tax as a sort of a swipe tax is that a very quickly and in some ways you could say that this is actually. on one level a prototype for how the country will timidly have to leave the euro zone entirely have to be done very quickly almost overnight with a certain sort of grab at the doors of the banks trying to make sure that the bank machines are basically switched off and then seeing the public in disarray that the following day and a huge crisis in parliament so whatever happens in terms of the the taxing and back accounts i think we're going to see this model of of how. democracies and how the the economy has to deal with a certain us are in crisis repeated in one scale in one form or another and quite possibly on a larger scale but let's hope not well leave the sun isn't shining in london by the

looks of things and it's certainly not shining in cyprus although it should be thank you very much indeed les thanks for joining us live there that's leigh rather i'm in london. well the aftershocks of the proposition have been felt with other countries of course in and outside the euro zone something we just touched on there in the interview botton has the details. professional and dangerous with the words that lattimer putin used through his spokesman about this tax on deposits in cyprus that would be necessary for that ten billion euro e.u. i.m.f. loan russian banks russian businessmen and exceptionally rich russian individuals hold a disproportionately huge deposits in cyprus given the country's size the exact number of billions is estimated to be above ten but the exact number could be far higher it's very hard to establish it's partly because of that reason that the e.u.

wanted a tax to try and distribute the burden equally and to avoid money laundering there are reports in the greek media that the russian state energy giant gazprom proposed its own bailout to cyprus in return for energy exploration rights around the island but it was turned down because cyprus wanted dissolution from within the e.u. all of this does raise questions about the future of russian deposits in cyprus about whether this tax will hurt more investors or the banks that hold their deposits if those deposits are withdraw it also raises questions over a two point five billion euro loan given by russia to cyprus which may itself not be extended. we're also closely following the tensions in cyprus on our website at r.t. dot com that's where we're asking you what you think will come out of the controversial deposit levy and so far here's how your votes have come in the majority believe

that forcing savers to pay for the bank's mistakes will only cause social unrest we can see there that thirty seven percent expect a chain reaction of bank runs leading to the collapse of the e.u. and less of you blame the flawed euro zone system saying that the cash will only offer a short term solution and this is only a minority has faith in the debated tax to bring stability to the island of cyprus tell us what you think carty dot com. despite mounting media coverage and legal appeals the u.s. military continues to deny a mass hunger strike is underway again tony mowbray lawyers for more than one hundred detainees say they've been starving themselves for over forty days in protest at the desecration of the qur'an by prison guards when grilled by r.t. a quantum spokesman defended the facilities policy or captain robert duran and says that the prison is committed to the safe legal humane and transparent treatment of

detainees he earlier claim that only fourteen captives are refusing all food was some of those being force fed to prevent starvation decades who was held in guantanamo for five years and released without charge dismissed that description and said that obama is continuing with bush era war crimes. there are many bad things that happen there's a beginning is there's a systematic torture where everyone goes through where they are a. stripped out of their clothes for example and they're sometimes sexually abused physically abused like myself and others we were physically beaten up until as you can see my right eye has been the sight in my right eye has been lost i tried to gods both in my eyes we never even were told what. a lead allegations against azhar we were questioned for hundreds of times and we were interrogated many many times and then we were released without any conviction we were never convicted we've

never had the chance to see the evidence against us the generals have set up in the time of. bush rumsfeld dick cheney and all the other officials the lawyers who legalized torture and they justified the methods of torture and they've spoken publicly in defending this kind of torture i think of course we hold all these people responsible now obama and the all the other officials that the taking over there that the people there were serious crimes of committed inside montana most people don't realize their people were killed inside of them town of more than nine people were killed in one town the people that i know inmates were sexually abused they were people who have lost their arms and lost limbs and amputated like called the desire some people were paralyzed throughout their lives and people lost their eyes these are serious crimes these are serious war crimes or crimes against captive people and these people have to come through just so if we let these people

at large what will happen is that more trust is like this would take place and they are examples of criminals committing crimes and just not paying back for their crimes. despite pledging to shut down guantanamo during his first presidential campaign in two thousand and eight barack obama has now dropped the issue from the top of his agenda but this is drawn little are in the us where the mainstream media prefers to keep the president out of the headlines the war on terror is still marketed as a good reason enough to keep the camp running while our skin of recaps and the failed attempts to bring. to an end. the story 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 a geisha 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 munich talwar 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 resume 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 forty million dollars fiber optic 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 and there's more opinion and analysis of the story in a website harty dot com now i'll be back with more news for you of to this break stay with us live in moscow.

is he. mission. critical to free. or charges free. arrangement free. free. free. old free broadcast video for your media project a free media dog r t v dot com. he continues here on our t.v. iraq is about to mock ten years since the u.s.

led invasion with thirty deaths from bomb attacks last week in baghdad and ten more on sunday in the self in two thousand and three washington unleashed its shock and or air strikes aimed to rid the country a suspected weapons of mass destruction and topple saddam hussein a decade later arguments persist over whether anything was achieved is going to check on investigates. there's no greater cost to war then shattered she. one 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 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 the most recent study puts the total cost of the war at two trillion dollars that the u.s. the authors of the report 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 so a lot 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 then 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 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. it's in human dignity and freedom and democracy and 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 in the world looks at them 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 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 were the united states of amnesia as gore would 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 cers now pushing to drag america into another conflict in the middle east a number of the 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 going to check out. when it's settled more about the story

when next but on post-war iraq and since he's joining me now from belgium so is this anniversary time for celebrations or commiserations. what we should commemorate at least. the ten years of invasion and occupation and the destruction of a country. only because. we should really keep in mind that some one has to be responsible and they have to be the invaders the u.s. and the u.k. and allied countries. i just heard people are talking about hundred thousand or two hundred thousand deaths this is absolutely not true it is at least one million five hundred thousand deaths and a studio iraqis they themselves say that it is the number of two point three million not only that one out of five iraqis has fled the country internally has

fled either internally. you know i.d.p.'s or to neighboring countries at one point in two thousand and seven i think you know that there were one point two million refugees in syria seven hundred fifty thousand in jordan. to pour into seventy six million inside the country so what does this why why does this instability and the deaths continue as a government now many are saying some of the iraqis lives has actually improved so what is then going wrong why you question all these deaths and still continuing and the violence that we're just reporting on the latest bombings just briefly. yes but who says that things are improving in iraq you know the iraqi government says so and the athletic and government and the rainy and government you have to know imagine that after the second world war that modish would

have stayed on as a leader of france it is unimaginable and it happens in iraq you know malique you stayed on. the government. agreement was picked over didn't decorah. in cooperation with the americans so this isn't and irradiance american occupation still so there are millions now people protesting in the streets against rapes that are going on against unlawful arrests. you know against poor service is ok much of it ninety one in ninety one there were they thought they were ready and they had electricity and telephone repaired ok well i'm going over six months and now right the ten years of occupation they have to do four hours of electricity a day will leave an apple eleven thank you very much ok dentals joining us live

from belgium ok thank you. up next here in r.t. we speak exclusively to the president about a race an exultant of shankar that will be after a short break stay with us. there was a time in america when buses were officially segregated and today if they tried to resegregate the wall next to there would be outrage throughout the usa every t.v. channel and newspaper so segregation in america was wrong but now america funded segregation knows her 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. 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. is 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.

i think somebody very special on the shift there with. hello and thank you very much for being with r.t. you've come to st petersburg to discuss further integration of russia and belarus with president putin well you know earlier there was talk of single currency single flak single parliament but now less than twenty years on it's kind of obvious that it's not really going to happen why have these large scale plans have fallen through the hearing on countries that part. of me doesn't own business solutions because there is this you are absolutely right except for one thing when you say that it will never happen. so you remember. historically we came up with a treaty that saw the creation of the union state of belarus and russia now if you actually look it up you'll see that it lays down a clear plan of action to build this union state listing all the key elements

needed like the single currency and common institutions although it's a very detailed blueprint we were also supposed to draft a new constitution and hold a referendum on it however we never did this last bit there was no constitution or referendum overall we have made significant headway over the past years although we have not been able to deliver on what was spelt out in the treaty we have come to realize that perhaps we are not ready for yet that is not the time or but there is still one great upside our joint efforts towards a union state led to the creation of a new organization the customs union which in turn brought about a common economic space and we are now working to transform it into the eurasian economic union. would you agree with those analysts who say that it's an attempt to restore a mini version of the soviet union through you can of course compare it to the soviet union or the european union or any other union regardless of which one

exactly you pick as a reference point we can support the trend or see the world is seeing a global integration process with new unions emerging across the planet take for example or merkel in latin america i just returned from venezuela there are many more examples of this trend new organizations emerge to survive in this competitive environment why shouldn't we use the positive experience of the soviet union in fostering our relationship beyond russia you were very close to chavis he was a man who united around himself leaders who challenge the west to western corporations western capital now that he's gone what is to future of this. i would not say that chavez united us simply because it's so difficult to do i first realized that when we became part of the nonaligned movement there are so many forces including unites.