towards a vote on taking cash from people's bank accounts to secure a bailout in what is being called the great new bank robbery. the one time the most prisoners hunger strike is said to be growing with activists increasingly outraged by the inertia of international humanitarian organizations. the iraq invasion ten years on we look at the ongoing fall out from the american led war and the costs that are still rising. international news and comment watching r.t. coming to life from moscow now it is a nail biting time to save is in cyprus awaiting a delayed parliamentary vote on letting the government help itself to up to ten

percent of their cash to stop the country going bankrupt the unprecedented move to dip into people's pockets is to secure a vital cash injection from the e.u. and the i.m.f. as a europe correspondent peter all of the reports run on banks and ensuring protests are only making things worse. well the question nobody was willing to answer here in birdland was anything to do with cyprus in fact neither angler merkel french president francois hollande or the president of the european commission jose manuel but also were anywhere near coming forward with it and so this is appears to be the the hot potato the financial hot potato that nobody wants to take hold in their hands now what's going on in cyprus is this well if you have money in the bank in cyprus are you going to have to pay to have it actually if and it was certainly something that especially the french president francois hollande wasn't willing to

take any questions on aids close to him we're hearing it said that if you're going to ask the french president anything make sure it's nothing to do with the cypriot economy because he's just not willing to play ball now that seems to be the the message in europe at the moment is that they really don't know how to deal with the situation in cyprus they certainly have no answer at the moment and especially for mrs merkel you have to look at this as well if this does become a precedent that future countries that want to accept the bailout have to accept such a levy on their own people who have money in their bank accounts what does that mean she's being put forward in a still remains personally popular here in germany as the woman that can take germany and the rest of the and the rest of europe out of the crisis if it seems that she's starting to flounder then with an election coming up in october she may well find herself looking over a shoulder well the twenty man does believe the controversial tax won't stop the

rot in cyprus and what have ramifications across southern europe. they claim that this is a unique situation to sign prince but of course it isn't unique at all this is a problem that we see all throughout the eurozone and as a matter of fact it's much more fundamental than that it's a fundamental flaw in our system a bad the banks can create money out of thin air that aren't backed by anything and that's great bubbles and central banks can go on forever with that and with inflating new currency it's a fundamental flaw in a banking system and this is just a quick fix this is we keep kicking the can down the road it's not a fundamental solution until the solution as it is is implemented we're going to see a lot more of these so-called one off solutions if it can happen in cyprus can happen in greece in the greece's problems are no smaller than an cyprus problem there are there are bigger. if you can happen in greece it can happen in portugal and it can happen in ritual it can happen spain and italy and so what is quite likely is that

a lot of people are going to moving their money out of southern europe to other places. the potential bailout rate on deposits in cyprus is keeping investors nervous both inside and outside the euro zone. explain to my colleague bill dodd why russia is particularly uneasy about brussels plan. well you know there's a certain stereotype in the west about the russian mafia keeping their money in cyprus offshore accounts well of course to some extent there is some illegal money there but definitely fundamentally it's all about the big businesses because almost just about every big business in russia has an asset an offshore account in cyprus and the biggest concern which is now there and we stopped about by the by the president by the highest officials in the country does not concern the big businesses in the sense that russia has been striving to have the offshore money returns to the country the government believes it's now your country more stable you need to provide healthy environment to keep the money inside the country so

this is not the concern here especially with the government and the president saying that it wants the money to be returned to russia the biggest concern in the biggest unfairness which president putin talked about here small businesses private interpreters who have the money in cyprus and we're talking here at least around forty thousand people who have their money in the offshore accounts there will suffer and this is something of course which is now being seriously condemned by moscow but then of course cyprus is in a very difficult position either it risks losing the bailout funds which of course will keep the country buoyant if it goes ahead with that then of course it loses its foreign investment investment so what does it do the research feeling that cyprus may be shooting itself in the leg in a sense that it's been living off the offshore money for many years now and russians have already started withdrawing their money from the cyprus accounts they may be soon followed by the japanese the chinese also have loads of money in cyprus accounts the world is a big place they're always find another country to have their money there. and next

on our team max kaiser will be here with his unique take on those causing the world's financial storms. in some societies the but the woman is forced to marry the man who was abused or ok here similarly people are being forced to invest in the stock market end of people that are abusing them that's a that's a very dysfunctional relationship. the prisoners hunger strike at guantanamo bay is growing which even u.s. military officials now admit but they still deny that inmates are being mistreated or that some lives are in danger as lawyers claim what's more the lack of response from humanitarian organizations is raising eyebrows marina porton i explains. as the current time of hunger strike enters its forty second day there's been very

little response and no outcry from international organizations the united nations for example has yet to comment or a good knowledge of the get mo hunger strike did reach out to un human rights bodies in geneva and officials have promised to respond to our inquiry with a comment by tuesday afternoon now on the other hand the international committee of the red cross which last visited the island prison the third week of february does have knowledge that a hunger strike is taking place but so far all the organization has done is release a statement saying that the i.c.r.c. believes past and current tensions at guantanamo to be the direct result of the uncertainty faced by detainees now compounding this problem is that it's been very difficult to access any information about prisoners due to military censorship after all it was the attorneys for the detainees that first expressed urgent and

grave concern over the life threatening mass hunger strike that reportedly started at guantanamo on february sixth now according to the center for constitutional rights a reported one hundred thirty prisoners on hunger strike in early february to protest the alleged complication of personal items such as photos and mail and the alleged sacrilegious handling of their qur'an now lawyers have reported that some of the prisoners are coughing up blood have lost two or more than twenty pounds and have been hospitalized experts medical experts say that by day forty five hunger strike participants can experience potential blindness and partial hearing loss now the center for constitutional rights and behave b.s. council have sent a letter to u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel urging him. to help immediately and this mass hunger

strike and to quote take action before another man dies at that prison unquote the director of public affairs for joint task force kuantan m o captain robert duran did release a statement on friday to r.t. denying claims of a mass hunger strike or the mishandling of the koran shortly after mr durant released his statement kuantan i'm a navy commander announced that flights to the island prison from south florida will be terminated on april fifth now those flights have served as a vital air bridge for attorneys who are seeking to meet with their imprisoned clients critics believe that this is an attempt by the defense department to limit the access that attorneys with their clients reporting from new york. r.t. . but also you spoke to an attorney who has represented several guantanamo bay

prisoners and he describes detaining people for years without charges graciously inhumane. there are one hundred sixty six people at guantanamo of those there are probably at most twenty guys who are bad guys who were taken in later guys like khalid shaikh mohammad the other people are and most nothing more than half of them eighty six of the may have been cleared at least for three years and some during the bush administration cleared as innocent people and they're still there and they're frustrated i mean i don't care if you're held in the dorchester hotel in london or the best hotel the ritz carlton in moscow and you're confined to that room for eleven years and you can't see your family you can't go out and talk to people you can't read freely you can't get about i don't care that's a lousy condition even if you're fed the best food every day and believe me they're not i mean they are imprisoned improperly without a chance to get out that's the worst condition we've got much more on the ongoing

guantanamo hunger strike on a website you can head that's what you need to be with a full month guard at the notorious camp gives a firsthand account of the violence shown towards detainees and leave analysis of other possible reasons behind the mass protest. now you say stay with us for more news breaking plaguing israel's political deadlock a seemingly as the new coalition finally gets to work but as we report like this out there all more bottles for prime minister netanyahu to fight. wealthy british style. from time to time.

markets. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports . for the. science technology innovation called developments around russia. the future covered.

hello welcome back now on this very day ten years ago the so-called coalition of the willing headed by the u.s. and britain invaded iraq triggered a decade long war that was supposed to disarm iraq of weapons of mass destruction and free the nation from tyranny but w m d's were never found and after tens of thousands of lives were lost the consequences are still emerging this is the caffein of reports. at this hour american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. this was the freedom they brought shock and bombs over baghdad what the pentagon billed as a quick war to liberate iraq turned into a prolonged nightmare. ten years of bloodshed war of occupation and deadly sectarian strife drained by afghanistan exhausted by iraq for washington the battle

is over after a decade of war that's cost us thousands of gods and over a trillion dollars. nation we need to build it is our way but what if the nation they left behind. know we're not happy biggest regret the iraqi people are destroyed and the infrastructure is devastated the country is ruined. these graves are a visual reminder of a decade of human strife almost everyone in this country has lost somebody whom they love no one knows exactly how many iraqis have been killed since the invasion and estimates range from more than one hundred fifty thousand to over one million for years the u.s. claims not to keep body counts but how do you mohamed has kept count his four sons and only grandchild who were killed in a suicide blast. how am i doing i raise my sons and some of them get mahdi's and send them to universities i watched them die you asked me if it's better or worse

now compared to ten years ago i still have my sons ten years ago so i think the answer is obvious. others have seen their dreams of a brighter future shattered by years of violence. i was top of my class but when circumstances became very bad after the occupation i feel that something was broken inside of me. my ambition and everything and i used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer but conditions prevented me from continuing my studies but an education is no guarantee of work less than forty percent of iraqi adults have a job and a quarter of families live below the world bank's poverty line statistics that haven't improved much since the days of crushing u.n. sanctions in the one nine hundred ninety s. elections may have brought democracy to iraq but critics say the government is rife with corruption and infighting. despite the ferias that's occurred in the time of the former regime it is not comparable to the number of freely is by the

politicians and the current government. and more troubling perhaps are the lingering divisions of this occupation separated out into tribes that have placed the political structure with a tribal one which aggravated the political conflict i see no good in this kind of regime. today iraq is facing a new political crisis there's tension on the ground between the sunni provinces and the shia led government as well as between baghdad and the kurdish north i think if these issues are not resolved it can lead to more significant problems including conflict which can lead to i think the breakup of iraq and destabilization. and an upsurge in violence is sparking fears of a return to sectarian strife new figures show that death rates have actually risen since the last american soldier left iraqi soil how long will iraq remain like this

every day there are explosions every day there is killing every day there is terrorism. explosion after explosion iraqis have asked themselves that same question for most of the last ten years to see counseling of r.t. iraq. well u.s. taxpayers are probably asking how much more they will have to spend on iraq on top of the hundreds of billions of dollars that have already been poured in the figure of over eight hundred billion dollars continues to rise by the second as you can see their costs mounting from dealing with returning personnel to the broader social and economic impacts of the war now and now takes a closer look at the numbers. the decade long war in iraq may be officially over but american taxpayers are still paying for the cost of the invasion let's talk numbers the u.s. has spent more than sixty billion dollars in reconstruction in iraq so far that works out to about fifteen million dollars per day overall cost and other aid adds

up to seven hundred and sixty seven billion dollars since the american led invasion and that's according to the congressional budget office but national priorities project a u.s. research group they estimate the real cost at over eight hundred billion dollars and they add that some funds are still being spent on ongoing projects and that number continues to rise every second now a major problem it seems is that all this cash the u.s. is coughing up isn't falling into the right hands or projects iraqi prime minister nouri al maliki says funding could have brought great change in iraq but there was misspending of money i want to give you some examples of this mis spending if you can call it that there are too many to name but here are some that i think really stand out in iraq's diyala province the u.s. began building a prison in two thousand and four but abandon the project after three years to flee a surge in violence now have complete facility cost american taxpayers forty

million dollars but sits in rubble and there are no plans to ever finish or use it according to the justice ministry also subcontractors overcharged the u.s. government thousands of dollars for supplies take a look at this control switch the u.s. pays nine hundred dollars for that when it's actually valued at just seven dollars eighty dollars for a section of a pipe that is actually valued at just a buck fifty and when you're talking hundreds of billions of dollars nine hundred bucks of course sounds like small change but obviously it's adding up here's another one widespread fraud led by a former u.s. army officer cost tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks. nektar to government contracts for bottled water twenty two people were criminally convicted but still tens of millions of dollars in contracts for bottled water but for iraqis they're paying a different cost a government rife with corruption and infighting near daily deadly bombing still blast baghdad streets and

a quarter of the country's thirty one million lives in poverty a war veteran and peace activist believes the scars left on iraqis as well as the coalition troops will take years to heal i see you know america as the bull in a china shop you know the iraq we invaded iraq we break everything after we drew from iraq they're still broken glass and violence that that's the gist of violence in europe that still exist that still happens is the that's what happens when you destroy civil society in another country in the domestic side of things that iraq war is not over or better ones you know with the with a record number of suicides with a veteran who is no better on unemployment we're talking about the recession i mean is this legacy of war is still with us if you wish that we're still feeling the effects of that.

britain's press is a bank to get a new powerful regulator but the deal struck by three parties has put my many major newspapers in dismay they reject the proposal that will empower a new body to impose hefty fines and demand apologies fearing that would mean people from outside the industry including politicians will have full control of the print media that's a journalist tony goes whether the watchdog will have enough bite. these things off the start off with great intentions don't they and you often start with good people on those panels but what happens often is you have to look at who's appointing people to the panel in the future and whether it's journalists doing that i mean for example the national union of journalists here in britain had to fight to even be close to the process to put this together journalists are cutting edge and it's not the journalists that cause these problems it's the proprietors and the editors of these firms so the problem is going to be who is on the panels that's deciding

on this press regulation because whether it's the b.b.c. or off calm at the moment you've got people on those panels who are essentially from the establishment appointed by the establishment that's a real serious problem the other thing of course with off com is that they've actually banned press t.v. from the british airwaves so what we're seeing is actually an establishment type regulation which is really what we don't need if this is going to work it's going to have journalists regulating and victims regulating. turning to some other international news in brief now syria's opposition national coalition has elected the prime minister to administer areas seized by the rebels the new prime minister has an heathrow when they be eighty percent of the votes at a meeting in turkey damascus born he lived in the u.s. for several years until recently but it's unclear whether the disparate rebel groups fighting in syria will recognize the new prime minister. texas prosecutors will not press charges against the american parents of an adopted three year old

russian boy who died in january a coroner's report ruled maxine who is means death was an accident and bruises on his body were self-inflicted moscow is holding its own investigation into a case which has strained relations between the two countries in december president putin signed legislation banning the adoption of russian children by americans. and there have been and he american protests in bethlehem just days before barack obama visits the west bank posters have been defaced in diplomatic cars vandalizes palestinians vent their anger over what they see as powerful american bias towards israel the u.s. leader will be making his first trip to israel and the palestinian territories to try and smooth smooth over washington's strained relations with both sides. meanwhile israel's new government has now been formed in sworn in it took weeks to strenuous negotiations that saw to political newcomers to schumer roles as prime ministers netanyahu is main coalition partners but the compromise could mean his

troubles are far from over. expects. he might have perfected the role of israel's great communicator but as prime minister benjamin netanyahu enters his third term of office like his audience his powers of persuasion are shrinking. you need to watch the body language of how this coalition was forged it changed from aggressive to disappointed and after the disappointment the anger will come we'll see that in the open what's already being seen in the open is that netanyahu is new partners are not the ones he wanted form a media personality out yet appeared and representative of these radio set of movement enough to be bennett their everything he's not young contemporary and popular. he's panicked netanyahu realizes they are the next generation is like an international geographic film where the young lions push the

old line aside they get the females and the future is theirs. but b.b. as he's called is nothing if not supremely confident over the past dozen years he's earned a doctorate in defeat and how it may be avoided he's a pro at welding together the broken parts so they can hold on for a little bit longer. driven by the fact that he has some kind of paranoid when you're paranoid. makes you minimize the volume of mistakes that you might do and i think that when he always thinks that there's a profit but someone is. about to pull a trick on him he's there were prepared as he used to sit around a table with partners who might eventually signal his downfall would. come netanyahu ran a confused campaign and a confused negotiation although he is very smart very experienced it didn't show

the goals were constantly changing there was no planning so he needs to sit now and get his house in order. it wasn't that long ago that time magazine crowned him king bibi influential magazine ran with the headline that he's calm could israel but nine months later it's not so clear whether israel has been finally conquered that netanyahu in the final at the great communicator might not be able to communicate so great after all. reality television. just ahead for you abby martin on the fight. to find faith in the u.s. .

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 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 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. as a polling 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. choose your language. actually make it with the infidels synthesis and. choose good. choose the opinions that you think. choose the stories could impact your life choose me access to. you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food because you know how. many i mean.

i know that i've seen the same thing really messed up. and we're all very so personally apologize if that. worst you were going through. the white house or the . radio guy in fort lauderdale minutes from a quick profit i want you to watch closely or about to do because you've never seen anything like this i'm told. greetings everyone welcome to breaking the set my name is many below i'm filling in for abby martin while she's out of the studio this morning i was shocked and honestly disgusted to read about a couple of people who actually benefited financially from the sandy hook shooting in the days following the massacre that left twenty eight.