i. see live at eleven pm here in moscow tonight a heavy police presence on the streets of the cypriot capital crowds are gathering angered by the country's uncertain future live pictures here from nicosia provided by artie's video agency ruptly you want to get across them of course you can on our website r.t. dot com. any time cyprus officials and your across to send here to moscow to thrash out a three way rescue is the island scenes overseas shuttered banks cold shoulder from europe brooke cross that story tonight for you and more big news of the day a top loyalist cleric dies in a huge blast at a mosque in central damascus this after the u.n. agrees to launch a probe into accusations of a deadly chemical attack that was carried out near aleppo. barack obama meets leader mahmoud abbas urging the palestinian authority and israel to start

peace talks but leaving many disillusioned and disappointed over the lack of real action we're across that story to this hour. good evening live from moscow this is our to international it's kevin owen here with very good to have your company while the top story again tonight cypriots of filling the screens with angry crowds now pressing in on parliament announcing a nationwide bank shutdown and potential job cuts to thousands have been cut off from their life savings and many may see them vanish completely off the e threaten to cut cyprus off from emergency funds that the island nation rejected an unprecedented brussels tax on bank deposits. is the parliament for us now. emotions are really running high i saw several people who were hysterical the police were handing somewhat bottles of water to them because they really really

were very angry at the chanting that they're saying they're saying leave the bank alone now that's one of the two biggest bands of cyprus that is in trouble at the center of this whole of financial crisis here in cyprus and they are staff members and family members of the leaky bank staff and there are afraid that the government may decide to close down the back altogether or resort to job cuts were different figures coming out but for now they're just worried about the possibility of being there telling the government do not at all do this already cyprus is seeing a huge liquidity crunch a cash problems cash flow problems here we know that the european central bank has given an ultimatum to the country that they will only provide funding to cyprus until monday the twenty fifth the march and after that they will only continue to do so if there is an e.u. or i.m.f. a program in the place so that is also up in the air with the cypriots have been doing today they went out into the streets early in the morning to the a.t.m. machines trying to get hold of as much cash as they can already some people have

told me that the a limit on the of the amount of money that they could get had gone down and also we've seen we've talked to shop owners who are now not accepting credit cards only cash and some are even offering discounts a ten percent discount if you pay in cash gas stations that we went to now also only accept cash the bottom line is that there really is a cash flow problem and until banks open they really are not sure what they're about to do and the serious as far as opinion goes there's a poll here that says that ninety one percent of the population rejected that initial bank deposit levy and about sixty seven percent favor an exit from the euro zone or cooperation with russia and so you can you can really feel that there is a distrust now disappointment towards europe and again as far as they concerned they're concerned the problem now is how to get through to next week how are they going to have enough money to go about their daily jobs and and i do ask them but the banks may open next week and they asked me back well what if it doesn't so this

uncertainty is certainly was keeping emotions high over here. all cyprus now that has less than four days to secure a bailout deal before being cut off from european emergency fund to be honest if you don't apply lawyer at the put those ski and consultancy firm thanks for taking the time to come in and see is why was cyprus offered it but it was such severe conditions and again so late in the day well actually if you understand the timing there were elections recently in cyprus last month and the e.u. understood that if they were to make a deal it was a no it wasn't a good idea to make a deal with the outgoing ruling party ok the reception from europe now that this european proposal fistfuls being to doubt is that chancellor merkel doesn't want the cypriots to go elsewhere she wants to try and boxer a deal with a mirror but of course they hear it in moscow now russia might be coming to its aid she's not going to be happy why is that well it's got to do with the electorate in

germany there are elections coming up in about six months in germany and russia is not very popular in germany has been a lot of anti russian articles and the source is more concerned about a domestic vote than actually the well being of cypriots themselves here i would think so yes it definitely seems to be the case what's the connection there's a. lot of russians do their banking in cyprus want to go to cyprus there are plenty of other places they could go to it's not the only offshore banking area is it well if you read the press i mean the press always says it's all tied to the money laundering and there is that there's definitely that element but the reality is that russians russia laws are recent they've been around for a little more than twenty years and it's very difficult to create a company and run a company under russian laws because it's very easy for somebody to illegally take over a country would they call raiding because somebody comes in with a gun or whatever into an office and they make people sign documents they forged documents take company stamps etc and if you have an offshore company you. prevent

against doing that and of all the offshore drilling stiction with british type laws only cyprus allows russians to go to their country without a visa so it's easy and it's and it's all convenient yeah absolutely and also when you want to. change the shareholding of a company or if you want to attract investment you can't do that under the current russian laws the way that they're structured ok that's the but back to the hard edged the e.c.b. is it threatening to pull the plug on cyprus potentially wiping out accounts is going to be doleful mess they've given a deadline of monday haven't they is that going to be avert what you think is going to happen. that's tough to say it's really really tough to say i think that i think maybe they might they might actually pull the plug because it doesn't seem that russia really is able to come to

a group with cyprus and it seems that cyprus is having a difficult time convincing the europeans to change change the conditions of the ballot so cuddly next week as you see it so we don't know you know what it looks to be distributed a crystal ball but as you see it what is worse case could that have i think the worst case scenario is we're going to see maybe a bank or to fail there's been a rumor that the second largest bank is already in the process of. folding. and potentially cyprus might actually end up leaving the euro which may actually be a good thing because i think that i think the become the could become more competitive and they can control their destiny a little bit better than they've been able to do under a little bit like with it's just you exaggerate stayed at it you know. end of the day whatever happens here its reputation is not in a good way how you can recover from that well just over time i mean if you look at

for example dubai dubai went through a rough period a few years ago with respect to its economy in the property market now it was primarily back in and buying properties again even though property prices dropped so i'm sure that people people have very short memories and i'm sure if they have to if they have bad reputation now it's a question will they do i think that people will forget in the build they'll come back and invest again and use it as you know they'll continue to use it. cyprus as a preferred place for having holding structures for russian companies free she would you could use this is a very much to apply lawyer podolski client consults. thank you very much for having me on thanks. as separate finance minister as you mentioned there in moscow is talks to save the offshore banking hub from bankruptcy enter crunch time the clock is ticking down the stakes are high too with speculation that cyprus could offer natural gas exploration rights to secure russian help so that time running

out for the island nation is dwindling cash reserve is pushing towards default picking up the story again r.t.d. gold is going off. the cypriot finance minister is explained that the country doesn't need a new loan from russia but it needs investment in exchange for this investment it's ready to offer shares in its banking and energy sector the minister has been in moscow for the last few days in negotiating with russian officials so far he says there's been no official offer but he stressed that he's not leaving until an agreement is reached in the meantime a delegation of senior european union officials is also in the russian capital including the head of the european commission amount of barros of course they're also discussing the crisis in cyprus and earlier russia's prime minister dmitry needed if i some really strong words to say about the situation but. so far the e.u. together with the cyprus parliament have unfortunately acted like a bull in a china shop i think all possible mistakes which could have been made in this

situation have been made fun of bustled middle of the prime minister didn't stop there he also compared the european union's officials approach to the crisis to power soviet authorities dealt with the private funds of soviet citizens meaning the expropriation of private property of course all this is happening after cyprus have rejected the bailout plan proposed by brussels and mostly the so-called droid of investors which included taxing private bank accounts of the country is still on the verge of bankruptcy there is unconfirmed speculation that the cypriot problem and is a looking at an alternative plan to get out get out of the crisis which may even allegedly include getting out of the euro zone altogether with time is running out for the country and its president said that a decision must be made before the end of the day and for more on all this i'm now joined by the editor in chief of the business new europe magazine ben eris mr ayres thank you very much for joining me and well about this latest speculation that we

are unconfirmed reports but theoretically how possible is it for cyprus to actually get out of the euro zone and what consequences may this have in the can happen. i mean they're being pushed into a corner they've been told to come up with five point eight billion dollars and they haven't got it and they here in moscow negotiating with the russians trying to raise the money but then if the russians say no then they simply haven't got the money and then come monday then they run out of money the system goes into meltdown and how do you get out of that i mean you make on your a big ations and you leave here is a. very possible scenario so i personally says that it's not looking for a loan from russia but earlier the head of the euro group said that if russia gave a loan to cyprus then it would do it would just destabilize the whole situation. are too big of a loan for cyprus to handle so is this a sign that something like that is fair to say or is it a sign that european officials are just simply in opposition to russia trying to

get involved in resolving it saying there's a lot of rhetoric flying around over this this whole case it's become highly emotive and people seem to you know lost their sense of balance when commenting on it and it also seems a bit rich to come from western european powers to say that you know they haven't sustainable debt when most of those countries are laboring under one hundred percent g.d.p. debt to g.d.p. which is under the musketeer also unsustainable i think the issue here is that you know cyprus needs to raise some money but the e.u. is saying on the one hand we're not going to give you more than ten billion dollars for the seventeen you say you need and on the other hand but you can't go to the russians to raise it either and so it seems to me that they're almost precipitating a crisis it's doesn't make any sense. next to the palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has been hosting talks with u.s. president barack obama on his first ever visit to the west bank palestinians were left in the world by the meeting saying

a bomber avoided the most grave obstacles in the peace to the region about his trips been overshadowed by reports of a garden rocket attack on israel to the cave office meeting there on wednesday with from mr benjamin netanyahu party's policy is got the latest on the story. well it's not such a large crowd of anti obama protesters here in ramallah but the sentiments being expressed here already reflected of the general mood on the palestinian street and what people here have been chanting is a bomb that if you're not black they've also been chanting that the occupation is like a snake and america is the head of the snake they're also saying that this is a nation that cannot be defeated not been talking to several people and what they've been telling me is that first and foremost through this visit a bomb has made it quite clear that america's support is for israel they complain that he's been talking to these radios hearing the israelis point of view and then ultimately putting forward the israeli position when it comes to peace negotiations with the palestinians we don't expect anything from obama he met netanyahu

yesterday in israel and he didn't say one word about the palestinians or the palestinian state or what this visit is just for supporting israel they're not considering the palestinians at all we don't welcome a bomber in palestine he's a partner in killing us palestinians there are prisoners who are on hunger strike in israeli prisons and he doesn't care about them or about this nation. the united states is standing against any attempts to move the peace process forward the last one was the american veto and they refused to let us be part of the united nations this american government that supports terrorism globally they are killing the syrian nation and the african nation and all around the world. this coming on the second day of the american president barack obama's visit to the region certainly a bamma so far is speaking primarily to the israeli public and he admitted as much last night after he met with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu he said that his goal is to talk to the israelis he's spoken about the importance of israeli

security and he's also committed american financial assistance to israel particularly in terms of military programs beyond two thousand and seventeen when the current contracts expire now there's been very little mention so far of the palestinians of the peace process of the continued israeli settlement expansion and this is in stark contrast to the speech the president gave back in two thousand and nine in cairo when he said that one of his priorities in terms of his foreign policy was resolving the palestinian issue having said that though there is a lot of mistrust between the bomb and the ten yahoo there is a lot of areas and disagreement they certainly don't see eye to eye on the issue of iraq and here we have missed on yahoo continuing to call for a military strike while obama continues to say that all options are on the table and that there is still time for diplomacy so certainly in this what we see is that despite the p.r. efforts there is no running away from the fact that netanyahu still holds firm to

israeli commitment even if it means turning his back on his close allies we here in this clip as well can never see the road to defer nurse news to others even to the greatest of our friends the palestinian position is that they needs to be of attention one hundred sixty seven borders there needs to be a halt in construction of settlements and in this respect the anticipation and at least the analysis on the ground is that obama is not going to push the israelis but rather push the palestinians to meet the israeli demands. graham who's an activist in gaza says a bomb was always side with israel in this visit shows nothing's changed. the palestinians aren't expecting very much. has and he has come and he has basically told the israelis that he is their ally and he will do everything he can possible to hurt israeli situation where he has actually said nothing in regards to the palestinians he hasn't mentioned settlement freezes he hasn't mentioned the sixty

seven borders he has giving nothing to the palestinians the main obstacle has and always will be the settlements they have continued to build certain minutes day after day after day and yet you know whose governments continuously announce new settlements and the world stands by and obama himself has actually called the freeze of settlements and the israelis just ignore what he says and continues on what they're doing what they're doing. we want to know what you think about obama's real intentions in israel it's our main question in our web poll tonight r.t. dot com thanks taken over if you have now what this is were telling us that the vast majority of more than a lot of polls around lately have to say i think the whole trip's nothing more than a p.r. stunt seventy one percent again this hour almost a fifth believe obama's trying to buy time and restrain israel from striking a rat nearly ten percent of you think the u.s. leader should be focusing more on palestine a tiny minority there just four percent again this six but the trip to actually bring the region closer to peace is not very optimistic r.t.

dot com the place to cast your vote right now if you can. but our top story police and protesters face to face in front of a cypriot parliament with rallies there now running for a fourth day let's home in on that and they're going to sound a picture these live pictures there from artie's new video agency ruptly the mood tents with the riot police holding tight ranks there just in case it kicks off just a few hundred meters away the central bank has begun restructuring the country's top financial institutions of course protesters of furious some for straighted by a nationwide bank shutdown and rumored job cuts to come the people are seeing standing out there actually work in the summers affected banks to open the banks need massive refinancing with the money cyprus hopes will come from russia if not europe we're closely across this story you follow it don't forget online r.t. dot com. and in a few minutes hoping stay with us the latest details for you on the deadly blast in

the syrian capital has killed at least fourteen people. world. leads technology innovation all that is developments from around russia we've gone to the future covered. sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought . was a big. huge

suicide bomb blast has ripped through a mosque in central damascus has killed at least fourteen people tonight including a top loyalist cleric shaikh mohammed was a staunch supporter of syria's support of bashar al assad more than forty others were wounded in that explosion these shocking images show the aftermath of the blast that took place at a time when the mosque was for prayers it comes as a u.n. chief ban ki-moon as budged to send a group of independent experts to syria to investigate an alleged chemical attack near the northern city of aleppo. has been following these developments reports

says it is chemical weapons have been used in the hamas area off the aleppo province this is are not clear at the moment people were rushed to hospital after the attack had visible wounds to their bodies but they were clearly suffering from some breathing difficulties now the exams of the war saying that they saw other people falling to the fore dying witnesses have confirmed to r.t. that people have been suffering. effects of what seems to be some sort of gas back . in the house from. you here. three. where you're. over. now who could be behind this attack both assad's forces and rebels are pointing the finger of blame at each other but the rockets reportedly fell in areas controlled by the government the syrian rebels have long tried to overrun the weapons plant located in the very same area you can see on the map right there

aleppo and then also fear that is the place where some of the country's chemical stockpile is said to be stored in fact the syrian government said in december that rebel forces plundered supply of chlorine gas and some time ago this video was posted online showing animals purportedly being killed with chemicals those behind this footage affiliated themselves with assad's opponents and threaten to do the same with those who support the syrian president yet all of this evidence doesn't seem to convince president obama deeply skeptical. any claim that in fact it was the opposition that used chemical weapons and interesting use of the word skeptical with the stakes being so high one of the biggest concerns for all is this an area where syria's chemical arsenal falls into the hands of extremists fighters among opposition forces as history has shown there are examples when fighters supported by the west have eventually turned their arms against their backers now

let's for just a moment imagine that extremists among the rebel fighters could get hold of chemical weapons how bad could the longer the tags for example of two thousand and five have been if that was the case we've already seen images of a chemical attack on a subway in a huge city in one thousand nine hundred five in tokyo by religious sect now imagine a similar scenario but staged by people who work throughout the conflict in syria initially supported by the west the u.s. general in charge of overseeing guantanamo bay says the hunger strike among prisoners there shows they are frustrated with the government's failure to close the facility however the detainees lawyers say it's over abuse the disaggregation of the qur'an the number of participants that knowledge now by the pentagon is risen to twenty five but attorneys maintain it's more than one hundred go to chichi cameras the latest. what we see here is a small protest in front of the white house one tom all has been out of the media spotlight for a while now you don't see much coverage on major u.s. news channels even with the hunger strike going on there right now so these people

are trying to draw attention to the detainees more than fifty lawyers representing the president is a sent a letter to defense secretary chuck hagel urging him to help in that letter they said the participants health had deteriorated alarmingly and that some had lost more than twenty or thirty pounds that is nine to fourteen kilograms medical experts say by day forty five participants can experience potential blindness and potential loss of hearing so what prompted these people to resort to such a desperate move i was a consultant on if you were the case. those men would tell their attorney basically i don't want to talk with your what's the point of talking with you i don't want to know the date i'm going to get out of here but there is no date all. being completely oh as many of the detainees have come to believe and this is what they say we've heard this from their lawyers that the only way out of guantanamo for them is in a coffin in january a state department shut down the office that was working to close guantanamo more

than half of those detainees are sitting there with papers from the us clearing them for with lisa and yet with no hope that they're ever going to be free again the officials are certainly trying to downplay the hunger strike but they're pressed for answers and they sure know what's going on and what cost the strike in the first place marine corps general john kelly and it's his command that oversees guantanamo he was testifying in congress this wednesday he said the prisoners had launched the hunger strike because they're frustrated take a listen they had great optimism that guantanamo would be closed they were devastated when the president did you know backed off at least their perception of closing the facility that has caused them to become frustrated and they want to get this i think turned you don't get it back in the media. on our part will continue to press officials for answers as the strike continues and involves more people in washington i'm going to check on one of our team covering this the story of course because little attention in the mainstream american media but here are

two we've been doing our best to bring you the full picture we got a timeline of events on our website as well as comments by u.n. and prison officials detainees lawyers and activists at r.t. dot com if you get a minute for the full picture. eleven twenty six pm the moscow time couple of top world news stories the first minister of scotland alex salmond has announced the referendum on scottish independence will be held on the eighteenth of september next year voters will be asked a single yes or no question that question is should scotland become an independent country draft legislation outlining financial and voting details of the referendum as today also being published by the scottish parliament. the jailed leader of kurds in turkey. has called for a ceasefire with the government in a message read it to tens of thousands of kurdish new year celebrations it follows months of secret negotiations with authorities and it's seen as a step forward towards ending the twenty nine year conflict it's left forty thousand people dead week ago the kurdistan workers party the p.k. k.

made a symbolic gesture releasing eight turkish hostages. more topical conversation soon than on this channel the tough financial choices facing cyprus up for discussion next in the kaiser reports our next program in a few minutes enjoying. wealthy

british style. time to. market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports . download the official publication yourself choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorite. if you're away from your television just doesn't gossip about what your mobile

device says you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. by imax kaiser this is the kaiser report yeah we're still in new york city stacey before we start i want to oppression of time square nine hundred sixty five. this will tell sign above times where it's all gone now well max people really want to know not about the callahan but they want to know about the cyprus man what's happening on the streets of cyprus so we're going to talk about that because there's you know there's a little song called by fiscal cliff richard i don't know if you recall this we're all going on a bank holiday no more spending for a week or two not much fun or laughter on a bank holiday so of course the.