balancing on the brink of a breakdown cyprus again winning a levy on large bank deposits as it struggles to satisfy the e.u. to get a rescue package ahead of monday's deadline. british police investigate the death of russian oligarch boris berezovsky found dead it is home after reportedly losing much of his money in recent years. no trial no food the guantanamo hunger strikers after their forty seven day with lawyers raising concerns their denied access to the inmates as prison officials play down the scale of the protests. and moscow and beijing seal a powerful partnership agreeing to double oil supplies to china as the new president visits russia on his first official engagement abroad.

noon in moscow i'm at treasure bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news here on r t we begin in cyprus where the clock is ticking it has only till monday to gather the money needed to secure a vital e.u. bailout in a dramatic u. turn the government decided it will try dipping into people's bank accounts those with deposits of more than one hundred thousand euros in the island's biggest bank the controversial move is still to be signed off by parliament and the troika of creditors as are these tests are so your reports the mood in cyprus is one of panic and frustration. a week ago the euro group of the i.m.f. in brussels hammered out a bailout plan for the cyprus is the banking sector ten billion euros was the offer on one condition cyprus puts up five point eight billion euros how by imposing a one time levy of up to nine point nine percent on all bank deposits if not the

deal will solve a limit as to why some protesters just outside the parliament cypriot politicians voted a resounding no effective say no to the troika down to ten billion euros the island quickly turned to moscow it's believed that in russian businesses and wealthy individuals account for most of the foreign money to invest country but russia said its would not help cyprus out before it makes a deal. in the end cypriot officials made a u. turn and are now bending over backwards trying to seal that original bailout from want to put together a package pleasing enough to the forgotten they've agreed on imposing a twenty percent levy on deposits above one hundred thousand euros in the back of cyprus and four percent for big deposits in other banks while also passing bills to impose capital controls on banks creating a solidarity fund and restructure its own room banks and this produced a fresh wave of anger spilling over to the streets. all during that week of

dramatic political and economic maneuvering citizens were already on an emotional rollercoaster panic cypriots rushed to a.t.m. so trying to get their money out of the fact that some left empty handed as machines run out of cash. recipient stick to the streets shocked at the last felt was really a particularly journo trying to rethink the site of the year in. protesters condemned the so-called troika the european central bank e.u. commission and the i.m.f. for the first time to be hers and strew with the. demands a red line have the next one you stop holding up like this particular instances that the european union the euro zone have taken a step forward beyond their previous policy where they always said individuals will not be harmed we will not take money out of the minds of engineers and actually they've done that but what we see is that if you are big member then you will be

left alone and you will be bailouts and you if you are a small member you will be bullied and arrest to further complicate matters banks in the country will remain closed until next week and the european central bank has given an ultimatum if there is no deal with the troika by monday the twenty fifth emergency liquidity funding will be cut off causing another round of panic the citizens fear the worst trying to get hold of whatever cash they could frustration mounts most conversations now are about nothing else but the predicament they're countries in need of course to talk over time. what do you want to go with more of. your way to support from you but the reasons. to be able to. say you. know do you still there or do you know what everybody has for company next . they go go before people see your club. and

whenever they could they don't think twice about joining the crowd. over time is furious because you're going to let those. people unification in one field i think those are going to sleep very well over the past few days many cypriots have been telling me that they've seen or read about the impact of the economic crisis on the people of neighboring greece but it's not a really felt feel to them well not until the past week or so they share similar language a similar culture another wondering are they going to have to share a similar social try. these. tests are still you know r.t. if you see a cyprus. so this president treasury chief will be in brussels sunday to meet the euro group and i.m.f. to see if the numbers add up so they can get final approval for their plan european parliament major member nigel farage says evil leaders are pushing to read people's bank deposits and it's unprecedented theft from those desperate to keep the euro

afloat at any cost. now the fifth come three out of the seventy needed to be biled out and that is why the germans extracted the terms that they did but i must say even him. in this parliament over the years about the way the e.u. bosses were behaving never did i think that they would in a completely unprecedented manner resort to stealing money from people's bank accounts and they know that once one country goes the whole deck of cards will come tumbling down and countries like germany will realize absolutely vast losses possibly as much as one trillion euros so they are prepared now to do anything literally and the thing to try to keep the euro afloat and that is why they've now resorted as i say to what can only be described as theft and now they've done it in one country they're quite capable of doing it in italy spain portugal or anywhere

else but the message that sends to people who've got savings in banks in those countries certainly if i was them is get your money out don't invest in the euro zone do not invest anywhere in the euro zone you've got to be mad to do so because it's now run by people who don't respect democracy they are propping up a euro zone which in the end is going to collapse in disastrous failure or they are prepared to do anything to do so i think that this decision this german dominated and led decision is the worst decision we've seen so far in this whole euro zone crisis. berlin is insisting cyprus revamp its banking system and stop becoming a tax haven germany taking the toughest stance yet on the sabers rescue deal slamming new cosi is decision to create a solidarity fund made up of pensions property if you tear gas earnings german economist harry bean says berlin has its own agenda ahead of a looming general election. but don't forget that we are heading for elections in

germany rescue packages that we have gone through in the past have been totally unpopular with the german taxpayer and going ahead now with a simple solution to what we've had in the past you just cannot sell it to the german taxpayer i guess that's an issue as well also you don't you shouldn't forget that those negotiations go she was a cyprus are very complicated every party has to keep up its bargaining power and so we like a mystery you know and you have to be on guard you have to bluff and god knows what will happen and us germans we're not saying that we shouldn't help cyprus but the germans told that at the end of the day the money the little ones the guarantees whatever you want to call it does not support the people in cyprus it's supporting the banks that supporting the bank owners that supporting wall street and supporting the big one people and that's the whole issue here british police now looking into the death of segues of self exiled russian tycoon and kremlin critic

boris berezovsky chemical and radiological experts now at his home near london where he was found dead saturday they say as a precautionary measure the sixty seven year old is thought to have lost much of his fortune or ethan years from death resulting from expensive court defeats it's also reported in britain he was diagnosed with depression r t sarah for it has more. it's of the death first broken by boris berezovsky son in law on a social networking site now it's thought he died at his home in ascot and but. police have said that they've launched an investigation into the death of a sixty seven year old man and that death is being treated as unexplained cause a huge amount of state surrounding this boris berezovsky the. larger than life character there's been talk of health problems of the speculation about suicide and we can actually listen now to some information from a very prominent russian lawyer. of the two people who called me saying breeze off

key had died one told me it was a suicide and the second person said he might have died of a heart attack and i previously heard from people close to you that he was practically broken orderly depressed person i know called me and said bruce even asked to borrow five thousand dollars for a ticket he was also serious. as he said there is a heated amount of speculation at this time surrounding the death right now the circumstances of the death the remain unclear he made his fortune after the breakup of the savior then we saw him have self-imposed exile and he sort of sighed and in britain in two thousand now in the last couple of years he's had a very high profile court cases a month which is the spectacular falling out he had with russian oligarch roman abramovich called cases very interesting to listen to paul's from people who were

there in the courthouse when boris berezovsky was told that he had lost that case against him in a brother that. he had so certainly that was a massive blow. it seems both personally but also financially as well of course and it does seem. to fall in on somewhat. all of the times over the last couple of his with a school case is now the russian president's press a pass a test of has said that the president was sent a letter by boris berezovsky in which he was to think of this and see. that it was true. some time ago maybe some two months ago but it's sent a letter to putin himself saying that he admits that he made a lot of mistakes putin to forgive him for these mistakes and also wants putin for a chance for him to return to this lead to did exist. as we said it's been

a tough few years and it does seem that have been a lot of financial problems but of course this is all speculation what we do know right now is that the thames valley police have launched that investigation they cordoned off the area around his home while that investigation is ongoing no confirmation of the name yet but of course we'll stay in the story and bring you the update thousand when we have. on top of developments following the death of boris berezovsky with updates for you online at r.t. dot com well when verizon ski left russia back in the year two thousand he became one of the kremlin's fiercest critics earlier on our team my colleagues kevin know what a nice and now way talk about the ups and downs of the tycoon the relations with moscow and his recent appeal to return home. he's a convicted criminal here in russia to put it simply not so much a controversial figure in the sense of of scandal surrounding him but controversal because it's flat out he does not get along with the kremlin sarah touched on this a little bit it was no secret he was an outspoken critic of the kremlin about the

system in russia and i think the british gave him safe while the russian rather to it didn't and it hampered british russian relationship so it went straight to the top it's very unclear to russia to this day why the u.k. so protective peters of ski lots of talk in past years that it had to do with his investments with his money which makes it even more interesting because it's swaying that this is most likely had something to do with his debts with owing lots of money high profile court cases the most recent one of course with. he was ripped apart by the judge was nearly wasn't his character he was indeed and this is been going on for some time so it's been it's been happening slowly this letter two months ago according to the two. main press men demetrius called that bitters office he was asking for forgiveness this is interesting asking for forgiveness for these convicted crimes money laundering he's also involved with some shady people

at least as a scene in russia in london. also in exile connected at least in russia convicted of being involved in terror acts he's a former chechen militants so it's a very intricate circle of people. stay with us here on r.t. still to come energizing old allies china's new leader uses first of all broad trip to seal energy deals with russia and call for the two to work toward balancing world influence that's still to come after this 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 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 selim said the attempt to segregation is appalling and the current arguments about security needs an overcrowding must not be allowed to kemah flush 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 us 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. sixty minutes past the hour now with one hundred. guantanamo's crossed forty seven days a critical point when health officials say serious repercussions repercussions could occur prisoners' lawyers sounding the alarm but are struggling to draw attention to a protest they call unprecedented in scope duration and determination officials say just a handful of detainees are involved he's got is shaky and explains it's getting harder though to verify the information. despair among guantanamo detainees is growing as now even their lawyers are being denied direct access to them attorneys say they had a visit scheduled for early next week with one of the prisoners who's been on strike since the beginning of february lawyers have been informed by authorities that the only flights to the prison the u.s. military flight was canceled we're. told there are no

plans right. now. not only are the turkey struggling to find out the true extent of what's happening in guantanamo now but we journalists are as well this friday captain robert zubrin and the spokesman for guantanamo responded to our inquiry he wrote us quote we have twenty six hunger strikers with receiving and turning feeds meaning they get nutrition through a feeding tube last friday robert to rand wrote us there were fourteen people refusing all food although defense attorneys had been saying there were many more we cannot independently verify any of this at this point we're just relying on what the officials and detainees lawyers tell us we're certainly in touch with the attorneys and will continue to press the officials for answers in addition to the inquiries that we made with the defense department we also asked the department of justice for their perspective on what's happening and they basically told us that

it's none of their business that the military oversees the facility and referred as back to the department of defense defense attorneys are telling us that these sorties have created conditions which make it nearly impossible for them to do their job and defend their clients so frustrating there is nothing that we do we have to. where else to the. department of arms to the commander. who. can talk to us about. her own response we have been told by the department of justice that they will not talk to us they were. part of the. normans talked to us in the meantime in washington the officials tried to downplay the hunger strike but they seem to have a good idea of why these men resorted to such a desperate move and yet they have no solution to offer 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 turn the heat up get it back in the media but it was not on the status of the detainees that general john kelly who's command oversees guantanamo came to discuss in congress he was there asking for money to renovate the prison the upgrade of the camp is estimated to cost taxpayers almost two hundred million dollars as washington schedules renovations at guantanamo the international community continues to call on president obama to comply with his own promises and to shut down the infamous prison we have no right to hold people indefinitely without charges without a trial and without people having access to a justice system that's against every principle of law which exists in the world the un commissioner for human rights responded to our request for comment and said they have quote repeatedly regretted that the u.s. government has not closed guantanamo bay four years ago president obama ordered to stop tortured guantanamo but the u.s.

says indefinite detention itself is a form of torture british resident shakur aamer was cleared for release six years ago yet he's still being held captive here's what he writes please touch me in the old way here they destroy people mentally and physically without leaving my. half of the men now in guantanamo have been cleared for release many others never formally accused of a crime three months ago the state department closed the office in charge of closing the prison there's a growing sense among the detainees there that the only way out of guantanamo for them is in a coffin in washington i'm going to check in. nearly all hundred sixty six prisoners and good mo have been held there since the prison was set up eleven years ago about how often half of them have been found not guilty but remain behind bars because of u.s. transfer restrictions others are awaiting trial counter-terror divisor laura pitter from human rights watch says washington has to put an end to indefinite detention there they're going to have to respond at some point and they need to either you

know try and prosecute the detainees who do actually have credible evidence against or release them at this point only think detainees actually face any formal charges half of the people there the administration has said they have no interest in prosecuting they need q. you know act on this they cannot continue to keep detain people indefinitely without trial for years now bombing administration the u.s. government is clearly in violation of international law and it obligations under international law journal and don't have access to even the un special rapporteur tour does not have access we don't have access to it greatly limits our ability to speak with them and to understand what's happening get special regarding their detention conditions and it only undermines the united states his credibility when they're calling for him here and he wants norms in other countries. human rights groups around the world have long campaign to get guantanamo closed but the

international condemnation still hasn't resonated on capitol hill despite barack obama's pledge to shut down the prison four years ago this can all take a look. the story around the closure of guantanamo bay prison has stuck to president obama ever since he promised to shut it down and here are some of the key dates on the way first in january two thousand and nine and when obama was inaugurated he ordered the prison to be shut down within a year and banned some of the interrogation methods after the u.s. government admitted torturing some of the detainees was kools another exactly since in me the same year the u.s. senate refused to fund the closure of the jail until the president provided more details as to what to do with the detainees then in middle school would appear the situation that changed when the congress approved. allowed to some of the detainees to be moved to the u.s. for prosecution but then it all you turned again at the end of two thousand and ten

when the same congress approved the defense spending bill which prevented us trials for guantanamo detainees in january two thousand and eleven despite his campaign promise to close that obama signed the defense of the relation plan which ruled out shutting guantanamo bay down and prevented the transfer of prisoners from the camp in march obama also signed an executive order resuming military trials for more detainee's a move seen by many as a complete reversal of his former policies in december two thousand and eleven the president feel to veto the national defense bill being the way for prisoners to be held indefinitely and without charge and extending the ban on moving them from the camp and finally in july last year the pentagon voiced its plans to lay a forty million dollar fiberoptic cable from the u.s. mainland to guantanamo not exactly a sign washington aspiring to wrap up its operations in the controversial detention center. we have more expert analysis and opinion on what's going on it get mo on

our t. dot com also a click away the behind the scenes ties between the cia and syria's rebels are overboard on claims about the role that u.s. intelligence plays in syria's civil war plus. the front line how ukraine's military has been mobilized to kiev to keep the capital moving after a surprise in fiction of snow. china's stepping up its energy security with russia's help moscow agreed this week to boost oil supplies to beijing along with other multibillion dollar deals countries' leaders also pledged to work toward what they called a more fair world order. followed xi jinping first trip abroad. some of the major points that the chinese leader has also made of course was about the cooperation between russia and china among other things that the two countries also agree on is the fact that it is about time to leave the old stereotypes behind he said that we're living in the twenty first century and therefore the cold war era

is gone and over with and therefore this theory types and thinking along those lines also has to go and you also mentioned that russia and china are their cooperation will provide for a clearer world order you also mentioned of course the need to not just to move away from syria types but also to move towards the multiple or world and the multiple areas the of the world is also one of the founding principles of bricks of course bricks essentially was a trade in economic organization but it is now moving increasingly towards becoming a major geo political player and that is going to be one of the main subjects of discussions during the upcoming brick summit in south africa and yet despite of course there are many agreements on the political level of russia and china still have several things that they need to work on at the moment those things that is the gas supplies deal from russia to china which has been in the works for ten

years and it does look like during this visit russia and china have made some headway towards finding a solution but the details of the deal are yet to be figured out and it is expected that those details will come up until the end of the year but of course the chinese leader said that russia and china nevertheless are each other's biggest partner and are with the seeing eye to eye on a lot of issues and cooperation is something that the two countries are going not just to continue but we'll all start he said that his trip there is a symbolic significance by happening in march because the lead there hopes that he will see some very good fruits born forth from the seeds that he has sown during this visit. moscow calling for a greater voice for the brics a group of fast growing countries of which russia and china are key members political analyst professor jeffrey chang from hong kong city university thinks their economic alliance could help expand the group's global role the brics countries natural b. two s. tapper it is effective mechanisms to get their act together i think there is

a lot of company men parity among the brics economies with china's capital with. high pad and huge surprise of natural resources and so on and of course that being gay is a very strong come in interest in the sense that all five members like to see a larger role you didn't intend national community ten years on from the u.s. led invasion of iraq a grim reminder that the country is far from stable and al-qaeda linked group unleashed a series of bombings that killed sixty five people in mostly shiite areas of baghdad tuesday the deadliest attack so far this year artie's lucy caffein of has more. 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 awe bombs

over baghdad what the pentagon billed as a quick war to liberate iraq turned into a prolonged nightmare. ten years of bloodshed war 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 was it over a trillion dollars. nation we need to build is our way but what if the nation they left behind. know we're not. biggest regret the iraqi people are the food 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 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 watch them die you ask 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 old and it's. others have seen their dreams of a brighter future shattered by years of violence. i was top of my class when circumstances became very bad after the occupation of hell that something was broken inside of me my ambition and everything i used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer but conditions prevented me from continuing my studies but an education is no.