a void. deal with. two of the country's major. british police ruled. the public autopsy results.

on monday. with us today. has managed to reach a last minute deal with its creditors. crucial to the country from bankruptcy and the rescue package however comes at a very steep price deposits above one hundred thousand euros in the country's two largest banks will be raided with about thirty percent of them being taxed. reports from. the. country will essentially be. less than one hundred thousand euros in the bank will be transferred to the. country and essentially creating. more than one hundred thousand euros of uninsured

. those that are not covered under guarantee. would be taking a huge very significant loss and this will really hurt those with of course their life savings or those with the small to medium sized enterprises with money. so they will take the taking a big loss and. result in jobs lost. hundreds of. protesting here aside from. the biggest lender is not out of the also let's remember that there are still capital controls in place which means. that citizens can take the amount of money they can move around and this is really creating a credit crunch a cash crunch everybody trying to hold on to those five. hundred

euros and reaction here is. still very disappointed. feeling of the people here is that a red line has been crossed remember the suggestion that they will be dipping into . even small a deposit holders this is a very bad message to people. in whatever the government or detroit. i have cash i have a job i have savings and these questions for them are not. their government has agreed with. artists are reporting right there let's get a little bit deeper of a story now we're joined live by john laughlin the director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation in paris mr laughlin a pleasure to see you today thanks so much for coming on the program it's certainly been one of the biggest stories in the past week or more let's talk about cyprus so now for the most part having ducked bankruptcy in a last minute deal but now faces

a very deep recession do you think cyprus at the end of the day had any options. cyprus is yet another of the victim of the i would say power and ideologically crazed determination of the european elites to keep the single currency intact against all the all of us i genuinely think and i'm not given to exaggeration that europe today is in a situation comparable to that of the french revolution all the bolsheviks revolution i mean by that that an entire class of people in this case the so-called rich russian oligarchs who apparently at the laundromat money in cyprus bank accounts are going to be expropriated not taxed as you said rory in your introduction expropriated and treated as if they were criminals it's just as in the two revolutions i mentioned arris to cross as a class one hundred up from the lampposts because it was decreed that their

property had been criminally obtained this is a very very bad precedent because it means that deposits which are private property are no longer safe in europe in fact if you talk to i mean you talk about these deposits being private property i was going to ask you because ultimately people who have over one hundred thousand euros and some with these accounts could lose up to thirty percent which is what some are calling a one of the most enormous balance of all of fraud in broad daylight is it in any way justified that authorities can go in there and start pilfering the life savings of innocent people absolutely not it is in no way justified the only way that money . the could be raised in a justifiable way would be by tax that is to say by a lawful e approved measure without rich wrecked effect this by contrast is a bank robbery the british papers are right to call it a fact robbery because the deposits which are held in cypriot banks are of course

private property they belong to the people who have those bank accounts and the reason why cyprus has been forced and i mean forced to adopt this is that on friday following the rejection of the earlier plan which was substantially very similar the european central bank did something which has no legal right to do it all and that was to threat to was to threaten to cut all liquidity to cypriot banks this afternoon today monday by the end of trading it has no legal right to do that and it's fed to the cypriot government that if it didn't agree to it either you an i.m.f. plan then this monetary blockade would be imposed or some of these are the obviously a lot a lot a lot of bullying bullying going on here but you but you are going to melt down and say in other words we're i'm so sorry to interrupt what we're going to say there i'm sorry that the european union held a gun to the head of the cypriot government and told it that it had to sign an e.u. deal i suspect by the way that's one of the reasons why the cypriot finance

minister's visit to moscow last week ended in failure because the e.u. told him he had to sign an easy to deal not a russian deal and the european central bank i repeat illegally threatened a monetary blockade in order to achieve that out there i mean do you think the average person or cyprus is really understanding what's going on here we've seen the tensions out on the streets as well the accounts are getting pilfered people are losing money left right and center and here we have tension on the rise with matters of job losses as well what do you forecast for the near term short term future i think the people in cyprus probably understand better than most of us what's going on because although the propaganda is absolutely dead. to clear the german media this morning about how all the money is held by russians and how all these russians are criminals from metal deserve to have money taken away they will ultimately be some other people cypriots and other nationals who also have accounts with more than one hundred thousand euros and if that money is exposed created stolen as it is going to be then the effect on cyprus's banking system will be

absolutely catastrophic i don't just mean in terms of job losses and recession but in terms of the basic confidence that is necessary for any country to maintain a banking system and i think there will also be effects on the banking systems of other got honorable club med eurozone countries because after all if the european union can do this to cyprus there's actually no reason why it can't do it to greece or italy or spain or any other country that is the difficulty because i joined that's exactly that's exactly right sort of jump in here but people are saying other cyprus could just be that the starting point for other members of the eurozone this could come next for them as well john laughlin i wish we had more time we don't the director of studies at the institute of democracy and cooperation thanks so much for coming on the program today thank you. russia and china must be part of the u.n. investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near aleppo that's in syria this according to

a senior russian diplomat meanwhile rebels have stepped up the accusations against forces loyal to president assad let's clear it up now get the details from artie's middle east correspondent paula sleep. the syrian opposition says that forces loyal to the syrian president bashar assad fired what they are claiming all chemical weapons as rebels surrounding an army base in the town of address on the outskirts of the syrian capital of damascus now the reports we have all that to rebel fighters were killed and some twenty two people were wounded it comes in light of accusations last week in which both sides accuse the other of using chemical weapons in any mysterious explosion near the city of aleppo which killed some twenty six people and wounded dozens of that incident was swiftly labeled by western intelligence agencies as a chemical incident perpetrated by forces loyal to the syrian president assad the syrian regime osce the united nations to launch an investigation the russian

ministry has said that if there are reasons to believe that chemical weapons in fact. comprising of permanent united nations security council members has to be saying to syria the american president barack obama he has constantly in the process put the issue of chemical weaponry on the table saying that a red line needs to be do go on and when he was here in the region recently he was quick to make harsh statements towards the syrian president over allegedly uses of chemical weapons once we establish the facts i have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer i am deeply skeptical. any claim that in fact it was the opposition that used chemical weapons we now have information to the contrary regarding the incident last week. israel's leading daily newspaper ha'aretz whites that it was definitely not a chemical attack carried out by the syrian president assad what we're seeing more is that the syrian opposition is deeply divided the leader of the opposition was

hot tips resignation comes just months after his election now his decision to leave is being seen as a blow to the diminishing moderate wing of the uprising against the syrian president bashar assad there have in the past been and then launching the number of resignations within the coalition itself by top opposition figures what we've seen more and more is that the rebels are able to organize themselves that i'm able to consolidate the military and political bodies and increasingly it's clear that there's no direct link between the fighters on the ground in the coalition that is the involved of boards the concern now is that more radical islamist groups might fill this void that is being lifted by the resignations of the leadership and at the same time it looks increasingly like no one is particularly interested in sitting down and having dialogue with the syrian president bashar assad also the u.k. and france recently suggested that a weapons involved on syria has to be lifted to the rebels as we see now the

initiative hasn't been given any kind of green light so growing concerns what is happening inside syria. reporting right. to humor journalist and political commentator in damascus and he believes the uncertainty over syria is ultimately bolstered by the many conflicting interests involved all across the members of the opposition. mr he was the person who first proposed the notion of a dialogue with the syrian government and he was attacked by please let's say it was ill received by most of the other opposition factions the coalition of opposition the revolutionary forces which he was heading was obviously facing some serious trouble regarding its internal unity gathers many people who have different points of view it has the liberals or tells the people from the left side it has the islamic fundamentalists and there is a muslim brotherhood so it gathered many voices and those voices only came together

because the united states of america thought that the opposition should be united now but in fact they can't be united because they have all these different ideologies and all different ways of approaching the syrian crisis the opposition has many sponsors and every sponsor is claiming his territory some of the opposition figures act accordingly to what their foreign sponsors who want them to do they're saying we are the opposition we represent the syrian people and that anyone who says otherwise i am one who has another approach to the issue should not be labeled as opposition and this is a serious problem and i think it's one of the key factors behind the departure of the think about the syrian situation is that everyone is doing whatever they want and the opposition body abroad they can't control the rebel forces inside and even at the fact that the the free army has said it doesn't acknowledge mr he told the government it's a great indication so i think there's a big gap between the people fighting inside and opposition forces operating from the outside. it's good to have you with us here on odds he still to come for you in

the program seeing no evil we investigate why the u.s. mainstream media is turning a blind eye to the developing hunger strike crisis at guantanamo bay prison. pakistan's president and a key u.s. ally. returns home with fresh. all those details on more on the other stories in just a moment. the . world. series technology innovation called the least developed from around russia we've got the future covered. you know 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 everything you thought you

know. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. more news today violence is once again flared up. in these are the images world world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. all right a quarter past five monday late afternoon here in the russian capital. with me roll received. for the mystery behind the death of

a boris berezovsky could have become clear within hours this following an autopsy the body of the self exile tycoon in the kremlin opponent was found in his boss at the weekend and they have been suggestions to form a billionaire took his own life but police say he left no suicide note behind or stories of also ruled out any third party involvement but his offscreen made an immense fortune back in the ninety's it's widely believed he took advantage of the chaos and gripping post soviet russia cozy relations with president yeltsin's in a call to talk you know later moved to london to escape multiple charges of financial crime where he became a fierce critic of the russian government let's get more analysis on this now i'm joined live from london by daraya mcdowell an independent expert on russia and a pleasure to see today thank you for coming on the program it's all a bit unclear at the moment police have now ruled out any third party involvement but saying there is no suicide note either way do you stand on this do you think mr

berezovsky could indeed have taken his own life well i think unfortunately the only person who can answer that question in and of we it's boris berezovsky and so he was no longer in a position to do so certainly the indications we're getting from the british press have been that yes this seems to have been a suicide a number of. friend and confidant ordered. very depressed at last meaning over the past couple of days and there are of course these reports of his interview with the editor of russia or the day before is body was found where he. not having meaning in its light and being highly depressed. we do have to remember that. he had just lost an extremely high profile legal case which not only with the financial cost that british judge had attention he called him a liar on record i mean this was a broken in defeated man. if i can just jump in for

a moment it is a common thought that i could defeat against. which finally could have been what actually broke him not just financially but mentally as well reports that he was going into court with no paperwork at all some saying that perhaps he was just trying to do a final gamble did you do you think the whole dealings of the multi-billion dollar lawsuit that could have been ultimately what brought him to two was to his demise absolutely i mean the british legal system is extremely expensive. there is also. very expensive high profile legal teams and the rule generally here is that in these kind of cases the loser pays the costs so indications are that. for hundreds of millions. he'd also recently. i believe. fairly messy divorce from his second wife and there are numerous numerous stories that he was under increasing

financial pressure there was also of course attempts to sell the warhol and in. which all indicates that he was strapped for cash and see a way out. all right now let's let's discuss the issue that the western media has been talking about the man who bought president putin in power some are calling that farfetched how do you assess his role in that arena of political history. i think it's very difficult to say that there is also he was not extremely influential in bringing people into power and that he was one of the members of the yeltsin family who believed that putin would. how should we say this protect the assets where again through the loan for shares his candle and the sorts of things. funnily enough in the british media there has actually been very little mention of this sort of one or two. and more it's the the idea of there is office kind of the brave anti putin dissident has been played up

a little bit more than the guardian but. you know overall i don't think that there's much doubt that you know better is also he thought putin was somebody that he could control that he would you know let's bear is off these previous financial dealings that he water under the bridge and of course president putin said no he stood up to the oligarchs when he was first elected and this was the reason that there is off the ultimately could russia will although i will the time there as you say he did it he did quit russia and go to live in exile in london there are many saying he was still trying to pull the strings in moscow perhaps a bit on successfully let's talk about the broader scope here that i bear as offseason was being a bit of a stumbling block stuff to me between the relationship between moscow and london as any chance now back could change could there be a warming of the relationship now of quite possibly i mean the very fact that there is off he was in london making you know periodic. you know claims that he would hundred violent revolution against it's not going to be helpful for diplomatic

relations but that mildly particularly when everything was still suffering if you excuse the pun the fallout of the alexander litvinenko there. so i think it depends on how the british state reacts on this one how the russian state reacts on this one both of them say ok well now the issue of fair is off key is moot we can. things but that's a decision that policymakers in both will have to make for themselves over the coming days. and i suppose many around the world on the autopsy results of a boris berezovsky. independent expert on russia thank you for coming in today thank you for having me rory. for now as the u.s. military continues to deny mass hunger strike could go on the information blackout being fortified by the mainstream media and while lawyers for more than one hundred captive sound the alarm over the failing health of their clients most americans are

simply left in the dark about the story. explains people. in the world of twenty four hour news no country knows the power of media better than the u.s. hard to believe it's been ten years since the shock and awe campaign that launched the iraq war i believe we could have removed saddam hussein in another way that would not have been so damaging to america i mean a man had to go ten years later the killing continues in iraq without also continuing without any mass hunger strike at guantanamo bay detention center but that topic remains off the radar of mainstream news. from the american public no i do not know to i had no idea you know really according to the center for constitutional rights one hundred thirty guantanamo prisoners began a life threatening hunger strike nearly seven weeks ago to protest treatment and conditions at the island prison

a prison america's president promised would be closed at the start of twenty ten do you think that that's a topic that should be reported by u.s. media yeah i think so. because they are being kept in prison by the u.s. so it's only fair that they get their views expressed that's what the whole country's built on the freedom of information to do that i mean i just think it's the right thing to do time square is otherwise. known as the mecca of media messages millions walk through here on a daily basis flooded with information through news seekers plasma screens and advertisements but as we've learned even the most important stories can be ignored that nobody else is talking about this subject if this were happening in russia if people had disappeared into a legal black hole in russia and were facing indefinite incarceration without trial without charge and without access of attorneys would never hear the end of it the western media would be full of it human rights watch understands our

national they'd be screaming from the rooftops of westminster behind me but because this is an american crime because it's an american crime they're allowed to get away with it because the people who control the so-called mainstream media are fully on side with the agenda of the obama administration a top u.s. general down calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the u.s. detention facility when c.n.n. finally turned its focus to get this so-called worldwide leader in news nor to the hunger strike is there anything wrong with trying to improve it fix it spend a few hundred million dollars to get it ready for maybe a new generation of terrorists instead focusing on the money. to update the facility where one hundred sixty six detainees are still languishing you know that more than half of the. kuantan now have been cleared for release i used the area.

you know i didn't i had no idea that. i did not. as more than one hundred prisoners reportedly continue their hunger strike the u.s. military continues to dispute the figures however when r.t. first broke the story on march twelfth u.s. officials were denying that a strike was even taking place as you recall they started off by saying no one's on a hunger strike just the five or six people who have been on a hunger strike for many years you know then that figure was revised up to fourteen and now we're seeing the figure steadily increasing but to nowhere near the extent that the that the prison lawyers are talking about and i think you know hearing about how the lawyers are not being allowed to visit plus this big gulf between what the lawyers are saying and what the administration is saying is indicative of the administration still trying to clamp down on me and they don't want this story aired and i think that that means that there is

a very big story going on but in the business of broadcast news u.s. networks have to prioritize which big stories deserve the most attention that's right the canadians are using farming to combat smoking nancy grace first of all i want to express my condolences what happened to your necklace former president bill clinton gets his way actress ashley judd will never be a united states senator. art new york. and a once america's top nato ally in the war on terror former pakistani president pervez musharaff has returned to the conflict zone after four years of self-imposed exile is aiming to surge back to the political scene by leaving his party in the upcoming elections in may and was shot off returns despite criminal charges against him at home and death threats from the taliban the move comes as the u.s. and its allies are winding down their presence in neighboring afghanistan in the face of for surgeon militant activity. all right into the world update now some of

the global news starting with france where around three hundred thousand people in the capital rallied against a draft law allowing same sex couples to marry and adopt children to use tear gas when demonstrators tried to break down barricades at the bill that will be voted on next month protesters are angry at leaders for prioritizing the issue over the out of jobs and the economy. the british prime minister is unveiling a massive immigration crackdown restricting welfare payments social housing and access to the health service their cameras called on ending what he dubbed the something for nothing culture of those arriving in the u.k. most of numbers of people allowed in to be heavily reduced by the measures are aimed at possible newcomers from romania and bulgaria will have e.u. restrictions on travel and work lifted. and the u.s. secretary of state is in afghanistan on an unannounced visit to the country's

president hamid karzai and a number of other officials john kerry's twenty four hour trip is expected to involve discussion of a range of issues including the upcoming elections and reconciliation talks with insurgent groups the us is currently preparing to hand over full security to local authorities. and intersect here a nazi it's a look at the lives of migrants in russia working towards a better future for their children back. wealthy british style sign. on the front of.

market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report. when their own country town to offer them a living even loving mothers sometimes have to leave their children behind. i don't like to wonder just a bit longer. if the dream of millions of migrants that then children might choose their own model and. i was. stunned. oh my room is. i want my children to win over moscow. russia.