the guantanamo bay hunger strike reaches its fifth day the inmates fight against prison mistreatment could turn deadly and leave a bad taste in the mouths of u.s. government officials who keep silent on the issue. schieffer cypresses biggest bank gets the boot after predicting doom and gloom while european banks get panic savers concern about brussels potentially reaching into their accounts. talk turns to action at the brics summit in south africa with the world's top emerging economies staking out a challenge to the dollar and agreeing to a massive new bailout fund. immigrants face a new controversial citizenship test that includes wide ranging questions on

history that even some members of the british parliament. top stories this hour. international news and common live from last year in moscow this is r.t. with the twenty four hours a day it's now fifty days since the biggest hunger strike began at america's war on terror a detention facility with no progress being made to stop the protests which could be close to turning deadly appetite for justice and acceptable treatment the scene three of the protesting inmates hospitalized want to say at least ten being force fed. brings us the latest now. as this hunger strike at the guantanamo bay detention center grows more dangerous spot of the day the international committee

of the red cross has announced that they have sent a doctor and another delegate to the island prison a week earlier than planned because of concerns surrounding the health of those hunger strikers participating in this protest now the i.c.r.c. representatives are scheduled to make a regular two week visit to the detention camp on april first but as we already just reported the organization says that they sent two representatives early june to the issues in the concerns relating to the hunger strike now in the meantime navy captain robert duran to spokesman for the detention operation who we've been communicating with for more than two weeks now confirms that thirty one of the one hundred sixty six give no prisoners are on hunger strike a level of the men are being force fed three of those men were hospitalized for rehydration an observation now two weeks ago when r.t.

reached out to captain duran and he dismissed any reports or allegations of a mass hunger strike taking place at the detention facility within the past day we spoke with attorney carlos warner he recently went to go visit his clients for the phrase. he's been charged with war crimes but his attorney when speaking to our she read a statement from his client let's take a listen to that quote i scare myself when i look in the mirror let them kill us as we have nothing to lose we died when obama indefinitely detained us respect us or kill us it's your choice the u.s. must take off its mask and kill us mr warner said that his client has lost more than thirty pounds in a month but it's clear. it looked exhausted weak it was not just about treatment this is about the fact that these inmates of these detainee detainees have lost

hope these are men they're not animals or people that we have grown to know many of the men the ones that are indefinitely detained they have zero hope they have no hope because of the ministration i think many of them are ready to die the question is how and when will they die. now this hunger strike began according to attorneys on or around february sixth attorneys say that the prisoners went on the strike to protest the a legit confiscation of their personal items and they allege it sacrilege is handling of their khurana there's one hundred sixty six six prisoners languishing still went on a mobile more than half of them have been cleared for either transfer or release attorneys say that by holding these men without charge without trial the united states is violating international laws of human rights. over the seven

weeks the hunger strike has been taking place r.t. has been gathering statements from lawyers activists prison officials and international organizations now of course head to our special time line on r.t. dot com that's our website online all the time to get more insight into the protest and get an idea of what sort of reaction that this protest has invoked so far and also working to hear what you have to say also on the website we're asking you what do you think will be the result of the on going hunger strike and these are the results so far we can see the majority sixty percent think that the prisoners could actually die and as a result policies will be made conditions for prisoners improving while eighteen percent of you think that as a result of this ongoing hunger strike sixteen percent think that the detention center could be closed and indefinite detention no would continue elsewhere and we see a majority six percent say that this bad press could actually lead to the closure of guantanamo bay good to hear your view on this r.t.

dot com is where you can head right now. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world seeing from the streets of canada. operations are all day. credit rating agencies are ringing alarm bells over cyprus saying the bungled rescue would send investors packing across europe brussels but enough of the tax haven came strong with some of the cautious conditions yet including a deposit tax you banks are now reporting mass calls from fearful savers who are looking to get their money out of the block in germany the firm founder and c.e.o. of blacksmiths energy consulting group says the use approach to solving the cypriot

crisis has been less than ideal i think the debate here is obviously much water than the particular case of cyprus and the political message that's being conveyed behind the the high end of the base and been going on for the last week or so are clearly underlining. the lack of a lack of vision behind europe's bailout the particular case of cyprus shows a political move we're we're we're we're trying to work to heal a deep pool and with a band-aid obviously cyprus is again a particular case but the overall discussion and the overall worry and fear that is that is underlying here is is for for every european citizen. a new global bank is being born in south africa where the world's top emerging economies are meeting a new financial powerhouse will be a direct challenger to the world bank and the i.m.f. both dominated by the u.s.

brazil russia india china and south africa also green lighted a new one hundred billion dollars mega fund to be stocked with crisis cash for use in emergencies or did you get a piece going on in our reports from the summit in durban. well the leaders of all five brics member states were very optimistic in terms of the future of the organization they all stressed that it is potential is still far from being used to the fore and actually one of the latest initiatives to change that is the creation of the so-called business council to get the business of the five states to get directly engaged in more joint ventures in various fears also earlier china and brazil decided to use their national currencies in at least well in nearly a half of the payments between them only the trade turner between the two states stands at around seventy five billion euros dollars and the general idea is for all other members of the brics to do the same to protect their economies from things

like currency wars or the possible negative consequences of the change of the dollar of war the us also the five leaders of the world alternately able to agree on which we should know of a joint development bank possibly with a starter capital of around fifty billion us dollars but it's a massive project and it's going to take time to work out all the details but in general for the past two decades these five economies have been the most rapidly developing ones in the world currently it's estimated that their growth is around seven times faster than that of the g seven economies it's also thought that by the year twenty twenty combined the brics states will make up around twenty percent of the global g.d.p. so it's no wonder why they want to protect their economies why they want to trade freely and how they wish between themselves and be less dependent on the western financial institutions especially in light of the the latest problems with the western economic model in general and what we witnessed here at this summit in

south africa is that brics as an organization is transforming from a forum for dialogue to a full scale mechanism for strategic cooperation and more states are voicing their desire to join. the organization including egypt and russia's president vladimir putin has also met with his egyptian counterpart the ties between the two countries are quite strong both economic and cultural last year or egypt was visited by around two and a half million russian tourists despite all the turbulence in the middle east and northern africa these issues have also been discussed including of course the conflict in syria. responding to the bric summit charles robinson global chief economist at renaissance capital says the idea of the group's own bank comes as the result of the slow pace of change at established institutions the architecture. of

finance who set up in the mind you want to use to reflect the reality then which is obviously american power you can use power and europe in general so there are changes happening to the i.m.f. and to the world bank still we know that the head of these organizations is an american and as a european even though they've been a strong challenge i think the brics are saying they can't be bothered to wait any longer for the i.m.f. and world bank to change more dramatically they're going to start making changes on their own well there's not been a total consensus and a completely friendly atmosphere between all participants of the brics summit south african guards needing gauge in a brawl with russian president vladimir putin security detail lot of the leader walked into the venue some of his men were refused entry after some pushing and shoving ensued the russians were then asked to leave the building but all's well that ends well and the group was eventually let inside. united states is

supporting bashar assad's policies in syria at least that's what the leader of the opposition council says his request for effectively imposing a partial no fly zone over syria has turned washington. coming up very shortly. but first the stone age jury service and the london olympics are just three subjects you can now be quizzed on if you want to become a british citizen the new version of the controversial u.k. citizenship test has just been put into place and has been harshly criticized for its difficulty and focus on history first reports many brits themselves struggle to find answers to some of the questions. well since cullen the famous british landmark in london's trafalgar square built commemorate admiral nelson he died in the bus or to follow in eighteen a boy this is also now be our first one of the questions one person has. already

is being criticized focusing too much on historical information and not enough on practical knowledge it's become a standard joke and i mean that you know something which is supposed to be taken seriously and you know when it was first announced we were involved in a few little quiz sessions where even you know prominent members of the people who in the past had been prominent members of the government were being asked questions like who was the the british king who expel the danes for. i'm guessing completely and hopelessly wrong and yet that used to supply these. very muffet say that by pissing british culture and history at the heart of the system that they're ensuring that those who want to settle in britain permanently fully understand british life but the criticisms about the test being overly complex and focusing too much on historical information do the questions really represent what it means

to be versus what's a find out we've got some of these questions to members of the press is public to find out how they feel which lead looks a prehistoric monument which stands in the english country of will. the name of the admiral he's got a monument here in trafalgar square a lot notion yes that's right ok we've got another one for you because this is an assistant shit test what you call the second largest party in the house of commons conservatives is the opposition. you go one of the to the name of the admiral he died in battle in eight hundred eighty five and has a monument here in trafalgar square. penny i did give you a hint guys it's a. i know. there's all sorts of questions i've gone through them it's not as if these questions are going to be sprung on people it's going to be done online and they get to have plenty of

opportunity to look through a very thin booklet frankly and mug up for it if they can't do that then i think that's a little bit. they say once a pass the test will need eighteen of the twenty four questions correctly and the need to learn details historical backgrounds if they want to become a british citizen and many people day last year more than a hundred and fifty thousand people took the citizenship test nationally almost eighty thousand of which were here in london. or to live here in moscow coming up for you shortly after the break a pipe dream for one russian businessman selfies spent three years digging a tunnel to siphon crude oil from a pipe but the only thing he's likely to is a stint behind bars more on that after the break.

to. join thousands of gadget guru into the mobile world congress in barcelona for research and handset makers try to get their groove back. and software super chargers hope to spin preview success forward russia's yandex turns up the heat on google and despite a new twist on infotainment it's not just fun and games often overlooked video engines bring all the streaming conferences to the palm of your hands and there's a new player in town looking to show that you is in fact better things one point zero zero on. the central. the news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images we're seeing from the streets in canada. operations.

news continues here in r.t. it's fast becoming one of the most precious commodities on earth no surprise then that the black gold rush might now land one russian entrepreneur in prison that's after he personally dug a sixty me to tunnel to siphon crude oil from a pipeline off the shore and thomas brings the details of the story sean what exactly was he planning to do that well you have to give the guy credit for some entrepreneurial spirit if you will but a bizarre story indeed let me get down to exactly what happened ok so this fifty two year old man from the oil rich region of novosibirsk spent three years digging a sixty meter tunnel from his country home to the. trans nafta subsidiary pipeline and what he did was he then tied into that pipeline and then he spent three months siphoning oil for himself off of that pipeline and then selling it of

course he got caught into that being not very lucrative for the man but here's what he got basically three months thirty tons of crude oil estimated about fifty five hundred thousand rubles that's about sixteen thousand u.s. dollars and if you ask him we had the opportunity to actually hear what he had to say about it if you ask him why he did he said well he just wanted to see if he could get away with it and listen what he had to say. i want to see whether i could manage to accomplish something like that or not one side ready thesis paper advantage and it served as a starting point i came to the site every day off to work and kept digging at night and all day if it was the weekend so when i wasn't at work i worked here it was no easy task there were a lot of difficulties with the soil then all i needed was a hose a deckard i had one hose and i connected it to a container the cart was the difficult part the oil kept spilling my efforts didn't

even pay off everything happened so fast i think it was just bad luck bad luck indeed it was not profitable for him in fact he said that he spent more money digging the tunnel and getting it all set up than he did from selling the oil off he also said that there are problems with the system that it overflowed it spilled it ruined his clothes and that he's now repenting for the whole thing but one thing that is certain now that he's facing some prison time he's facing charges of large scale theft he might be going behind bars maybe all of these digging skills. to be useful there before we. imagine it's going to be out but interesting enough that as a massive network throughout the whole of russia just imagine if he hadn't got caught he could have made a lot of money out of it indeed indeed andy and he could have gone undetected in fact there are countries who have done the exact same thing from russia as well ourselves and with gas as well but that's a fascinating story and well he's come clean literally so thanks very much indeed

for that show nor as you. turkish military police have reportedly wounded a number of syrian refugees off to foreign tear gas at a protest against living conditions in the camp meanwhile the leader of the opposition syrian national council has accused washington of supporting president assad and the u.s. made it clear it won't fulfill his request to shoot down syrian warplanes with nato patriot missiles deployed in neighboring turkey and other developments the arab league has handed syria's seat in the body to the opposition but also fish and endorsed league member states to send arms to rebel fighters the russian foreign ministry has reacted by saying the move in a just a minute and only encourage more bloodshed in syria as a kiwi he's editor of the pan-african newswire says the arab league is looking out for itself in extending support to the rebels. we also have to understand the political composition of the arab league it has been dominated over the last several years. the gulf emirates these elite

forces are operating in countries that are not democratic themselves therefore they have no real moral basis for criticism of the government in damascus also these arab emirates in the gulf heavily with the united states and the north atlantic treaty organization so it's really not surprising that in kata you would have a situation where the syrian government would be attacked and that you would have these opposition forces who are heavily divided themselves who have no real program for the future of syria and who have been reluctant and even absent in regard to negotiate any type of political settlement to the conflict in syria to be seated as a legitimate government of syria. france and germany have demanded an explanation from russia concerning a series of on going checks into normal governmental organizations operating in the

country. cannot tell us more now she joins us live now from central moscow read up what has worried but in paris so much. well actually it's the checks from the prosecutor's office as well as the tax officials that are coming into the offices of non-governmental organizations and are asking for a certain set of papers and a certain set of credentials now among those n.g.o.s reportedly are some organizations which are based in france and germany so the two countries are concerned with their outposts in russia now you have to understand that there are all of this is happening within the framework of this so-called foreign agents law which came into a fact last year and basically it concerns non-governmental organizations the. human rights organizations which are based which are here in russia but are being sponsored by either foreign states or foreign companies or what have you basically they're required to put their names on a register and present

a full list of everything basically a full closure. disclosure of where their funds are coming from and where they are going now this law was very hotly debated over the past over the past year you can say and there actually is a lot of n.g.o.s according to reports which have decided to boycott this law basically they did not put themselves on the list they did very diffuse to present in all of their financial information so it does look like this whatever is happening all these checks have really everything to do with the particular law and yes there have been some concerns even among human rights watch groups in russia but if you look at the actual legal framework within which this is happening the ngos which have been checked so far including amnesty international transparency international as well as human rights watch yes they do the people coming into their offices but. basically all of this is happening within

a very strict very pronounced legal framework really should not be any concern about the legality of what's happening according to the cross. live in central moscow thanks very much indeed for that artie's ne ne going to go time now to update you on some news in brief now international news in italy the five star movement has said it will not enter into negotiations to form a government with the center left alliance led by pier luigi bersani to establishment party had previously said it would not support the big parties that planes fail the current crisis the announcement leaves the italian parliament deadlocked on his alliance won last month's election but did not get enough senate seats to govern on its own. in bangladesh protesters thought to be supporters of the opposition and detonated a handful of crude explosives in the capital dhaka nobody was hurt in the blast the demonstrators are demanding the release of one hundred and fifty active it's taken into custody earlier this month charged with inciting violence this comes on the

second day of a nationwide strike called by the opposition. as a raging to the west of melbourne in south eastern australia destroying homes and injuring five people four of those hurt a farm and according to local media emergency services have been using air tankers to bomb the flames trying to bring them under control authorities say they'll launch an investigation into how the fire was sparked. that's it for the moment i'll be out with a news team with morphine thirty five minutes from now in the meantime i'll be molten is breaking the set that is off to the break. 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

knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. to least be cool language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on the. reporting from the we'll talk sports to vo ip interviews intriguing stories for you to. see been trying. to find out more visit our big. dog called.

to live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous bad luck. i mean the town i know that i've seen machinery really messed up. in the very short i personally apologize the second. worst chipotle. flight out soup of the day my favorite guy for the tale of minutes from a quick profit. well if you've never seen anything like. what is going on you guys exactly martin and this is breaking the set so by now you've probably heard about the supreme court ruling about today there's a heated debate on gay rights that could lead the high court to outlaw prop eight

which bans same sex marriage in california supreme court ruling is not only significant to californians if they ruled it's unconstitutional it could be the impetus to ban this kind of legislation anywhere else in the country marking a huge victory for the l g b t community so here's to hoping that today signifies the beginning of real progress for gay rights and somewhat sadder news i have an update on some. the palestinian political prisoner who's been on a hunger strike in an israeli jail for over two hundred days right now samara has a heart beat of twenty eight beats per minute and doctors are saying that his heart could stop at any moment think about this chilling fact for one second and although these two stories are very different from opposite sides of the world they share a raw commonality they both represent a fight for equality just is and pursuit of freedom and those are principles that you stand for to join me and break the set. lucky for her she was like.

oh. it's hard to think of an industry that yields more influence than that of big oil in fact bush's former speechwriter just came out admitted that oil was a major motivating factor for the invasion of iraq i know i know hardly a shocker there but while oil may be an influential feature of u.s. foreign policy the fossil fuel industry also enormously impacts domestic policy and the media narrative the subject my next guest has tackled throughout his entire career exposing some of the biggest oil corporations from the u.s. to venezuela and everywhere in between is a close friend of late venezuelan president hugo chavez investigative journalist and author of many books including the last one billionaires and ballot bandits how to steal an election and nine easy steps great pallets thanks so much for joining me.