slew of assassinations bombings and attacks are targeting iraqi election candidates and institutions ahead of a regional vote with al qaida cells were saying that they are stronger than ever. bringing jihad home the u.k. fears its citizens fighting in syria could pose a terrorist threat when they return this a while the british government pushes to supply arms or to the rebels. and guantanamo inmates are pressured to end their hunger strike while our team struggles to break a wall of silence from washington over the weeks long protests. wherever

you're watching from around the world of this is r t it's good to have your company with us of this friday now regional iraqi election candidate has narrowly escaped an attempt on his life after a bomb found in his home was disarmed others have been less fortunate five candidates were killed in assassinations bombings and raids of this month their tracks target both officials and voting stations and are believed to be the work of al qaeda cells argues loosely kavanaugh who has just returned from the country she's been encouraged see when you're traveling in iraq and you're in a place that seems unstable and such or with a bleak picture how do you cope and what was your impression when you were on the ground i mean the iraq that we saw it really felt like a country that was still in some ways a war zone and on one hand you do have relative stability in the sense that there aren't tanks shooting there aren't so. with guns fighting but almost anywhere you

go the first thing you see is massive blast walls all around the streets to protect various buildings from suicide attacks such as the ones that took place today iraqis daily lives our lives were guided by checkpoints that are set up almost everywhere the dictate where people can go anywhere you look on the street you see police officers military soldiers people with guns there may not be daily fighting and shooting but it feels like a country that is still under a military occupation except this time it is its own and the feeling really is that iraq never really recovered you know your. the thing that we heard from from almost everyone that we spoke to is that anywhere you go at any moment there could be a blast like this and how do you survive in a situation don't you feel safe. around i did not i mean it depends you know for example the kurdistan region is probably the only success story in iraq that has seen relative safety and stability but most of the other parts are so divided these

days between sunni and shia factions christian neighborhoods churchmen neighborhoods kook where one of the blast happened today for example is a great example of a microcosm of everything that's wrong with the wrong you have all these different factions there you have the threat of terrorist attacks you have ethnic and sectarian divisions and of course you have the oil which has been the source of conflict between the iraqi government and the kurds and so it doesn't feel safe in fact we needed an armed escort to just get us to certain parts of the city because people you know if they see a foreigner if they see a stranger if they even see someone who is not necessarily of their sect or or ethnic origin you stand out and you're at risk for some sort of an attack you being a journalist you on the ground you want to get the story you want to tell these stories what's going on while people are coping and you didn't feel safe so give us a picture of how ordinary iraqis feel every day having to deal with that what's their reaction to all of this it's a very mixed picture because on one hand the one thing that unites all iraqis regard. religion or their ethnic origin is this fear this fear of an attack that

could happen any time but the other on the other hand i mean this is their life they have to continue they can't just sit at home and wait for this instability to be over and so you know when we were driving through here quick we still saw schoolchildren getting out of their classes whistlestop people on the street but these people operate knowing that this kind of attack would happen at any point and we heard interesting ways of coping for example one man told us that he drives with all of his windows down now in case he is near a suicide attacks that the glass wouldn't necessarily shatter and harness and hurt his family another man who was actually injured in an attack that took happens to place several months ago said that he actually stopped going outside he says that you know we have democracy i can go outside but there's no guarantee that i will come home come back to my family and so in some ways it has been normalized to this violence because they have to cope with it somehow in other ways it really has changed their ways of functioning you know you don't go to for example to big bazaars you try not to gather in large groups i mean it's it's by no means is this

life as normal you actually mentioned the word. democracy right now and i just want to touch a little bit on that i mean this whole reason for this regime change in iraq is to bring that word to the iraqi people democracy so here you've been there does it exist and in what form does it exist if people are living in these conditions i mean democracy exists on paper for sure you have radically elected government do you have elections which now have been postponed in certain areas in iraq because of this instability but at the end of the day it really is a fractured country a country where you don't quite know who holds the reign of power yes there is an elected government but at the end of the day when you go to different regions for example the anbar province where most of the sunni live work is the shia areas i mean it's the local authorities that really hold the power and even with the national iraqi forces you don't know which specific soldiers allied with whom you don't know who. belongs to what sect you also don't know who has ties for example

with al qaida because at the end of the day i mean the whole purpose of this invasion was supposedly to remove the safe haven for al qaeda and what we've seen is this low level insurgency continues with figures like something about three hundred deaths on average a month because of this insurgency by a hundred and forty five i think this month just on that speaking of al qaida al qaeda has many of. the regime change. say we're not as high as they are right now in your pinion you've covered iraq for the very long time you've seen how the country is what is your perception to that my perception is that most iraqis are united in their fear and they don't support al qaeda but because of the power vacuum that has been created because of the massive corruption that exists within the government because of the inability of the government to sort of you know effectively put controls on the country al-qaeda has been able

oracle qaeda affiliated groups have been able to thrive essential if there isn't you know the yes on one hand and on on on paper there is a government there are military forces there is the police but at the end of the day look at what happened today and if there was stability if there was true in general stability these attacks wouldn't be able to happen and yet they do and they've been increasing the world will be watching on april the twentieth of course when iraqis go to the polls and pans out for novels just come back from iraq giving us insight into the country and what she feels will bring is next for the country really. right let's get some international opinion on the iraqi crisis now with debra's rita director of the world of condor way to activists a group ride this old paints a very unstable picture and a bleak picture for you rather al qaeda is now seeing a resurgence in iraq like never before was it a mistake. on america's pot to pull out. it was

neither a mistake to pull out earlier nor was it a mistake to go in it was a conscious policy a conscious imperialist policy it was unjust immoral and completely illegitimate but it wasn't a mistake this was an attempt by the u.s. to establish and spread can their control. over iraq specifically and to keep power in the middle east including control over that very strategic area that is so important for the international imperialist capitalist machine to run on fossil fuels but all of what is happening in iraq right now i would strongly argue is the fruit of this illegitimate occupation so it may be that the u.s. wanted all of the instability and it certainly probably didn't intend an opening

for. its rivals to come in but that's exactly what's been created by the way the country was decimated through the u.s. occupation with twenty one thousand candidates some say this may be adding a story iraq what you would think that and can democracy be achieved in iraq democracy can't be achieved anywhere. by the barrel of a gun by white phosphorus by starvation sanctions by all of the things that the u.s. subjected the iraqi people to the american war is not over for the iraqi people and anything imposed from the outside first of all is never going to express the actual interests of the iraqi people we know that these decisions were made in washington in london. in every place but with in iraq in baghdad for the most

part and it's all been dramatically shaped in influenced by the billions and billions of dollars that have been already and not to go to the people not to rebuild the country only to destroy it and and also by the creation of this very unstable political situation again after twenty years of u.s. sanctions and overt occupation in iraq the iraqi people are much worse off than they were. deborah your group has worked to to hold the u.s. accountable for its actions in iraq what had you know in that you know main achievement so far well you know we were actually formed in two thousand and five to drive out the bush regime that is to remove bush and cheney from office in disgrace for what they have done principly and in unleashing the u.s. war on terror across the world and we have been just at this moment very much

involved in supporting the hunger strike of the prisoners at guantanamo again that's a that is one of the huge responsibilities of the united states under the bush regime and now under obama for continuing a regime of indefinite detention and torture because force feeding people who are on hunger strike is its own for. of torture not giving people a way to leave after some prisoners have been there for eleven years and have been cleared for release for as many as six or seven years is setting up another illegitimate situation. we hear you and we wish you all the local with your activism a role that's debra's the director of the world a con to wait activist group speaking to us and give us an insight on iraq. nearly two months this is the guantanamo bay hunger strike began there's still no

sign of the crisis being resolved and some protesters are reportedly close to death cindy palooka is a lawyer for one of the prisoners and is near camp delta she says camp officials are resorting to harsh tactics to force inmates to end their campaign. the first say that i saw him he was very weak he had not been able to sleep because he said said the camp authorities had lowered the temperature in much of the camp to very very fruitful temperatures it's it appears that the guards here at the base are trying to end the hunger strike by making conditions more difficult for the prisoners here including making the room the camp very cold and he had lost forty pounds when i saw him he used to weigh one hundred sixty seven eggs now one hundred twenty five pounds and when the prisoners began to strike the seeing the camp

authorities began to treat them well harshly to try to end the strike and so many more men joined the strike to protest the searching of the qur'an and the worsening conditions and the more harsh treatment here there are many men who are cleared for release at least eighty six of them and now and they're also being treated as prisoners the reputation of the united states in the world to get a dad see here is to us does not come to table the government authorities here do not come to the table and discuss what the team needs the improvement of the conditions here there are men who are going to begin to die for no reason at all when a simple solution would be to stop the churches of the surrender or if not to allow them and to turn over their current so that they are not search. and it's a simple as that it would fit the men he eating tomorrow and to be back on track to

be healthy right now they're very very sick and very weak and it's a very sad. the u.s. government has been facing uncomfortable questions over the hunger strike at one time a big game but it has failed to assure anyone that it's going to take any action our washington correspondent and she can explain why her tends to get an official response getting nowhere. not a word from defense secretary chuck hagel on the situation in guantanamo i was at a news conference with the defense secretary this thursday at the pentagon he never to my question i frankly don't know why i was right there in front of him raising my hand as everyone else as you know half of the many guantanamo has been cleared for release many of them years ago yet they're still there locked up stuck in this limbo desperate and i was going to ask when they will let these men go and whether it would make any difference if somebody died in this ongoing hunger strike again i never got the chance to ask that question the pentagon has just requested almost

two hundred million dollars to renovate the guantanamo prison that kind of investment may suggest that they're not planning to shutting down anytime soon at the beginning of the year the state department closed the office that was in charge of closing the prison i went to a state department briefing earlier this week again never got a chance to ask a question it's either they watch our t.v. or the media person they're just didn't take questions from anyone who is not attending to the briefings on a daily basis which i don't one way or another our questions remain unanswered they're the only person who's been responding to our inquiries about the situation with the detainees was robert during the spokesman for guantanamo but the only comments he can offer are about the health of the detainees which is apparently deteriorating and also the latest numbers as far as how many detainees are on strike at the moment the latest we have from him is thirty one person but that's it there's complete silence on the most important questions about the future of the prison what's going to happen to these people president obama spokesperson said the

president's team is closely monitoring the hunger strikers guantanamo bay and i can tell you that the administration remains committed to closing the detention facility at guantanamo bay but at the same time offering no specifics as to weigh in and how and how are they going to do that if the pentagon is requesting millions of dollars to renovate it. since the start of the hunger strike already has been seeking answers from the u.s. government as one of the detainees attorneys and international human rights groups for all the information we've gathered so far head to our timeline on r.t. dot com. britain is a war you do that its citizens who join up to find alongside the syrian rebels could poles a serious terror threat when they return to the u.k. the home office says hundreds of europeans who were getting involved are learning combat skills from groups like al-qaeda but it's not preventing britain and france

are from pushing to supply arms to the opposition in syria so if earth has a story. the first annual report on the counterterrorism strategy and in it they highlighted the growing security threat from syria where al qaeda affiliates were tracking hundreds of fighters from europe now let's take a look at some of what the report says and they said as and when u.k. residents for ten there's a risk that they may carry out attacks using skills that they've developed eva cvs now these are concerns that only been highlighted by the british government but also being highlighted by the european members as well recently we saw the dutch heighten their security threat level as they said that they thought they had around one hundred foreign fighters that had gone to syria and these are also the concerns that i think you've been echoed by france as well say assessing not just a problem concerning force in the one obviously that we've seen highlighted in this

counterterrorism strategy reports and certainly i think a lot of concern amongst the british authorities with seeing these young british people fighting in the war zone now i'm joined by freelancer in journalist money thank you very much for joining us we were speaking about this subject a couple of weeks before the report was released and obviously this is something that is already going on and i know you've spoken to the friends of the young british man he was actually the first confirmed british fighter he died over in syria can you tell us a bit about that well you know. it was only twenty one when he died in syria and already he was a veteran of the libyan libyan war against gadhafi and despite his young age of the squad the focus of the study of the records life is very much. the sons that i've spoken to is very much very british in many ways as a london boy despite that i think you sound. very attractive fish of those

these are very concerned you see. highlighted in this count terrorism report how worried should they be how much of a threat do you think this is to britain well i think the report said there were probably around a hundred fighters i think the real numbers probably. would be most concerning for the british security services british muslims or asian descent. of the study of bangladesh or india who might go to places like syria because they're the ones in the past ten years or so who've been involved in the most dangerous terrorist threats in the u.k. and thank you very much for joining us and he described the tsunami i don't think anyone could have had any idea of just how complex and how far reaching implications of what is happening in syria right now we have the u.n. envoy to syria speaking today calling for the desperately urgent need for all sides to come together once again trying to find a resolution to the conflict. twenty one doctors are finally cleared of protests

others in brain out there spending some two years behind bars after the break we talk to one medic who thinks the same it's hard to stay with us. sigrid laboratory kirby was able to build the most sophisticated robot which on fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tunes mission to teach creation why you should care about humans. this is why you should care only on the.

speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on our team reporting from the world talks of the i p interview intriguing story. arabic to find out more visit arabic don't call. thanks for staying with us this is already the queues in cyprus aren't getting any shorter as banks are open for a second day following they merge and seemed to accept on a strict limits and mean a lot of people still can't get their hands on their own cash capital controls have effectively quarantined cyprus from the rest of the e.u. atlanta will do so for at least another month something which lawrence freeman from

executive intelligence review magazine indicates that the cyprus rescue has failed . i don't think cyprus has been saved i think the people in cyprus believe that with which you have right now is the beginning of the end of the euro system the euro house is burning and there is no reason to have confidence in the banking system don't forget overnight they were shipping in billions of euros from germany into cyprus and then delivering them by truck because people couldn't live so if you don't have confidence in your banking system it's not going to work and the system itself the euro system is a failed experiment i was always opposed to it we should have nation states with their own sovereign system so this now has proven that it doesn't work and the dictatorship from the european commission the european central bank and the i.m.f. to tell the people cyprus you have to suffer as a result of this in

a similar way they are being greece you are going to see this crisis in europe in spain in italy right now there is no government all of europe is in a state of collapse produce is just the beginning of what we could see on a global scale right now watch what you say during your private internet chats and calls law agencies have always been able to request some details of all communications when necessary but the f.b.i. wants to go further listening and watching as you talk and type in real time in new york mary of what may have been finding out what this could mean ordinary americans . an estimated six hundred million people use skype to chat with family friends and colleagues i'm using the video ip service to talk to you right now and this year a top priority for the f.b.i. is to gain the power to be able to monitor internet chats e-mails and basically all

on line correspondence as it is taking place washington is working on legislation that would force email cloud services and chop providers like skype to install in surveillance equipment within their networks that equipment would give the u.s. intelligence community the ability to monitor online correspondence in real time basically the same way that the f.b.i. could listen in on phone conversations with court approval under love to leave the phone companies were required by law to implement technology that allows this wire when you're looking at something like skype or some of the other networks those laws do not apply to these places and the only thing we need to change that law because when we go to a company sometimes we get cooperation and technical assistance sometimes we don't and that's just not enough courtesy of the electronic communications privacy act the f.b.i.

can already out says archives of emails tweets and transcripts but clearly that's not enough for the agency to keep tabs on what criminals would be terrorists and dissidents are saying online the problem is where we are today so the way that we communicate is really not limited to telephone companies and sort of the old fashioned you know picking the phone and calling someone you have i mean g. mail google voice dropbox according to google's latest transparency report the united states is the world leader when it comes to requesting user data on its own citizens f.b.i. general counsel andrew weissman says the agency is working to expand its internet spy powers by the end of the year and by then a skype chat between two people may include a bigger audience reporting from new york. our team. right in bahrain twenty one doctors have been acquitted of charges linked to illegal antigovernment protests and their arrest was part of a crackdown on problem reform demonstrations that started in february twenty levon

for more analysis on that i'm joined by dr nader who was on trial has solved and spent some time behind bars dr di if you were facing fifteen years in jail and were eventually acquitted could you tell us more about what you went through during the trial. i was convicted for fifteen years in prison meant it was in the military tribunal i was arrested and jailed among my other colleagues were fifty in total more than fifty half of us were charged with felonies that serious crimes in the other and the other part is misdemeanors there are twenty eight and yesterday the good news came out and they were acquitted congratulations for being acquitted of the doctors who spent two years behind bars only to be declared not guilty do you think the government should compensate them for the time they and you spent in jail well i spent in jail two months i need

to correct that and yes of course there should be measurements to compensate the doctors for the time being and the sufferer they have been through but i would like to stress more that we need to see the accountability established and those who are responsible of torturing the doctors and the listing the doctors and putting forth charges and crimes against the doctors and giving them all this spin all this time they should be brought to justice before we think of anything else and this is a priority their country believe should be established what impact is this a ruling going to have on the opposition movement does this make the monarchy seem like it's loosened up its grip a little bit. well it would be doctors chris it's quite different because the amount that applied internationally was unprecedented. there are

measures that are going on the ground right now but it doesn't really tells you that the monarchy is losing the grip if you see the amount of repression that's going daily on the ground it tells you that the security option is the option that the monarchy is using now and things have not really changed. in the regards to deal with the violence and the outstanding cases but however deductive case and particularly this unique feature because of i think it's one of the high profile cases dr di you've chairman of about claimed rehabilitation and antiviolence organization we thank you for your time thank you write i'll be back with more international news in iran to thirty minutes disto without coming up with technology update.

plans to create a war medal for cyber warfare have been put on hold by the new defense secretary chuck hagel but should have been put on hold i mean hackers a drone operators do play a real important role in modern militaries and there are already u.s. military medals for things that don't involve people shooting at you the antarctic a service medals given by the department of defense for service between fifteen and thirty consecutive days in antarctica although the cold down there is potentially deadly no penguins are going to storm the base with kalashnikovs the homeland security distinguished service medal has also never been issued to anyone on the battlefield because thankfully for america there haven't been any invading armies in the homeland so is there precedent for a medal like cyber warfare medals i mean yes just there is but when you think about it giving someone a medal for using a mouse to blow up blips on a monitor.