live from the r t new center a ten assassinations bombings and attacks set the stage for the next iraqi election resurgent al qaeda cells boasting that they're stronger than ever. clashes between protesters and alleged muslim brotherhood supporters needs of second largest city tonight while in cairo angry crowds demand the prosecutor general quit server arrest warrants for problem and activists. tallow inmates are pressured to end their hunger strike while r.t. battles to break a wall of silence from washington over the desperate weeks long campaign. for the one doctors are cleared of illegal protest charges in bahrain after spending two years behind bars for some still remain in legal limbo we talk about that this out .

good evening kevin i would hear it r.t. tonight if you're just joining us it's ten pm moscow time and first nineteen people have been killed in a wave of suicide attacks on mosques in iraq the latest in a bloody campaign that's playing on sectarian divisions the regional iraqi election candidate narrowly escaped an attempt on his life after a bomb was found in his home but it was disarmed five other candidates though have been killed in assassinations bombings and raids this month believed to be the work of al qaeda cells. just returned from the country and described to my colleague tab you might say the atmosphere there right now. 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 soldiers 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 that 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 between sunni and shia factions christian neighborhoods churchmen neighborhoods

here 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 judge in this you on the ground you want to get the story you want to tell these stories what's going on to help people cope 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 the rockies regardless of their 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 going to some stability to be over and so you know when we were driving through kirkuk we still saw schoolchildren getting out of their classes whistlestop people on the street but these people operate knowing that this kind of attack could 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 took 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 is normal. but from able to persuade direct to the world to be

a screw told the code of bloodshed in iraq is a consequence of the u.s. led occupation. all of what is happening in iraq right now i would strongly argue is the fruit of this illegitimate occupation 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 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 us 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 and and also by create ation

a 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 well you know about how far i was told and i will bring you an exclusive interview with a former head of the iraqi intelligence services american office amount to witness the must nations and dealings that led to the u.s. and british led invasion of iraq in its day. next be in the egyptian capital protesters gathered in front of the prosecutor general's office tonight demanding his resignation in voicing their anger against the muslim brotherhood of his belt troops and cut. understood got it in front of the prosecutor's general office after the main opposition coalition an observation front called today's protest they are accusing the brotherhood of controlling and the judiciary and also protesting against the recent summoning of fine very well known activists last week for their alleged involvement in the bloody clashes last week in this most difficult is that

in the capital protest is a change shot to do with the prospects general's office and called for the arrest and some of the current. climate because if you can sound questionable off to the if you hear fire overturn the presidential decree i think and how do we find an outsider in peace it's a crisis a tsunami right now there are these street battles tearing me to think of a protest is what is yet written by me and some people are saying that they are pro president mohamed morsi all this fighting the undercover protesters are there's a saying they're actually inflicting suffering is just an excuse for what he's been he's been saying and monitronics and pulls a piece of birdshot i miss really becoming quite fierce here in alexandria the protests now in terms of the back office calling for presidential elections saying that president morsi has not implemented any changes that you promised and that he really is not fit to govern the country. troops looking ahead just

a little bit later in the program we'll tell you about a new level of government snooping know we've all covered the f.b.i. could sit right to read your online text and voice conversations plans that have provoked an angry reaction from web users understandably that's still ahead the also to bring in joe how to code the u.k. physicists in the fighting in syria could pose a terrorist threat when they return just a couple of the many stories you've got lined up ahead. nearly two months since the guantanamo bay hunger strike began the still no sign of the crisis being resolved and some protestors are reportedly close to death cindy is a lawyer for one of the prisoners and it's near come. clients plight and she says gods are resorting to harsh tactics to force inmates to end their company. the first year 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 frequent 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 it seemed that camp authorities began to treat someone 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 in now and they're also being treated as prisoners be ready to mention of the united states in the world to get

a dad see here is the u.s. does not come for the table the government authorities here do not come to the table and discuss it because he needs the improvement of the conditions here there are men who are going to begin to die well the u.s. government has been facing uncomfortable questions over the hunger strike or guantanamo bay but it's failed to show anyone that is going to take any action a washington correspondent got a chance you can explain why your attempts to get an official response are 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 men in guantanamo have 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 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's 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 r.t. has been seeking answers for you from the u.s. government as well as the detainee's attorneys and international human rights groups for all the information we've collated it so far online r.t. dot com all time lines there for you also online as well r.t. dot com tonight norbert check these out amazing pictures here quite creepy actually taking a trip through a post tsunami ghost google street view about it get it's got a virtual tour around a city right the middle of the fukushima prefecture left in ruins by that earthquake and devastating wave that followed of course highly radioactive as well that's why nobody and a late night launch and with the i assess in time for breakfast a russian soyuz rocket dock successfully after cutting the flight time for two days just six hours from now they did it on our website r.t.

dot com. britain's worried that its citizens who join up to fight alongside the syrian rebels could pose a serious terror threat when they return to the u.k. the home office says hundreds of europeans are getting involved learning combat skills from groups like al qaida is not preventing britain and france from pushing to continue supplying arms to the opposition in syria syria first has got the story . it's 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 fights is 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 teva sees no these are concerns that only be highlighted by the british government but also being highlighted by other european members as well recently we fooled the

dutch heightened their security threat level as they said that they thought they had around one hundred four fighters that had gone to syria and these are also the concerns that i think of being echoed by france as well say assessing not just a problem confronting flippant but one obviously that we've seen highlighted in this counterterrorism strategy reports and certainly i think a lot of concern amongst the british authorities that we're seeing these young british people fighting in the wars that. sort of come with me tonight including the latest in the case of the baroni doctors arrested for helping anti-government protesters that so my with us in just a few minutes time. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize that everything is. part of the big picture. mission. couldn't take free. free. free free. free. free. free. video for your media. a free media.

twenty two sixty moscow time now in bahrain twenty one doctors have been cleared of involvement in illegal anti-government protests their arrest was part of a crackdown on demonstrators that started back in february twenty seventh but earlier spoke to alexia correspondent who spent a long time in bahrain reporting for us. when i came to some money hospital which is the mainly medical institution in bahrain it looked more like a fortress with riot police protecting its doors and for no reason we just couldn't get in and talk to the doctors but i did manage to talk to some of them and things they told me were just astonishing. they told me that if you are a protester if you are part of the opposition you are injured at a protest you're being delivered to the hospital there's a high chance you will be delivered to a basement of the hospital and tortured there one of the doctors told me that a member of the royal family was personally involved in torturing her she electrocuted her beat her up and did some horrible things with her this woman this

member of the royal family later went on trial as we know but still i mean things happen like that imagine how difficult for unicef to. do and how much contact you had with the authorities what have they had to say about that well credit to the bahraini authorities we had a huge access to the governmental spokes spokespeople and they all claimed in one voice that those doctors were performing acts of national treason that they were conspiring against the regime that they were doing illegal stuff and they were actually bringing weapons into the hospital something of course denial of the torture allegations don't even have a chance to put that to them certainly i mean i asked him about the torture but it refuted all such allegations saying that nothing like this took place later after we came back from bahrain it emerged that the royal member of the world family went on trial for the alleged torture what is life like there at the moment we've been reporting about this for months now and here is no saying that a lot of the rest the world's media isn't talking about it what is the scale of the protest movement now well if you can if you go to bahrain you'll see

a very well civilized state beautiful roads nice infrastructure hotels nightclubs everything is absolutely perfect there it's one of the most open states in the gulf i could say but if you just go into shiite villages just off the road just a little closer to the city. of the capital city you'll see the hardcore of the protest movement the poor people who are suffering who wants to want a change in their country. you can never asked him if you can have a new rate how many people are there they could be thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands but definitely the movement is strong and they're very angry i could say because. the government doing about it for one hundred this protest is a committing treason against the state i guess that means they're not listening in a way of course because the torture allegations and the claims by the human rights activists are suggesting clearly that this is a this is a dead end there's no solution to the situation one side wants to change the other side clearly doesn't want this change they say the government says it's open for dialogue they want to clearly change the whole situation and appease the opposition

but as far as we can see there are protests happening every day nothing's happening nothing changing. a short time ago a slow talk to a bahraini doctor who knows a lot about this she has him face she face similar charges of service you faced five years in jail she's fatima and she has been cleared you're acquitted back in twenty eleven but you've written about what you went through and i've just read it you went through hell tell us what you had to go through tell our viewers. well first of all thank you for replying to the show yes through i've been. back in two thousand and two would. i be and i'd be british and i've been detained or actually kidnapped from my own the four men who blocked. the google me . doctors are reading this on their houses to house right.

if their rooms and then we just never said he had any clue and left a lot to get full blown through lawyers or our families where life full of the most of its irrigation we were forced to sign false impression blindly without reading them and that something in our psyche that. jeff and i mean by five years on their physical or psychological trauma we didn't deny from speaking for our. race family or be not given food or no where through our hard to get in so we get our words or lock them down be saying you think that from what static. hold it is that like all of five. you can and then have fictional harassment facts should be angry all of that to get its direction off confessions. to make their stories that mean you could die for

the hof this week if i got off that were trying to overthrow the monarchy we denied medical if you were sex and sex you were moved out charged with thoughts about what we're trying to pin all of you what was the actual charge. i know what it is a beginning but then high i found myself at that knowledge before and there they were great my private and they were actually as they go it's like i have what i can have that i am very back not and i get that to protect their eyes so that they can't. get there or there was something mention made that what they were actually trying to get out was the fact that you were treating protesters was that i will formally put to you no neck and. you know doing that is just basically become a break then for defense and it will show the whole life that they are defending the. suctioning just because that we three could win the seat belt but then they

can't all be. politically conditioned like and i think actually thinking the government pretty knew. nothing and dropped from the hall and participating in a legal gathering. we've only got thirty seconds of sort of a rush to briefly even though it's not over for you isn't read reports every time you look at the little boy you said if he's only bored three four years old you're worried every time you give my hug you might not see him again you were actually in fear of your life this is what you said in a report is that still true. well useful right now and. i'd be quick why but then so you know anyone who talks. to the government they look like talking about things that happening and think. they should be. being imprisoned for a long time lords rightly you would think if the government knew and then there are

others that the rap and go lie. and try to not let me go back to larry and i would think you know a lot of pressure on us and. trying to get the job they had to have. some funds to bring along for the whole truth. as we said no being acquitted thank you for some i think. today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. israel plus reopened the gaza border crossings that will be shut down for

a week after rocket attacks on the palestinian territories during obama's visit to tel aviv an increasing number of palestinians believe violence is now their only option due to the government's failure to make any progress in peaceful dialogue. spoke to some of. anger on the streets of ramallah against a palestinian government people here say is to be inactive to bring peace after years of negotiations between the two science campaign protest as israeli settlements have only expanded and the occupation of japan and your game in the palestinian authority is part of the problem and not the solution present bass is a servant of the israeli occupation israel wants from the palestinian authority to things as security agents and a financial agent so it can control the palestinian people the palestinian authority does this for them jamal juma organizes regular demonstrations against the palestinian authority he says if there was one thing that would change his opinion it would be if he saw real progress from palestinian israeli dialogue but

the two sides haven't sat down together since september two thousand and ten many moderate palestinians are losing faith and looking across the border for inspiration is there more there by this this prayer of prayer the more hamas will again if they don't believe in with. hamas was achieved with violence. what does not appear. so simple as that president abbas says he won't talk of tel aviv unless there's a freeze on israeli settlement construction something prime minister netanyahu won't agree on especially now in lieu of his new right wing coalition government the irony by refusing to talk with the p.a. netanyahu is helping squinting israel's archenemy have mass what has that and then the position of hamas and all opposition and palestine is the failure of foreseeable. please remember that twenty years have passed almost sort of agreement

was signed what is the outcome more settlements more segregation apartheid ward shaikh mahmud abu tir once cut a lonely figure. he was among a minority of west bank palestinians who supported him as he spent seven years in an israeli prison he says because he won a seat in the palestinian government on hamas ticket he blames the p.a. as much as israel. we hamas have roots in historical depth we are more strong in the west bank than in gaza since the elections of two thousand and six in spite of all the arresting and all the harm that our youth suffers in the palestinian authority prisons people are convinced of our way our truth we worked and we are working for the people we are helping them and because of that they arrest us. but chip is not worried about being arrested again despite his intention to stand again for a palestinian parliamentary elections due to be held later this year he says he

doesn't even have to come pain he merely has to sit and wait martella view of promotes his cause although no date has been set for the next palestinian elections people here are starting to think about who to vote for and while hamas will never be as popular in the west bank as it is in gaza it's certainly giving the other political candidates a run for their money policy r t. watch what you say during your private internet chat some calls because the seas are always been able course requests and details of our communications where necessary but now the f.b.i. wants to go much further listening and watching as you talk in real time in new york what important been falling out there what this could mean for 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 and your 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. r.t. . the queues in cyprus aren't getting any shorter as banks reopen for a second day following the.