today's news and the week's top stories are people in cyprus are left to reeling from shock after the country agreed to a highly controversial bailout deal which will see large depositors losing up to sixty percent of their cash. rising powers at the brics economies set to make international waves after pushing ahead with the creation of a joint development bank that could rival the global financial heavyweights. and lawyers of the guantanamo bay detainees on hunger strike claiming their clients are prepared to die rather than give up the almost two month long protest.

and to broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is r t i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us now cypriots woke up on saturday to some very unpleasant news those with a six figure bank accounts will see up to sixty percent of their savings seized by the government to meet the conditions of an e.u. bailout that's on top of a draconian capital controls in the country currently daily cash withdrawals are limited to three hundred euros per person per bank no jacks can be cashed and payments and transfers outside cyprus are limited to five thousand euros a month while those travelling abroad are not permitted to take more than one thousand euros with them the restrictions have been imposed for an indefinite period and as parties test our silly reports families are already feeling the pinch . like many in cyprus need us agree this is simply stunned at the speed and manner with which the banking crisis in his country seems to be spiraling out of

control he shows us his wallet no cash a lean lottery tickets a single parent unemployed and caring for his sick mother you know raveling of cyprus's financial woes couldn't have come at a worse time but showing that i live with a pension of my mom all of your life is coming up so i don't you make a plan for the future for the people in the young and the old. suddenly you hear of the economy of your country or in the park system these. so. you're standing with an empty hands. a sentiment echoed throughout the tiny island nation. with scenes like these becoming a daily occurrence another day in nicosia cyprus another protest though this one in particular is a gathering of that the police of the country's largest lender the bank of cyprus

but they're worried that the company is headed for collapse and they may eventually lose their jobs though many cypriots told me that they are well aware that this is just the beginning of a long hard road i believe that. europe is germany stalled because we are a small economy they felt that the consequences would be minimal what they don't know is that the president has been said and what happened today in cyprus could easily happen tomorrow to italy to front june to spain we just want to be left alone to pick up the pieces and get on with our lives a. part of your peer european union system files and for. paying the money through the european union to help. the other two contras you may. know but this process problem or it's because you know economy or suffering

as economic drama continues with politicians and bankers drawing a painful measures to execute the years old i m f back bailout plan it's all too clear to ordinary cypriots who is going to be bearing the brunt need us as mother for example have her monthly pension cut from one thousand one hundred eighty nine year olds to just over one thousand a month ago why they cut from people who have special needs they cut from the people for his part allies the question all cypriots would like answered as well. yes our sylvia our team make a c.s.i. press. and as you've just seen the capitol in the kosi a has been a rocked by a wave of protests with people venting their frustration throughout the week charlie mcgrath head of the wide awake news portal says the situation may turn violent as people feel the full effect of the measures and the european stability mechanism was set up

a lot of people myself included were talking about it almost two years ago that it is global it is financial governance over europe i don't think they care what the citizens of europe the five hundred million people of the european continent feel it is governed by crisis to the extent extreme you know they were polite and said we're going to get you early on in this crisis for five years ago and now they're making a very bold statement they're not asking any more they're just going to take it if someone's trying to rob you then it would make sense that it could certainly lead to violence i mean that is the ultimate outcome if somebody is trying to get access what is theirs you know their money so they can put food on their table and they're being told no you can only take out three in a time where you can't transfer around the to your friends or family around the world if you go on vacation you know take three thousand dollars i could certainly see an tempers flare. meanwhile financial experts warn that the cypriot blueprint could very well be used in other cash strapped countries johan van overtveldt chief

as an editor in chief of the trends magazine says the way the cyprus crisis has been managed to contradicts the basic principles of the eurozone. we've walked away from the bail out scenario to the bail in scenario and there in there you go first of all to the shareholders of the banks and then the insured deposit holders and it's first tried out and i know here in cyprus you also have installed now capital control mechanisms which are indeed totally new in this situation they are contradictory to the very principles of monetary union and when they last only for a few weeks well we'll have to wait and see what happened then if they last longer and really the chances are much larger that there will have to be kept intact over a much longer period than a few weeks then the ballgame changes then we have a new situation and we will have just to wait how markets how bombed all those are deposits all those are we investors react to the fact that one country becomes an

isolated country within the euro zone in fact creating two separate euros. and right now in our g dot com we are asking you what's your take on the unprecedented seizure of funds from large cypriot depositors here's how the vote has been going on so far the majority of you at this point say the bailout will become a model for future confiscations this hour just under a quarter of you are expecting a stampede of bank runs across the european union eleven percent are convinced that the decision could be overturned by public opposition while the remaining few tell us the deal will be a one off that's just too unpopular to repeat elsewhere you can head to our to dot com and tell us what you think. well it's been nearly two months since of guantanamo bay detainees embarked on a hunger strike mistreatment and indefinite detention have been cited as the

reasons for the protest now lawyers for some of the prisoners say their clients have no intention of giving up their protest even if it costs them their lives the u.s. military has been playing down the strike claiming that only thirty seven prisoners are involved but attorneys for the inmates say more than one hundred are starving themselves now the prolonging the crisis has drawn condemnation from numerous human rights groups among them amnesty international and ministry international went as far as calling guantanamo an american gulag and says the facility has brought pain and suffering instead of justice and the white house however maintains that it is committed to shutting down the prison and is monitoring the ongoing hunger strike but the pentagon is considering spending almost fifty million dollars to renovate and expand the facility saying the u.s. congress has decided not to close the facility at all lawyer cindy go recently visited her hunger striking client at guantanamo here's what she had to say about

his condition. i met with him from tuesday through thursday every day and when i first met with him on tuesday i was extremely shocked to see that he has lost about forty pounds from the last time that i saw him and he was in a terribly weak state he was bending over from stomach pain and he also said that he had not eaten since february sixth so he was one of the initial hunger strikers and he was in a terribly bad state i've seen it with my own eyes and i heard him tell me he's supposed to have another meeting with his military council in the following week and he told me to let them know that he may not be in a state to meet with them he may be by the time they come to see him he may be in isolation or he may be under medical watch or he may be being force fed by that time and may not be able to meet with them and he wanted me to take that message to

them you know the from you know my meetings with my with my client last week and his conversations with other straight you know other detainees and prisoners who are also on strike they are prepared to stand up for the principles of not having their religious practices disrespected not having the qur'an desecrated and now it's become an even bigger message that they want to deliver which is that they have been now detained since you know two thousand too many of them mike i and for eleven years now since two thousand and two some of them are cleared for release have been declared in a sense by the united states however the u.s. refuses to transfer them and the congress refuses to provide funds for that the obama administration has closed the office that it had set up in the state department to study the closure of guantanamo and carry that out and it hasn't happened and so this has gone beyond the desecration of the qur'an that disrespect

of their religion and. they're now also protesting the worsening conditions as these prison officials are essentially retaliating against them and trying to end the strike by making conditions harsher and the detainees have been enduring all of this and plan to continue to do so simon score no a spokesman for the red cross says the prisoners there are left to defenseless and are being held in a legal vacuum. from our observations stanchions and this anguish knees are experiencing is clearly related to the lack of a clear legal framework in guantanamo and this is now a real impact and as. it is for some time on their mental health on their emotional al for us would be the issue beyond just what you know we are seeing right now in guantanamo issues that lawyers are talking about the issue of the legal framework that regiments the detention of guantanamo and this is that you should the

administration must address and coming out right after the break the last paycheck the u.k. media reveals the russian tycoon of boris berezovsky was due for a massive it cash boost shortly before his death nine days ago we have the full story in just a couple minutes right here on to. join thousands of gadget guru walk into the mobile world congress in barcelona where resurgent 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 funny games often overlooked video engines pretty well this streaming clover just to the palm of your hand and there's a new player in town looking to show that to you isn't that better than one g'day

you're on. international and world in the very heart of moscow. and regarding the week's top stories this is r.t. glad to have you back with us self exile the russian tycoon boris berezovsky was in line for a three hundred million dollars payday shortly before his death that's according to

a british newspaper report which refers to leaked emails and police documents the money was to come from the liquidation of the moguls business assets but he was found dead at his home nine days ago sara firth has the details. these are the leaked email and police documents it is being reported show me that an investment company which controls three all of. these offshore trusts said c b going to liquidate his assets between. two thousand and twelve a march two thousand and thirty own family with the aim of providing him with around three hundred million dollars in cash now at the time of course president it's been widely reported he was under pretty severe financial pressure not least because of his recent high profile cool case which he lost against fellow oligarch graeme in a primate it and i certainly it's been said by his friends and family lots of

people he was at that call case at the time to not just to put him and financial pressure but psychological pressure as well and the police at the inquest that was a fair and a wednesday said that the cause of death was consistent with hanging the bars by itself he was found with a ligature around his neck there's no evidence at the moment of third party involvement or of foul play but police haven't ruled that out yet as he said the details that have emerged as some sort of intriguing facts to this we had a report a record interview that he gave with the journalist the day before he died in which he spake it about losing hope in his life in then of course he got the family and friends coming out he said that this wasn't a man that they would have pulled would have committed suicide despite the financial pressures so it's very difficult to i think tally up the evidence right now. a new strain of bird flu that had not been transmitted to humans before

kills at least two. critical condition. it's not known how the virus is spread. all the details. still having fun. putting on a show with doors open to friends and families of the detainees. the party. the world's biggest emerging economies have agreed to enter talks to create a joint development bank the decision was taken at the fifth brics summit comprising the member states brazil russia india china and south africa it's hoped it will provide an alternative to the world bank and international monetary fund the brics economies are to establish a cooperative council to facilitate joint business projects are going off has been

following the blocks annual meeting in south africa. 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 while in nearly a half of the payments between them only the trade turn or 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 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 so more states are voicing

their desire to join in the. it is rationing 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 in northern africa these issues have also been discussed including of course the conflict in syria r.t. if you go to peace going off reporting for us they're sticking with the story asia times reporter pepe escobar believes the emergence of a new lender would be a serious a game changer in the global economy this alternatives to the world bank and the i.m.f. some sort of say essentially this is the big deal and of the bretton woods system if you think it should be supported by their next rick's list mexico indonesia south korea turkey and the next miss as well this is you know that the stick don't

make plates of geopolitics a jew economy they are changing it's not atlanticist anymore it's steam lurch and so really merge it's finally of the south miss being spread by western guard media that china is the new colonial is the power in africa scoop legally ridiculous. afghan president hamid karzai is in qatar where he hopes to start peace talks with the taliban the group recently announced that it is ready to enter politics and has opened an office in doha washington not welcomed the move as it has long been pushing for both sides towards talks ahead of the nato withdrawal at the end of two thousand and fourteen so far the taliban has refused to talk to president karzai calling him an american puppet but security analyst a deep pocket party thinks that it is wrangling between america and the afghan

government that is really getting in the way. informal contacts have been taking place in doha for the last couple of years but then those informal talks did break down for two reasons accuse the americans of being shaky and vague. they wanted an exchange of prisoners president obama didn't want to have anything to do with any exchange of prisoners because of mainly congressional pressure but also outside the congress from his opponents and secondly president karzai himself suspected that he was being sidelined because the americans were in direct touch via i mean cities with. under president of the americans have openly accused president karzai of being incompetent and corrupt so there's no love lost between president karzai and the americans and president karzai doesn't want to be

undermined by external forces and now let's take a look at some other international news in brief for you this hour in mali three militants and one soldier have been killed in renewed fighting in timbuktu after the regional governor's residence came under attack from islamist fighters french and government troops initially seized the city from the rebels in january this comes just days after president londe announced that french troops would stay in the country until the end of the year. in morocco thousands of workers have rallied to protest against of the economic policies of the islamist led government marchers were demanding at the prime minister's resignation unions are furious over high unemployment and planned reforms of the pension system the moderate islamist party came to power in the two thousand and eleven elections following an arab spring uprising in the country. in bahrain

a twenty one doctors finally walked free after spending over seventeen months behind bars after being accused of taking part in anti-government protests they were initially convicted for instigating hatred and participating in illegal gatherings however the doctors insisted they were only doing their job and treating the wounded and claiming they were tortured into confessing to crimes they didn't commit their acquittal didn't manage to deflect attention from the gulf states massive internal problems and its crackdown on dissent since the uprising began over two years ago the sunni monarchies been continuously using violence to disperse campaigners asking for political reforms scores of activists have been arrested and charged over that time physician dr. accounts for own experience while being held by the country's security forces. granting. them didn't have to have the right. if. we just have the fifty and eighty left

a lot to get the lawyer out of the. line right now. for two thousand people in line here without reading them and that. this is going to think you know. i think it's ok and i mean by that. very thankful and so we've been denied from freaking want to. be standing or be given food. you know where it's who are hard to get in. our store last downbeat thing you think that what. was it is that's like small of five electrocution that has fictional harassment facts to be angry all about the extraction off by asking questions. iraq has witnessed another day of violence

ahead of parliamentary elections later this month in baghdad two blasts left four people dead while in flu shot three people were gunned down including a local sunni mom known for organizing weekly protests on friday a wave of mosque bombings targeting shia worshippers killed over a dozen people the country has seen a spike in sectarian violence between sunni and shia lately as the embattled prime minister struggles to appease both sides in recent months politicians have been assassinated by what's suspected to be a terrorist group linked to al qaeda security fears have led to the government to postpone the local elections in two provinces former m i five agent any megan says iraq is unable to shake off the disastrous legacy of the american led invasion. a massive destabilization of the old structures and no real meaningful new structures put in place so it's not just the politicians who are under threat but

for segments of other areas of society to things like hospitals schools even just water and some things like that have been decimated and not rebuilt appropriately it's great that people are stepping forward and they want to represent their constituencies but if you can't guarantee that democracy will be democratically elected you can't guarantee that people are not afraid to go and vote you can't guarantee there won't be oppression and violence around that process and you can't guarantee as well that the people who are going elected have real powers to represent their constituents then it's not a real democracy it's just yet another oligarchy it's another dictatorship imposed on the hapless people. and i'll be back with more news in about thirty minutes time after the break technology update heads to barcelona for the latest gadgets on offer at the mobile world congress.

you know when the history of any culture there are some dark chapters throughout human history there's been war on every continent and religious strife and oppression every culture has some skeletons in their closet and in recent u.s. history the scandalous prison at guantanamo bay as making patriotic americans scurrying around a decade or so rather than slamming the door shut and get mall i hate that term condemning it as one of the greatest mistakes in american history and gloriously declaring on t.v. channels and newspapers the country wide that it shall never be repeated again the pentagon instead wants to blow another forty nine million dollars expanding it even if you are one of the types of things that american gulags are super cool and awesome do you realize that it takes over one million dollars per year per prisoner to keep the place open are you sure you don't want that money to go towards

something else like your children's education the thing that burns me up about this the most is that obama promised if elected to close guantanamo bay and as commander in chief of the armed forces he could do this whatever he wanted no amount of filibustering by the republicans could stop him obama you promised hundreds of millions of people to do something very simple start the paper work tomorrow buddy make the nation look better that's your job but that's just my opinion. hello and welcome to technology much as christopher columbus served the queen and king of spain by pushing the boundaries of the known world to have come to

barcelona to serve you well the time when i may not have discovered uncharted lands we have found a handful of innovations that stretch the limits of mobile technology it's that time of year again when the whole community descends on the catalonian capital while the annual gathering has been happening for more than a quarter century organizers build this mobile world congress as bigger and better than ever having moved into a newer and more spacious center it's a one stop shop for just about everything in personal tech with one exception all the industries big players who are there hoping to investors and gadget guru so like so apple staying away as it traditionally does samsung was able to bask in the knowledge that it was far and away the biggest fish in the pond with an eye on keeping its share of the android based the no eight point zero made its big debut and got the blogosphere buzzing but it's going to have to work hard to fight off challenges for both new and old competitors. nokia was also on hair.