international and world in the very heart of moscow. today's news and in this week's top stories on our t.v. people in cyprus are left to reeling from shock after the country agreed to a highly controversial e.u. bailout deal which will see large depositors was up to sixty percent of their catch . rising powers brics economies set to make international ways 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 claimed their clients are prepared to die rather than give up the almost two month long protests.

in broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our team recapping the week's top stories i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us cypriots woke up on saturday to some very unpleasant news those with 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 the draconian capital controls in the country currently daily cash withdrawals are limited to three hundred euro's per person per bank no checks can be cashed and payments and transfers outside cypriots are cyprus excuse me are limited to five thousand euros a month while those travelling abroad are not permitted to take more than a thousand euros with them the restrictions have been imposed for an indefinite period and as artie's tests are silly reports families are already feeling the pinch. like many in cyprus later need us agreed 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 yo cash a lean lottery tickets a single parent unemployed and caring for his sick mother in raveling of cyprus's financial woes couldn't have come at a worse time and i feel shame that i live with the 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 old this. southerly. the economy of your country or in the park system is. corrupt so. you're standing with an empty hands. a sentiment echoed throughout the tiny island nation. scenes like these becoming a daily occurrence another day in nicosia cyprus another protest though this one in particular is a gathering about the police of the country's largest lender the bank of cyprus but

they worry 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're 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 choose to spain we just want to be left alone to pick up the pieces and get on with our lives to cyprus is part of your peer european union system files and for. paying the money through the european union to help to stand up to contras you may embarrass the man yeah. no but is that cyprus have a problem or it's because you know economy or something else as economic drama

continues with politicians and bankers drawing a painful measures to execute the years old i.m.f. back to the bailout plan it's all too clear to ordinary cypriots who is going to be very deprived need us as mother for example have a monthly pension cut from one thousand one hundred eighty nine euros to just over one thousand a month ago why they cut from people who have special needs they cut from their people for his part allies question all cypriots would like answered as well. yes or sylvia our team you can see a cycle. as you've just seen at the capital nicosia has been 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 of fact of the measures the european stability mechanism was set up a lot of people myself included were talking about 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 it stream you know they were polite and said we're going to get you early on in this crisis for five years ago 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 hundred time or you can transfer around to your friends or family around the world if you go on vacation you know take three thousand dollars i could certainly see in tempers flare meanwhile financial experts warn that the cypriot a blueprint could very well be used in other cash to countries johan van overtveldt editor in chief of the trends magazine says the way the cyprus crisis has been

managed contradicts the basic principles of the eurozone. we've walked away from the bail out scenario to the bail in scenario and though 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 bond all those i'll deposit 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 and our two dot com were asking what's your take on the unprecedented seizure of funds from large cypriot depositors here's how the vote has been going so far right now the majority of you a full sixty two percent believe that 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 it be overturned by public opposition while the remaining few tell us that the deal will be just a one off it's just too unpopular to repeat elsewhere you can head to our to dot com and tell us what you think. it's been nearly two months since 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 that 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 only thirty seven prisoners are involved but attorneys for the inmates say more than one hundred are starving themselves the prolonged crisis has drawn condemnation from numerous human rights groups among them amnesty international amnesty international went as far as calling guantanamo an american gulag and says the facility has brought pain and suffering instead of justice the white house however maintains that it is committed to shut down the prison and is monitoring the ongoing hunger strike but the pentagon is considering spending almost fifty million dollars to renovate an expanded the facility saying the u.s. congress has decided not to close the facility at all lawyer cindy put newco recently visited her hunger strike and 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 had 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 maybe 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 mike 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 the 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 to detainees have been enduring all of this implant to continue to do so simon a score no a spokesman for the red cross says the prisoners there are left defenseless and are being held in a legal vacuum from our observations we are those tensions and and this anguish that detainees are experiencing is clearly related to the lack of a clear legal framework in guantanamo and this is now obviously a real impact and as an impact forty three days for some time on their mental health on their emotional for us would be the issue beyond just what you know we are seeing right now in guantanamo is this issues that lawyers are talking about the issue of the legal framework that regiments the detention of guantanamo and this is the issue that the administration must address and coming up right after

the break of the last paycheck the u.k. media reveals that the russian tycoon boris berezovsky was due for a massive casualties shortly before his death nine days ago now the full story in just a couple minutes on our t.v. . self exiled 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 of business assets he was found dead at his home nine days ago r.t. sara first has the details. these are the leaked email and police documents it is being reported shady that an investment company which controls three all of. these offshore trusts said c b going to liquidate his assets between. thousand and twelve

a march two thousand and thirty own family with the aim of providing head 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 graham in a primate it and says only 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 look at 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 of record interview that he gave with the journalist the day before he died and which he spake in about losing hope in his life in then of course he got the family and friends coming out he say that this wasn't a man that they would have thought would have committed suicide despite the financial pressures so it's very difficult to i think tally up all the evidence right now. a new strain of bird flu that had not been transmitted to humans before kills at least two in china now a third person is in critical condition in a hospital with health experts saying it's not known how the virus is spread and no vaccine exists yet all the details are online plus. still having fun venezuelan inmates open a nightclub in prison inviting strippers and putting on a music show with doors open to friends and family even. dot com to find out how

the party never stops. 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 to facilitate excuse me 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 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 in their. 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 just 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 you've got

a piece going off reporting for us there now 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 brics and woods system is that 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 is changing it's not atlanticist anymore it's the merchants over reemergence finally of the south miss being spread by western corporate 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 welcome to the move as it has been long pushing for both sides towards talks ahead of the nato withdrawal at the end of twenty fourteen so far the taliban has refused to talk to president karzai calling him an american puppet but security analyst deep pocket tripathi 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 merely congressional pressure but also outside the congress from his opponents and secondly president karzai himself suspect that he was being sidelined because the americans were in direct touch via i mean cities with. under president of say 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 anality 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 that's after the regional governor's residence came under attack from islamic fighters french and government troops and nationally seized the city from the rebels in

january this comes just days after president alon announced event french troops would stay in the country until the end of the year. in morocco thousands of workers have rallied it to protest against the economic policies of the islamist led government marchers were demanding the prime minister's resignation unions are furious over high unemployment and planned reforms of the pension system a moderate islamist party came to power in two thousand and eleven elections following an arab spring uprising in the country. according to syrian state media rebels have set up to nine or oil wells a blaze in the east of the country that's after opposition groups got into a dispute over who could use the wells allegedly over five thousand barrels of oil and over fifty thousand cubic meters of gas are being lost every day because of the fire meanwhile near the city of aleppo heavy fighting has been reported between

government and opposition fighters. in israel the military is cracking down on soldiers who are misbehaving a group of servicemen posted a series of dance videos on the web that quickly went viral but as artie's policy or a ports some fear the i.d.f. stance could limit the government's ability to use social media as a p.r. tool offensive and damaging find a picture of an israeli soldier with mud on his face titled a bomb a stone posted on facebook by none other than the head of the i.d.f. social media unit should have don't wish to mish just as the government uses social media for explaining for propaganda. it also has to do with private soldiers using every soldier's it broadcasts think. it's looks innocent enough but this will take us two weeks in a military prison. after posting these pictures on his facebook profile this

infantry fighter was brought to book for peace of talent and misuse of army weapon we are. these soldiers turned a patrol in hebron into a dance move. it angered the i.d.f. but others felt they did a far better job of showing the human side of the army than any spin doctor ever courage under the military code of justice offense nothing could sergeant and above which is in fact any conduct which is unbecoming an i.d.f. soldier would would would be for really potentially at least exposure to criminal liability could actually find yourself in jail but it's not always fun and games neither is it so clear cut the i.d.f. told r.t. that a sniper who posted this image was dealt with appropriately it's the problem of of free speech i don't see how you can control it i don't think that the dancing is abusing power i do think that putting your sniper. innocent person

is an abuse of power and i think this is the it's thinks in that the army should do gil you gave was an officer with the paratroopers unit he says he'd brief his soldiers regularly about what they could and could not post online but many were careless or childishly unaware of the impact one clip could have you have to remember that soldiers are. kids. eventually they're just they're just kids that misuse the misuse of power just for them just for fun is not shooting the kid not trying to kill the kid the irony is that the i.d.f. itself put so much emphasis on social networks using them extensively to promote its actions. the i.d.f. has taken its war to twitter facebook instagram and even tumblr turning its social media tool box into the most globally visible arm of the israeli defense force it

started during the israeli gaza war at the end of two thousand and eight but the idea of social media department for. next it's online muscles joining the flotilla incident a year and a half later distributing regular video taken from an israeli assault craft and tweeting in sixteen languages after the most recent israel gaza war last november the erstwhile embarrassed i.d.f. social media guru boasted his unit had beaten the enemy some claimed foreign media asked more questions about the i.d.f. twitter activity than about the army's bombings in gaza but when ordinary soldiers start using the same platform all that positive public diplomacy threatens to be undermined one click at a time. tel aviv. iraq has witnessed another day of violence ahead of parliamentary elections later this month in baghdad two blasts left four people dead while in fallujah three

people were gunned down including a local sunni imaam known for organizing weekly protests the country has seen a spike in sectarian violence between sunni and shia lately on friday a wave of bombings targeting shia mosques killed over twenty people in recent months a loving politicians have been assassinated by what is suspected to be a terrorist group linked to al qaeda security fears have led to government to postpone 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. we've now seen 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 proper hospitals schools even just water and sewage and 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 then 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 after the break the lives of people from central asia young and old or working long hours in russia to support their families back. wealthy british style. writers.

market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. mission and free cretaceous three cents for charges free to arrangements free risk free. to tide free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media. tom. you know how 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 don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

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