today's news and this week's top stories right here on our team people in cyprus are left to reeling from shock after the country had read it to a highly controversial bailout deal which will see large depositors losing up to sixty percent of their cash. rising powers of brics economies are said 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 a hunger strike claim their clients are prepared to die rather than give up the almost two month long protest. in broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our t.v.

recapping the week's top stories i'm sean thomas glad to have you with us now cypriots woke up on the 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 a draconian capital controls in the country currently daily cash withdrawals are limited to just three hundred euros per bank now no checks 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 artie's tests are silly reports families are already feeling the pinch. like many in cyprus need us as greta says 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 only lottery tickets

a single parent unemployed and caring for his sick mother 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 the old this. sunday leave you here. the economy of your country in the park system is. corrupt so. you 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 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 and many cypriots told me that they are well aware that this is just the beginning of a long hard road i believe that. europe. germany strolled 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 soon to spain we just want to be left alone to pick up the pieces and get on with our lives. part of your peer european union system files and for. paying the money to the european union to help . the other two contras you may embarrass. no but this. 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 eurozone i.m.f. back bailout plan it's all too clear to ordinary cypriots who is going to be bearing the brunt of this is mother for example have a 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 their people for his part allies question all cypriots would like answered as well. tesser silvia r t make a c.s. cyprus. and as you've just seen the capital nicosia has been rocked by a wave of protests with people venting their frustration throughout the week activists crisostomo out a meeting says the so-called bailout package has effectively destroyed of a separate economy i don't think that it's correct to speak for the bailout because this is not that they loathe it can be best described as an overnight us as

a nation because with the diseases that they are taking the little group they have pretty much destroyed forty percent of the economy and now the we also right on top of that problem that we have another little and you kind of this understand that the math doesn't work but facing a new part of the i mean in the european union this is the first time that he has this has been done but it's like planting a bomb in the structure of the financial system itself therefore i don't see how any any vest or people can teach their money in the banks when now that we will have a program twice or even more as bad as it was before then obviously there will be a phrase for a new levy on their back when done deposits so how are they expected to keep that the poses in the banks and if the when or how are the banks supposed to continue. meanwhile financial experts warn that the cypriot a blue pit could very well be used in other cash strapped economies yanis varoufakis an economy economics professor at the university of athens believes that

the deal puts a big question mark over the euro zone's integrity. it is not a bad deal that such a pile of books go statement isn't it given that cyprus has been told that the it would have to deal with the mess of its banking sector on it so as if you could would not part of the us this is the best deal that they could come up with but having posts that situation in assault week europe has managed to put in jeopardy some very basic principles threatens the state get out the deposit insurance scheme even though in the end they took the step back. they brought back into question the integrity of the year it was on the possibility of selling out of it a member state and the very board of the they sacrificed the european union's market but in simple according to which capital controls the other no no so it is a good old mess that they have engineered and right now on our d.

dot com we're 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 around sixty one percent believe that this 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 twelve percent are convinced of a decision could be overturned by a public opposition while the remaining few tell us the deal will be just a one off just to unpopular to repeat elsewhere and 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 say for some of the prisoners say that their clients have no intention of giving up the protest even if it cost them their lives

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 and just international went as far as calling guantanamo an american gulag and says the facility has a broad pain and suffering instead of justice now 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. 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 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 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 michael 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 are 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 just cheney's have been enduring all of this implant to continue to do so and sticking with this story simon 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 used clearly related to the lack of a clear legal framework in guantanamo and this is now obviously a real impact and as an impact for if it is 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 going on tunnel is this issues that lawyers are talking about the issue of the legal framework that that regiments the detention of guantanamo and this is the issue that the administration must address. and coming up right after the break the last paycheck in the u.k. media reveals that the russian tycoon boris berezovsky was due for

a massive cash both shortly before his death just nine days ago we have the full story in just a couple minutes right here on r.t. . dangerous experiments on prisoners they want to make money and they have healthy guinea pigs in the regular society they're not able to use prisoners i mean more they wish they could. drug tests on human guinea pigs. to deadly pills. as subway killed. he didn't pass. his pharmacy really about helping people.

and live from moscow you are with r t certainly glad to have you back with us. now self exile that russian tycoon boris berezovsky was in line for a three hundred million dollars payday shortly before his death as 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 it was found dead at his home nine days ago sara for of has the details. these are the leaks email and police documents that is being reported show you 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 graeme in a primate it. says in li 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 parts 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 the most there's some sort of intriguing facts to this we had reports of a record interview that he gave with the journalist the day before he died in which he spake it about losing. 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 thought would have committed suicide despite the financial pressures so it's very difficult 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 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 as of yet all the details are online plus. still having venezuelan inmates open a nightclub in prison vibing strippers putting on a music show with doors open to friends and family of the detainees. 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 of brazil russia india china and south africa it is 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 as been

following the blocks annual meeting in south africa. believes of all five bricks member states were very optimistic in terms of the future of the organization they all stress 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 the 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 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 northern africa on these issues have also been discussed including of course the conflict in syria. and asia times reporter pepe escobar believes the emergence of a new lender would be a serious game changer in the global economy this alternatives to the world bank and the i.m.f. some still see essentially this is the big deal and of the brics and woods system is that you 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 take place of geopolitics

a jew economy they are changing it's not atlanticist anymore it's the merchants of 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 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 deepak atry puffy 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 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 the external

forces and now it'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 that's after the regional governors presidents came under attack from is the most fighters french and government troops initially seized the city from the rebels in january comes just days after president olanda 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 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 the two thousand and eleven of elections following an arab spring uprising in the country. according to syrian state

media rebels have set up to nine oil oil wells ablaze in the east of the country as 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 fires 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 r. g.'s polis leader reports some fear the i.d.f. stance could limit the government's ability to use social media as a p.r. tour offensive and damaging fun 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 new media every soldier's broadcast station. it looks innocent enough but this region got two weeks in a military prison. one after posting these pictures on his facebook profile this infantry fighter was brought to book for peace of talent and misuse of army weaponry. these soldiers turned their 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 or offense and i think that sergeant and above which is in fact in the 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 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. in a certain person is an abuse of power and i think this is that it's think 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 patella 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 ost want to ballast i.d.f. social media guru boasted his unit had beaten the enemy some claimed foreign media asked more questions about the idea of twitter activity than about the army's bombings in gaza but when ordinary soldiers start using the same platforms all that

positive public diplomacy pretends to be undermined one pic at a time. tel aviv. well r.t. after the break meet the man who can always find a home for the homeless after three decades behind bars he is now helping next convicts on to the right path that's in just a couple minutes right here on our to. our i feel it was. that speech. our her.

how her was. was it was so good how. was was. it . i know me but i loathe him. to please please. please. please.

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