force in mali despite earlier claims there aren't insurgency mission will be over in a matter of weeks. a detainee on hunger strike a allegedly tries to take his own life is inmates reach breaking point with the protesters now into its third month. russia's foreign minister once again warns america not to escalate standoff between north and south korea as he meets the u.s. secretary of state john kerry. and activists in bahrain protest of court ruling that saw two teenagers sent to prison for ten years saying they were tortured into confessing this is the government continued to suppress dissenting voices across the gulf state. even if you just joined us is kevin owen here live here at the new center tonight

the time just after ten pm no you're in moscow and first the pentagon is sounding the alarm over the french troops withdrawal from mali saying local forces are unfit to take over paris pulled the first contingent out of the volatile state on choose day they planned withdrawal three quarters of their force by the end of the year but have also now sanctioned a thousand strong permanent deployment france intervened in mali in january to drive is in the midst rebels out of the country and this test reports a lot's changed for paris since the start of the mission. they say though that they still plan on continuing double abduction of their four thousand strong military personnel currently on the ground and keeping these a one thousand troops they say will be part of a future un a peacekeeping mission however this is in stark contrast to what french foreign minister had said in january. disputed regarding france's direct involvement it is only a matter of weakness later on if he comes back on but we have no intention of

staying forever. now the french have gone into mali a warning against the threat of as long as the extremism advanced in europe now clearly any plan of a complete withdrawal is off the table now this one thousand troops that they plan to keep on the ground falls under a call made by u.n. secretary general a ban ki moon and deploying about eleven thousand two hundred troops and one thousand four hundred forty police on the ground in mali after major combat now bunking with one also includes a parallel force one that will directly deal with all cargo linked militants and extremists according to reuters and this is likely to be french troops as well while also spoke a group of former french intelligence officer who had been stationed in northern africa and the middle east for about twenty years and he says the from the very start he had been doubtful this operation in mali was going to be short french army exposure to the insurgents and these to me is from the cities ok it was not so

complete victory. and so what they would do to treat the people from jeff is to come back exactly as they did. against the when the soviets. in the one nine hundred ninety exactly as they were going to study the year when the last american so deal with the drone exactly as they did as they did an iraq when the u.s. troops. didn't so from his book if not before well you could include coincidences shortbread don't exist now where francois long had first announced this military operation in mali two thirds of the french people were in support of these actions now many observers and analysts have already said that if this becomes a long drawn out war public opinion could quickly change. well just as the first foreign troops were leaving mali france was engaged in

a major offensive to wipe militant hideouts in a previously liberated area of the country. cut off examines next the challenges throughout a campaign that stretched the military from the very beginning. miley has become yet another front in the global war on terror but this anti terror operation just may be too difficult to scale down so quickly first let's review what's already been done and more importantly how efficient is what this operation started with and support of ground troops from the skies has always been one of its foundation stones the first planes to battle the islamists came from here a french military base in chad helicopter support came from another base in so some of the aviation was a leader to the capital of mali and some other bases were engaged as well like the ones in ivory coast and news year but then there's the question of refueling the mission for pilots going out of chad for instance usually takes seven to eight hours and they have to be refueled five times along the way this is where the u.s.

and germany come in but if german planes have to come from sinegal an american planes have to come all the way from spain so all together this is quite a complicated combat scheme when it comes to ground troops the french got into this by themselves somalis army was and still is demoralized if four and a half thousand troops even can be called in the army and pretty much the only supporters that the french have and quite unexpectedly i might add are two thousand troops from chad and when it comes to the west well no one's skin on sending troops there directly britain is only looking at sending combat instructors to train troops with all this effort paris has managed to push the islamist to the north of the country securing key cities but with fighting still going on in the mountains and a string of suicide bomber attacks in the several cities it's clear that the islamists are not exactly all out nor are they defeated which raises the comparison with another country afghanistan where the terrorists live in the midst of peaceful

civilians the also use so-called hit and run guerrilla tactics so the french have been combing through have valley north of golf believe that. many of the islamists can be hiding there but the question is what comes next if we look at the neighboring countries well their borders are forests and experts say the islamists could travel through them without any serious problems they also warn the past decades has shown that such interventions don't solve crises but deepen them and generate new conflicts there are rising fears nearby western sahara could turn into a new terror hub and right now it's really unclear who is going to turn who's going to take care of that problem and how if most of french troops to leave it's going to be a completely different game for the remaining thousand the u.n. is talking about some additional attack force but so far it's really an idea while the clock is ticking. of course when you go well author and journalist perelandra

reiterate what's happened to these couple french policy in africa reeses paris and the rest to me to the scale of the problem from the start. they probably didn't realize what they were getting into remember call and powell warned george bush on the eve of the invasion of iraq if you break it you own it and that's went to the french and wound up there that's what they're confronting now they're getting into a situation that was much more complex and much more in the end dangerous than they thought it was going to be i think what the situation right now is that a lawyer who has tremendous political problems back home in france would love to be able to to pull out a mile eight as much as possible kind of like george bush you know wanted to rebuild iraq. your kind of a mission accomplished speech and say ok we're leaving and the french in a way are trying to do that by pushing for me to be elections like most observers say there is absolutely no way that you can have on as well organized elections

take place in three or four months time in july in maui huge country totally devastated they don't have borders list they don't have the money really to organize an election they don't have the people to patrol and guard for polling places and they don't have the politicians that's the most important thing the politicians that they've got are all politicians in the past the politicians who brought the country to the the business situation that it's in today. as the mass hunger strike going town of bay continues for a third month a lawyer for one of the protesters has just been told that his client tried to commit suicide according to a letter from another inmate the incident took place last month it's still not clear whether the man did succeed in taking his own life now the u.s. government has strongly claimed denied that claim saying that there's been no recent suicide attempts and that no lives are in danger of but lawyers paid a different picture that some one hundred thirty detainees are trying to starve themselves to death in protest of mistreatment an indefinite detention legal

appeals and mounting public outcry putting more pressure on the white house to deliver on its promises to close the facility but it's got a teacher can reports the pentagon is committed to pumping more cash into keeping it open. the time of each detainee kuantan a mo cost u.s. taxpayers eight hundred thousand dollars a year there one hundred sixty six captives on the island now half of them have been cleared for release so there's absolutely no reason to have them there but the u.s. still spends millions of dollars every year to keep them behind bars many find it even more puzzling in light of ongoing furloughs among public sector workers let's put this number eight hundred thousand dollars in perspective not a lot of people can boast costing the government eight hundred thousand dollars a year a prisoner in the u.s. cost the taxpayers twenty seven thousand dollars thirty times less that is the average salary of a public school teacher here is fifty one thousand dollars one guantanamo detainee

cost taxpayers more than the president himself he makes four hundred thousand dollars a year and if you think that the details have a luxurious life there you're wrong to quote general john kelly who is in command of one tunnel the facility is falling apart so there he was two weeks ago asking congress for almost two hundred million dollars to renovate one tunnel that should come on top of the one hundred seventy seven million dollars that the government spends every year to keep the prison running will the investment make the detainee's lives easier most of whom are there without having the informally accused of anything maybe not none of these projects would have their lifestyle if you will but some of the projects will cure the. better ease of movement for them that would benefit the guard force not the detainees but on top of renovations there are the costs and the taxpayers bill for keeping guantanamo open is only going to go up there aging as we all are and there are

a certain lack of support facilities in that general area. and if we're planning on keeping them there forever there's an enormous amount of expense and terms of both caring for. the inmates and then also dealing with staff that's down there that has to do that. you know i think medical care is one of the biggest concerns this kind of investment suggests that the authorities do not plan to see the prison close they need time so keep saying they're committed to shutting it down but they never say when in congressman smith's matter for we've got you know not to use the cliche joe but it is the hotel california check in but you can't ever check out in washington i'm going to check on the u.s. air force lieutenant colonel but a wing go represent some of those detainees he spoke to us by phone from guantanamo told me that the prisoners are being held without trial because no charges could be brought against them i don't think the problem with the fairly is the quantum of

the i think the problem originates in washington d.c. i've reviewed the cases of my clients and i can tell you that the information in those cases it takes three reply or it let's talk about what the so-called evidence came about it was back in the bush administration to we were talking about imminent attacks and danger color chart in london in crop dusters an attack force attacking the united states once again friday that's the thing information you're trying to say to do you somehow relevant or valid when in fact if they could find what i'm sure you know what shut me up that the human rights organization that's supposed to be here doing something which in fact is doing very little that the remaining finally indicate what kind of a tell you that they hold we irrelevant and you know if you're a human rights organization and you're supposed to be involved in report on what's happening in a prison offshore that out of sight and out of mind and you fail to do that then you've made a decision not to favor one side and not the men who are in guantanamo bay. there

is a buzz he spent several years ago untouchable two of them in solitary confinement before being released without charge he took part in the previous most hunger strike at the basilica and share details of so his experience with this i was taken in and forced into that town to forcing intravenous for fluids into you. and do something silly like put you don't know how many pouches when you only need maybe one or two an inopportune six or something or other there was one guy who was like doing a trainee medical course i don't know whether it's online or when he decided he was joking about which he needed to use with it or use a big one and so forth so they were using me the guinea pig for for the for the training so. the person who was putting a needle into me took a long time and i'm going to i don't know how many stars they took him home but you know they missed in the midst of a in and two they actually found it so that you know the medical past of these people. you know is limited you know they're protesting and this is the last right

in terms of all the rights have been taken away from them they don't have the right to remain silent in interrogations or other invited right to life in some cases so this is a loss right of people who don't have rights and protesting against the situation but primarily because their religion is being abused. moscow is also pushing for access to the gun tell them obey detention center to ensure the safety of a russian being held there this is foreign minister sergei lavrov and u.s. secretary of state john kerry met in london a little later on a spoke to artie's public or about that meeting. just heard off the back of that means seeing that russia has all asked for access to guantanamo bay in order to check on this russian detainee has been held there in order to ascertain what his health is like a mixed reports of this ongoing hunger strike now for several weeks at guantanamo

bay. career also talked about of course the role of the big stories at the moment what was sort of brought out i wonder that was really the topic of the day in these discussions today kevin and we've heard. from saying today that there is no disagreement between russia and the usa on the topic of north korea he was keen to warn that military maneuvers only serve to escalate the tension so putting a stop to these military maneuvers these intimidating tactics on either side are welcome step but he warned at the same time in advance of the visit about this rhetoric that's taking place on both sides and how dangerous that really is for the escalation of tensions because he said that actually it's just as dangerous as flexing military muscles because. you said that counter threats and counter blame could lead to a very dangerous situation where one side backs itself into

a corner to such a degree where they have to act in order not to lose face with the public and of course it's not the first time that russia has been calling for calm this week over the north korean peninsula very notably on monday vladimir putin issued a stark warning the russian president said that if military conflict takes place in . the nuclear disaster of turnover will seem like a children's fairy tale saying i was reiteration of a call for calm here in london from the russian side today and of course we'll be following the g eight meetings as they take place absolutely well course a lot of focus on this big potential story on the careers at the moment especially over the next twenty four hours south korea says the north could test launch at any moment as part of celebrations of pyongyang as many national holiday the communist states preparing to mark the birth of its founder kim il sung on the fifteenth of

april that will create typically uses that celebration is no opportunity to display its military strength washington so therefore of all raise the military at levels in the pacific now to the highest you can get before war next america's stance on north korea and other so-called out states will be under discussion in crosstalk as well with a piece of. this regime is going to drag us as the potential to drag us all into a nuclear nightmare and dave put the u.s. wants regime change there you know first of all i would argue that when it comes to hearing to international norms that probably the biggest outlier state right now is the united states sell it the u.s. is as for itself the authority to do whatever it wants regardless of international norms and i would look at the the invasion of iraq threatened war against iran which which does not pose an imminent threat to the u.s.

certainly and probably to anybody and the use of a place like the one that defies all the international norms these are the and the use of drone attacks in the country we want to attack i. could have a couple of minutes in r.t. a lost generation. think that slaves. will report on how many young educated greeks moving abroad is their only option is a sterile state a stranglehold on a country. science technology innovation called elites developments from around russia. the future

covered. international airport in the very heart of moscow.

hello again human rights activists in bahrain are up in arms over a court ruling last week that saw two teenagers sentenced to ten years in prison under an antiterrorism law the boys aged fifteen and sixteen religiously tortured by interrogators before they confessed to attacking police during anti-government riots bahrain's authorities have been cracking down on pro-democracy protests for the past two years arresting thousands of activists have died from the european bahraini organization for human rights told me both sides still deadlocked. the very big piece of the iranian government used the use of such laws to crack down on activists and for all the citizens that go out in the streets asking for democratic worked we don't see any any improvement in the situation in bahrain or the ongoing crackdown that is increasingly the just to these few days the crackdown has started against the activists and protesters just putatively what i mean the one that's

going to happen in this month. that we documented fifty years in others say we have it in six between kidnaps and they're asked to activists and protesters and d.v. within the dialogue as well you can see that there is not actually a platform for such a dialogue where human rights violations being committed every day i mean kids as an interest of the allies of the government of bahrain such as the united states especially if we hold the fifth fleet at the moment and the united states is no actual stands and especially that they want us out of their fifth fleet and what i mean and their security in the region but they're not giving any and your eye on the human rights violations committed them but in the but only going to be backed up by the they are lies they are backed up by international or double double standards of video with the pain of alienation. more unrest in the gulf state now too as human rights groups claim the bahraini police have arrested twenty opposition activists in the run up to next week's formula one grand prix

authorities deny the allegations but the organization says the people were detained without a warrant after the homes were raided by night by mass police although the arrests reportedly happened in towns near the country's f one circuit as authorities try to calm tensions ahead of the international motor racing event coming up. at r.t. dot com right now costly q. is find out how u.s. pharmaceutical giants have made over seven hundred billion dollars over the past decade by overcharging senior citizens we've got the story and upload founder kim dotcom is demanding an apology from new zealand and the government find out what subset the hacker billionaire on our website. greece is struggling to meet the tough conditions set by international lenders the cash strapped countries hoping to get a long delayed tranche of a crucial bailout package this month e.u. and i.m.f. inspectors and i was sensing athens progress in meeting the terms of the hundred thirty billion euro rescue the greek finance minister has ministers promise that no

more austerity cuts but lenders are pressing for severe job reductions in the country's bloated public sector they're demanding that twenty five thousand workers are laid off this year and a total of one hundred fifty thousand by twenty sixteen in the meantime fiscal belt tightening and rising unemployment is driving young greeks away from their country as tom reports now. we refuse to work for free we demand our right to education messages of protest by seeing opportunities to better themselves snatched away these gems are protesting against plans to close university departments across greece they don't want to be left behind and made into as they say slaves of the twenty first century monologist and satiric are two students also opposed to the so-called athena plan the government aim is to close dozens of university departments outside central city campuses but it's not even that they concede it's

just a small part of the malays which seems to hang over the country's young. new call yeah i believe the youth from the cities have no future so the only solution is to leave greece. maybe the president of the european parliament was right to say that an entire generation may have been lost to crisis in austerity greece's situation is certainly more bleak than most but the only retirement or working your first shifts the says here in greece sometimes they don't even get paid then to bed for the c.s.l. we are working every single result with some estimates of greek youth unemployment as high as sixty percent desperate times are giving rise to desperate suggestions it's not just the young in greece using that word slavery we don't control our fate we are slaves it is a political problem and we must become again pretty but far from rhetoric about

taking to the streets and throwing off shackles many greeks i speak to are thinking just like costas struggling through his last two years of medical school so costas after these two years what do you think the future's going to hold for him. thinking of leaving greece so that if i don't make it yourself ok good luck with that cause to think of it. all right. barry goes leaving us here in the interview back to his studies but cost us could end up like many more greeks like him leaving greece altogether tom watson r.t. thessaloniki greece. you're under some world news in brief for you first off poland's mark three years now since the crash that killed the country's president senior figures gathered for memorial service at warsaw's cemetery on wednesday morning the plane was carrying a delegation of the country's military and political elite to the russian city a small incident it went down killing all on board an official report blamed bad

weather and pilot error hola distil conducting its probe. in syria intense clashes have broken out on the outskirts of damascus as government troops launch a powerful counter offensive to prevent rebel forces from seizing the capital it covers amid reports that president bashar al assad's troops have intercepted some of the opposition fighters main arms supply routes the rebels have said currently control some parts of northern syria as well as several districts of the country's largest city aleppo. thousands of private investigators are now operating in britain and their ranks continue to grow with high tech surveillance equipment readily available in stores anyone can buy a peep become a.p.i. by want to and legal loopholes or allowing them to work unlicensed and unregistered sarah firth's got the story tonight. bribery values corruption and of it. is not difficult to make yourself invisible

it's more difficult to be lawyers because when you first start you're always thinking oh my goodness they they know i just know they know that. there are now an estimated ten thousand private investigators operating in britain despite being perceived as a shadowy world of whispers in secret the industry continues to grow in fact it's moving from the shadows and on to the high street as of course the covert devices full more and more individuals are making the surveillance gadgets easily available in stores like this one and the world of private investigation it's attracting some interesting characters i'm just not suspected as who just twenty one years old living has worked at his investigations for a year now she knows her way around like a verse a quick well she's fast learning the tricks of the trade electro. wires invest.

all of that kind of stuff and it's all available quite a lot of people mainly because obviously they've ration is there is always been there but. i think there is something that is protection that there's nothing really but recently the law governing public surveillance in the u.k. has changed the protection of freedoms that two thousand and twelve was introduced ensuring local authorities obtain legal authorization before they put anyone under surveillance after it was revealed that only we using surveillance the minor matters such as littering to private investigators though no such law exists. so i don't have to go. or thora to from any body of his ordinary surveillance want to want a recent reports by big brother watch documented local authorities who will bypassing regulation by hiring private investigators.

it's why many and now calling for industry licensing i think it's absolutely essential that we have some kind of regulation over private investigators a licensing system that means that we know who exactly is license and means of surveillance that. having spent thirty years in the police force former detective inspector james harrison gryphus knows well the risks of private investigation in the wrong hands you know you've read about the killings and all that sort of thing that go on when people disappear and there's a lot of people disappear. under pressure from from people to do certain things that they don't want to do and then the people who pressure on them want to find them and you've got to do your due diligence and make sure that you're not putting anybody you know in a position of danger but with kill you that cameras listening devices tracking devices and much more you know available cheaply on the high street these days.