behind bars the guantanamo hunger strike is desperately push on with their protests as activists across the u.s. prepared to rally in support. coin breakthrough the digital currency pushing its way into the financial mainstream boasting freedom from the government control and safety from trimming but is it really risk free. north korea is expected to launch a ballistic missile test any moment the u.n. warning that one wrong step could send the crisis barling out of control even though the world body is failing to resolve the deadlock. international news and comment watching r.t. with make. thursday is expected to become a day of action against across the u.s.

the protests are to support the jail's hunger strikers and to push for the facilities permanent shutdown r.t. spoke to photos of the he spent several years at guantanamo to them in solitary confinement before being released without charge he took part in the previous mass hunger strike there and shared his experience. i was taken in and forced into that thunder forcing intravenous from the fluids into you. and do something silly like put your i don't know how many pouches when you only need maybe one or two an inopportune six or something other there was one guy who was like doing a training medical course i don't know where there was online or not and he decided he was joking about which he needed to use or to use a big one and so forth so they were using me as the guinea pig for four for the for the training so. the person who was putting the needle into me took a long time going to i don't know how many stars they took him on but you know they missed in the midst of a and until they actually found it so either 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 now into its third month a lawyer for one hunger striker has received word that his client tried to take his own life the military denies there have been any recent suicide attempts but clive stafford smith is not convinced we talk to him directly but also through other prisoners he knows the united states today something that is typical unfortunately the soul sorts that come out of that place. and they're taken to hospital for nine days which they did and then they took him back to camp five echo which is the

worst place and growing time of day and they took him there you know what do you do with someone who suicidal you put him in the very worst cell in the entire prison and i'm afraid that illustrates the really terrible lassitude the colonel said he knows how to deal with my clients because he's got children that have will check around and one of my clients said is we need to send the social services round to check on his house because if he's treating his children the way that these prisoners are being treated is a real problem but they do with some of the prisoners they force feed them in the most surrender. you know but that doesn't solve the problem you know you can't take a peaceable true test like a hunger strike which is being done for perfectly valid reasons which i suspect ninety nine percent of the globe group supports that if you are cleared for release you should be released you can't take that force feed people by stuffing tubes up their nose and putting them through even greater agony and think that that's going to solve the problem of they were cutting off would suffer the prisoners and some

of the lawyers raise cain about that they did allow some of the prisoners to get back with some of the prisoners reportedly is still being required to drink water out of the tap and i got a photograph just yesterday of something i have seen many times myself down in guantanamo which is the sign above the taps which says this is not drinking water and it's foul stuff the yellow we are inch color so they wanted to mine mine to concessions but i'm afraid that's not the attitude that taking minutes taking a very very harsh attitude which is doomed to cause greater problems i want to say that this is bad for america it's not just bad for these prisoners is bad for america because we are losing our moral standing in the world when we behave this way. still to come here on r.t. asia is on the edge of the continents keeping a close eye on north korea's widely anticipated missile launch with worried mounting that the defiant move might take place during the pyongyang celebration

season. and they were das of the week zamenhof ghana's stands prospering drugs trade continues to be a massive worldwide killer more than a decade after the u.s. led operation to the taliban. now imagine having money that's free from government control or safe from haircuts and the centralized well there is such a thing it's called bitcoin the cyber currencies value has increased ten fold the sheer surging past two hundred dollars a unit this week its use is seen as a sign of growing skepticism about the existing global financial system peter oliver has the story. these germans are sold on the idea that callings of the gold. and if you're not involved you'll be left behind every day you decide not to use a free and decentralized currency like bitcoin you actually decide for supporting

the existing financial system with its flaws for yet another day created four years ago by an anonymous computer these lines of letters and numbers can be traded to allow instantaneous global purchases without being tied to the rules of existing and discredited financial institutions there is no organization no institution who is able to control or manipulate the whole financial system of bitcoin no banks no central banks. no credit card corporation that means that nobody is charging you any fees nobody can stop you sending money from a to b. like if you would donate one would want to make donations to wiki leaks you can still do that and get high and following growing mistrust of a stop after the botched bailout in cyprus people want their money where governments can't touch it but i think the big huge did a really good job to raise awareness when they seized the bank accounts in cyprus

since then i mean there has been the root of it can craze going on but coins are secure nobody can seize it nobody can freeze an account to get involved you have to download an application called a wallet that you can start to buy them at this bar come digital currency exchange a group once a month to trade their electronic cash and the establishment is happy to take coins as legal tender for any purchase but once you get all set up with the big calling software it becomes a simple as point click and your electronic cash turns into something very real indeed. now more than ever people want to make sure. good day cash is cared for using an online wallet is still a very new concept how safe is it some of them have been hacked some of them have turned out to be fraudulent but i think over time. the operators who survive

providing these kind of services are going to be very diligent about about their security and they're going to have to be very diligent also about maintaining their reputation and if you're a little apprehensive about a currency you can't hold in your hand there's physical callings with an individual code on the back that can be punched into your online account or if you thought that it's a good door or a good starter for people to know what bitcoin is if you present them with one of those because people like to talk. if you would want to give your nephew or a relative a present for for the next ten years one big card with probably the best in a physical form however you buy them with increased skepticism over established currencies we can expect to see more of these sign showing people are open for big business peter all of the. as you had there not report because anything goes nature has made it a target for hackers who have quickly learned how to steal the money early i talk

to you when you move contracts bitcoin markets and he told me that the actual damage is being exaggerated there was a lawsuit twelve thousand five hundred dollars just after christmas from on an individual but in the united states court of the f.b.i. there are three bank robberies today and it was seventy five hundred dollars each each time three times a day three hundred sixty five days a year people still use those facts but at least people with money in those banks do have a guarantee from that bank guarantees my big killings. the article process guarantees your bitcoins and it can't be altered by politics as it will cycle where do you see the big killing in five years ten years when will it be on my computer in my virtual wallet i'm a skeptic when i have it the coins are about two point eight billion dollars right now somebody spent one point four billion dollars the cost crash and they lost that money was probably someone who had a lot of money to lose to see if they could produce this effect you need to have

had about eight billion dollars in circulation or retailers become interested in it so we're about ninety days away from that but there are some forward thinking retailers that are looking toward accepting that quine about eleven million bitcoins have already been found another ten million will be found over the rest of history and most of what we've found with the next three years we're going to take a quick break now but when my back we will examine why international diplomacy has lost its luster when dealing with north korea and how eleven years if nato action in afghanistan has done little to dent deadly drugs trying to stay with us. he became a symbol of the nine hundred ninety s. he personified the russian mafia in the kremlin. he was a twentieth century arrest buton. in just a few years he rose from junior was a multi billionaire and senior politician. is decline was as rapid as his

meteoric rise and ended in exile his death is now as mysterious as his life. better. thanks.

again north korea could launch a ballistic missile test at any moment so says south korea's foreign minister. that we're adding that at least one ballistic missile is ready for blast off from north korea's east coast yang will conduct a launch to mark a series of national occasions. there's a is the first and if the leader kim jong un becoming first secretary of the workers' party country will also be celebrating the birth of its founder kim il sung next monday a day which usually features a showcase of military strength careen and u.s. forces have been on increased military alert for japan's deployed patriot missile interceptors in tokyo antiwar activists brian becker says the u.s. is trying to destroy historical political ties between pyongyang and china by creating a military confrontation. i personally believe it was very regrettable that the

united nations security council adopted a resolution putting all of the blame in the onus on north korea in imposing economic sanctions and i believe the united nations has to be independent of the united states if it's going to be really a force for peace if it serves just as a fig leaf for the united states then the united states will use the u.n. as it did in one nine hundred fifty to launch its own aggression against korea the obama administration is taking the bush administration policy of provocation escalation increased tension to a whole new level they want to create pressure on china to break china away from its historic relationship with north korea by creating a military confrontation or a near confrontation the united states is saying to the chinese look the stakes are very high time for you to change time for you to abandon your your ally in north korea and i think they think that there that could be the the prescription the precursor to regime change in north korea if they could break china away china

doesn't want to do that although you can see the debate going on right now within the chinese establishment. the u.n. is worried that any wrong steps in the crisis could spin the situation on the korean peninsula and control the organization it's failing to bring the sides to the negotiating table raising questions i would see influence or usefulness as an international peace broker kevin and i have across he broke down the diplomatic side of the issue. on the one hand we've got a rogue state operating in a defacto nuclear state operating with a bomb and on the other we've got a un which has either fails to reach out to north korea appropriately and bring it into the international community. and is conspicuous by its absence perhaps in a situation like. just the other day warning of it spiraling out of control the danger of that but what is practically being done what we do know is that the international institutions that have diplomatic institutions that would be normally be responsible for bringing north korea back into the fold have failed to do so

north korea walked out of the end. six plus one talks in two thousand and nine and the u.n. other than sanctioning north korea has failed to come up with any concrete diplomatic solution to reach in to the mysterious stage and to bring it back into the fold so what is going on behind the scenes is there fever diplomacy or not well north korea famously enjoys bilateral relations with china and russia and there may indeed be contacts going be going through those channels we can say for sure that china is upset with north korea i think there's a why general recognition that china north korea is a close relationship is starting to disintegrate particularly because this saber rattling that we're seeing from north korea has brought very aggressive united states into china's front garden now it should also be mentioned now whether this is coincidence or not. live up to others to judge but nato secretary general

rasmussen is also in seoul at the moment. conducting meetings with with his south korean partners that may be seen as an inflammatory meeting by the north koreans it may not. the nato led conflict in libya designed to instill the democratic base has still left the country in turbulence even beyond its borders online we details of a new u.n. report that says the middle east and africa are now being fed with streaming from libya which are fueling warfare in syria and. also online making the most of moscow's record snow this winter president putin is being pictured giving his two dogs and playful exercise the gallery you can see at r.t.

dot com. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are on the day. we speak your language or not at the. program some documentaries in spanish matters to you. but we'll turn to bangalore stories. here. to. find out more visit.

afghanistan's drugs trade is flourishing despite the eleven years that have passed since the u.s. kicked off its operation enduring freedom even with the taliban force from power the illicit industry still killing thousands of people around the world. now examines the deadly multi-million dollar trend which shows no signs of slowing down . people around the world do to you and that's in just over a decade from when the us led its enduring freedom campaign to rid the country of the tyranny of the taliban while the regime came crashing down it was quite the opposite for the drugs trade and with russia now ranked the highest consumer that's got the authorities worried blueboy distributors the heroin production in

afghanistan has risen dramatically since our original enduring freedom was conducted in two thousand and one it's forty times higher now any impartial observer would admit that the international community has failed to rectify the situation with drug production and in fact russia's drug control trip has described production and afghanistan as planetary and the figures prove it illegal or poor in farming in afghanistan since two thousand and one has been on a constant rise increasing by twenty times in the last twelve years have gone count in a call to officials say they spray an estimated one hundred fifty seven thousand hectares of land have been illegally used to grow opium poppies that's the size of a major european city like london in each of the nine growing seasons there has been more open poppy cultivation than during any single year of the taliban's rule the fields have expanded everywhere throughout afghanistan in the south of the

country the rise was not dramatic but that's only because these regions have remained the biggest drug growing areas so there is simply less room to expand and the country's east bordering pakistan the land sitting by opium poppies is now ten times larger this is just one of the country's many gates from where afghan drags pass through on their way to every part of the globe to pakistan iran middle east turkey central asia russia europe central. easton western europe africa and both americas interestedly in two thousand and eleven officially the country exported three hundred seventy six million dollars worth of trash and dried fruits spices carpets for that same year the u.n. estimates the country's operating mean comes to that one point four billion dollars the lion's share of these money obviously goes to district officials insurgents warlords and drug traffickers while the people get instability and poor teens to

add a third of the country's thirty five million strong population is jobless and more than twelve million people live below poverty line it seems the u.s. led enduring freedom operation all those years ago has left the afghan people with more than freedom to endure. our team moscow. a quick look at some other world news now mass rallies outside congress in washington d.c. cross party senators race to finish an immigration deal it's expected to fast track eleven million illegal immigrants on the path to gain citizenship in this june to be adopted in the coming days tens of thousands protested over the sluggish pace of the reform bill would also tighten border security and require employers to check their workers immigration status. u.s. prosecutors must prove the soldier bradley manning knew of his disclosure of state secrets would harm america and benefit hostile nations but was the ruling made it

a pretrial hearing in mary land manning's custody some twenty ten and his pleaded guilty to ten of the twenty two charges against him a u.s. navy seal who was reportedly part of this war that killed osama bin laden is to testify that he found release data in the form of al qaeda leader's compound. in paris human rights activists staged a mass demonstration against homophobia and in support of its victims it follows sunday's brutal attack of a gay man in the french capital after which a picture of a shocking injuries went viral on the internet the protesters claim that homophobic assaults have increased as opposition has grown to an imminent law to allow same sex marriage and adoption in france. a rights groups warning that series air force is carrying out both civilian and indiscriminate attacks as a serious violation of international law both the government and the armed

opposition have long been accused of violations during the two year conflict the u.s. though is considering widening aid to the rebels in the fight against prison to sad well r.t. spoke to a syrian presidential advisor who says western powers are only fueling the fire. the syrian crisis has a regional and international level and the less these store lovers are sorted out and the less there is a real intention to stop the crisis it's very difficult to stop it inside syria because it's not a crisis that is only in syria but it is a crisis that's being threatened are financed by both regional and international forces there was the inside does not really live out to what it says so even if they say i don't leave i leave the weapons you know all the letters that back that are happening in syria over the killing zone because of not being or the problem that our children our women are facing

a horrible humiliating conditions and refugee camps and did you and your men all this they consider it you know non-lethal they say we support geneva agreement geneva communique the first i didn't ingenue work communique is to stop violence by all sides and yet they feed violence. and that interview with president assad's advisor is in stories on air in full at six forty five pm g.m.t. now ahead a close look at the colorful life and sudden death of boris berezovsky the fast rising former russian oligarch became a vocal critic of the kremlin. with

oil pipes bursting in arkansas people across the u.s. so you start to realize that they are moving towards what the atlanta calls the infrastructure cliff in short america's infrastructure start to get a bit old and according to infrastructure poor car dot org the us sick. about three point six trillion dollars of infrastructure spending by twenty twenty to turn things around the site sponsored by the american society of civil engineers gave all aspects of american infrastructure like bridges and drinking water and schools cetera some pretty bad grades except for solid waste removal for some reason in their opinion everything in the us is going to crap except for america's ability to throw solid crap away i'm not trying to sit here and scare you there is nothing to fear this is a big challenge but it is a very possible one to accomplish according to cost of war dot org the last ten years of war have cost about three point one trillion dollars just cutting wars in half by fifty percent could put a huge dent in the infrastructure spending and what about all those billions in bailout that were spent you see the money is there it just gets wasted if the money

stops getting thrown away and starts getting spent a well planned infrastructure then the infrastructure will start paying for itself rock'n infrastructure creates wealth so don't fear the infrastructure cliff just stop wasting money or allowed politicians to waste money and everything will turn out to be just fine but that's just my opinion.

they called him the face of business and government. he was a gambler. heading the russian mafia inside the kremlin it was enough to just raise eyebrows to make gangsters appear. he was the great cardinal of russian politics he was a big time political adventurer some even called him a latter day rest butin the embodiment of evil in boris yeltsin's presidential

caught him i suppose to put on a grieving face and talk about people across the country mourning his demise on the contrary i moderates that his death has attracted so much attention. figure in russian business exemplified nine hundred ninety s. russia he made millions while his country starved he was the subject of several books and the basis for many crime movie villains and i picked qualities of people i knew. or was influenced by. them. to create entirely new persona you always come up with a car. reminding you of someone and yes it was part of that. created but he said. probably borrowed some of his biographical details and. personality

traits he wanted to be a living legend in his lifetime in that he succeeded his sudden death is as big a mystery as his rapid rise to the peak of russian business and government. the english town of ascot forty kilometers from london has a population of about eighteen thousand famous horse races frequented by. the country's elite now it has a new claim to fame where boris berezovsky spent his final years before a mysterious death. one pm what's that was the other you got for me what you deserved he says to himself as he looks at us from the other world you know. he died in poverty at the age of eight.