between more socialism from chavez's handpicked air or free market capitalism of the opposition candidate r t keeping you up to date with the latest results as they come it. guards at guantanamo bay fire rubber bullets at prisoners we can buy a two month long hunger strike as they resist attempts to move them into isolated cells. moscow banning eighteen americans from entering russia for alleged links to torture and human rights abuses the move a sparrow direct response to washington's earlier unilateral sanctioning of eighteen russian officials on the so-called magnitsky list. north korea continuing a verbal barrage against the u.s. and allies by threatening a nuclear strike on tokyo which russia urges all sides against saber rattling that could have serious consequences.

for am in moscow i met treasury bring you today's top stories in a look back at the week's news here on r.t. our top story polling stations have closed in venezuela after a crunch presidential election triggered by the death of former leader who go chavez last month two widely contrasting chant candidates for people to choose from on the left nicolas maduro who wishes to continue the chavez era socialism on the right opposition candidate enrique kip relays a free market to vote urging closer links with washington parties tessera silly reports from caracas. leading the polls throughout this campaign i've been. the chosen successor of google and many people that i've spoken to who support my growth want to see continuity in all the social programs that are already in place in the country however venezuela is plagued with a lot of problems and the big question there is is does win this election will he be able to solve problems of crime for example shortages inflation of the economy

which people have already been bringing up and these are large shoes to fill for him and he is being watched and scrutinized very closely now second to him is. he is the opposition he's a younger guy who's coming in the polls in new ideas basically many of his supporters. for the past fourteen years and they want something new this is also. someone who is a bit more u.s. friendly will be interesting to see if they will indeed change relations with the united states if he is voted into power. let's not forget the venezuela sitting on the world's largest oil reserves of the world is watching closely how this vast wealth is going to be managed to moving forward but also people tell me that they want answers to all the problems that they see on the ground the biggest concern being prime food shortages again. they want to see answers fast. i'm joined now for more analysis by eric draitser an analyst at stopping period dot com

thanks for joining us so we have nicolas maduro with a big lead going into this race especially from a post chavez bump so to speak do you think that he will be the next president of venezuela or do you think it will be closer than. no i think that there's no doubt that there's going to be a resoundingly victory for nicolas maduro the question has always been not what the margin of victory would be but how the opposition and the outside forces that have been backing the opposition would respond what we've seen in the last couple of days have been accusations already being leveled by the capri lazy and the so-called opposition regarding the the validity of the results and regarding the procedures of the actual election and this is of course a a straw man argument a red herring that was seen a thousand miles away this was predicted by everybody knowing that country less had very little to stand on other than accusations of an unfair election and that is

really the main thrust of what we're seeing in venezuela now the attempted sabotage of the electrical grid and some of the other information that has come out really has amounted to very little and from what we've seen in the results today venezuela is going to have a resoundingly for the ball of aryan revolution and more of the policies of which of as a nicolas maduro do you think the new president will face many challenges though there's a crumbling infrastructure double digit inflation medical shortages food shortages do you think that there could be a different approach maybe that's necessary in the country about. incoming president maduro as approach i think is going to be slightly different than chavez what chavez was able to do in his short period of time this fourteen years in terms of poverty reduction building housing and all of the other tremendous gains by the boulevard and revolution this has come at the cost of focusing on some of the other key issues in the country corruption and when i say corruption i've course been

bureaucratic corruption but also on the streets corruption and violence these are issues which really are at the forefront of the thinking of a lot of the dwellers of the cities in venezuela particularly the middle class and the ministration is already promising to maintain a focus on the question of corruption and violence and then of course continuing to social programs of chavez and what's interesting and what we should also pay attention to is the fact that even capri list has to co-opt the language of the movement of the ball of aryan revolution promising to expand social spending that tells you all you need to know about the mindset the political and economic mindset of the people of venezuela they don't trust me a liberal capitalism and capri less represents precisely that and now the death of chavez left the country vastly polarized do you think that there could be further divisions following this election. well there certainly are some divisions within those who support chavez some who believe that the whole of aryan revolution needs

to have a slightly more direct leadership approach versus the the bottom up approach that chavez was more in favor of but these are minor differences the splits within the opposition i think are much more significant and what we've seen is that despite the international pressure the international effort to prop up the opposition it has been what i would considered and many other analysts consider an abject failure stands no chance of victory he is not liked by the venezuelan people because they understand make up real is in the opposition means a return to colonialism and to subjugation under the thumb of the united states. eric draitser thanks for your time thank you just a reminder of all the latest up in the details on what's happening in venezuela to us are so we're following developments at polling stations in the country you can follow her on twitter to find out which candidate will take the country's top job. campaign and again venezuela chooses a new president chavez choice runs against

a free market poster boy for possible venezuela choose after coming down to self-styled socialism or free market model venezuela votes fourteenth. time to break up the sixty eight day long hunger strike at guantanamo bay has ended in clashes between inmates and guards rubber bullets fired detainees resisting attempts by cap administrator to put them in single man units authorities say it's merely a way for the prison staff to control the spread of the strike against conditions at the center. has more. this was apparently a pre-dawn operation that took place hours after the delegates of the international committee of the red cross left the island left guantanamo a statement released by the u.s. military says the guards at guantanamo have fired four rounds at prisoners from non-lethal weapons they say the detainees covered surveillance cameras windows and partitions to prevent the guards from observing them during the ongoing hunger

strike the guards allegedly clashed with the detainees which military officials say led them to move the captives from communal to single cells the military says the detainees used improvised weapons to resist the transfer they say that's when the guards started shooting at the captives one ton of the prisoners have been starving for more than two months now trying to bring public attention to their plight because they sense did mr would rather forget about them the state department closed the office that was working to transfer the remaining captives half of them have been cleared for release their attorneys are saying that the president has been doing all possible to stop the hunger strike they've been force feeding the strikers there were claims that they brought down the temperature in the cells to make it harder to endure the strike and now we hear that they put them in solitary confinement and shots of being fired. represents one of the hunger strikers at the prison so as the measures taken by authorities don't resolve the crisis though. michael counsel who represented by an alleged erik poteat visited him just two days

ago at guantanamo and obeidallah described camp six as looking like a village which had been decimated by some sort of attack with men just walking around very feebly very weak barely unable to have any energy to even communicate with each other it's a very very sad difficult situation and the reaction of the u.s. is the opposite of what it should be this strike the protests this could have been resolved with not violence but by simply agree to allow the men to turn the qur'an says the u.s. government to surrender them so that they did not have to watch them continue to be desecrated and searched. r t keeping an eye on the strike at guantanamo we've been gathering comment from officials lawyers and irrational groups you would have to say in a special section on our website that's at r t v dot com. some

of the u.s. officials involved in shaping the controversial guantanamo policies now find themselves blacklisted by russia moscow releasing the names of eighteen americans it's sanction for alleged links to torture and human rights abuse those drawn up is a direct response to washington adopting the so-called magnitsky list banning eighteen russians from entering the states and freezing accounts they are the move greeted in moscow by a chorus of condemnation and accusations of russophobia from officials your group is going off as more on the latest tit for tat. what we're witnessing now is really a game of political pingpong first washington published a part of its so-called kill list eighteen russian official suspected there of

being connected to human rights violations they have been subjected to various economic and travel sanctions including the ban for them to enter the united states and shortly after this list was published a symmetric reaction came from moscow which published a part of its blacklist of eighteen american officials linked to human rights violations at the guantanamo bay detention center and the violations of the rights of russian citizens outside the center but since both lists have been published only partially we may expect more means to be put on them the american his character was by american lawmakers at the end of last year and was named after city magnitsky an employee of the hermitage capital investment fund he was suspected of fraud he got himself a claim that he had uncovered a massive corruption scheme but he died in prison in two thousand and nine before a court could make a decision on his case moscow has been accusing washington of using his unfortunate

death as a political tool to apply pressure on russia or the foreign ministry's called the mike needs an unfriendly rooster for week a lot we've heard from prime minister dmitry medvedev saying that u.s. authorities have the full right to deny entry visas to anyone without even having to explain why not to mention passing any controversial laws or black lists and many or most russian lawmakers believe that the magnitsky act harms america's own interests is like shooting oneself in the leg so i don't really see the rational for this from the point of your bum administration which claims to be an administrator that is paying attention to multilateralism to international partnerships it was definitely a blow to the relations between moscow and washington and now this is happening ahead of a visit by a senior u.s. foreign advisor to moscow on monday for talks and these lists are definitely not going to make his job any easier stephen cohen

a professor of russian studies at n.y.u. things president obama may fall on hostage to any russian sentiment among some u.s. lawmakers. obama did not want the magnitsky act it was imposed on him by the american congress and a congress that included is own political party the democratic party it's changed and poison the atmosphere it's going to make it harder for example. president obama to make concessions on let's say missile defense to president putin because there is this adage russia doesn't deserve any concessions and i'm guessing that you president putin would like to modify his position on european missile defense and i mention that because it's on the table at the moment it's an important issue that there will be forces in the russian political class that will compromises to the united states so it's not a sideshow. as always we're interested in what you think about the stories we're covering here on r t and we've got our online web poll up right now on our team dot

com we're asking what you think will be coming from all this listing back and forth to tap between moscow and washington and where the lead the majority online voters think that the spot will be nothing more than minor back and forth measures between the both sides and around a fifth think it won't affect the country's ties or relations at all the rest is split between two less optimistic options some saying relations will be severely hit others thinking the spot will bring an end to the so-called reset in u.s. russia relations what do you think go online to argue dot com priced for a vote and submit your comments in the comment section underneath underneath we always like to hear from you.

still ahead a legacy of destruction still and later in the program we take a look at how iraq is still in turmoil a decade after the war that toppled saddam hussein from power was facing the music an online campaign in britain to get the song ding dong the witch is dead to the top of the charts and what's called a quote celebration of margaret thatcher's death sparking huge controversy all that and more still to go. 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. international in the very heart of moscow. spiraling tensions on the korean peninsula taking a turn for the worse after pyongyang for instal launch a nuclear strike against tokyo the north says it would launch a warhead of a japanese capital if any of its missiles get shot down the u.s.

secretary of state in japan now the final leg of his asian tour rallying support against pyongyang's nuclear program this is washington tokyo and seoul indicate talks with the north can only happen if it's ready for denuclearization the apparent deadlock worrying not only to the countries involved but also moscow was artie's alexei arash of ski reports from a lot of boston. the city with a population of around seven hundred thousand people is the closest. to the border with north korea literally two hundred kilometers is the place where the russian the chinese and the north koreans meet at the same course the escalation of tensions on the korean peninsula has led to some serious. in moscow as well because should anything happen between the two koreas especially if nuclear weapons would be involved russia would be one of the first countries affected. by the possible consequences of a nuclear war if we remember the. traces of radiation were felt.

all the way from here all the latest developments in the north korean conflict in the. serious. from the russian president. and for the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. because we are neighbors and if something happens there it will make the. children. but of course not only russia is concerned with the current situation on the korean peninsula the u.s. . if it decides to hold. this would signify that it no longer wants to listen to the international community the most interesting day here clearly will be monday when.

north korea. some reports are suggesting that it's. actually conduct. ten years since the statue of saddam hussein was toppled in baghdad symbolizing the many of the fall of his regime but for most iraqis the promise of a new and better life hasn't been delivered a decade of instability sectarian violence and terrorist attacks claims thousands of lives are jesus the counting of reports from kirkuk the horror of the late dictator has been replaced by fear of the unknown. the iraq war is supposed to be over but these pictures tell a different story chaos and confusion the aftermath of yet another deadly blast here into your kook. this oil rich city has been described as a long line a symbol for the country's most intractable woes escalating violence the conflict

among ethnic and religious groups and the fight over iraq's resources. getting there was our first challenge a group of kurdish soldiers had agreed to take a sin both baghdad and the kurds lay claim to care kook and are sparring over control aside from the danger those entering from the kurdish side need special permission to get past the iraqi checkpoints when have it. road blocks and concrete barriers define the new iraq checkpoints like this one are a dominant feature of life and they are everywhere aside from the household they're also frequent target of attacks for us it was a blatant visual reminder of a country still very much at war. inside your kook we drive quickly to avoid danger we're told to look out for black b.m.w. apparently they've become a favorite for iraq's insurgents who didn't pick the best day to come to roadside bombs exploded here earlier that morning around the same time that baghdad was rocked by a series of deadly blasts but it has been a flashpoint for years now and in the city center it's clear that life doesn't stop

just because of the threats we were expecting empty streets but people continued to go about their business as normal vendors seemed busy families did their shopping beneath the surface there are scars today kirkuk continues to be an incredibly dangerous place shortly after the city without the help of a military escort residents here say that attacks could happen at any time in any place in fact it's not really safe to stay here for too long so let's get inside. we need car want to his family there kurds who say they're happy that saddam is gone but their fear of political repression has been replaced by fear of the unknown. we don't know who the enemy is where women next bomb will go off but it's a daily fears we've got used to it i do small things to feel safer like driving with all the car windows down that way if there's a blast at least the glass won't hurt us. such precautions didn't help sixty year

old mahmoud who says that a decade of war has ruined iraq he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a bomb blast went off injuring his leg for him daily life has become a painful struggle to buy the. hype is what benefit did the your bring democracy only explosions shootings and kidnappings people should feel free to go out and come back safely where is that i can leave but there's no guarantee i'll come back alive. you know it's not about the sectarian differences unfortunately it's book the black the oil and behind this oil is the hidden interests of politicians pawns in a political game playing with their livelihoods and lives for conflicts not of their own making the iraqis we met didn't hate their neighbors or care about who controls the oil just like fall they simply want the peace of mind of knowing they can go out and return to their loved ones alive. r.t.

iraq. and u.s. led mission though has left scars on iraq and some of the worst affected were the young use of unconventional weapons reportedly caused unprecedented levels of birth defects and cancer cases including among children dr all things the u.s. won't be able to fully compensate for the damage. it's clear that though the u.s. spoke of their help provided to iraq after the invasion notably reconstruction education and investments their so-called help resulted in the use of weapons banned by article fifty three of the geneva convention it prohibits any kind of weapon which if used where there is war can affect the areas environment climate and water resources things that occurred in one thousand nine hundred one and then in two thousand and three are true catastrophe that all types of munitions were used of including dispenser weapons bosphorus ammunitions depleted uranium and

chemical weapons all these types of weapons were used intentionally and on a mass scale in iraq this testing out of weapons had disastrous effects in terms of environmental contamination not to be compared even with hiroshima this is by no means an exaggeration this is not my opinion you can look up human rights watch and world health organization reports on the internet radiological monitoring held on the international level your points of radioactive contamination of southern central any of the northern areas of iraq and despite repeated calls and all the reports published by iraqi scientists the us turned a blind eye on the issue. the death of former british prime minister margaret thatcher who passed away monday aged eighty seven to reopen old divisions among the british people while most to grieve her passing socialist students an anticapitalist were joined by x.

miners of london's trafalgar square saturday to bid on a not so fond farewell demonstrators said they stood against the legacy of who during her time at the top of british politics took on the unions and privatized state services her detractors though found creative and provocative ways to show their anger at the marks they say she left an online campaign put the wizard of oz song ding dong the witch is dead at the top of the music charts but the b.b.c. radio show that plays the weekly hit list aired only five seconds of the song as part of a new story out of fear of offending people author and journalist toby young though thinks the song should have been played out of principle. i think it is important it's very poor taste but i don't think that's a reason not to play it i think that we should hold people's rights to free speech and that includes the right to offend people as a conservative and as someone who greatly admired margaret thatcher i absolutely

stand fast to the principle that something shouldn't be banned a song shouldn't be not played because some people find it offensive and if conservatives want this song banned on grounds of taste and decency on the grounds that they're offended it'll be a hostage to fortune because there are plenty of things which conservatives will want to say in future which the b.b.c. may ban decided that she actually always took some satisfaction when her opponents attacked her personally and stooped to low vulgar tactics like this because it meant that they had no other or comments left they were reduced to this because she had a actively beaten them in open debate but i have to say that those of us who are and loved margaret thatcher have made a counterattack and we're buying a song called i'm in love with margaret thatcher by the not sensible and we're hoping that will pick up on which she said to her number one spot. and still to

come. back with a new website and the biggest document release they've ever had the innocent are introducing a new project called cables revealing the u.s. support of some of the world regimes in a few minutes. and the dark history of fascism doing little to stem rising popularity at least in italy where the dire economic situation is pushing pushing some toward radical ideology as a solution in troubled times all that and more still to come stay with us. oh no lazy bureaucratic and trivial censorship strikes again but this time in russia a bill has been signed into law that will put fines on individuals and legal entities

for using vulgar in the media one major flaw of many with this is that they really don't know which words are going to be considered vulgar i guess these words are so awful that they cannot even write them down i'm not naïve there has always been and will always be censorship but this where word list is just silly there is a common expression on the russian internet that russian mainstream media could exploit more and i is ation of society russian t.v. does have all the bloody violent action movies as well as scandalous talk shows which are kind of like freak shows and plenty of reality t.v. where young people pretty much act like subhuman animals in a cage they've got all that so the government is basically saying that if some guy on t.v. comes down twenty people blooded limbs flying that that is totally ok for television unless they come out for bid swear while doing it you can show brainless materialistic dimwits sleeping and fighting with everything that moves on a reality show but if they say that one magic three letter russian word then it is over the line this is not

a logical way to. censorship but that's just my opinion. the international airport in the very heart of moscow. past the hour now thanks for staying with us wiki leaks back in operation launching a new web site packed with the largest amount.