one hundred days of hunger at guantanamo bay dozens of inmates are now in hospital all being force fed with no end in sight to a protest dubbed as the last resort to report extensively this hour on the hunger strike and where it's heading. well is full of detainees next prosecutors hope one time i explain here at all to you the stakes at play what it is that's pushing the prisoners to such desperate measures. woods but no action from washington. once more to try and close down the infamous facility hopes remain.

online on screen international news and comment line from a studio center here in moscow. well today marks a dark milestone in the history of the world's most maligned prison one hundred days of a mass hunger strike at guantanamo bay. out of one hundred sixty six inmates one hundred thirty are on strike according to prisoners while the military only admits to one hundred and two at least a third of them being force fed a procedure recognized by various medical organizations as painful enough to constitute torture and by all accounts there is no end in sight to the protests prisoners say that this is the only way for them to be heard having been forgotten in the halls of washington the hunger strikers are seeking an end to indefinite

detention and for president obama to keep his promises and shut down the facility that is going to explains. after years of the national injustice and indifference and after more than three months of starvation one tunnel detainees have finally got the president's attention i'm going to go back apis they've heard these words before as president i will close guantanamo reject the military commissions act and if you go to the geneva conventions and now again it needs to be closed now congress and again as many times before the white house if it were sponsibility to congress there's much he can do administratively without congress without having a legislative act even under current restrictions the administration has the power to use national security waivers to release many of these men which it hasn't used it's the charge that well the fear that if you

release some of these prisoners that have been accused of being terrorist in the past and and they do something else or you find them going into terrorist organizations you will pay a heavy political price for that so many of these men have fallen victim not just to their wrongful capture but also to u.s. politicians assumptions of what they may or may not do in the future but you can't you can't will people to maybe you know this is a we're not future police here so far the administration's only response to the question is of course carnival has been to force feeding troops down detainees nostrils the fact of the matter is that when an individual makes a decision of sound mind makes the decision to refuse food as a political protest then as we said in a joint statement it is not open to the states in a second chance to force them to do each. and the force feeding him involves the insertion of a tube of some significant dynamic diameter through the nasal passages and into the

stomach in the most horrible of circumstances the un special rapporteur on human rights also told me that he was encouraged to hear the. once again expressed commitment to close the infamous prison president of the united states has kuantan a moser problem and yet on the ground for some reason the camp administration continues to treat these men and humanely and to deny them basic dignity for years the administration has been gauged in. legal acrobatics to justify its inaction on guantanamo and still not clear how long before people there start dying but one thing is clear the elephant in the room just too big to ignore in washington i'm going to shut down. well joining me now to discuss the standoff is former guantanamo detainee muslim beg he's now the director of the cage prisoners activist group joining me live in birmingham in the u.k. . in guantanamo for many years from your experience how did the authorities deal

with this sort of disobedience. well clearly it's something that they do not want to get the light of publicity but in fact that's exactly what's going on the prisoners are hunger striking precisely for that that reason and that is that they've been held without charge or trial for eleven years and everything else becomes peripheral after that they then it's a strange situation where torture is peripheral where force feeding is peripheral where the fact that you've not had meaningful communication with your family is peripheral the fact that you are sexually abused and when your searched every time your lawyer comes the fact that your privilege is between you or your lawyer and yourself are not. regarded as something proper all of these things become peripheral to the to the very important issue why these people are under striking that is that they want to go home and be with their families and live out the rest of their lives what remains of the rest of their lives and of course the report

mentioned that people are going to die in kuantan a more nine people have already died in kuantan or more so the only way they were released was in a coffin. this one let me just ask you let me just ask you i spoke to a spokesman of the camp and agree with you that those prisoners all they want to do is go home they want their freedom their situation is desperate he is saying that they will say anything to get that freedom so is there an element of perhaps exaggeration of their plight. well look let's let's see this right these people are the most vetted people on the planet they have been interrogated by the cia by the british intelligence services by the f.b.i. and a whole host of intelligence agencies what i why are they keeping these men if they're not going to charge them if they're not going to prosecute them they're not going to release them what are they going to do with them and nothing can be more exaggerated than hearing that your child who you've never seen in your life is now going to be eleven years old that's not exaggerated that's a truth teller small or a marketing psychological impact what is the psychological impact on detainees

after all of this while clearly you know all of these people like everybody else are human beings and human beings are social animals they spent years in solitary confinement several of them out of almost lost their mental faculties others have lost half their body weight they have no meaningful communication with the most important thing in their lives and that's their families in some cases as i said several have never seen their children and others their children are so young they don't even remember what their fathers looked like so the psychological impact is very destructive and i ask this question of anybody of obama or anybody else you're going to release them but after eleven years once they go back to their homes their families will not recognize them they're going to enter into a situation where they simply didn't exist in the family continued without them there will be reintegrated to this day i have been hunger strikes before now there's certainly getting there's a lot of media coverage on this current strike do you think that washington and the prison authorities will be swayed by this latest strike now. i think there clearly

have been because obama's there reiterated his so-called promise to close the place down i've heard just recently today that they're talking about finding a real tangible way to send the yemenis home in the yemenis of course constitute more than half of the prisoners. at guantanamo know that's going to take place i will hold my breath i won't hold my breath and rather until that happens but clearly when the president saying he's looking for a way and congress keeps blocking him he needs to just override what congress is saying because they keep saying these people are going to be recidivist are going to go back and start fighting against the united states which is just pure nonsense because six hundred thirteen plus have been released and the overwhelming majority of us particularly ones in the european countries are living our lives as normal people just briefly you've told us about the psychological effects of indefinite detention also the allegations of torture there in the prison but i spoke to the spokesman yesterday he was saying the conditions were pretty good the satellite t.v. they're a communal areas what exactly are the conditions like you've been there tell us

what they are like inside the cells you have the condition that these people have gone through that these people are going through a whole series of different types of prisons from being in a in a prison massacre and killer genndy from being in kandahar ground where people tortured to death to guantanamo is camp x. ray where they were in chicken wire friend tenses to camp delta to now comes five six and seven so it has changed it's been a progression and the and the steady and rapid. eating away the erosion of their personal psyche has taken its toll so if at the end of this process now they put them into a decent prison with some decent living standards it doesn't take away from the fact of the past eleven years the torture the abuse the call inhuman and degrading treatment all that has happened and simply if you say to a person i'm going to detain you without charge or trial for eleven years and torture and abuse you and at the end of it i'm going to give you a relatively decent prison cell and then said tell the whole world well it's all ok now nobody would ever accept that and i don't know what would except for the point of them. thank you very much indeed for joining us live now. bag spent many years

and cost raises in guantanamo thanks for joining us live from the u.k. where we've heard from a former inmate but now let's discuss the protest with someone directly in involved with the legal process joining me for that is attorney carrie i the legal representative of eight granted a mode to tell you these parties it's been three months now of hunger strike we're marking the one hundredth day now what state do you know you'll clients are in now . you know and i think that they are actually even more determined to continue their strike there was a point at the very beginning when this all happened when there might have been a way of resolving the strike there were specific demands that the men's wear that the men were making a connection with their korans i think that camp ministrations response since that in terms of conditions at the camps denying what's happening defending their actions entirely have actually just deep into the minds result to continue and one

of one point i want to correct as a factual matter is conditions at guantanamo right now are not decent they are not you have most of them now and they are what we've been protesting for for over three months in conditions of solitary confinement so there is not only a problem the definite illegal detention without charge at one time right now but a question of serious serious questions about the united states is compliance with the geneva conventions in terms of humane treatment that they are in twenty to twenty four hour solitary confinement right now i'm not about their medical condition being force fed so presumably they're not going to die. well that's what the military has said is you know don't worry we will force feed these now and they won't die you know the spokesperson for just recently said himself that force feeding is not a long term solution expecting that men will subsist for a prolonged period of time on liquid formula is not sustainable and the

spokesperson for guantanamo said self that's separate from the question of the ethics of force feeding and it's very clear if you talk to any any international human rights expert that it is a clear any medical expert it's a clear violation of international ethical medical standards so it's not only. a violation not sense but it's just it's not sustainable it's not a long term solution to think ministration can deal with this crisis by force feeding people there are now at least thirty people who are being forced that the numbers will continue to grow it's by our our our clients' accounts they continue their strike which i all indications we've had from them they will continue and the problem is just going to get worse as president obama said himself there needs to be action immediately or not let me quickly also you talked about the sort of confinement in the very poor conditions there what about these latest reports we're getting of invasive pat downs restraint and tim addition all your clients experiencing any of this and they tell me about that. they are what we've been

hearing about humiliating invasive body searches every time the men are brought out of the camp for appointments with attorneys for a phone calls for family members and the results of that was going for many mental decline those visits which not only deepens their isolation but it cuts off access to their attorneys to family members to people from the outside i think what we're seeing as a deliberate tactic. to to break the strike i think these these toxic tactics of science where you can find meant whose body searches among other things have been used to pressure the men to break the strike that it wasn't that. let me just quickly also there are actually. people watching this may be very confused because you lawyers many of you we spoke to on this program and the authorities you're all painting very different pictures of what's happening there so some people were saying it's difficult to know who to believe but we assume you're part of the legal system we trust you and you have actually been there through the camp you know i think that there is actually a lot that we agree on that is i'm just you know which is one of the background for

this protest is now here been held for over eleven years without charge that eighty six of them most of them have been cleared by this administration to leave and if that is the fabric of what is happening right now in terms of conditions right now that members there was a fight about how many people were on strike the military itself right now is saying it was one hundred on strike over thirty being forced that and the conditions of solitary confinement are things that if they kept going to strange that was said themselves as well as the body searches so there is actually at this point not very much we disagree about actually. and i think there's actually in terms of the white house and what has been said not very much that we disagree about in terms of what needs to happen one time among needs to close president obama said that himself what needs to happen now urgently is action to back up those words attorney from the center for constitutional rights thank you very much indeed also representing clients our gentlemen thank you very much indeed for your thoughts here on our team. well there hasn't really been any major official

reaction from washington over this crisis in quantum of course we're getting plenty of reaction from you on our website we're ask you on our front page in our online poll dot com way you think this hunger strike could be heading what is it going to achieve what we can see here on screen at moment the fifty five percent just just over half of you believe this could lead to the conditions worsening for the prisoners there just over a third believe that there is every chance now of prisoners dying of hunger and just a minority slightly more optimistic over the situation saying that perhaps this could lead to the eventual closure of guantanamo prison or perhaps at least lead to some concessions four percent believe this could be some concessions available for the prisoners or at least those who are detained without charge released that's your point of view good to hear from you. well i'll be back with more for you in just a couple of minutes as we continue our coverage of the crisis at guantanamo stay with us this is r.t. in moscow. choose

your language. make it without any financial literacy to come up. with the consent to. choose the opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories that if you. choose access to your. sigrid laboratory. was able to build the most sophisticated.

fortunately doesn't give a. mission to teach creation why it should care about humans. this is why you should care only. extensive coverage of the hunger strike in guantanamo bay now in its one hundredth day for some insight from somebody who's actually there at the moment we have on the military attorney lieutenant colonel barry wing god he's on the phone from the detention camp. two months ago i spoke to you describe your client as being in a very sorry state what is his condition now. well let me tell you the first part like to thank our teeth for the expense of covering a story we told you back in february of two hundred straight back when campus officials were denying it. i think that we we can one time will be visiting with my

clients on multiple different meeting his condition is extremely bad. it's physical condition is deteriorating in front of my eyes you've been hung for a few minutes for depression you know for approximately three weeks the report is fine if you're infected that he feels weak but the formula is that they're putting him in body and making him either way but it's a kind of a feeling that he's in his mind they're adding more than. likely to need to to make it in front of him. from this position looking outwards from guantanamo bay i can tell you that pretty bleak and not getting better customer service about what he's saying side can you just tell us you're saying you're looking out from guantanamo bay from the detention center at the moment what you see inside because i spoke to a spokesman yesterday said the conditions really quite normal satellite t.v.

communal air is it really is not as bad as everybody saying it is true. well let me tell you there's a strategy going on here in guantanamo bay it's a two fold strategy one is a public relations effort by the campus each year old to invite any media outlet in the willing to tell only their story and c.n.n. is doing a real fine job this week of not interviewing a single prisoner and regurgitating exactly what the camp officials here want you to take here the second part of the strategy seems to be the behind the scenes crackdown where we have the vast majority of prison prisoners in lockdown where we see these new light the searches for speeding to be considerably more and more aggressive as we go into there's a two part strategy one is a public relations strategy and then the second is the behind the scenes crackdown that they're trying to hide the american media is more than willing to participate and only get half of the story and report from american people and it's

a complete story without ever having interviewed a single person but they seem to be failing in hiding they seem to be failing on on hiding what's going on behind the scenes because we're talking to the likes of you who are actually there we're talking to a lot of lawyers who have visited the camp and told us about the conditions so now do you think perhaps that could be a sea change in opinion even hillary clinton said yesterday that the eighty six oakley of relief should go free do you think this media coverage now in the attention that the likes of you adore into this plight is now having an effect. well the thing is again i'm going to say the second time i think our team in the great reporting that you guys have done but for you i think that the mainstream media is more than willing to forget about the whole situation on the issue of the eighty six let me just say this part of the manning one i'm a big one hundred sixty six more than ninety five percent have no charges more than ninety percent of the men here have no charges so when they talk about the the

eighty six cleared individuals i would argue that even broader and that indefinite detention is moral and illegal so when they think anything i think to them either charge the commander eleven unhappier or you send them back at their own countries like kuwait the rehabilitation center so when you start talking to me about there is no place within these men clearly not true it's just a talking point and we need leadership from washington all right so here that leadership obama he has promised to try and shut down guantanamo again but there's disagreement on whether he can actually do that you've been involved in this for years do you think a bomber will have the political clout and spine to do this. let me tell you first of all if the administration wants to blame congress then i think they're wrong under the national defense authorization act the president has the ability through the secretary of defense to sign a waiver to get some of these women out of here he can do it without congress

that's one of the obama administration we believe needs to do more than top if there we're clearly talking about doping another office in the state department that's going to be some bureaucratic layer down from the white house they know it's not going to work we don't need another delusional free what we need at the white house level envoy who can get things done beyond the bureaucracy of the department of defense and state department so we need a high level person to get this thing started and i think that would be a step towards ending hunger strike and setting colonel barry when god minutes return the rank as judge advocate general live from guantanamo itself thank you very much and david time. well the cost to guantanamo however a soaring keeping the prisoners hells isolated and under total control doesn't come cheap u.s. taxpayers are now shelling out nine hundred thousand dollars a year for every inmate and there are one hundred sixty six of them what's worse

that cost is likely to grow given new bills presented by force feeding doctors and medication is alexy at a chef city with an explanation of the practice. what i'm about to describe to you is not torture these are the details of force feeding by prison guards in guantanamo which were made public in the leaked report first of all the feeding process itself involves handcuffs and mask and the long tube the inmates are cuffed to a chair then a guard covers their head with a mask officially to prevent spitting and biting and insert its you into their nose prisoners have reported several cases where they nearly suffocated because the tube was pushed too deep into their nostril once this is over inmates are taken to their cell where they are forbidden from drinking water or vomiting the nutritional liquid there is even a special guard who oversees that the inmate keeps it all inside if they do for up they are punished by being placed in a restraint chair to break this hunger strike prison authorities have attempted to separate the protesting inmates over one hundred men have been thrown into solitary

cells to as it was put by prison officials prevent them from achieving solidarity it seems this move did not bear fruit despite the core of the protesters being isolated from other prisoners the number of hunger strikers has only increased the medical condition of some of them has seriously deteriorated but they complain that they are not receiving proper medical assistance reports from within the walls of guantanamo suggest that prison doctors blindly follow the orders of the military rather than acting according to their medical oath something that violates international acknowledged rights of a prisoner but those fortunate enough to have had the doctor's attention hardly feel in safe hands according to the experts the choice of medication is somewhat bewildering at the various health conditions caused by a lengthy hunger strike but rather to facilitate force feeding one of the drugs used is fairly grand which deals with north sea of vomiting and it can also act as a sleep aid another one is reglan which treats heartburn and known for neurological

side effects after long term use and all of that is added to the prison guards acting without the consent of inmates who legally have the right to refuse medical treatment but in the case of guantanamo there is a special rule which puts force feeding on the same level as forced medical aid. well we now have the opportunity to get some insight into the stagnating legal process and granted it with someone who was initially in charge joining me is colonel morris davis he's a former chief prosecutor for the terrorism trials at guantanamo bay colonel davis you're involved in this setting up of guantanamo as the chief prosecutor and now you want to see it closed down an extraordinary u. turn all of sentiment there why well guantanamo has been nothing but a black eye for the u.s. i mean if you recall back in two thousand and one when the decision was made to to use guantanamo detention facility it was selected because there were people that thought it was outside the reach of the law and it would be the perfect law free

zone to exploit people for intelligence it was supposed to be a temporary facility in two thousand and six when i was there we had a proposal to build a complex for about one hundred twelve million dollars that we intended to use for five years so until two thousand and eleven we thought everything would be finished and it would be closed and here we are in two thousand and thirteen it just keeps going on and on so it's just been a you know an embarrassment to the country it's drained our credibility has wasted our money and it's time for it to close so you saying it's no longer fit for purpose what do you make of the allegations of torture and the harsh conditions there for the inmates was it like that when you were there well. you know what i was there was and you know i got there in two thousand and five i think the worst of the conditions were two thousand and two two thousand and three you know in that timeframe by the time i came on board in two thousand and five it was after the supreme court had ruled that the detainees had a right to habeas corpus in attorneys were allowed to visit and i think that in a beginning to shine

a light on guantanamo i think improve the conditions i think the conditions today that i mean the president is left with two bad choices it's for speeding one hundred one hundred two people on hunger strike almost two thirds of the detainees population thirty that are being force fed are about twenty percent and you know clearly you know forcing it to down someone's nose and into their stomach and strap in a minute chair is. against medical ethics it's against international law and it's certainly not you know the route that america ought to be taking the other choice is to sit and watch people die which is a bad choice as well so the administration really needs to choose that third option and end this hunger strike by paying attention to the detainees in repatriating the ones that have been cleared for transfer out so that people there see that they're not forgotten there is light at the end of the tunnel and that the obama administration is not abandoning so obama could close this down quite easily if he

had the political courage to do it or is his hands being tied by congress and other political structures. yeah you know one thing i've learned is that you know both the left in the right get really angry when they talk about guantanamo because i can tell you like on twitter i get a lot of hate mail from the pro obama crowd who says you know how dare you blame him it's not his fault congress did this you know congress has made it difficult but there still is a process where the president if he had the backbone of could have the secretary of defense signed the waivers that are authorized on the national defense authorization act and begin transferring people out even the attorney general eric holder yesterday when he was being grilled by congress acknowledged that congress has put up impediments but they've not made it impossible if the president had the will to do it it's fun to leave even those who are held without charge if they are released is abominable word that if they all release they all considered dangerous

because they're there in the first place could they perhaps maybe re-offend or inspire others and then he'll be held responsible for that for being irresponsible . well you know when you get elected president you're supposed to be a leader of the free world and that requires taking some risk in standing up and leading you know the bucks got to stop somewhere and it stops with the president who's got to make these kind of decisions if we're waiting to reduce the risk to zero will never get other good where there's a new study out by the new america foundation i believe came out last week that shows that the recidivism rate and there's been a lot of dispute about detainees returning to the battlefield so to speak they find that the recidivism rate in there using a very broad definition of recidivism is about eight and a half percent so if you release detainees from guantanamo it's inevitable that some are going to go back and do bad things but it's just fundamentally un-american to keep one hundred sixty six people in confinement you know eighty six that have

been cleared for transfer that we have said we don't need to keep just because there's a chance that one of them is going to go back and do something stupid journal morris davis thank you very much for your thoughts joining us live from the u.s. kind of morris davis former chief prosecutor for the terrorism trials at guantanamo thank you for being with us welcher authorities have a single time of may deny allegations of widespread abuse and mistreatment the spokesman for the president navy captain robert g. randall spectrum yesterday he says the highly criticized force feeding procedure is legal and necessary to keep the inmates on life. policies of the united states life through lawful means we have currently thirty are. doing. but it's not a procedure that's done in hospitals and nursing homes every day sustaining life she lawful means lawful if they get to about eighty five percent below that below

eighty five percent of body weight some damage could be done we will do the involuntary feeding it's not the detainees job to tell the truth the lawyers just repeat. they're not they're not going to experience temperatures they're not being denied food and water the conditions are good as they can possibly be you know they had satellite television and they had communal living get all kinds of good things . but the picture drawn by the guantanamo bay spokesman contradicts what detainees lawyers are saying federal public defender colace warner i spoke to him he represents a hunger strike in prison and he pointed out that the military had always been forthcoming with the truth. the military's all wrong and they're doing all the things to drive in the wrong direction remember this is the same military that denied a strike was going on for a long time so the military has no credibility on the issue you have innocent men in solitary confinement and the military now has began new procedures like

searching the men's genital areas before they come to talk to lawyers their they've never done this before they've employed this as a tactic to try to keep the men away from the lawyers and it's this is so transparent that they have no credibility on the issue i choose to ignore them and focus on the president because the president needs to step in here to not only hand and the hunger strike but more importantly to close guantanamo and he can still do it. well let's take a look now at the timeline of the guantanamo standoff according to inmates the hunger strike began on the sixth of february for the next month the military denied any protest was going on lawyers though described their clients as lethargic and delirious with more and more joining in it was only mid march that the military admitted to a strike and detainees began to tell of harsh force feeding techniques water deprivation isolation in cold cells in mid april there was a military raid on a public soul block with gunfire being reported for the first time in guantanamo

history the prisoners were split up in an apparent effort to force an end to the protest or towards the end of april the military dispatched a further forty more medics to guantanamo and at the end of april barack obama finally acknowledged the strike describing the situation as problematic and valuing again to try to close the camp well and he worthington he's an investigative journalist who's written extensively on guantanamo bay prison says the inmates became the victim of political games in washington. well the conditions for them are terrible in the sense that they have literally been abandoned by all three branches of the united states government so since president obama failed to keep his promise to close the prison within a year that was in january two thousand and ten they have been unable to to see any future for them selves apart from staying in guantanamo forever and of course you know what what underpins the horror of this is that half of these men over half of these men were cleared for release by an interagency task force that the president

himself has stablish but he then imposed a ban on releasing two thirds of them because they yemenis after a failed bomb plot and christmas two thousand and nine and the rest of them and in fact all of the men in general have had their release blocked or made extremely difficult by congress so it's become a game of political football cynically i think lawmakers are preventing prisoners from being released and the president himself has been unwilling to expend political capital on an issue that isn't popular enough with the voters so you know the hunger strike it's taken the hunger strike for the prisoners to get noticed a lot has been following the hunger strike from the very beginning before the u.s. authorities even admitted it was taking place we've been gathering comments from prison officials detainees attorneys and activists to give you a full account of the situation all that plus the timeline on the protest available right now on our website dot com. hunger

strike despair pushed to the limits. a little nearly one hundred one ton of the detainees are screaming for justice. where is the end for good. still to come for you this front steps into a second recession as it was in europe's financial slump damaging president already tarnished reputation even. the day the music died u.k. citizens could feel the full brunt of the british record industry as it looks to clamp down on file sharing websites. so that is all still to come for you in about fifteen minutes from now the meantime attash is here with me in the studio. with a business update of course what is this story about u.s. regulators attacking those virtual currencies like bitcoin well it's absolutely

true basically the united states is now applying the money laundering law to these currencies saying that they are linked to criminals i'll tell you why that might be happening in the business bill after a short break just once. a fairly dickinson university study has revealed a twenty nine percent of americans think that a revolution won't just happen in america but needs to be done in order to protect individual liberty if respondents consider themselves conservative than that number is bumped up to forty four percent that's nearly half also fox news found out that since nine eleven the percent of americans willing to sacrifice their personal freedom to reduce the threat of terrorism is at an all time low this number might sound trivial but it only takes a tiny percent of the population actually start a revolution i mean how many communists were in russia at the start of nine hundred

seven. and how many were there at the end revolution may sound like a nice thing to a growing number of people but the media wrongly portrays revolution as some fun video game battle where freedom fighters topple the statue of the dictator and then democracy just instantly comes about and life is good and happy i don't ask you to ignore movies like v. for vendetta and look at history revolutions cause horrible destruction that could take decades to repair i guess what when your economy collapses because a revolt infrastructure breaks down and the shelves go bare also professional revolutionaries get their supplies from somebody and a foreign powers would have say funded barrack and revolutionaries they would want something in return aloha and goodbye alaska if you look at history then you'll see that revolution is brutal and ugly and it's truly the last resort but still is a resort but that's just my opinion.

thirty eight minutes past ten pm here in moscow welcome to business with me now. one of the fastest growing alternative investment tools virtual currencies are under attack the united states is applying money laundering rules to these currencies claiming that they are used to fund illicit activities the most popular currency is the bitcoin it's decentralized digital money that can be used to pay and get paid anywhere in the world since bitcoins they use peer to peer technology with no central authority regulating the process some say they pose a real threat to central banks of developed economies i asked warwick business school professor john russian if there's absolutely any evidence to support the claim that virtual currencies a link to criminals. as far as i can establish there are there is no evidence because coin is a fascinating currency if you can call it

a currency indeed it challenges our notions of what of what a currency is and really to sort of say that you know a currency per se is is bad because it can fund activities good and bad well you know to draw the comparison you know it is pretty certain u.s. dollars russian rubles and euro's you know they've they've all been used for purposes good but just the fact that one of those established currencies perhaps. is caught up in so in some criminal activities to a very very minor extent doesn't mean to say that we we close down our central banks and we lock up the governors of the central banks you know that seems to me to be. a little bit of a hysterical reaction obviously the popularity of these alternative cash products mainly big quiets as you mention is just reflecting the

people's search for an alternative investment essentially for some kind of a safe haven as well i think and you know do you think that it's going to kill that part of its popularity or is going to lower its popularity as a result of being regulated say the states there are things which are intrinsic to . make up for the fact that only a total of twenty one million of these big collins can mathematically be issued you know there's a there's an upper bound to how much of this this so-called currency. can be manufactured. that makes it very attractive in the long term as an inflation hedge . you know much like gold you know. people turn to gold and inflation protection or have done historically. you know this seems to be the inflation less currency because the can be no central bank just rolls the printing presses.

the witch hunt the united states is launching against bitcoin says likely to kill the project but similar ones will appear and that's a place that's according to christopher hartwell senior research fellow it's called business school bitcoin itself is probably. slower than excel or a doing downward spiral i always say when the government starts getting involved in the hating it leaves crucial nodes that are necessary for becoming to continue to actually operate. i don't see how it can really continue on in its present form and this is. just because this specific entity. is being basically hounded out of existence doesn't mean that there are going to be imitators or other types of alternative currency that are going to exist but i

think once this specially when the united states government really gets its my job go out or something especially something kind of alternative way then it really has little hope of surviving even though very good job of being very decentralized it still has these kind of crucial access points and the government is holding out on them. let's quickly check out the markets starting with wall street where trade is active this hour it was a mixed picture at last check the s. and p. was losing value but the dow and the nasdaq were trading above the line and that's despite the worse than expected housing starts for april and higher than expected jobless claims now over in europe shares and the day mixed london's foot seen was a tenth of a percent lower investors are worried about the negative stats coming from the states while the u.s. traders seemed unfazed the europeans work permit the world's largest economy may

not be recovering as fast and the dax maintained its positive momentum now on the currency markets the dollar showing some value then the euro here in moscow as you can see the russian ruble actually strengthened to both major currencies now the russian equities on thursday continued they're down world's spiral the my sex one and the third of a percent retreating for a fifth straight day and that's its longest losing streak since mid april the r.t.l. shot about three quarters of a percent now the biggest loser on the russian markets a russian grids machel and noble if it's steel they all slumped on the news that the m.s.c.i. on thursday excluded from its russia and x. the m.s.c.i. russia tracks the equity market performance of the russian security is being blocked from the index is seen as the lock of confidence in the respective

companies. russia's corporate users come up with rather unconventional ways of promoting their products and next morning star saussure graze in russia this week for a car rally drive a lot of this one step by president bruce and ray will cover the distance from the far eastern city of lot of us though to moscow that's about. nine thousand kilometers but even if she's safely makes it to the capital many say that would not was image going great is hardly known for anything all good than her adult video and. and that brings up to date on all the latest in business after a short break we'll bring you more news keep it here on aren't. that's. wealthy british.

market. find out what's really happening to the global economy with. no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report. that was built on coal. fields for its factories. coke for its steel. gold is it and heat for its people. join me. to meet them and spend their life's underground and work in one of the world's most dangerous professions.

would you. cole on altie. good speech.

right over there at least. he continues here in our new crackdown on illegal song downloads in the u.k. looks set to begin leading body representing the national record industry is now deciding if it will take legal action to block citizens from accessing dozens of file sharing sites he explains there are doubts over how effective any new measures could be. well record labels could be about to launch the biggest battle yet against pirate sites and what's alleged will be the main blocking blitz in the ongoing fight against websites that file share and infringe on music copyright the british internet service providers all i ask piece of already in the recent past been asked to block websites that are illegally file sharing music now it's thought

that the british industry trade body. he launched the previous successful legal action is set to take a third wave of action now bt i haven't yet responded to this latest information but it's food that would be targeting sites such as the us based file sharing sites . and what would that mean well for british consumers of the music industry they won't be able to access these sites anymore this action is aimed at targeting the casual illegal download or of course for the hardcore pirates they'll simply move on it's thought to the vast array of websites that you have out there at the moment so already questions being where you are suggests how effective any legal action would be certainly is seems that these are fire sharing sites where the previous ever more popular are next for the chopping board if this music industry attempts to continue this crackdown on other legal file sharing so for all to contributor

afshin returns he told me only that by threatening to take on file sharing sites the british for the graphic industry is just trying to maintain its position in the music market. what the b.p.i. is actually doing is not for artists or the public it's a grotesque maneuver in trying to maintain control over not only their hedger monic control of the within corporate music and popular culture but also to retain their control over distribution and let's not forget these big majors universe or e.m.i. that are fighting all the time they're doing backdoor deals with the big people that control the internet one of because google amazon the same people that are in parliament in london for voiding taxes on a spectacular scale they're the people doing the backroom deals with the big corporate music providers and of this b.b. i maneuver seemingly would stop the small independent doing a deal with

a small internet company what we need is a very different way to benefit artists and people love music president and strengthened his rhetoric against austerity saying the policy is preventing recovery in the euro zone not as france is again found itself in recession playing another blow to the reputation of its popular leader auntie's as recently reports now on how the financial woes in europe second largest economy have raised fears over the whole block. i we're looking at a cafe culture here in paris still continuing looking calmer wherever this is a far cry a contrast to the other images that we've seen across the country such as protests against president francois launce the first anniversary as president has there seeing him as not having done enough for the economy or those at your sister a sturdy protest now the a french finance minister had come out saying that this contraction that we're seeing now is a result of the overall depressed environment that france finds itself at its neighbors in the euro zone area however it is still

a blow to our fund swollen to what dan has been seeing a lot of criticism for the policies that are in place and also there have been a lot of economists who have been calling france for some time now as a ticking time bomb in europe it's one of the core countries now that we're seeing in recession no longer the so-called periphery of the euro zone such as countries like greece or portugal but of course euro zone nation it would be extremely difficult to go out of the speciation. really bad policy which are used now. cost cutting. of course we levels in part and you are not going to spend your afternoon in nice cafe like this one because you know it becoming too expensive for you well as these the small numbers hit europe and france finds itself officially in a recession the question really there is how long is it going to take before economy starts growing and growing again and stop being in the red and also the

concern is the longer it is that we see the sustained the lackluster numbers the harder it will be for a recovery to take place reporting from paris i'm tess or so yeah. and in this and it's called bell believes that the french need to overhaul their financial policies to get the economy back on track. we saw in the first person that it was thirty but what we call the first. thirty four says first thirty if you're. higher taxes. and public spending the average british worker is to accept fifty seven percent the. proportion of public debt. in the g.d.p. is a ninety percent so clearly we should look the other way and consider structural reforms lower taxes lower big spending and lower or worth its weight one billion dollars has been put forward to develop

a gold mine in the wilds of north west russia and the only officials who know who is funneling so much money into the massive project but keeping the mystery benefactor to themselves more on that on line. and deadly twisters whip across the u.s. state of texas sending rescue workers into a spin we've got photos footage and more fear right now dotting dot com. u.s. president barack obama has rejected calls to launch a probe into the government wiretapping of journalists with the associated press news service this comes as the u.s. justice department came up with a new reason for the phones of one hundred journalists claiming it was necessary to protect americans from dangerous information leaks but norman solomon from the firm media watch group says it was all about teaching a lesson to whistleblowers. that is really one of the last refuge of scoundrels when it comes to top leaders who want to turn off the tap of information reaching

their own public that those leaders would rather the public be kept in the dark about and i think what we've seen with these revelations about the phone records of a.p. reporters is that this isn't ministration which has already weighs data larger war against more whistleblowers than any other in u.s. history has continued to push the envelope and try to have a chilling effect on not only journalists but the sources within the administration . now to some other news making headlines across the world at this stage of the day and please be aware the following footage contains some graphic content this grisly video allegedly shows fighters with the all nusra front a rebel group linked to al qaeda executing eleven government soldiers is numerous could be heard shouting god is great after each shot is fired this comes a day after the u.n. general assembly condemned the forces of syrian president bashar al assad in a new resolution the motion brought by qatar and other arab nations was adopted by

a large majority. a powerful car bomb has ripped through a convoy in the afghan capital kabul killing fifteen people two u.s. soldiers and four civilian contractors are among the dead eight afghan civilians including two children also died in the blast that struck during the morning rush hour a group with ties to the afghan taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack. and hard to sanaa of one of the boston marathon bombing suspects reportedly left a note claiming responsibility for the attack wrote it with a pen on the boat while on the run from police saying the blasts were in revenge for the u.s. war on muslims and that he hoped to meet his brother in paradise at least three people were killed and over two hundred fifty injured in two explosions near the finish line of the city's annual marathon his older brother was killed in a gun fights with police to bring you up to date for the moment i'll be back in

about four minutes from now with more news and of course our extensive coverage of the quantum of a hunger strike after this break r.t. live in moscow. real damage and complexity of this oil spill was not something you can grasp just by looking at dirty birds we have between four to five million people in this directly affected area of the coast and it's pretty clear why it's not being reported because b.p. can't afford to have a reported all along the gulf coast are clean they are safe and they're open for business if b.p. is the single largest oil contributor to the pentagon the us war machine is heavily reliant upon b.p. and their oil this is a huge step backwards for the marker c. it's a step forward for oligarchy carex it is toxic is a look

a lot like spraying in vietnam it was and it was not a picture that either the government or b.p. really wanted to have out there i don't want dispersants to be the age you are. all this boils. they're ready to come here to work and not get paid for it. people from all over the world are eager to help the want to take to become a volunteer at russia's premium museum why do the son of the movie's director come here. from one of the camps do. behind the scenes of the how much does a nazi. dangerous experiments on prisoners they want to make money and they have to use healthy

guinea pigs in the regular society they're not able to use prisoners i mean more they wish they could. drug tests all human guinea pigs. hate to call the deadly pills you can take us away he was killed. he didn't pass away and let him die. is pharmacy really about helping people.

so.

one hundred days of hunger at guantanamo bay a mass protest by inmates at the u.s. detention center shows no signs of abating with authorities resorting to force feeding and isolation to stamp out the revolt we report extensively on the hunger strike and where it's heading. the day the music died u.k. citizens could feel the full brunt of the british record industry has it looks to clamp down on file sharing websites. and the french president calls for greater political integration in the e.u. despite his country floundering in the blocks financial slump and falling into a second recession in five years.