former student. dropped a. mock executions electrocution and a taste for beating detainees and these are just some of the accusations facing the british military over the iraq war with the international criminal court now urged to investigate. and a bomb goes off in cairo and on rest spreads across egypt as a country votes on a new constitution that's likely to bolster the military backed government grip on power. actual security and efficiency and independent study finds the u.s. spy agency has been grossly exaggerating the fact that most of dragnet data collection in combat in terrorism.

watching our senior national was nearing a joshing the iraq war continues to haunt the u.k. was lawyers representing hundreds of detainees of that conflict now saying the british government is ultimately responsible for torture so brutal it amounts to sadism their testimonies have been submitted it's to the international criminal court as artie's pollie boyko reports the u.k. is determined to stop any investigation and its tracks. up until now the international criminal court at the hague had mostly tried to african dictators and tyrants but the i.c.c. has been asked to investigate thousands of allegations of war crimes committed by british forces in iraq a two hundred and fifty page dossier presented by a human rights organization and a british law firm contains allegations of beatings of electrocution smoke executions and sexual assault committed by u.k.

forces and according to the also as of this report the finger of blame extends to the very heart of the british government at the time so the head of the british army the former defense secretary and the former defense minister could face prosecution for what this dossier calls systemic war crimes there are many hundreds of cases where the people have been interviewed in the provided reports about this abuse and it varies from what people might think are. relatively mundane examples of abuse to really quite appalling physical their report says that british military commanders knew that their forces were committing war crimes and moreover that their civilian superiors consciously ignored such information at their disposal but the u.k. foreign secretary william hague has already firmly rejected the suggestion that

those at the top here in westminster knew what was taking place on the ground in iraq we reject allegations of systematic abuse but whether all substantiated allegations of things going wrong these things have been or are being investigated that does not require references to the international criminal court the position of the british government has constantly been or were doing enough the point of this is simply that they still haven't done enough there are right now. at the international criminal court two heads of state one of them the sitting head of state of kenya and the other the former head of state of cold war they're both on trial at the international criminal court not for getting their hands bloody they didn't do anything themselves but people under their authority or people they should have controlled were committing the crimes so if it's good enough for the african countries it should be good enough for the u.k. to the international criminal court has come under increasing pressure to act against war crimes committed by western countries it's now up to the prosecutor at

the i.c.c. to go through the claims of abuse and to decide whether to call high ranking british officials into the dock at the hague ali boy artsy london now x. rays from the das here have been made public but most of the documents are being kept under wraps and still the witness accounts that have come to light are alarming among the abuses reported there beatings electrocutions various kinds of sexual humiliation and even outright rape family members of inmates were allegedly threatened by british troops and in at least one case actually harmed one man described how after being beaten he's eight year old son was brought in and also attacked by an officer another witness alleged that jury in interrogation soldiers threatened to rape his sister and arrest his elderly parents earlier we spoke to a legal adviser at the european center for constitutional human rights which coauthored the dossier. evidence shows that it's not only about individual single

cases and incidents it's really a systematic pattern of reparative. finding in our report or communication to see it's mars and single isolated incidents ok there have been a number of attempts to bring the u.k. military to account for its actions in iraq none of worked what makes you think this will fare any different what we documented many more cases than were submitted before to the international criminal court or to oslo accords. it's now is a time because the u.k. had ten years to investigate to prosecute the direct perpetrators but also the higher ups. in the u.k. ten years. any prosecutions in that country so now it's simply the time. that international courts have to step in. with the first serious attempt to bring

the u.k. armed forces to account for the iraq war transgressions the last one being in september and on our website you can read. of how british troops in one battle mutilated the bodies of fallen and rocky's. voting on a new egyptian constitution has got off to a turbulent start violence has been reported and near the capital despite a two hundred thousand strong police presence the true has more on the latest from cairo there was a bomb blast here in the capital in an area called the better that's a court room that was supposed to house all the ballots about particular area by the end of the day the explosion was so large that it managed to break the windows of the buildings adjacent to it however no one was injured it's not the last violence break up across the country in particular betty suite which is an office in egypt where we just heard that the brotherhood supporters and supporters of the

ousted president mohamed morsy. had taken to the streets and protest against the razor for random. descended into street battles with the police now we've heard that one protester has been killed in that particular instance it's still bubbling on there's also you've been violence in the way and we've also had reports of the big an outbreak of street clashes between security forces and muslim brotherhood supporters and mohamed morsy supporters up and down xandra as well so really it's a very targeted day for the. day of this referendum and people here in egypt speaking to them they tell me they think it's going to get worse when you go into the streets at the moment it seems to be overwhelmingly people are looking for a yes but there still is quite a hard core group of people who are saying the no to the constitution or boycotting the people that have worried about this constitution say that it will only cement military powers over the next civilian president there are a few articles there in the constitution which basically say that military trials to trials for civilians will be allowed which allows the minute to control that little bit of the judiciary in addition which is the key change here the defense

minister which at the moment is the de facto leader lead story general of the fatah sisi his position will be protected for the next two terms of the president's office this is because the supreme council the armed forces will be allowed to say in the appointment say that's a big change that in addition the military budget will still remain secrets this is a point of contention for a lot of activists and revolutionaries as well as human rights organizations who want to know what egypt's military who are currently running this country and spending their money on top of the supporters of mohamed morsi just say the whole situation is illegitimate mohamed morsi they say is still president and therefore this constitution is null and void as his constitution two thousand and twelve should be in place while you can there are a blogger and journalist working out of cairo says the language in the new constitution will provide legal and political munity for the military. although there are a lot of addictions that are really pro this constitution and they really seek stability there's very little chance that this constitution will do so and mostly

because this vote on the constitution isn't a vote on the cost situation itself but on a plethora of other factors including the muslim brotherhood whether the people want them back for not. general sisi. whether people want him as president or not and then the last thing it's about is the actual constitution surely serves the army at this point they want to be protected against any kind of accountability for anything they've done it's still valid to see that even if there is a democratic president as long as the army is in power and they have about much power and autonomy they can choose pick and choose who stays on and who leaves and i don't think the the next constitution addresses that. reputation's at stake the west threatens to cut support for syria's rebel government if there refuses to attend peace talks by the opposition is

a step ahead calling the bluff and saying that between hardline islamist and the regime there is no other choice a report on the upcoming geneva peace talks around the corner and the highest court in the us refuses to hear it is a g.m. crop contamination concerns of organic farmers potentially putting them and a vulnerable legal position that still to come here in our national. well the u.s. national security agency has gone to staggering lengths to hoard the private data of millions of people bought and independent study now suggests all that information failed to produce the results the government hoped for. explains. when edward snowden first revealed the u.s. government's indiscriminate collection of every american's phone data u.s. president barack obama defended the program insisting that dozens of threats around the world have been overheard it courtesy of the national security agency and i say chief general keith alexander claimed metadata collection has warded fifth day four

different terrorism related activities post nine eleven now unfortunately for the white house a new study shows that the numbers they're using well they've been slightly inflated because that analysis of two hundred and twenty five terrorism related cases in the u.s. since the september eleventh attack has found that the n.s.a.'s program has provided evidence for only one case and that the study by the national based nonprofit new american foundation has concluded the bulk collection of data by the n.s.a. has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism researchers found that in the majority of post nine eleven terrorism related cases tips or evidence actually came from traditional law enforcement and investigative methods now these findings come as president obama is preparing to address the nation friday outlining his proposals to change intelligence operations and oversight geo

political analyst eric draitser doesn't expect the president's promises to equate into significant action i think that the reality is that what we're looking at is a vast infrastructure with billions of dollars invested in it over the course of multiple decades so whatever obama might be able to say politically using whatever rhetorical cover he needs the reality is that the infrastructure is not going anywhere the scaling back is only going to be superficial because as we know the surveillance program itself is all pervasive it goes to hardware it goes to software it goes to the companies themselves the servers the the cables themselves so as. they said it is a closed system that they've created so for obama to be able to say oh well i can scale back this system this is merely for public consumption just last month a task force appointed by the president himself also concluded that the n.s.a.'s counterterrorism programs are not essential to preventing attacks reporting from

new york marina port niamh r.t. . no growth and no clear way out france is scrambling for economic answers and its president gets the cartoon treatment as he battles like crazy to get things back on track we've got the latest on his new low tax approach coming up in the program here on our team and when your mother land just doesn't love you bad bad lot be in limbo for all those who lived their whole lives there but with stateless passports that stripped them off key privileges enjoyed by ordinary citizens. to.

choose your language. because we could with no information. some of. the cubans get consensus to. choose the opinions the great. truths the stories that impact the lives truths be access to. well back to watching r t international with marina josh and tam byron getting

farmers in the u.s. to gap and santa it's a promise never to sue them for accidentally growing their originality modified seeds has failed the u.s. supreme court refused to consider a case lodged by the farmers and they say their fields could be contaminated by doctor and crops and fear being dragged through a legal quagmire by the by a tad giant for peyton's infringement dotter of the book seeds of destruction the hidden agenda of g.m.o. says the decision has serious implications. monsanto has a team of lawyers that go out and terrorize farmers in the us and canada when the wind blows the seeds from a field across to him he. says ok you know you have to play this is a concentration of power all in the human food chain in the first ruling of the supreme court and what i mean by the best but you can patent life that you can take a patent on life by in fact you know for a gene a bacterium or so that was

a false decision to begin with but all sequence sense them and it's the influence why not the business that's made this possible but that's a horrendous development for the future of food security in the world. com for more on the controversial issue crops that's causing such a global stir also online in the jail founder of the world's most popular file sharing website the pirate bay gets a modest improvement in his prison conditions after over one hundred thousand people signed a petition to allow him access to books and other basic items. and to us police officers walk free after the meeting homeless mentally ill man to death despite his pleas for mercy after watching footage of the thirty minute long assault took a court less than a day to hand down a guilty verdict that story and war at. the french

economic ship appears to be down in the water and that's even compared to the struggling european neighbors it's a situation that's left the pro-tax president scrambling for a new way to spur growth and he looks ready to make a surprising political u. turn to do it. thank you so just like this why i have not done this video clip mocks francois lawns tax policies which are among the major reason this has become the least popular president in france as more than history voting couldn't hold ultima thule to watch more food together with belgium and france as tax grab is the highest in the euro zone you don't want to do that but still it was a good way to head for. the last two hours french i was. taught says two thirds of the country's population of top says i don't write eighty per cent the president's economic policy is misguided i don't inefficient gianluca is among those eighty

percent and entrepreneur he was foolish to close his business down after taxes became too big to bear a second if you're sick this is a vicious circle my business has stopped working which means i can to provide jobs for others and i can pay taxes to my country to help its development it's like everything falls apart. the current taxation policy was part of the finance strategy chosen by the french government to fight economic crisis but almost two years later critics say it simply hasn't worked the country's credit rating has been caught the unemployment level all those table recently is still at its highest in almost sixteen years and for twenty fourteen the european commission for costs just zero point nine percent g.d.p. growth in france against one point seven percent in germany and two point two percent in britain people and businesses alike oh my god another tax and another it's not that they're too high but there are too many and

a combination of all these taxes makes it really heavy taxes today really break an economy it seems that's also finally beginning to dawn on the country's leader examples out of new rule all rule taxes big game having to have a usually known for very optimistic speech in his new year address const what went wrong sounded rather concerned ok severely the economic crisis turned out to be longer and deeper than we could have predicted. the socialist leader pledged some truly liberal changes such as cutting labor costs and public spending making people talk about a new all around and new hopes of the country's recovery but critics are still vocal as they say long's plan is short on details and some are afraid it could simply be too little too late reflection r.t. from france. now as the french government struggles to find

a ramadan for its sluggish growth next hour next kaiser shows how big business manages to thrive at your expense. but let's get back to the connection between surveillance and obesity because the surveillance technology you say could be surveilled by anyone they're not being surveilled by security looking for ways to keep people secure they're selling the access to marketing corporations and big pharma and big agra big consumer products companies who then spy on you in ways to help them sell you stuff more transparent foods more junk food more junk credit everything to make you on healthy more drugs everything that makes you lazy obese and stupid i.e. american that's what they're in it for and they're succeeded because you've got a jobless mass of obese trog oh by the wobbling around of their little try cycles at a wal-mart looking for new ways to help plumb the nether regions of their intestines

because it's all clogged up thanks to bill gates of the twenty four seven surveillance apparatus which is meant to keep people away the way that they are just look at the average wal-mart shopper and throw up. brit now in the united states are reportedly threatening to cut support for the syrian opposition unless it agrees to peace talks next week but the syrian national coalition insists that with al qaida rebels on the one hand and assad's regime on the other there's no one else for the west to deal with meanwhile the top diplomats of russia and the united states along with the u.n. special envoy to syria of man to hammer out a roadmap for the peace talks at the meeting in paris agreed that the three year civil war cannot be resolved through military means and they also blame both the rebels and the regime for the atrocities committed in syria but on the issue of whether to include iran in the geneva peace talks next week washington send. mixed signals. we would welcome brown's participation if iran is coming to participate

for the purposes of the conference but iran has yet to state whether or not it supports implementing the geneva one communique which calls for nothing more than the mutual consent of the parties to a transitional governing process to make peace and we ask around i invite around today to join the community of nations the thirty nations that are already prepared to come and be a constructive partner for peace that's the invitation he was simply stating that there are ways aronne could show the world that they want to see a positive outcome and if they did so obviously that would mean that if they wanted to play a role in geneva two on the sidelines we would look more favorably on that but certainly no one was indicating an openness to inviting them these are things that if they do they would definitely be invited there are just things that they could

do to show that they want to effect a positive outcome but again we have no indication they're going to geneva two as in how many days so i think really it is that it's probably very small a mideast analyst told us that all powers will influence in the region must be invited. we are seeing contradictory signals and obviously the u.s. is undecided on this issue that is very unfortunate because it sends the wrong signal to iran even have adverse consequence said with respect to confidence building on the new clearing shield so i think that the united states should stop this self-contradiction send then invitation through the u.n. to iran so that all the parties that have a stake in this conflict could participate and bring an end to this tragic catastrophic conflict. or i want to hear your thoughts on the geneva two conference and can have your say by adding your comments on r.t.

dot com or by voting in the poll we've got running there today. now live via is home to hundreds of thousands of people who despite being born there have never been granted citizenship they hold so-called alien passports and taking in naturalization test is the only way for them to gain full rights marti's postcards been hearing some of those who are stateless in their own country. but at the moment non-citizens have limited rights we can't vote can't occupy government positions or be policeman all noirs in total there are ninety differences in november alexander invited un secretary-general ban ki moon to latvia for a congress on the issue the invite was politely declined. there are around three hundred thousand of us and i'm one of them here's my passport it's an

alien passport. when the soviet union collapsed latvia only gay full citizenship to people and their descendants who had lived in the country prior to nine hundred forty when it became a soviet republic that was around fifty two percent of the population everyone else was classed as a non-citizen today one in seven people are considered alien canady is one of those affected he was born in latvia and although his mother is latvian because his father moved to the country after nine hundred forty eight was denied citizenship he eventually went through the process of naturalization when he was twenty two years old how did it make you feel having to go through that process despite the fact is you saying you were born in this country well that your mother loves you right and that's the same if she does that you feel good and if it doesn't you feel a bit about insulted the process of naturalisation the tests noncitizens on their

knowledge of lobby in history culture and language many feel they're hostages to history claiming the latvian government are using them to avenge the past but it's not just a moral issue it could also be economic benefits to ending this policy if that three hundred thousand people will be back in simple it's a killer and economical life will be a very good feel for the country too you know incident to finally move on further because we always look back into history who are trying to go further. into european union insecurity though saw it but we still had its turn back those fighting for their rights of knowledge they have a long way to go before they win the argument they say they're prepared to take their case step by step postcards r.t. latvia. well breaking the sat is next here on our agenda national exploring internet freedom and media efforts to airbrush the legacy of a later israeli prime minister.

when you are followed around when you are being investigated because of the whim of someone this is the beginning of the end of your freedom. to stay in and save me keenly intercept american citizens. text messages you know. share the calls text messages so you just see everything about my knowledge that i actually basically and there's no legal absolutely legal yes when you bareback with the internet you better back legs rather. prevail sleep peacekeepers for a president who are concerned with monitoring peace deals going to post conflict environment nowadays they're increasingly asked to operate in the highest risk obama while billy bob jones is still illegal to stay. motionless with these people who has caused over almost twenty years four million people killed millions

of displaced and refugees tens of thousands of women raped tens of thousands of children and recruited those soldiers were all slaves no. well it's up everyone i'm out in martin this is breaking in a set saturday january eleventh marked the one year anniversary of the death of one of those brilliant innovators of our time aaron swartz and was

a computer prodigy an internet activist who tragically took his own life at the age of twenty six c. aaron was facing thirty five years behind bars and was the subject of a merciless which by the department of justice for the crime of releasing information the footage that you're seeing shows aaron and during an electrical closet to download millions of academic articles from the online service j. store which he intended to release for free this video was used against him by prosecutors who felt he deserved more jail time than murderers and rapists so why did swartz do it well he didn't care about making himself wealthy from uploading the files he cared instead about internet freedom civil liberties and making information accessible to everyone a spy of their academic or financial background considering the odds stacked against him tragically it seemed death was the only way out and his suicide was the result of a two tiered justice system that puts profit over knowledge.