the countdown for the next winter olympic begins that's exactly one year until russia hosts its first ever winter games that promise to become of the most unique and the most expensive in history. but not all officials are in a celebratory mood at russia's president lashes out at overspending and sacks a key figure behind the sochi twenty four team. meanwhile the turmoil internees are intensifies fresh classes between anti-government protesters and police are accompanied by political chaos with the ruling islamists defining the prime minister's decision to reshuffle the government.

and no compromise in sight speed you leaders gear up for a clash over cuts as they arrive in brussels to hammer out a budget deal. thanks for tuning in we've got news and analysis from all across the globe for you broadcasting live twenty four hours a day from right here in our moscow headquarters you're watching r.t. with me lucy let's get straight to our top story now we're going to be looking at sochi in fact it's now exactly one year until the opening of the two thousand and fourteen olympic games here in russia now special giant clocks in the country's largest cities have begun the countdown for the event which is going to be held in the black sea resort city of sochi now the clock that you see right here behind me is actually the one that's in the center of moscow that's sticking in real time so you can see that we have three hundred sixty four. at least there was a clock and

a bunch of hours left anyhow this. event this location is also home the home straight for organizers say the final preparations are on track and then mission touches are being made to make the event on forgettable now for how things work on the ground let's talk to andrew farmer who is in sochi we hope somewhere let's see if we haven't andrew of course these preparations that's exactly year until the opening of the games how are these preparations going are things actually ready for the opening and on track. definitely before i would say that the limp experience definitely grips sochi deceiving because just moments ago there was a spectacular fireworks display that the skies above the limpid where i'm standing in just before that there was a spectacular show inside the bolshoi not included three hundred people and included all sides by most biggest items from russia past and present and the

painted. a limpet story now when these olympics do begin in a year's time they will be very unique for several reasons firstly they will be the first one from the pics to be held within a subtropical environment where i'm standing is just a stone's throw away from the black sea second ladies games will be very compact you will be able to jump on a train from here and head up into the mountains. within thirty minutes so you can enjoy all the alpine events thirdly most of the venues that have been created have been created from scratch that is something very rare at an olympics and another point that makes these unique is that in turn is really ramped up the cost of these games to the point that they think the final price tag will be something like fifty billion dollars and that will make them the most expensive games in the olympic history to the organizers do say look we already for the rest of the world when the . twenty four. we'll be right. all right well andrea farmer keeping us

on to post it on all the details anyhow that's not the only thing we're talking about here authorities are also keeping an eye a close eye on progress in sochi before it becomes host to all those people are going to be coming there for the games now here is what we have for you russian president vladimir putin said that he has been personally checking the olympic venues and says that he is generally fairly happy with what he saw he did however fire one top official now after this rather abrupt conversation let's show that video if we have it. of you are there any cost overruns yes a serious increase in costs but since they use their influence for the construction phones. is financed by the president. who's the shareholder of sped that's what so it's largely finance at the expense of. these cost overruns are paid for by

spending one of the costs. over. the last year and usually very. slowly what's a rough estimate. one point two billion. in one point two billion has turned into eight billion yes well done good work let's move on to. some cutting words from the president there as we reported he ended up sacking the one official so there were some real consequences for what happened. anyhow moving on. all right in tunisia anti-government protests are increasingly turning into violent clashes with police in the capital security forces use tear gas to try to disperse

some of those crowds would gather around the interior ministry meanwhile the political crisis in the country is deepening with the ruling islam is party rejecting the prime minister's call to dissolve the government and to form an interim cabinet in the wake of the assassination of. a secular opposition leader there that's exactly what sparked the crisis well our g.'s mayor for an ocean is in tunis for us thanks so much let's see if we have you on the camera there or it's a grab or take a look. there are no signs at all that capital is getting any comma protests continue here today police is continuing to use tear gas against protesters opposition supporters are on the streets again and. again marching against. the prominent opposition leader here something they say the government and islam is a party. behind they tend to government slogans and they are not calling for

justice or for fair investigation for example but some of them are sending a very clear message that the government the current authorities should step down we haven't received any information about casualties today but we've been hearing and that at least one policeman died on wednesday during the clashes between opposition supporters and police officers the fear is that it will go even further to morrow there will be a funeral of the killed position leader and police is expecting even more violence even further protest well let's see what's going to happen tomorrow. all right r.t. is maria from there now we're here to deliver the news to you but we also want to hear your views and find out what you think so actually if you go to our website at r t dot com we have an online poll question for you there so you can let us know

what you think the outcome of the latest bout of tunisia protests will be now for you there are you going to find about four options to choose from and we actually broke down some of those results for you so that you can see how you actually voted no here is that poll right there majority of those of you who voted think that tunisia will plunge into further rest. it's going to lead to more problems. third of you fear the latest absurd of public rest will lead to a government government something anyhow those are the results head over to our web site and vote. today. these are the images the world has been seeing from the

streets of canada. joint operations room today. going to be about will between the north in the south at an eating in brussels say it's on a collision course over spending plans over the next few years britain is the loudest voice among those calling for a budget cuts something that's fiercely opposed by southern countries who are heavily dependent on you funds are just us are still reports from brussels. we've seen some of the leaders who had arrived here already making strong statements first of all david cameron continuously saying that if the budget is not brought down to a level that he is happy with there will be no deal we've heard from countries who are saying that they maybe use their veto if they're not happy such as the czech republic to simplify the vicar going on right now it would be between northern and southern countries you could say the wealthier nations versus those that actually depend more on the e.u. funding on the one hand you have countries like the u.k.

germany the netherlands denmark these countries are supporting harsher cuts to the e.u. budget david cameron being the most radical and controversial taking this step now he has been demanding since november last year in two thousand and twelve that was the first today is the second try and since that until now he's been demanding for cuts in brussels bureaucracy for instance he wants to reduce payments of officials here and this has not gone down well with brussels officials they also want to reduce their pensions for instance but on the other side you have those countries who are dependent on these forums and one of the loudest voices on this is a lot of friends now he is saying and pointing a finger at the u.k. say they want cuts but at the same time they are very protective of the so-called rebate this is the money that the u.k. gets back from the e.u. as a return for their payments on farm subsidies which the u.k. does not benefit from and which france benefits a lot from you can see

a lot of the national interests coming here to the forefront certainly not happy with what if you read between the lines would say a hypocritical. rebate is worth three point five billion euros and is seen to be wanting to tackle that point also the u.k. is coming into this summit this is the first time since he had announced that referendum that he said that he would pose the question of whether he should remain in the e.u. twenty seven reelected in the twenty fifth. of course this is a possibility of a creating even more tension in the u.k. waive the cost benefit of actually being a member of the e.u. interpreted by the other members as not being a team player in this regard and also as this talk is happening talking about budget cuts at the e.u. level we see the budget cuts on a more local ground level we've seen anti yesterday protests continuing even until today people very angry at the cuts imposed on them on their livelihoods of their

pensions are on their potential jobs while the e.u. cannot agree upon a budget cut of their own. for more on the story i'm joined by robert oulds he is the chair of the bruges group think tank sir thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us now cameron says he's going to budget veto a budget deal of significant cuts aren't made of course as our reporter you just heard her mention there this is the first time. the first summit after he announced the referendum plans are angering many people in the do you think that he's being too confrontational here. with david cameron the british prime minister doesn't really have much of an alternative but to try and block any increase in the e.u. budget because he was thinking that we would just have a situation where it would increase the rate of inflation but of course the british parliament voted no they said we want actual real cuts or. a real freeze not just taking into account inflation so he doesn't really have any

negotiating room because if he doesn't do you could deliver the euro that suits you the skeptic opinion within his own party with the new zone british parliament then of course he will be in trouble again he's made some significant efforts recently to try and there's over tensions over europe by saying that he will have a referendum if he's reelected as good as prime minister and of course if you failed to deliver a budget through usually. and it can't then of course he'll be back in trouble with his you are skeptics he doesn't have any room to maneuver but then of course equally the president of france doesn't want east bending because france benefits a great deal from the common agricultural policy and french farmers in particular are very powerful lobby and of course they want more money well you brought up the french position here i mean we almost see everyone pursuing their own interests here honda slamming cameron for his defense of the u.k.'s rebate while the french

president himself is defending the spheres which france benefits from the most how do you see in vision a budget being a korea agreed upon considering these vast differences well there's going to be more discussions tonight i think they'll go on very late and the battle lines are clearly being drawn we've even got the president of the european commission. bro so who's been criticizing the british position. or the president of the council has been saying got to look towards the bigger picture here of course he doesn't want the european union to have a budget cut further course we've seen the limits of integration here we have different national interests clearly colliding and there is the situation that it was national governments are having to impose austerity across europe not just in the eurozone but also in britain because of course there's just not the money available and it's not quite arguable that the european union should have to do the

same as well but of course there's various vested interest to benefit from the funding and they do not want any kind of adoption fact they want a significant increase but of course that clearly issues with national parliament so it would be very difficult to find a agreement but what is certainly going to be certain is that there will be a lot of bad blood between the different european leaders and the different. opinions are going into how the budget should proceed for the next few years today certainly a lot of blood bad blood i mean you got this point but i sort of want to expand on it very briefly i mean there's almost as dichotomy a almost a hypocritical dichotomy when you see the e.u. sort of quite easily enforcing austerity measures at a national level so why is it so hard for for brussels to agree to spending cuts. well there's the political vested interest it serves many people on the continent of you believe that more powers should be handed towards the european union towards institutions in brussels and of course more money should be given but of course

there is also another issue to do with the budget and that's to that's to do with the fact that eighteen years now the union can have order to they haven't been able to sign off operate the accounts because a lot of the spending is goes on wasteful cortex but of course more alarmingly it's also subject to a great deal of flawed and corruption and that's why literally in eighteen years the accounts haven't been fully signed off but so really does move big bone of contention between european leaders but of course they still want more money to pour to go towards the european union to keep pushing the project forward but of course at the same time countries having to face severe austerity cuts which are creating a great deal of unemployment particularly in the south we're seeing a real great divide emerging between countries such as britain and germany who are the main paymasters of the european union not wanting to spend so much and then of course countries in southern europe who want more spending led by led by france the

socialist french president who of course knows politically he has to deliver more money towards french agriculture or course he'll find himself in a great deal of political waters at home as well thirdly the battle lines have been drawn we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out but a tense situation indeed that was robert all the chair of the bruges group think tank thank you so much sir thank you. don't go away we have more news for you coming up after a short break. there

are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives within a year of a diagnosis of. over sixty two percent of those species i diagnosed with aids this is a problem that frankly is substantially preventable it was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about they were really good public health campaigns people were really focused on this problem you certainly should be able to. bring. good leverage sure. it was easy to believe in the most sophisticated which doesn't give a darn about anything mission to teach why you should care about you and. this is why you should want to only.

go from drone strikes to torture techniques tough questions are ahead of her brock obama's nominee for cia head as his confirmation hearing in the senate john brennan is widely seen as an architect of the u.s. drone strategy in an effort to avoid scrutiny around brennan's can of a see the u.s. president has even agreed to hand over classified documents justifying the killing of american terror suspects abroad but after years of keeping it secret now as our team is going into it you can report brennan's confirmation my broaden the horizons for america's drone fleets. in the shadows no more drones are moving into the mainstream was drone makers in the u.s. military pushing to defend the killing machine drones are more properly titled remotely piloted vehicles allow us to do is to project capability without projecting vulnerability in their revolutionizing warfare by allowing us to see and kill from half a world away

a major drone manufacturer lockheed martin has financed an hour long documentary on drones aired recently on u.s. public television touting the technological capabilities of the killing machine from trailers like this pilots of the predator and its larger cousin the reaper have killed thousands of individual since two thousand and one using remotely piloted aircraft contrary to popular belief actually provides the greatest degree of ethical oversight for their use and this young man in pakistan would probably disagree several of his family members died at the remote hands of a drone more than a thousand other civilians were reportedly killed by u.s. drone strikes in pakistan and yemen we find ourselves murdering people in many cases children with no evidence whatsoever that they're involved in any criminal or terrorist activity the numbers should not come as a surprise considering the broad definition the obama administration gives us to who should be on their kill list the leaked memo on targeted assassinations on the

us justice department suggests the us government can kill people even without evidence that they're actively plotting against america if you extend the logic or studio logic being pretty out by the white house now where you come. cliff you might say that we're in danger of going over we're getting very close to zero thought crimes that if somebody a u.s. citizen or otherwise is believed to be thinking something that could lead to actions against the united states. then this illogical logic would present the idea that it would be ok for the president to order that that person be killed despite the un raising concerns about the legality of the use of drones the us is said to expand its remote control warfare setting up new drone bases across the world the latest announcement a new facility in asia where obama has redefined war during intervention in libya he made the case that the war powers act in

a quiet because there was no risk to american soldiers and so under that rationale he can expand the global war while in his state of the union address claiming that we don't need perpetual war for peace but it is perpetual war when you can drop bombs on any country and then claim that it's not working john brennan often referred to as the architect of the administration's drone war how it's the new opportunities for the us to wage wars without risking american lives there is another reason a targeted strikes can be a wise choice the strategic consequences that inevitably come with the use of force . as we have seen deploying large armies abroad. our best offense all in all the u.s. now has around ten thousand drones in its fleet not all of them carry weapons of course a lot of them are for surveillance both domestic and international there's a great push both from the administration and the drone makers to present them as america's next best thing john brennan if confirmed will soon be at the helm of the

cia and no one doubts that under him the program will expand even further the goal is pretty much clear to be able to control the world with a remote control in washington i'm going to. get more analysis on bravo obama's pick for the cia head as well as the implications that the choice holds for other countries they might have to step in where we had to right now we're joined by ahmed rashid the president of the political lobbying group happy nationalist forum sir thanks so much for taking the time with us to speak with us now of course john brennan is most famous or infamous lee known as the architect of the u.s. drone program there are some concerns about his interrogation. techniques but when it comes to u.s. pakistan for lation it's considered raining the the tedious i guess background of the drone program has had there especially how it plays out among the population what do you think his candidacy or him being at the helm of the cia would mean for

your country pakistan. over the last three years we've had a coup going on between. you and the pakistani intelligence agency i decide right now you can see there's a tunes truce but if john brennan is confirmed i think we're looking at a number of scenes of instability in this entire region of guns and buckets not. confirming the bomb destruction but confirming john brennan and you director is. basically take clean us all back to the same destructive policies that actually led to the american and to the near american defeat in the months down the same papa sees the end take an isolation of t.l.i. as we all know that you have to stay just work very closely with several countries in this region in order to secure afghanistan this included of course five stun it

included several countries in central asia that include russia and others but it with each of these countries the united states and the policies the kind of policies that the cia in particular purse you would really in antagonized all of these key u.s. allies and made the u.s. mission in afghanistan very very difficult so why confirming and by picking john brennan the united states administration is basically that is telling everybody you know what i will continue to do would pursue policies unilaterally and these policies would be quite similar to the ones that actually antagonize many of the americas so as this region so we are looking basically ahead and on their feet east of instability of increasing instability in this whole region of course i have i can also mention several key points also about the drone program john brett and the and the cia are touting this as one of their successes and how it's important for the future but the fact is the drones have

a very checkered record with regards to the successes and the listicle qaeda for example of hideout was not all traded because off the drone hide it was of little created and destroyed because of the close intelligence just cooperation between several countries in the region key of course where the united states and and blackest done the drone was where basically used by cia here in the border region between buxom the guns done namely that region was that was sort of a training ground for the drone technology and yet you read every find any evidence we've done. a lot of research we try to see maybe we're wrong let's look at it from other different angles but i feel to find any evidence that would show me how one or several drone attacks in the buxton of guns don't water region were instrumental in crippling little tired of that is not true it was crippled because the key members of al qaeda were arrested on their grounds by people and not by machines

flying without pilots and of course i every time i hear these arguments that are being sold to the american public opinion about the effectiveness of the drone i'm really surprised to me these are no more than sitting in front if you're. in front of them on a tour and plane give the next once maybe or. three playing call of duty you're just as ignorant about about the targets you're thought of firing out and you're not sure who they are and you're taking your chances not exactly with the cia drone program has it waiting on the box none of that was done water well beyond these duty call of duty with a lot of real life unfortunately has to get as a consequence of the people on the ground there sorry to cut you off we are out of time thank you so much that was off my quote i say the president of pakistan's political lobbying group pak nationalist forum weighing in on a whole wide variety of topics there are add some other international news and

a break for you right now let's take a look at those iran supreme leader the leader ayatollah khamenei has rejected a u.s. offer of direct talks over its nuclear program saying the two countries cannot negotiate and tehran has a gun pointed at its head and it comes just a day after washington tightened economic sanctions on iran aimed at restricting cash from oil production he was vice president joe biden made the offer of a one to one discussions last saturday. the leader of the hamas a group of the group hamas says that he's in talks with palestinian president mahmoud abbas about forging a coalition government khaled mashal mentioned that both parties are getting ready ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections they are now hamas have pushed the fatah movement had been headed by a boss out of the gaza strip back in two thousand and seven conflict between the two sides. meanwhile while the fires in australia are

making their way across the south of tasmania while emergency services are bracing for a worsening weather conditions authorities have called on some locals to move from inaccessible areas until the danger has passed the latest wave of fires comes after a bushfire destroyed nearly two hundred properties last month. business after a short break stay with us. tonight which. documentaries in arabic. to the world talks of the r.p. into. arabic. visit arabic t.v. .