the old freeboard video for your media project free media r t v dot com. the latest news and a look back at the week's top stories here on our t.v. the olympic torch is lit in the game's ancient birthplace and briefs and brigands the longest journey in the history of the winter olympics to stop in twenty fourteen. a rare note of a chord and help at the u.n. general assembly that's after the security council passed a unanimous resolution on syria over its chemical weapons and a potentially historic glimmer of light in u.s. iranian relations. a russian court orders all of the greenpeace activists arrested trying to scale an arctic oil platform to remain in custody while the group is under investigation. and in the british city of manchester tens of thousands take to the streets angered over cuts to health care spending while the

military and surveillance budgets continue to grow. live from moscow you're watching r t i'm losing friends thanks for watching in greece at a grand age old ceremony of the olympic flame for the twenty fourteen winter games has been lit and has set off for an epic journey to the host city of. the torch will travel over fifty thousand kilometers across seas and mountains it'll even go into space and your farm or watch the events in olympia and to bang let's say reports from softer here in russia. lympics flame for sorcery twenty fourteen has been lit will probably be able to see it just behind my left shoulder there and it also we will see here at olympia the birthplace of the games the longest toffs torch relay in the olympic history just

a few moments ago the lighting of the flame ceremony took place it was basically a step back in time winding back the clock perhaps two and a half thousand jews who saw an actress stressed as a high priestess light the flame using the powers of the sun and a parabolic mirror which is basically what happened in seven hundred b.c. that flame is them brought here to the ancient stadium which is where i am standing and it is now being used or just was used to light the torch the very first torch bearer he runs off to my right by tradition he's always a great god on this occasion he was an eighteen year old ski called yanis antonio who hopes to compete for his country in sochi next year and he will hand this torch the first russian torch bearer alexander ovechkin the ice hockey star he himself has only been released by his club the washington capitals for forty eight hours to carry out this honor he flies back to the states this evening but he says this

event today was one of the highlights of his career while the torch will go on a tour of greece for the next seven days and that will end in athens next weekend before it flies to moscow but it all has started here as we've been on the air in the limpia the birthplace of the olympics well it's definitely going to be an olympic torch relay that's going to break a many records and here's why it's going to take around one hundred days for all of that torture to go through russia it's going to take sixty five thousand kilometers and fourteen thousand torchbearers to bring it right here to the host city it's going to date through nine times earnings in eighty three regions up two thousand nine hundred and and cities. women's across russia it also visit at the north pole also it will go to the top of the euro highest mountain in the russia's and north caucuses it will then make a trip outside of eartha to the i.r.s.

says away cosmonauts they will take it on a space walk now this is never happened before in the history of the olympics now in terms of traveling the torch around russia it's going to have a conventional ways such as you know the train a plane as well as on foot or through personalities but it's also going to go through unconventional ways or through reindeer sleighs and hot air balloons of course a russia wanted to highlight some of its culture its the history and of course this emerging new younger russia that we're seeing being developed here at the whole city in. we will of course becoming all the spectacular stops along the way for the olympic torch relay over the next few months here on our team both on air and online at our website r.t. dot com. the olympic torch is on it's a big journey to such. one hundred and twenty three days. through two thousand nine hundred towns and cities of russia. relayed by fourteen thousand

people or sixty five thousand killing. in a record setting trip by land air sea and others face. olympic torch relay special coverage on our i. while no one expected it just two weeks ago but this year's un general assembly has proven that there is enough space for consensus between world powers it has seen an historic phone call which raised hopes that a deadlock can be broken in iran's nuclear crisis but the show of unity peaked at when the u.n. security council unanimously voted on a syrian resolution something that seemed to be elusive for more than two years artis a missile now reports from new york hope for diplomacy progress on two fronts at the united nations a new tone in policy towards iraq and a security council resolution on chemical weapons in syria to the open union we've

been hearing increasingly often the argument that the threat or use of force which is directly precipitated by the un charter might be the most efficient way to solve international problems the united states of america is prepared to use all elements or power including military force to secure. our core interests of the rich. but where consensus at the u.n. emerged after years of deadlock over how to deal with the syrian crisis the un security council unanimously passed a resolution to secure and eliminate syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons according to the geneva agreement put forward by russia and the u.s. the mandate outlines a legally binding compliance but no threat of automatic sanctions or military action i think it shows they were turning towards a diplomatic solution at least on the issue of chemical weapons but the other issue that is still remained outstanding is what will happen outside of the issue of

chemical weapons will that can receive be pursued by the united states or will they continue to find as they have the opposition an arm the opposition of silicate that happening and trying to deepen the conflict over there were sided another way it's a u.s. policy that iran's new president says has no place in the region his debut at the u.n. this week star hasan rowhani reach out but also defend tehran from political attacks iran is an anchor of stability in unstable region the iranian threat is imaginary and is used as an excuse for the misdeeds of others iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region ronnie made it clear that iran does not want nuclear weapons and that it wants peace but also to be treated as an equal rainy and u.s. officials praised high level meetings that took place on the sidelines of the general assembly and the country's president spoke over the phone for the first time in over three decades but what would it take for a would be photo op to become a new u.s.

approach towards iran a lot of us have our very tied his hands are tied that there are people and lobby groups in the united states that do not want to see the united states and iran after thirty four years of demonizing the country to have relations the u.s. is in a tough spot. to keep from normal relations in the middle east and now the alienation of the arabs and muslims in general against the us is mostly due to the commitment of the government standard the us shows its relations with israel obama said to meet with israeli prime minister netanyahu on monday in washington now is the real test will the u.s. be able to move forward with diplomacy in the middle east both with iran and syria the first week at the u.n. general assembly has opened the door to rethink a failed policy the question is will the obama administration shut it the first

chance they get reporting from new york and he sonali r.t. . the resolution adopted by the u.n. demands of both the government in damascus and the opposition comply with the disarmament earlier we spoke to author and historian gerald horne who said that ensuring the rebels cooperate could prove very difficult that's the weakness of this peace process recall that just a few days ago from the so-called rebels officially with the more extremist faction basically saying that the less extremist factions to somehow be purged and expelled the extremist fraction of course is spearheaded by the old mr front close to al qaida keep in mind as well that some of the so-called chemical facilities in syria or under the jurisdiction of rebel forces if the rebel forces are not part of this process it's unclear to me how it could be resolved that is to say how can chemical weapons be destroyed not the least how can these chemical weapons be found if the

rebels are not part of the process. so i had for you this hour heart of darkness we look at what lies beneath a surge of bloodshed in africa as students shoppers and churchgoers become the target of militant attacks. plus the past two electoral success in austria is paved with neural skeptic sentiment perhaps as preliminary results suggest right wing parties appear to have made a strong showing in the country's parliamentary vote that's later in the program. in bahrain fifty share muslims have been sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison for organizing a clandestine movement the group was formed to back in two thousand and eleven and was the major driving force behind the nationwide pro-reform uprising dr not a bad day for the bahrain rehabilitation an anti-violence organization spent two months in prison there she says the whole trial is

a well known top level tactic of demonization. actually it's quite old the propaganda the whole process all the demonization of the pro-democracy corners and to pro-democracy groups is a quite an old fashioned thing that the the authorities the bahraini authorities they've be using it for a while and it's not working anymore i mean at this moment they failed absolutely failed to provide any evidence that these groups are involved in any to terror attacks or any more of it take movements two years ago exactly at the same date saying judge he a convicted doctor has almost fifty doctors for sentencing up to fifteen years it's the same thing the repeating after the break we show you how the u.s. air force is creating difficulties for the residents of the u.k. ascension island that's up next. sympathize with

the pseudo uprising but we do not train. we do not smuggle weapons or send. we do not do any of these things. it's a. pleasure to have you with us here on our t.v. today i roll researcher.

welcome back you're watching r t live from moscow i'm lindsey france thanks for joining me in the u.k. fifty thousand people staged one of the biggest protests manchester has ever seen to coincide with the first day of the annual conservative party conference protesters are furious with cuts to social spending and health services brought in by the coalition government that's led by the conservatives we talked to one of the protesters to ask what precisely got the marchers so fired up. this government is in fact in real trouble of course it's been very much to do with the national health service today that actually that it's facing twenty billion of of can't spar twenty fifteen it's old but it's also shown that crystallized to so many issues where the government's unpopular for all the way from mass surveillance to threaten action in syria to legal aid the fact that so many people are willing to speak out

and stand up for the n.h.s. and stand up for britain britain a really puts pressure on this government now we've seen how the austerity the austerity agenda is damaging the country and that it's also clear that a new network a new movement is really beginning to forge itself it's also i think what's going to really put pressure on the tories is the fact that people are talking together it's not like the left wing in one corner but if this is a much the a much bigger movement now time to rethink david cameron. head to our web site our dot com for even more stories just a click away for you right now the u.s. federal government could be on the verge of shutting down that's after congress voted to push back obama's controversial health care reforms by one year something the white house is unlikely to accept right now details on our website. plus find out about the newest unit in the british army that's staffed by the crowd and is

designed to defend the country from the threat of cyber warfare this anymore at r.t. dot com. a russian court in more months has now denied bail to all of the greenpeace activists who were arrested after trying to scale a russian oil platform in the arctic all together thirty people will remain in custody for two months as the investigation into the protests continues this comes as the polar region gears up for a significant changes as artie's piskun off explains. the pictures that stormed international media greenpeace activists trying to climb onto a floating platform in russia's north arrested by coast guards was. shocked shocked all thirty activists from eighteen countries were detained and are now awaiting whether they will be officially charged greenpeace claims their actions were peaceful but the authorities say they could have endangered not only the lives

of the rig's workers but the environment itself social and she had no it's obvious they are not pirates but they tried to storm the platform and these people violated international law by coming dangerously close to the president's common scheme and an international arctic conference organized by russia were here in city huts the only city in the world located exactly on the arctic circle line where the presidents of russia finland iceland other officials along with around four hundred experts have gathered and the arctic environment is what this forum is all about as average temperatures warm up and the arctic is opening up new opportunities for trade routes and energy projects moscow says only companies with experience working in the tough region and enough funds to do it properly and without harming nature must be allowed access and cleaning up the heritage of the cold war era is another issue amanda and military bases equipment and piles of barrels with fuel i know a map of the arctic binary assessment program has been involved in that but russia

has really been working on its own to try to claim we have a ways to go and they're not alone there are places around the planet or similar things that happen when people didn't recognize it as something they did had long term negative consequences for the environment the arctic nations seem to be on the same beach looking after the north pole is a responsibility they must carry together so that the mistakes of the past aren't repeated especially when their every move is under such intense scrutiny you've got this going off in the arctic. circle. let's take a look at some other world news now first to nigeria where some fifty students were massacred while sleeping in their dormitories when militants assaulted their college in a rural area of the country when issa say the attackers went room to room gunning down young men and those who tried to flee the terror group boko boko haram excuse me is believed to be behind the atrocity that comes just

a week after the kenyan shopping mall attack when islam a slaughter at least sixty eight the founder of the viewpoint africa website told us deep social problems have led to the surge of violence on the continent. all these groups are all joined together but i'll shut babin somalia or the why the and made a law in in mali or if the were to across the west africa these jihadi cells are all of the blueprints on the organization of the west has already declared terrorism leads to islam is in islam is in leads to fundamentalism and ultimately muslims when you're dealing with an ideology when you're dealing with a mindset and in the case all these groups they believe they can do no wrong because they think they're getting their group from god so to that extent it becomes very difficult to dislodge them all the time you're looking at the generational problem alternately the the youth will be the ones who will be there

be educated better be mindful of what can go wrong when they join these groups and ultimately when you start addressing the right from course it's a question of jobs addressing social issues or alternately we may be able to reap these problems from our societies. and in other stories from around the globe an explosion in the pakistani city of peshawar has killed thirty three and left at least seventy wounded a car bomb this place near a police station in the historic market area the blast is the latest in a series of deadly attacks targeting christians and government officials in the city taken together they have killed at least one hundred twenty people and injured scores more. prisoners enjoying luxury conditions behind bars have left these protesters seeing red and chilling the cordillera facility in santiago holds agents of the former military dictatorship for crimes against humanity the president has ordered the prison to be closed and the inmates moved to another jail that news

apparently triggered the suicide of a former intelligence chief under the disc race dictator opposed to pinochet according to his lawyer the ex general was upset at being moved to a regular facility. suicide attack has struck a shia mosque in baghdad killing at least forty people the blast caused the mosque roof to collapse onto the congregation which was of mourning a man killed by militants on saturday dozens of people are injured and many more may still be trapped it comes after a series of bombings in iraq e kurdistan that claimed six lives the centrist coalition government appears to have secured a narrow win in austria's parliamentary elections but preliminary results suggest right wing parties have done particularly well scooping up more than a quarter of the overall vote peter all of our reports from vienna. what it shows is that the social democrats on the people's party who went into these elections as

the coalition government well it looks likely that they'll come out of these elections as the coalition government they've picked up around fifty percent of the vote there over the coming days we should probably hear that they will continue their coalition what is most interesting about these elections is that over one quarter of austrians have voted for parties that want to do away with bailouts for euro zone countries and see in see real changes to the structure of the single currency now to talk a bit more about this and what it means i'm joined by barbara cole who's the director of the austrian economics center barbara thanks very much for talking to me why have austrians voted in this way and why are they upset with the current eurozone system well their interests the politicians in brussels anymore they don't trust our ostrander decision makers what day do their they don't believe they find the right solutions i mean after all it's just. a redistribution on a supranational level it's austrian tax euros that go to other countries and are

just washed down the drain now austria is one of the four eurozone economies this century underpins bailouts what would this vote over a quarter as they say people voting for parties that want to change things what does this mean for the future of the single currency well i think it does set a couple of politicians thinking and overlook their past solutions that after all it has only prolong the problems this is definitely what the people see and it has not come up to any solutions as a matter of fact that that's grew bigger and bigger and higher so the next generations will suffer and this is what those twenty five percent obviously have in mind so austrians voting in increasing numbers for parties they want changes to the eurozone and also voting for right wing party something that we have seen spreading across europe as my report shows. the political right is on the rice in europe and it's drawing some surprising support

a lot of people from the working class blue collar workers lower educated people are voting for the extreme right of the radical right because of the policies still put forward like immigration and european integration corruption against the politicized and the such so these are the topics that are now days important for those people voting for the radical right across europe there's a time that's turning right ukip is being talked about as the legitimate third party in britain while alternative for germany just missed out on a place in the bundestag norway's conservative government came to power with tough immigration promises and in sweden and finland there's also been gains here in australia euro skeptic right wing parties are gaining support from people who feel that the main issues important to them arms being addressed they might carry us and we should all feel we need to slow down immigration i have nothing against foreigners but enough is enough. yeah e.u.

is saying where the money should go to a like an all kind poor country is also on its of their own country and the e.u. is jordan's be like john dictate everything. to us it used to be that opar to put troops interest spruced and the e.u. second now it's only after you. go out and having the freedom party of austria have made significant gains it's critics call it xenophobia its leader thanks to differ being. i don't head for in those. even so the party adopted a different campaign tactic that it had done in previous elections there are issues hidden in the message about religious values the sense of talking about love your neighbors which is a very catholic way of talking about issues but of course the hidden message behind was that this is against islam or against muslims also flying the anti you roofline

is a stroke canadian billionaire frank strong who condemns the single currency is the road to rack and ruin we need to stop creating dirt every housewife knows that if she spends more money than. all the programs most of europe's recent elections have been nail biters for politicians desperate to keep their jobs amid libyan economies all street is different it's doing relatively fine what's happening here is brussels persistence with bailouts and encroachments on sovereignty has given the far right to come didn't sing the road to beat them with peace or all over on t.v. . as one of the last outposts of the british empire ascension island in the south atlantic is still said to be suffering the effects of colonialism the u.k. stands accused of evicting families that have lived there for over a century let's take a look now ascension island is

a tiny dot right there on the world's map it's home to barely a thousand people many of whom may now have to leave reportedly to make way for an american military base the islanders who are mainly british citizens will not be allowed to stay after retirement or if they're unemployed at eighteen the case bears similarities to the expulsion of inhabitants from diego garcia which is part of. territory the island was forcefully depopulated in the one nine hundred seventy s. also to make way for a military base those living on ascension island now say that similar to diego garcia london is squeezing the life out of the home laura smith reports the tiny island in the mid atlantic made of volcanic rock and covered in pitch and guano but to eight hundred people its home but now the story of ascension island has all the hallmarks of being the mill the diego garcia the british owned indian ocean islands

whose inhabitants were forced to leave to make way for a u.s. base despite having lived there for generations. good memories. it's not for them. you know when you see them you got this because they are enjoying the. islanders accuse the british government of emptying ascension and operating families who have been there for more than a century ten years ago and all that so different person was promising democratic institutions for the island a legal right to live and to own property it wanted a viable community that but today the population's already decreased by a quarter with communities replaced by contract workers were tired or unemployed people over eighteen had to leave and the similarities with diego garcia and the

dominant feature on the island is you guessed it an american base heavily used during president obama's recent trip to africa there are also satellites and submarine tracking stations and one of those now infamous listening posts run by g.c. h.q. the british government now conveniently insists ascension has no indigenous population and many residents believe they intend to evacuate the island completely and abandon it to the americans far from the dreams of a permanent home they had a decade ago where they'll be reduced to haul in the special relationship. david lindsay's family comes from the island he says it's outrageous that the fate of british citizens depends on u.s. military ambitions most people understand. of indian origin and. there is a very very strong sense of ascension of these be. starved to death there is

a precarious time political representation there is the absence of property rights . and it is a serious question to be asked about why. on british territory british citizens living there these are full british passport photos of why these people are being treated like this for the sake of a station with a base which is almost certain you might know more of the details of this in fact engaged in the activities that have been such a huge global story in terms of spying on pretty much everyone but that is happening on british not all americans and a british population there is being mistreated. up next in worlds apart can afghanistan's and elections and twenty fourteen do anything to quell decades of violence.