in the. ukrainian capital keep growing. the opposition. meanwhile divisions in the country become more visible as people in the east make it clear they don't share the views being voiced. also. the paper. of the bolshoi. threat of the.

news team here thanks for joining us. government protests in the ukrainian capital keeping the situation on edge with the main square. but the authorities are not budging the country's prime minister has accused the opposition of trying to stage a coup not just trying to lead peaceful protests. following developments. well at this point we have had several hundred people actually staying overnight at the independence square in the center of kiev and i've just seen quite a large for session coming from one end of the square that's behind me all the way

to the opposite we are being told that there are several hundred people that's what it looks like who are heading towards the country's parliament the rod garren is saying that they in turn have heard rumors that there could be a possible temps to this really take over as the protesters have been taking over the government buildings and in fact that is the goal of the opposition they want to take full control of all the government buildings and all the government offices in the country's capital what is important to keep in mind however is that until now the focus has been largely on the country's capital. whereas in fact the country as of now seems to be rather divided various regions of course in ukraine carry different allegiances and this what this report is about european union flags burning trash bins get to teenagers and the world revolution passed around like a football this is kiev but what about other parts of ukraine where people have a different opinion about what's good for the country and what isn't. how many

revolutions did we have in ukraine seven. bring us. together old people and students and use them so unpleasant i don't even want to talk about it right now the opposition is trying to sell the drive for e.u. integration as the choice of all but recent polls show that there's an equal split between the pro european west of the country and the east and south which are historically much more pro russian if people want to live like they do in europe they must work like they do in europe they should not be just school and work for the sake of being out on the street. to be in the e.u. we must meet certain criteria and that the moment we are simply not up to par to the european standards in the way we produce things. so far do you claim your leadership has shown no sign of giving in quite the opposite the president the parliament and the cabinet remain firmly in place so perhaps the forecasts of an

impending doom could be premature it is a god i t of. time as a rino was mentioning the demands of the demonstrators in kiev and not exactly shared by people in the east of the country thousands of taken this to the streets there to voice support for the author or tease the decision to suspend the trade deal with the e.u. a recent polls show the country is sharply divided on the issue more than seventy percent of those living in the west of ukraine favoring the deal with the european union but while those with the same pro e.u. moods are shared by less than thirty percent in the east earlier i discussed this and other issues affecting the events in ukraine with political analyst dmitri babich. the majority of ukrainians want to retain good relations with russia and the problem is that no one has read almost no one has read in ukraine the so-called

agreement with the u. because it is more than von thousand pages long and it is north accessible even on the internet dmitri there are some senior politicians that gave extra impetus to the protests by addressing the crowds in independence square i know it's very noisy where you are right now but let's have a quick listen to what they had to say. is this to tell you who are part of europe and we will sue poor really over the years they still have the european union needs you and you need the european union and if you needed you would be with you or are you. are to me three what so what's your take on this there are already some analysts that are saying that is direct interference in the country's internal affairs. well there is no doubt that this is a direct interference you know when the form of polish prime minister just left the team steve comes and speaks at the independence square i think this is directed to feel rich into the turn of affairs of your green imagine ever russian official

coming to kiev and doing the see that would be a scandal i'm sure there will be a war some statements from brussels sunday one from washington so we have a clear double standard there you know they european union and the united states that are very sensitive about ukrainian independence and sovereignty when they need to protect it from russia but they don't respect ukrainian independence and sovereignty. when there is some e.u. or american influence. and the current unrest in ukraine what's far from spontaneous and is no longer inspired by the failure of the trade deal with the e.u. russia's president commented on the ongoing protests in the neighboring country stressing the events like they were moscow minded for the next presidential election number is really what's going on in kiev has little to do with ukraine's relations with the e.u. moreover it doesn't look like a revolution but

a well planned action we can see well prepared and organized militant groups the opposition is either not always in control of what's going on or it's a political shroud for extremist actions. both the government and the opposition agree the violent riots were deliberately instigated but they differ on who is behind them a prominent foreign affairs analyst dr service thrift of which he says the authorities have nothing to gain from such tactics we need the question. who gains and it is obvious that the government has nothing to gain by violence the government is actually hoping that it will gradually die down the only people who have a vested interest in provoking violence are the protesters themselves or to put it more precisely those who are behind the organized aspect of the protests because it would work wonders both in the western media and in the end of the

covert each segment of the opinion population to have the marches of the so-called peaceful protests who are being suddenly be savaged by the police know that scenario simply does not sound convincing in my opinion the violence being instigated is perhaps by the fringe elements of the protesters but certainly not by the government because they have nothing to gain. and there we will of course every bringing you more updates from ukraine and expert opinion on the situation there throughout the day plus of course you can always keep an eye on developments by simply log on to our t. dot com that's where you'll see some of the most startling videos and photos from the protests. it's good to have you with us here at r.t. international to the u.k.

we go where the editor of the guardian newspaper is due to appear before the house of commons of a publishing edward snowden's revelations on global surveillance the country's security services claim public access to the documents has eroded national security investigative journalist tony gosling he told us it's the secret service agency itself that should be facing a grilling. what they're doing is they're informing the public on criminal activity by our own intelligence services g c h q particularly because other newspapers and the people have been doing it over the last few years this is absolute rubbish i'm afraid when in front of the intelligence and security committee the bosses of m i five m i six and q were giving their evidence we hard we were asking them for evidence that there's been any kind of threat to national security and you know what they said oh we can tell you in secret this is no real evidence they don't have any evidence they've been caught out acting criminally and we've got no proper

oversight whatsoever of our intelligence services right now our intelligence services even though they completely failed us on iraq and in other ways have risen in power their their budgets after the cold war doubling and it's absolutely ridiculous to see the. parliamentarian starting to interview the messenger shooting the messenger is what they're trying to do today and they're not going to succeed. let's walk through the story for you now here on r.t. international and the guardian made its first public revelations based on stoner's materials at the beginning of the summer soon after about in july the police knocked on the door demanding that all the leak data be handed over and what would become a common occurrence then followed a paper was warned of a legal action against it then in august david miranda a partner to one of the guardian's columnists he was arrested accused of trying to bring in a fresh material on the n.s.a. and juicy h.q. and in a symbolic move the newspaper destroyed the computer hard drives which contain some

of the secret data and now here we are waiting for the editor of the guardian to go before the members of parliament why are you with r.t. international live from moscow plenty more for you to come still in this program. well david cameron this is space tweets in mandarin in promotes close it's trade links between. the u.k. and china many of the british chinese working in these shops and restaurants say that the immigration from down in london is chinatown isn't making them feel very welcome. and afghanistan's president accuses nato of applying pressure to allow international forces to stay on its soil to pull out. the rest of the world's top headlines for this hour after the break.

speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. the team from the world talks about six of the ip interviews intriguing story for you.

to find out more visit our big. international thanks for joining us going soft on human rights in tibet and tweeting in mandarin just some of david cameron's latest moves to win the good graces of the chinese and the british prime minister is in beijing on the largest ever trade mission to the country and whispering sweet words into the is of officials there. some in europe and elsewhere see the world changing and want to shut china off behind the bamboo of trade barriers britain wants to trade barriers and open britain is the ideal for an opening china back home in the u.k. chinese residents say they don't feel quite as welcome in london's chinatown as frequently raided by the u.k.

border agency. went to check it out. according to the local association here in london's chinatown immigration officials would visit the eat series here once or twice a week but it wasn't for the food they did but that is just one of the restaurants raided by the u.k. border agents say if you imagine where you are in a restaurant enjoying your new meal with your friends your family some uniformed people. who don't are so we know what's going on and on the one hand the staff will have to deal with a customer and they don't know what's happening in or near that they're being questioned by these guys who may not have a tent for themselves in the u.k. border agency insists that any immigration checks that carries out looking for illegal workers are always intelligence led but businesses up and down this street say that legal procedures weren't followed jury in the raids in fact some of them

didn't result in any arrests whatsoever but the frequency and the reported heavy handedness of the immigration officials led to precedented to action all of the businesses here shut down in protest against what they said was discrimination from the u.k. border agents same consensus the genuine frustration and the level of the threat of anger. and the level of. discontent. was flecked to the number of people who decided to. to close to this this to support the action since the protests to take place community leaders have met with the u.k. border agency to discuss the way in which the raids were handled but while david cameron visits beijing sweets in mandarin in promotes closer trade links between the u.k. and china many of the british chinese working in these shops and restaurants many

of whom of work to for generations say that the immigration crackdown in london is chinatown isn't making them feel very welcome. artsy london. and we're coming to live from moscow while a slower than hoped recovery from recession is one of the factors making britain court chinese money but another european country is quickly bouncing back from the crisis iceland has now announced a major mortgages write down scheme to speed up its growth even further. with a host of venture capital are joining me live to discuss it's good to see you k.c. homeowners getting a helping hand yes makes a change doesn't it so the icelandic government they're going to inject one and a quarter billion u.s. dollars to help people who are really struggling with higher costs of living so what they're going to do is they're going to get this money it's going to be more good pay downs another half in tax exemptions it's going to help one hundred thousand people which probably doesn't sound a great deal but that such

a third of the population of iceland now having said this this is going to be nine percent of the total country's g.d.p. which is fourteen billion so they're already investing into this one but not everybody is happy about this credit rating agency is advising against this is saying austerity is the way forward as well as. to austerity is the way forward gosh we haven't heard that before have not normal. some people saying that since two thousand and eight iceland has actually come rather a long way it has done for a mars. we rewind the clock it was pretty much a disaster the first domino to fall in the whole financial crash and it affected pretty much most of europe and externally is one and that's because people lots of countries had assets in the international banking system that was iceland as a result we had international debts six times higher than the country's g.d.p. which is pretty startling the stock market plunged ninety percent inflation surged

eighteen percent we had unemployment rising nine fall that's just to give you an idea of what happened so the government has stepped up and this is what they did so they decided to go against what the rest of europe was doing so they paid off consumer loans first of all that's the person they decided to do they forgave mortgages as well so again they helped out the people that were struggling they burned bondholders instead of using taxpayers' money again the opposite of a lot of what the european union decide is they aren't interested in some of the bankers in prison. they did indeed so they did go against it and also want to remind you that they have paid their i.m.f. loans back ok they're still in germany session there's a long way to go but if we consider the situation they were in in two thousand and eight it's quite a comeback so i wish them paid off early to go to the. laws of the i.m.f.

was because it likes having the high interest loans force feeding the government to make them pay back super high interest iceland actually doing something for its people as opposed to the euro crowds in brussels to get into the bank you know it's good that you say that because the o.e.c.d. they've actually warned against they've said this isn't advisable to be so harsh on the banks. because. it's far enough away geographically speaking they can get away with this kind of thing but perhaps to other european leaders take note don't always do what the i.m.f. wants you to do try looking after your people for ones who are the host of venture capital thank you. and i thank you for joining us here on our to international the drama of the acid attack on the artistic director of moscow's world famous bolshoi ballet is reaching its conclusion but in a culture over. the last year the bolshoi theater reopened after e spectacular establishment but some of the shine has been taking on the theater by

this scandal we should be ghana this generates now judy is the un chair month long trial and the fate of the alleged mastermind will be decided meanwhile in the theater use trying hard to get the spotlight pointing back at what's happening on the stage rather than off it and now be looking back at those opposite russian bally's history at last have a look. at the final act in a case as dark as anything to grace the famous stage an acid attack that exposed to the world that russia stop theater in reality as a battle of filled where the struggle for glory when the curtains for the all songs and the theatres artistic director siggy fillin that almost made him blind shocked the world leaving the question who was the mastermind behind it so give killing was returning home after an evening at the theater world gallo to this apartment building a man concealing his identity with a scarf called out to liz name and right after that through some liquid in his face

saying it was a greeting for him and their leader a court appearance filling described the pain as unbearable and terrifying he was left suffering in agony and the snow right outside this building it was late at night and it took him some time to get help and more than twenty operations before he showed his face in public again from the start of our show officials and investigators who believe they are solid had come from inside the bali community two months later rest of leading soloist. by the chain go often in his career the on stage villain plain average thing from von rothbart and swan lake to iran the terrible he was accused of planning that tack another two man of the alleged a getaway driver and the alleged attacker himself or detained the trial in court need to change the admitted he didn't want to rough up felon but sad he did not

intend for asset to be thrown into his face i organized the state of crime but not on the scale that it turned out. enjoyed vanity rumors and sooner ations even violence the dark underbelly of the place and the spotlight whatever the verdict here it will take a while to restore the last of this famous and situation i didn't question the artsy moscow. regarding the whole bolshoi case we're just getting this in here on r t international that all three accused in it have now been found guilty you will get the details live from our correspondent in a culture of a next hour here on the program for now though a quick reminder that it's always plenty more stories for you among them we'll tell you of the grave revelations about the preparations for the football world cup in. an international committee sounds the alarm over the conditions for migrant workers

saying the lives of four thousand of them are in danger if no changes are made. plus when purchasing something online read the small print and think twice before posting a negative review as it could now land you hefty fine. for now on the program afghanistan's accuse the u.s. so forcing it into an unfair contract with nato by cutting off fuel supplies to the country's security forces president karzai recently rejected washington's deal to allow the alliance's troops to stay off the twenty fourteen and now says pressure is being applied to drag him back in. ports now want to refuse to sign the deal in the first place. in the war getting out as often harder than going in and nowhere does that hold more true than in afghanistan president obama promised to withdraw combat forces by

the end of twenty fourteen. full responsibility for their security in this war to a responsible. but the two countries have been at all odds over a deal that would keep some u.s. troops past that deadline washington wants the pact signed before the end of the year it's imperative that we conclude the bilateral security agreement as soon as possible but afghan president hamid karzai says not until the u.s. cleans up its act brown says the issue of. sovereignty and detentions and the continued presence of international forces and afghan of villages and the very conduct of the war itself. the simmering tensions have erupted into a war of words on sunday karzai accuse the u.s. of deliberately withholding fuel supplies to pressure him into signing the deal the nato led force in afghanistan says that's simply not true and it's not the only spat a u.s.

drone strike last week killed a toddler and injured two women the top u.s. commander formally apologized but karzai wants a different apology one from president obama himself for harm done to afghan civilians during the war the u.s. response don't hold your breath there is not a need for the united states to apologize to afghanistan quite the contrary we have sacrificed and supported them in their democratic progress and in tackling the insurgency and al qaeda but the insurgency isn't over and in parts of afghanistan residents are caught between hatred of international forces and fear of the taliban this man says he lost two sons in an errant nato attack that my children feel fear when they see a helicopter and run away to the rooms there is a lot of fear but once the sun goes down another threat emerges on that anyone at night to tell about the run there in the district government is just their name but

there is no real security. and afghan forces are still heavily dependent on the west. of the us troops stop helping us as there are a lot of threats against us in the region will be facing big problems. although afghan tribal leaders endorse the pact karzai says he won't sign until after the spring elections and that's only if washington meets his demands among them ending u.s. troop raids on afghan homes and agreeing to peace talks with the taliban if the deal is to repeat ode that could mean no more u.s. soldiers but it could also jeopardize billions of dollars in aid leading some to accuse karzai of putting the country's security at risk in order to score political points at home lucy catherine of r t moscow some of the global headlines for your brief right now into the world update we go the thai government and the opposition have now agreed upon a truce for the next few days earlier protesters were let into government buildings

including the prime minister's office which they had repeatedly attacked over the weekend of the nine days of confrontation that left four people dead by the proposed to amnesty bill for the former prime minister who was ousted in two thousand and six. alleged boko haram militants have attacked an air force base in nigeria at least twenty four gunmen in two gods are being killed during the battles but more casualties among the personnel on the base are expected authorities have now imposed a twenty four hour curfew around the side and a nearby city the attack comes a week off the nigerian military bombarded boko haram hideouts on the border with cameroon. well thank you for joining us here on r.t. international just a moment a look at the lives of military families who have lost their loved ones on the battlefield but more unexpectedly and bouts of friendly fire thanks for joining us .

you. craig is in a tough spot right now trying to figure out whether to join the e.u. or the regime's custom union it would be nice if they would you know maybe allow the populace to vote for their future via referendum but sadly it looks like the politicians will be making a historic decision i can see why some people want to look west and some people want to look east but i don't understand why so-called ukrainian nationalists want so desperately to join the e.u. first off any nationalist groups in the e.u. are automatically demonised as right wing extremists and in the politically correct west patriotism is pretty much a dirty word generally nationalist like their culture and the people who are part of it but if you look at migration trends within the e.u. we see that the slavic part of it is flooding western europe looking for work i have many relatives from the slavic part of the e.u. and almost all of them have to work abroad and might sound nice to be able to work

in europe but the reality is that ukrainians will probably be paid even less than bulgarians rumanians to clean toilets in london ukrainian nationalists don't have to like russia or join the customs union or join any bloc of countries but advocating a future for themselves that seems absolutely backwards at least to me a fascist i point. the research of dr scott's not a retired lieutenant colonel in the harvard business school highlights the difficulties in determining both the cause of and criminal culpability in friendly fire incidents so friendly fire have a perverse relationship with friendly.