police in the ukrainian capital of peacefully dismantling barricades are moving protestors off the streets to allow traffic through the move triggered at mascara among the opposition that a crackdown was on the way. already government steps up its drive against pro-reform activists says the number of those arrested it is close to the three thousand mark. the n.s.a. apparently invents a new approach to playing games at work as agents lead a double life among. other sea creatures in the online gaming world. from

a studio center here in moscow was just turned eight pm this is international police have started dismantling barricades in the center of the ukrainian capital and moving protesters away from blockaded streets tensions have been high for the whole day with reports of an imminent crackdown frequently surfacing that amongst the opposition. is there so i mean a any truth to these rumors appearing to be true now that the police moving in. well i am here right now in kiev central independence square the essentially the heart off the protest and i personally haven't seen any dismantling going on now that is not to say that the police aren't doing just starts on any other small approach has started a blog where the protesters have been establishing a sort of makeshift makeshift tent cities and of course walking the streets a little bit further. way from the central square but you have to understand that

we've been getting the upper hand on the rise here throughout the day largely because of the numerous messages that were saying that the police are coming in hundreds toward stake at the ukrainian capital and their main aim is essentially squash the protests right here in independence square that is not happening right now i want to make that very very clear i in fact there is also information coming in from one of the opposition parties who are claiming that the police are currently storming their headquarters again no confirmation of that as well in fact of the minister of the interior he has said that their main aim is to clear out the streets because the city essentially has been paralyzed by traffic jam so what they want to do is to dismantle the blockade the blocks and to push the protest on to protesters onto the sidewalks in order to free up the traffic but other than that again according to the ministry of internal affairs they want to keep this peaceful

and there's absolutely no plans to squash out the protesters from independence square in fact it seems that the main violence that we have seen so far was directed against the monumental statue of lenin in the center of kiev and here's my report on that. by. then toppled and smashed the statue of one revolutionary has fallen victim to a new generation of marys they call him the ultimate evil but somehow take their cue from his methods as lenin did a hundred years before them protesters in kiev have captured to bury key to him full of civic buildings. right now the scene there is a mix of a refugee camp a gypsy village and hippie hangout. and a rock concert with a whole lot of political slogans thrown in. this is what ukraine opposition calls a revolution others though have a different name for it we see things happening in ukraine we see the storm of

government building you see violence we see. it is a bulldozer being used trash national into government buildings if this was happening in britain it is happening in. germany then of course these people would be denounced as rioters maybe given very stiff prison sentences the poses deford's or getting a financial helping hand from contributors who drop cash into special collection box that has been set up and security is provided by the so-called revolutionary guard youth in masks and helmets whose job is to ward off hostile forces from the gates of the citadel the movement has been blocking the heart of the city and its major thorold there for two weeks now. you have. those who incite you to blockade the cabinet of ministers are absolutely reckless irresponsible people the ministry of finance is in this building the ministry responsible for paying wages to all of ukraine stop and think teachers' salaries doctors pay mergence the services they

all depend on the continued functioning of this government. to no avail though protest leaders are certain this paralysis is the right way to go in order to reach their glorious goal you see a pattern here of of escalation and provocation a very large public provocation a few nights ago and they were using chains and tractors and of course the police as police do everywhere reacted with violence what would happen if someone drove a tractor and tried to drive it into the white house lawn you're going to tell me that there wouldn't be violence against the one hundred thousand people trying to break into the white house this is one of the latest protest organizers by the state prosecutor's office here in kiev where people have staged to sit in l.a. and and a tent city so. those who came in to work today literally step over protesters in order to get to their jobs exercising their rights to go to work just as people here aren't taking up their right to rally but they feel they aren't being seen by

the opposition leaders or by western officials in the party he of. well we'll be hearing more from both camps later this hour international affairs experts an m.e.p. close to the delegation which hammered out the failed trade deal with ukraine will join me later in the program stay with us for that if you can. bahrain's thrown another group of activists including miners behind bars bringing the total number of those arrested in december alone to twenty eight protesters say in recent months the government's crackdown has become in sufferable where the bahraini people struggle for reform goes back almost three years now to february two thousand and eleven when four demonstrators were killed as police crushed a rally less than a month later the authorities impose martial law which allowed troops to suppress

the dissent by that time the number of those arrested stood at one thousand that has increased threefold now but legal and physical pressure on the activists has failed to kill the protest momentum the monarchy reacted by further tightening the screws this year toughening the punishments for those speaking out but as. reports this is still unlikely to silence the opposition. it's the arab spring is forgotten revolution nearly three years have gone by since the people of the rain inspired by the ancient unison and egypt goes up against an oppressive regime and demanded reform but there uprising was brutally crushed within a matter of weeks who have used their name in the picture for the people to sponsor one of the grave human rights violations in my country. starting from this morning with a police officer and minister of interior reaching to the king of bahrain who is legally responsible of all the human rights violations and syud yousif elmo hafter

has been forced to seek refuge in europe because of death threats against him and his family and i gather bahraini activists he criticizes washington and its allies for being quick to condemn crackdowns in some countries while ignoring others oh it's better than the human rights in bahrain and it was said and to this it's better than human rights as a diversion or better and so that's where we are a victims. of their embedded standard because we've been always going to last week the global manami dialogue forum pointedly ignored the crackdown u.s. secretary of defense chuck hagel made it clear in his speech that he was more concerned about military matters they walled for food there are still you have reported all slaves so that's why they they want everyone to talk about force yes they did that if they give them cross see that they are losing their own lot to them. and so very much was so far according to amnesty

international more than a hundred people have been killed and almost three thousand in prison in the rainy protest many may have featured in a crackdown if it means a foreign move from the world's attention policia r.t. . america's national security agency has apparently been leading an active life in a fantasy world it's been sending its high level agents into the hordes of orcs elves and dwarves in online games such as world of warcraft has more in this. these revelations center around two games that's world of warcraft and second life these are basically alternative online universes where users can create avatars they can be no elves or trolls the fear that g c h q and the n.s.a. had was that this type of online game could be used to discuss shady activity on

the part of terrorist networks or criminal groups which is why they have been spying on the people playing these games which is basically involves them assuming fantasy identities and jumping in and getting stuck and we know that there are a lot of play is online playing these games around forty eight million according to the estimate by x. box live that in fact it seems to have been quite a big operation the cia the f.b.i. and the pentagon even had to reportedly create a special d confliction group in order to stop all the spies from spying on each other or effectively playing one massive washington game of world of warcraft and perhaps most embarrassing really what we know from the leaked documents is that none of this buying has led to any successful counterterrorism operations which has led to some suggestions online that it could have all been an elaborate ploy by bored employees at g.c. h.q. in the n.s.a.

to simply play computer games out of work but certainly the n.s.a. have said that they can't comment on this said that they can't confirm or deny it but it raises questions once again about the online privacy of gamers it doesn't come at a good time either today is the day that facebook microsoft google and other large tech companies have written an open letter to the u.s. government asking them to dramatically change their surveillance operations so no matter how you spin it it just doesn't look good when you find out that g c h q and the n.s.a. have been found to be playing world of warcraft. author international life coming up in this hour we'll be discussing ukraine's future with international affairs experts and any peace that's after the break.

they look like bounty islands. can enjoy the song on the ocean. but what was buried here years ago. people are suffering the consequences. how much more poison lies on the ground. behind this there is what we call the callet bank on which there is a deposit of plutonium left by security test which caused the dispersion of radion you clyde's despite previous cleaning efforts there remains a deposit of a little less than two kilos of plutonium stuck in the rock the coral reef about ten metres down. a never ending legacy.

the national live for most breaking news this hour we're hearing that up to twenty two thousand people jailed in russia could see their crimes forgiven under a new amnesty proposal by the name of person pussy rock band members and even anti kremlin activists convicted of inciting unrest could be eligible for release while the high profile greenpeace activist could escape prosecution as well the details now on this breaking news with our teams medina coach and i have but we expected turn of events here not a very high profile prisoners will no doubt be looking forward to hearing more about this. well first of all this is the so-called broad amnesty s.x. rooster wait up to as you just mentioned twenty two thousand people to be released following that amnesty and it was reported to the document has already been

submitted to the state duma deputies and is expected to be approved as early as a by the end of this year now the amnesty has been prepared by the russian president vladimir putin and it marks the anniversary of the doctrine of the passaggio russia's constitution of one thousand nine hundred ninety three now the main question is of course who will benefit. coming out now among xhosa people who are likely to be a part of following out those documents are those who are charged. and of course we're talking about some of the. group members. now there have been serving our current two year prison sentence as well as the greenpeace activists from the greenpeace vessel arctic sunrise. just.

now they also fall under the. it was. a serious crime. dana thank you very much indeed for that no doubt we'll be hearing more. from you a little later throughout the day international been of course never thank you very much. well now we return to our top story ukraine's security forces have started to clear barricades from the capital city center and clear roads from government protesters have been out in the streets for more than two weeks now after the country's leadership was put into signing on economic integration deal with the e.u. well joining us live a little later i believe from strasburg is. she is a member of the delegation to the ukraine parliamentary corp committee she was

close to the failed association deal between the two powers and that she is indeed joining us live here on r.t. international for this discussion we have historian. and international affairs expert and he joins us from london and here in the studio we have. just returned from. a little research on this developing story in ukraine let me just turn to you immediately in the larger of what's happening at the moment it appears that the security forces are indeed now removing the protesters from the center of kiev when you were there reporting in kiev what did you make of the way the authorities handled situation you know bill i've been covering ukraine and its politics and its protests for almost a decade now since the so-called orange revolution and never in my life have expected that i'll be breathing pepper and tear gas in the heart of this is that this was the case no one expected. such brutal violence from both sides from both the police and the protesters to happen on friday ten days ago we all of us most of

us journalists went home after a big rally expecting it to be just another protest during the night then the police came at five o'clock in the morning and dispersed the crowd very brutally thirty six hours later i was walking down the street towards the independence square with a crowd of absolutely raging aggressive people they were really charged with with what happened two days before that and we saw what happened at the presidential office building something completely completely unexpected. but we did see scenes all protesters looking fairly organized in the way they were protesting this week or yes indeed especially the takeover of the city whole building i couldn't wait to sit with my own eyes i was at a different place at the time but later i saw the footage they looked like a very well prepared army because the way there was storming the building this looks like like a hollywood movie they knew what they were doing exactly and it's really hard to say it's more of a conspiracy theory who stands behind it who was responsible for preparing these men but definitely they were prepared and this is something new for ukraine and i

can say that based on my life based on my past experience. is joining us live here. at the moment his daughter and barricades we understand the security forces could well be moving in now but the way that we've seen this demonstration carried out over the last couple of weeks is the sort of thing we have seen in other countries the u.s. and indeed in europe wouldn't these protesters have been dispersed well before now . of course i was in the united states nine weeks ago when a mentally deranged african-american woman from massachusetts was killed by capitol police because she didn't stop as instructed it turned out that she was unarmed and achieving had her child in the back seat what is sauce for the goose in broad brushes in washington however is not a source for the ukrainian gand because all along it's not the welfare of the

ukrainian people or dangerous the ukrainian state that the western elite are interested in do looking upon ukraine as a form in a zero sum game i hold russia's loss is our benefits and the whole issue really boils down to a geo political struggle for what's in harold mechanise terms could be called the european heartland or ukraine is in jus political terms indeed the most important country in europe and the funny thing is and i know ukraine fairly well i was there as an observer for the vote what are the election a year ago that it will neither be wholly european in the brussels sense nor will it ever be fully close rush because it is fundamentally divided kora ok when you

say let's just hear now from the european point of view murders welcome to our discussion here now to international what do you make of what sarah just just said . thank you very much for your take participation in this discussion i think that. very big country and european country and it is in there because all european policy is but i think there. can't be she. be very cool. for the european union. european union. and. ok well thank you very much for that thank you let me just quickly ask you about this that's what people are protesting about they know exactly what they want and they echo the sentiments of what we just heard from bruce here i would disagree with that because essentially there's been a lot of misconception about the nature of this protest everyone most of the media

reported that this is the. protest in kiev and i've been i spent several nights on my down on the independence square talking to the people there was a huge part of crowd we were just spreading these these bands ukrainian flag and saying we're again here those people i talked with them what they were saying is we want to live in a country where law is respected where law is observed the laws are proper and fine we don't want this corruption and we understand they told me that will not be part of the european union any time soon probably in the next fifty years but there was another part of the crowd which carried party slogans the party banners some of this some part of this crowd was as we call them in ukraine flag wavers they paid for a small chunk but still it was there and it was a totally different crowd were brainwashed in many ways all right but brainwashed but even some economists are pouring cold water on the aspirations of those people who want integration they say that ukraine's association with the will mean nothing

short of a nuclear energy shutdown agricultural collapse the virtual destruction of ukraine's current military industry and what's more important ukraine will have nowhere to export its products. in the heart of europe do you really believe that that. could be the case. yes i think that your opinion is based on very little and european citizens says well craney and citizens need this saw i think or their. corporations between do it in a union and crane will support crania citizens to achieve many many results in their prosperity so it's a very good idea to have a call boy to sign an. association agreement between the opinion and. prosperity also but also he's in london for the british think tank just made

it clear where your stance is your european prosperity for ukraine is that is what the e.u. membership will offer in the long term. i think there's a bruiser group is pro european we're proud democracy we are in favor of the nation state and against the european union which is anti democratic european union values are ones where the ball of the elite takes precedence over those of democratically elected officials the european union is about institutionalized corruption based in brussels and excessive regulation if the ukraine signs of partnership agreement with the e.u. it will have to enforce e.u. regulations with very little input into those laws that will be very damaging for the ukrainian economy it will mean job losses the people who are protesting at the moment should realize that and the association agreement with the european union

could well mean. that they will be out of a job they should recognise that really let me talk about i'm really. far more to say let's thank you robert will know about membership balgair of course is an e.u. member how's it been working for your country tell us the benefits. yes. many difficulties in our way to do opinion a saw i have for my efforts and my country has also its own air force for doing this and i think that human rights and economic co-operation and all the very rules freedom of movement freedom of speaking freedom of knowledge is all we all have held ukrainian citizens to be. we anted to be more successful a saw it's

a very important to know that the european union based on the value of c. is not on the economic issue it's not an economic union it's a reunion of a loose and it's a union of. corporation it's not just a mining. should to give to the european citizens but it's a much more a more form all and it's a very important to understand and to very important to have a very big dialogue with the europeans between the european citizens and craney and citizens including of course the government all right robert just a just a quick comment from you and then we'll bring it out of across. so the european union haven't been signed off in nearly twenty years because if we don't waste forward and corruption the european union would be causing enormous damage to

countries particularly in the south the european union is about mass unemployment that's what we're seeing a merging of the whole of the european union really the ukraine signs of deal with the people will be out of that effect it doesn't make economic sense that they can very much instead of let me quickly ask that's exactly what the politicians were saying to the protesters in kiev central square over the last few days politicians from not just ukraine but elsewhere absolutely i think his point earlier about the flag wavers i think springs to mind here i think what we're seeing is just a lot of flag waving around very bipolar ideals i think just point about. ukraine being offered a zero sum solution being the problem is absolutely bang on i think people have to realize that ukraine's historical position is to look both east and west is to buffer the western european peninsula with the eurasian heartland and that it has to its historical position has to be respected as such to have politicians.

arriving in my down square from poland. particularly from poland but we also the german foreign minister first of elon and the dutch foreign minister to was was also on my down and to have these people. troupe the color as it were and to support these protests even after the government survived a no confidence motion in the code and rather i find quite extraordinary we were having a bit of fun of this on twitter today and i can only compare it to if sergey lavrov turns up in glasgow and called on london to hear the voices of freedom in scotland and then aligned himself with a group of supporters who were trained by glasgow celtic or glasgow rangers you know it's just an extraordinary divisive form of politics but it's it cuts right across both my down and the digital media sphere as well if you look at the u.s. ambassador's twitter feed in the us ambassador to ukraine geoffrey pyatt his twitter feed reads like something from the orange revolution of two thousand and four p british ambassador so obviously it didn't have

a twitter account until november twenty fifth and then coincidentally. suddenly got one just as the origin was just a very brief comment from there we haven't heard from me for a couple of minutes just what i've said just very briefly response to that. in the long term however i don't think we'll see the orange revolution redux because i think that there is a substantial percentage of ukrainian citizens who realize that neither in economic terms nor in terms of so-called values is there anything to be gained from the association to be the e.u. back in two thousand and four nobody wanted to risk anything for the discredited kuchma establishment nowadays i think that many people are particularly in the south and in the east knows that their livelihood depends on developing connections with the only power that can offer some belief now immediately and by the way i'm

amazed that the bulgarian plea to sion can talking lowing terms about the european union when bulgaria is now the basket case importing tomatoes from thirty percent for goodness sake in bulgaria used to supply all of eastern and central europe with vegeta bills only twenty years ago ok such a very quick colleagues i want to conclude this now where's this going to lead to because after all it's been coming very clear now these protesters they don't just want a new association they want to get rid of the government the parliament the cabinet the president is that going to happen when the government survive three believe that your new coach has weathered the storm and there will be no repetition of november of two thousand and four. robert oulds where do you think this is leading to. the main will join with the european union in any kind of association agreement it doesn't make economic sense the bush group would recognise that several years ago when we studied the use eastern neighborhood.