amid mass day and night anti-government protests in ukraine thousands gather in central kiev to support the president with a tear rallies just several hundred meters apart plus. only e.u. donuts with the european union flag are now available for sale we take a look at how ukraine's business is trying to capitalize on the ongoing public unrest. is a mystery novels in syria target the kurdish minority yet again as one hundred twenty civilians are reportedly taken hostage near the turkish border. and by by bailout shackles story says a man and hard work helps arlen to shake loose of the financial dick todd's but there's still a way to go together country's debt and show. what

an r.t. international coming to you live from moscow with me marina josh welcome to the program political battle lines have torn ukraine's capital into while thousand strong crowds keep off the air anti-government protests activists are also gathering to support president victory on a cottage are peaceful scott walked along the front lines of both rallies. you can see the close proximity between the two opposing rallies right behind me is independence square which has been the heart of the opposition movement for the last number of weeks now you can see the barricades that have been built by the protesters and reinforced in the last couple of days but if we pan around to the left hand side now this is european square and this is the scene of a rally in support of the president where you can get a sense of exactly how close the pro and anti government supporters are the line of

police separating the two camps just here to my right hand side now if we take you through to the main parts of european square where the main pro-government rally is taking place we were hearing reports over the course of the weekend that could be up to two hundred thousand pro government supporters descending on european square and i would go to try and show off prescott to walk through this line of police at the moment to main in what was the main part of european square and as you can see the pro-government rally is in full swing. well here we are in the halls of the pro-government rally in describing the our presence all of these pro-government supporters and the fact that they are just a hundred yards away from independence square things are actually quite calm at the moment tensions are quite high but things are all peaceful now on friday president on a coach part of roundtable discussion with members of the opposition here three on and on the state for prisoners for protesters who were arrested throughout the

course of these demonstrations but he refused the key demand of his resignation and an early election another moment we're still left with this standoff. president has dismissed the deputy security and a fan senator and a hat of kiev's administration and the wake of the ongoing investigation into police conduct on of amber's the thirtieth meanwhile the last few weeks of unrest have been hugely disruptive for businesses in central kiev but some have been seizing the opportunity to cash in and i'm sure shops he has a story. the korean capital has been in a protest mode for more than two weeks now it looks completely different than a month ago people are living here cooking food. and definitely life has changed when the protests kicked off talking about food underneath the square of the protest you can literally chew on the e.u. donuts with the european union flag are now available for sale. thank you very much

. and the taste delicious local fridge magnet manufacturers were quick to pounce on the idea of the protest and now you can purchase a very peculiar more ability from sending yellow college to prison to localizing international brands. it's no wonder that central kiev is the place of many restaurants and bars and their lives have been affected in one way or another we decided to pay a visit to one of the oldest pubs in the city center to find out. so we lost the pubs manager how the protest affects the life of his restaurant. but also how have the euro my done in the protests affected your pub. the number of visitors has increased only slightly since these protests kicked off but now we've got a special offer menu which includes items such as tea and cake and will be open twenty four seventh's for as long as the year on my down protests continue but not all and seem to be equally happy with the way the protests are going some of the

local taxi drivers have complained to me that the barricade makes their life a true traffic nightmare i talk to one of them right now what do you think of the barricades in the center of the city i'm sick and tired of this government but being a taxi driver is my job so those barricades in downtown key that actually make it much harder for me to do my job and feed my family. the further we step away from the my down the more mood change we seeing among the locals some of them have been enraged by particular aspects of this unrest as someone who was born and raised in korea how do you feel that these. protest protests are good i'm tired of going to quote each two because i think he has run his course but as a key president i'm not sure why monuments needed to be destroyed it seems these demonstrations have been privatized by a bunch of vandals. but just one kilometer from the independence square there are places where the revolution vibe is non existent up to what has been a turbulent and hard weekly crane people are letting off steam in different

nightclubs and bars but then its light goes on despite the some part of the city is still on the revolutionary lockdown lets you assess the quality reporting from kiev in ukraine. following in the footsteps of several european politicians u.s. senator john mccain as having two key have to show solidarity with the opposition protests the u.s. senate has panned a resolution calling on washington to impose sanctions against ukraine if police get tough on their rallies but don de bar a producer for c.p.r. news told us that support from the west has nothing to do with democracy. a member of the greek parliament goes there on the public treasury to stir up trouble with ukraine and to promote the e.u. simply well the e.u. was strangling greece these are some amazing images to me there's a geo political agenda this being served by stirring up but unrest in ukraine both

an attempt to bring it into the orbit of western europe a century and also by the way to use you crane as another source of the the looting that goes on if ukraine were to look at what its real future would be in the it should look to the countries of the south greece portugal spain ukraine will end up impoverished and exploited france is one of the policy makers in the e.u. reemerging as a colonial power and ukraine they are attempting basically to treat as a lower tier of sect substract a group almost a colony inside the. line we've got a life timeline of events in kiev for you so how to our website r t dot com for the very latest from the ukrainian capital.

and cheery al-qaeda linked travels have reportedly abducted one hundred twenty kurds from a village close to the turkish border the news was reported by the u.k. based observatory for human rights is that all captives were taken to an unknown location alan sammo a representative of the kurdish democratic union party in syria is calling on at the international community to protect his people. terror groups. relate to. you about them not on the islamic state we're trying to persuade that international community and to home our rights organizations and omar as a defender that they have a duty to protect their civilian all these people who have been killed or have been forced from their area from their home from their houses and this winter harsh condition is their duty to protect this deviant people they are not force people that are kurdish people living peacefully. the parents are syria's largest ethnic

minority and their armed stand off with incidents rebels factions as recently even intensifying unconfirmed reports point two hundred killed or kidnapped earlier this month fifty one kurdish civilians were said to have been taken hostage the fans' consultant fine raouf believes that with the rebels failing to gain ground in the area near resorting to drastic alternatives. these are extremely desperate measures being carried out by the rebels they they want to sabotage the geneva two talks to be held on january the twenty second in twenty fourteen they're not gaining ground in terms of. their operations against the assad government and they haven't been able to topple the assad government the report on the chemical weapons use has not

a potion blame they were hoping that the syrian government would be blamed and therefore there would be more of an international pressure against assad to step down and this hasn't happened the judeo christian politicians in europe are paying lip service to the whole process they are providing non-lethal aid and any aid is lethal in effect the whole international effort is futile in every sense of the word. well there's been more high school horror in the united states save their teeth as were reported soon on the investigation to uncover why an eighteen year old opened fire on his classmate of the first anniversary of one of america's worst massacres. three years after going cap and hands to international bankers ireland says it's now ready to stand on its own two feet the country's managed to meet all the major targets under the

multi billion euro bailout program while avoiding serious public unrest tesser silly reports from dublin. arlene will would itself be quote shackles of the troika on sunday and will wake up on monday as a quote normal european country standing on equal footing a confident claim by prime minister kenny ahead of the country's official exit from its bailout program for eighty five billion euros it cost the irish three years of painful austerity higher taxes slashed minimum wage which has since been raced back high youth unemployment and another wave of irish immigration i'm not sure that the hard ideological light of austerity which was coming forth from europe was a good one the irish people would be too nice to see the end of the troika to see the opportunity for a street gang or economic sovereignty to be up to make our own decisions in relation to our future the government here is touting the exit from the bailout

program as restoring economic and financial freedom but no one here is under any illusion that that exit would also mean an end to hardships or complete release from austerity while the idea of possibly having more control over their destiny as a nation is psychologically up lifting people really want is freedom from individual that so many here are so heavily burdened with. structural growth. in other words when you look at the overall economic level of achievement in this bailout it's not really that significant yet at the same time that we should go to the nation to the government to the nation was. calling. in dublin city center sights and sounds of the festive season are present but it

rings hollow for those who feel they've simply been kicked to the curb no one would celebrate the banner. be happy we're exiting for us will it have any impact or a. the budgets for this year are next year no willing to read the mortgage arrears figures take a dramatic change next quarter know just recently or double. on a recent poll shows that over half of the island's population think the government did a good job in leading the country out of the bailout even so nearly three quarters hope that means to stare any measures will be eased we gauged some more opinion on the streets of dublin. i suppose the positive move. said today was told to germany france the bigger economies in europe so. for the internet a bailout has been seen to make much difference said belding to you know we've got to about time we close to something or say and say you know who likes a certain year like this i think it's good i think they have to stand on their own

two feet if you take our yes i do. it's not all over you have known the bailout exit relief was somewhat tampered with warnings from irish ministers that a series needs to continue to drive down the nation's debt political analyst says the way e.u. deals with its economic crises can't be described as affective. what we actually like to see is more transparency and now it is we are in the situation in which basically the troika acts like acts like a governor. and visits its colonies and what to do the measures they come up with are not not always very effective they also cause a stereotype and also the reduction of the economy at the moment the troika is free to do what it wants and that is not right in a democracy the issue basically is how much time do we have when all the economies of greece italy spain portugal cyprus growing again now i don't know how long it

will take if it is going to be one or two years like in ireland it will be very good but if it's going to be ten years it's going to be very long and i'm afraid that many citizens in those countries will not accept this particular note if this is going to be a stake nations for ten years to come i think this will have very serious political consequences. living in a cave in the twenty first century might not be to everyone's taste but several families in southern spain are refusing to cave in to demands that they move into regular home shortly i'll tell you why the authorities have a problem with the rocky residence. plus as iceland gale some of its big bankers for fraud activists in america say it's time their financial scammers face the same fate that's ahead here on our t.v. .

they look like bounty islands where the locals can enjoy the sun and the ocean. but what was buried here years ago. means these people are suffering the consequences. how much more poison lies on the ground. behind this zone there is what we call the callet bank on which there was a deposit of plutonium left by security test which caused the dispersion of radio nuclides despite previous cleaning efforts there remains a deposit of a little less than two kilos of plutonium stuck in the rock and the coral reef about ten meters down yuki attests a never ending legacy. well

. science technology innovation all the developments around russia we've got the future covered. welcome back you're watching our team international hitting rock bottom modern day cave dwellers in spain are facing eviction from their a picturesque settlement despite years of pressure from the government and orders to leave the families are digging in and determined to stay saying there is more behind the action that meets the eye explains. it's views like this one breathtaking isn't it that's made not of famous for drawing visitors in but it's the city's plans to force out a group of residents from this very hill that's drawing controversy now it's a bit of an unusual kind of story we're in the foothills of the sierra nevada

mountains an area that's pockmarked with countless caves caves which people have called home for years now the residents are a colorful mix of characters we have spaniards immigrants students people who don't have a place to call home as well as people who prefer their home to reflect a bit of an unusual kind of lifestyle and several days ago we had seen a protest of about two hundred and fifty supporters coming out here saying that's simply not ok meanwhile activists believe that it's not actually about the dangers of living here but perhaps there's profit motivation behind getting the residents out of course the views here as we mentioned earlier are spectacular and there's been some discussion of potentially building a luxury resort hotel something on this property this mountain they say could collapse and actually hurt the people who reside in the area but the residents here have a very different take i mean we are resisting with all the legal means we have like

the authorities whose actions have been unfair and on lawful throughout the entire process there hasn't been a single collapse in the case since they declared we were living in ruins three years ago this only suggests that they've been lying and simply looking for a reason to throw us out but out of the case the authorities say they're certain they want to evict residents from at least eight of the caves the residents of course say they're not going to budge we here at r t we'll be covering the developments over the next few days to do stay with us for that coverage reporting from granada spain for r t i'm lucy catherine of. and on our website right now and off beat approach to heating in siberia burning three tons of poppy seeds it was enough to keep locals warm for an entire day find out how to use the words took full advantage of your huge online. also we explain why a number of u.s. retailers are planning to place cameras in the air america is joining the holiday shopping. police are investigating what drove eighteen year old

karl pierson to open fire in a school in colorado critically injuring one girl armed with a shotgun of a high school senior and the building looking for a teacher and turned the weapon on himself after firing a series of shots the tragedy came just a day before the anniversary of the sandy hook elementary school massacre in connecticut which killed twenty young children and six adults jill stein is a former u.s. presidential candidate for the green party shared with r.t. what she believes is fueling the nationwide rise in gun violence. we have about one hundred times the rate of gun homicides and violent gun crimes relative to many countries of western europe and we should not be in the business of normalizing violence it's clear there is a relationship between gun violence and economic violence and poverty and racial disparities and economic disparities and all that and the more we become

an unjust society. the more we are at risk for continuing gun violence and potentially growing gun violence. now it's many years since the end of apartheid in south africa but there's still plenty of unresolved anger. it's deep. apologies for this now back in south africa as a nation mourns nelson mandela racial tensions are deeper than ever in some corners of the nation we had to put such area in just a few minutes don't go away. and also there is a fresh wave of calls in a western countries for the architects of the two thousand and eight financial meltdown to be brought to justice hands were turned on iceland convicted four former bank chiefs of fraud the man illegally help the foreign investor buy into

their firm just before it collapsed in two thousand and eight in a panel news editor charlie mcgraw says it's high time for similar lawsuits in america. we take these so-called private corporations right these are free market capitalist corporations of which they are not we are to control the economy here we take these corporations you put them on a pedestal and when they fail we spread their debt to the people of this country that's something far worse than socialism it's the worst form of fascism so to pretend that government has no place in overseeing these institutions is to sit back and say go ahead bankers go ahead and take over the future the financial future of this nation and lead us into financial ruin and that's exactly what happened what happened inside of iceland is the government the people demanded of the government in two thousand and nine the march on parliament and said we're not going to take the fraudulent failure of these big slowing down the cordoned off these institutions the form of state banks and they looked at the problem head on and they helped the people rather than the banking institutions. now take

a look at some other stories from around the world and iran claims it's holding a british spy and has put him on trial iranian officials say they captured m i six agent has admitted to being in contact with other u.k. operatives inside the country the british foreign office has refused to comment on the allegations and this comes despite efforts to revive diplomatic relations between the two countries after the u.k. shut down its embassy in tehran back in two thousand and eleven. the afghan president is accusing the u.s. of pressuring him to concede on the terms of a key security deal washington is allegedly dictating itself in terms for keeping troops in the country after a planned nato withdrawal next year kabul once u.s. forces to stop raining civilian homes and help in forging peace with the taliban if the bilateral pact to sign it will give american soldiers immunity from afghan law . hundreds of teachers in mexico city have faced off with

police outside the interior ministry building the demonstrations were sparked by controversial education reforms which are be. criticized for leaning towards the american system what started as a peaceful rally turned ugly after high ranking officials defied the protesters a mob smashed through barricades and lit torches and responds. members of south africa's government are paying their last respects nelson mandela before sunday's funeral but as a country mourns his death of peares to be revealing some sore spots in the still divided state policy or reports from johannesburg suburb where a life is far from what mandela envisioned for his country. it's definitely unsafe because they have you seen a white person around. us in this corps. is taking us on a drive through the streets of his childhood this was a wealthy white neighborhood in the time of a part eight here brown is now

a very different place i wouldn't carry a camera or wouldn't get a anything. of value i wouldn't wear a watch i wouldn't wear anything that could make me vulnerable to be attacked they'll be robbed a handful of white south africans still live here most are too old or too poor to move out of and stephen is one of the few who still call here brown home it's a pretty they're pretty busy and no familial is gone because i think with the current government things all this this is going to. go. twenty three years after the end of apartheid south africa remains plagued with unresolved racial tension some people they still have the opportunity. mostly maybe to distance themselves to the blokes camano remembers well we

couldn't be on the streets of hubris after night at night some black south africans he admits are still angry it may be they have but a good word or something because they nor the door wired's with killing or they bring their wives they hate girls and wired's they have the feeling that they have my own little movie they do don't have miley at times south africa seems very far from the country mandela hoped it would be instead of becoming a melting pot of different cultures and colors suburbs like hillbrow are today places where whites are too afraid to go and where the black population remembers very well they once were. the ponced the present and the future balance put a receipt signed by scientists as the nation mourns its most famous son and wonders what comes next. john has been. coming out next the story of two

islands ravaged by nearly two hundred nuclear test explosions. as we all know the holidays are a great time for families to get together and sometimes on the l. call gets flowing they're also a great time for us to argue about everything from politics to religion with the ones we love but if you happen to be an n.s.a. agent and the government has an official list of talking points that way you can win those family arguments for sure yeah that's right the government is now giving n.s.a. agents lists of very corny talking points going to firedoglake so that way they could convince their relatives over the holidays of just how awesome effective and necessary the national security agency truly is despite all those little revelation

thinks of mass spying by snowden trust me talking points exist for a reason political social and religious organizations and use them so that when their members who may not be the best debaters on the planet can defend the positions of the organization and i would have no problem with the if they gave this list ages they could answer questions from journalists but when the government wants you to propagandize your friends and family over christmas and thanksgiving it all seems kind of cultish to me that's just my opinion. please. please please.

chris. i am i every sunday morning most of the two hundred inhabitants of the village of gather in a small church. am. i. to boast to a lack of interest in the seminary and its just graphic isolation the parish hasn't had a priest for several years. was. sometimes service has since been run by volunteers from the village reverent and with fervor they pray for their selves but also for peace for the departed family members and friends that have left them too soon. and to relive their own no centenarians the

average life expectancy was in the sixty's. people at work tomorrow are for years and no longer here to talk about what went on in many developed cancer especially cancer which is characteristic of radioactive contamination. thirty four people have been taken ill making therea one of the most contaminated nettles. this is far from the postcard perfect image there's very little economic activity. coconut trees and the culprit the dried kernel of the coconut shell which is one of the few ways to eke out a living here on the islands.