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. rousing version is that the russian national anthem interesting and this is a look at the red square to see president putin in a different venue from normal because normally it's pretty much set up he stands by a tree in the kremlin completely different this year he was on the far east which of course suffered from devastating floods earlier this year it was the first time

you've ever seen the president give a speech like that surrounded by other people and it was sort of his message really was that life goes on you have to move on he mentioned of course the terror attacks the double twin terror attacks that we saw in volgograd not to start on such a heavy no you don't know where he would go very close again hopefully because we tend to show you are not the best versions seven years let's say we've got a very very good view this year. this is sort of a standing joke is not around the office. in the right way but we've done it for you this year restaurant take full screen of. you enjoy the fireworks. all right there now amongst all of them are somewhere just by red square lindsay for the noise and. the one thing the traditional follow ups of started will see as

we were saying that it was a beautiful scene isn't this a lovely letter from says there amongst the rev liz lindsay for all you can hear it is never great when the file works ago when they finished. it looks a bit quiet behind you. can see from can you hear us. now. yes now i can hear the work still on the first go. tell us what sally gunnell you want to say it was an amazing show here. thousands of people converged on on red square and it was very slow going getting and security was obviously very tight for very good reason but everyone was very patient and waited. a couple of hours it took for the clock to strike midnight and then of course what russians do so well is an amazing fireworks display just out over the river here i had red square. thousands of people are here and what's so

amazing to me are the number of languages being spoken in this crowd there's a real feeling of unity here and even in the face of the recent terror attacks it's obvious that these people are not going to be conquered by fear in the quiet streets of moscow you can see people converging slowly during the evening to red square where the culmination of this celebration began and this really kicks off what is the traditional russian season of festivities and we were just watching as the fireworks were going up the olympic rings and the olympic rings lighting up the sky everyone threw up a big cheer so there's a lot of excitement and judging from the feeling of this crowd here people are ready to kick off the new year to welcome the olympic games and to really show unity in the face of recent tragedies this country's experience so the shot went off really great here from red square interesting there's no snow bill. we are sort

of white and very cold to go no the amount of times we stood out in it only. as an ex-pat lots of foreigners who sat on red square lots of different languages what was it like for you it's hard to get on to red square on new year's. seventy three. here and we've lost the signal to a lot of television these things happened only all right now what should we do next i think we should go with the viewers and give you a bit of a glimpse of something you don't often see you normally see for a couple of seconds at the start yeah but absolutely no graham you get a little glimpse of our newsroom when she gets together all of our stories guests and reports that we bring you twenty four seven three hundred sixty days a year yeah they're all lined up turn the camera live look at the same evening to you happy new year to you think you're doing such a lovely job for three six five. years like the royal gathering this is me can see

we've got a beautiful spread here ladies could you take us through what what we've got here and i think we've done this every year we've never had a table like this. what i see actually russia and lindsay were just talking about this on red square a very multicultural place i see some city in ski pies which is from a study in the south i leave a salad when i was all over salad you've probably seen this before you've been here for ages and it's potatoes. carrots no idea i don't do i do i eat it what else are we going to have a very exotic as well. it's smoked fish smoked fish it's something russians eat every new year's i think and probably one of the most popular things on the table would be the caviar and the mandarin and this is something that i started doing. here you might not recognize everyone here anyway happy new year again she is going to say show us some of the driving this kind of behind the scenes anyway to pharmacies know and of course shown so much in syria as well but under farm has

been reading ability to be. for the rest of the night to take us through some highlights for you this year you asked you should the last year the one who told you that at least so much i'll be talking about that in a few minutes had a great time over in greece from the middle east and the ancient city of olympia talking about that plus we'll be talking about a billion hits on you tube for our you know it was a huge year for us was not on you tube we still have a lot ahead for you i'm over the next hours you know and from all of us here at archie we want to wish you a happy new year for me happy new year i mean it is. hello

. a person well enough to say it so i can give you the good tradition little kids showed up i hope you have been to your new cinema see you when you can the shift up there we are so into the new year here in moscow if you don't know yet whatever you're doing over the next couple of hours so we have eleven in safe time i hope you have a super new year and thank you of course if you've been watching us for loft whilst the last twelve months are watching we really appreciate it that's right around the world though the major questions remain the future of the more serious issues we've been covering syria is one of them of course scotland's drive for independence that's good news is on the inside ukraine and many others let's take a look at some of them right now throughout the hour we're going to be talking

about that yeah well some of the world's top athletes of course waxing this case and sharpening those a skating blade as they prepare to board a plane for the sochi olympics. russia's highly until you can speak that russia's one of his dissipated winter games will kick off in the black sea resort on february the seventh after tens of billions of dollars were spent and over six and a half years of preparation of course when it's with a huge event and enormous amount of work has being done because it's a world class resort had to be turned into the international winter sports haven pretty much from scratch and that's right tickets to this landmark event are selling fast so grab them while you can are to use to bang mazzei has been at the black sea resort several times she's there right now celebrating the new years a very lucky lady there to tell us how is sochi preparing as we meet this new year really pretty normal there's no event well. as you can hear right here and right the heart we've already kicked all of our

a little big celebration looking into was that the seventh after every night as we know that for she has been in the world spotlight for the last couple of years now as they've been preparing to watch the loot olympic and paralympic games and of course they'll be dignitaries sportsmen and sportswomen as well as spectators but to get us to where we are right now it's been quite a journey one from a resort haven to a gold within. the international olympic committee is the owner. with announcing that the twenty second olympic winter games in two thousand and fourteen are awarded to the city of sorts. and then the somebody has since the problem of the black sea has become a world class resort the olympics are renowned for reviving and regenerating host

cities here of the mix of new buildings railway and world hospice realty is will keep the king's legacy in the focuses for generations to come. spread across two distinct areas the game's coastal cluster is for indoor i see benson the city and of the mountain cluster the likes of the skiing and bobsled i went to lympics with many firsts innovative technology and environmentally friendly the sought to lympics is all set to showcase russia to the works. how i don't know you can hear or see more you know we've lost the law and it is a lot of these things happen especially that want to be one of the. later that are go play and we've got a great show because actually we're going to be there for what twenty five days together in this war and i haven't and i want to. close and we certainly are months

to turn join us for that in two thousand and fourteen no olympic torch in history of course has traveled as much as the official flame of the twenty fourteen games it wasn't just a sixty five thousand kilometer track through the world's largest country either the flame has been to places where hardly any man or any living thing for that matter has gone before the flame got to delve into the depths of the world's largest one of the world's largest lakes i should say and one stop of its journey was of course literally out of this world well fourteen thousand torchbearers helped make that initial journey possible we've got our teacher andrew farmer here who's got one of these torches and if you watch the torch while you think you certainly come in couldn't you see better at the time you were describing what this thing is like and it is a beauty to behold it is great as it was actually got me how did it go that i learned to do and. arrived in new jersey about two hours ago but i thought it was worthwhile bringing in because the design is pretty unique and always unique for me to actually tell you to get kind of the things i should really say well i've got

a friend of mine we've got a big coda were in an auction site bought one from the not be born from the london olympics. when i ask how much it was obviously a heavy thing it's heavy you know i just wanted to tell you kilograms and all the torch bearers all fourteen thousand of them have to run about three hundred metres with this most it's not just any old torch is a huge amount designed to get thing to be able to keep its balance to be able to float doesn't go and talk briefly so the red is the predominant color of russian sport really that's the kind of people associate with russian sport so that's why that's there and if you look closely can you imagine what that might look like a bird of a feather a phoenix perhaps that was the intention and the reason. that is that the phoenix is pretty predominant isn't it in russian folklore and also is meant to bring good luck so that that was the reason for this design announcement of cargo and all of that was simply don't all dogs tell you i was. always taught here ok so little bit about where where the torch has actually been what you followed it i did follow it

it all started in greece in the ancient city of olympia because that's where the very first olympics were held now every lympics they have to be limping flamen it follows tradition and it's like winding the clock back two thousand years because in the ancient city of olympia it's just as it was and within reason of the first olympics the refusal of remains there and not only are we watched all the yeah but you certainly get an impression of what it was like and then they have an actress is dressed as a priest there she lights the flame using really was the sun it's what they call a parabolic mirror it's effectively a reflective bowl that concentrates the heat of the sun and then she gets her own torch and a bit of olive oil which that lights it and then she uses that torch to light the torch the first torchbearer now by tradition that's always a greek so on this occasion it was a greek skier and then he passed it on to alexander ovechkin you pretty much started the whole thing off this sixty four thousand kilometer journey around greece for a week then arrived in athens where it was handed over to the russian olympic

committee and then they had to get in there all the way it were there all the way i was following it for a lot of it but then i had to get it to moscow how did they do that i find out of the line that math. so the question is how do you take the flame from sunny athens all the way to moscow well it's quite simple you put it in a small lantern and then you put it on a plane but that's not just any old plane that's a b. i paid plane and i've got a ticket. we're now cruising at thirty thousand feet and tucked into the seat twenty five billion pick flame you might notice it has been used to light a couple of other lanterns and that's because one of them might go out god forbid so they've got those extra ones just in case. so just really really briefly just tell us somewhat what is being where has not been the north pole the bottom of lake baikal the deepest lake in the world to the top of the highest mountain in europe bruce it's been into outer space the torch has been in space twice before believe

it or not this one but previous lympics but no where the torch has been on a spaceport that's what happened in november i think it was it's back down on earth now it's coming is than it was a question as well when i went on the space walk and just to be clear about it obviously you can't take. the oxygen it wouldn't burn but that very top will be used to light the cauldron the opening ceremony in sochi and that connection there's another there were a few little hitches with the flame going out at one point loads of back up from the original flame others that work well when that original flame is late in the limpia that was used to light several lanterns about half a dozen and then flames from those they used to really like the torch if it goes back even on one occasion and if you remember in the first leg yeah from the kremlin when i was doing. internet extras that i do not have in place but anyway but since then it could work for her so all three of us are going to be down there for a great series of programs would do is give me an awful lot of coverage here on r.t. what can we look forward to as we get there may be myself and would have been

hockey's the last thing the last of the last event on the last day of the limp and simply everybody is our fingers are crossed for us i don't know i know nothing at the moment because not all from what's been said about the opening closing ceremonies we saw the opening and closing ceremonies in london that was absolutely massive and it was a slightly different things it's the winter olympics but any snippets well we can tell you don't they don't reveal the details but what you can expect is to see the host nation trying to reveal to the world the culture and the heritage of the host country so you can expect the rest of us a we're going to see a lot of different called yeah. absolutely and the big question everybody asks is who will light the olympic cauldron at this so it's not us. trying to get back to them for we can't so well wish her well and maybe sue in the new year where she well because but you know you see michelle to know when to call the bulletins throughout the night you. ok no more big news of the year well yes i want to stay with the olympics because the olympics got quite political and several times during this year in june russia adopted

a law banning gay propaganda to under eighteen's and it created widespread outrage in europe and the u.s. even becoming a key topic ahead of this winter olympics somewhere a leader has said they won't visit sochi without specifying why other activists called for an outright right boycott of these olympic games well russia says the law is only to protect children under the it's not designed to discriminate against minorities others who insist that it violates human rights conventions we get a whole range of opinions on the matter but earlier this year but in talking about the horrific environment of homophobia in russia right now and the russian gay people know that they have their friends and allies in the whole picture is absolutely exaggerated it's not what they report is absolutely not true what they're saying is that basically everyone is being killed on the streets here we shouldn't confuse fight for gay rights and a political campaign this is what. it's important to remember this law is about gay people going to minors and it will be enforced with fines not

a criminal punishment russia is still a very traditional conservative strong free and you can do if you want to call on to the you will serve the people you just heard from the students for in-depth discussion on the issue of gay rights in general and how it relates to sochi twenty fourteen as well you can watch those debates if you want to catch more of of course in full on our t.v. you tube channel those twenty thousand videos if you look at another let's discuss it with the german broadcast of the old club is a regular contributor to our channel i know he's got some to say about as well hi there neal happy new year to you before we get to talking about this nice to see you again. the polls suggest the majority of russians support this law banning gay propaganda to youngsters to children. if that is the case the people in the country where this law applies agree with it why the global outcry is the question . well i'm not sure if there is a global quite kevin i think is an outcry in india about this is an outcry in south africa or across africa is an outcry in south america no there isn't the outcry

such as it is has been in america and in countries very closely allied to america and western europe i think that speaks for itself really and in those countries it's been the elites in those countries that have been making the outcry and i think that there is a strong sort of anti russian element to all of this look there are seventy five countries in the world where homosexuality is illegal russia isn't one of them there are many countries in the world where homosexuals can be executed russia isn't one of them so why pick on russia for this morning. for the law go visit her well. well i think if it was something else would it would be pussy riot because of course it would be the arctic thirty something else i think that genuine gay rights activists have concerns about this law and the right to have concerns but i think there are people jumping on the bandwagon here in the political elite in the west neo conservatives what i call the cruise missile left who hate russia with a vengeance and i think that they have no real concern real interest in gay rights they're just using this as a propaganda vehicle to attack and to smear russia ahead of the olympic games

because if they really were concerned kevin they would be targeting saudi arabia where you could be executed for being gay or even our surroundings i mean ohio it's a nice in the studio here i'm tired of hiding start over town overturned i should say the law allowing for gay marriage and you know heard almost nothing about it in the mainstream media absolutely absolutely because austria australia is in the we're sort of western alliance isn't it and i think it's because of russia's foreign policy russia has a very good year it's blocked war on syria and i think the neo cons and some members of the west only a very angry because of this and i think they picked up on this issue this law in russia is no different little we had in this country in britain from one thousand nine hundred to two thousand and three nine hundred eighty eight to two thousand and three there were no calls for international boycott of sporting events yet section twenty eight there were no calls for boycotts of britain during this time. nice to see. us a little closer to a conclusion of us here. thank you well new medias were making more and more of an impact in the world news and it's hard for us to sometimes keep up isn't it if you

think you are doing so with interest interesting all you gotta do is to twitter these days if you happen to have learned in the middle of a major instant your tweets usually make headlines these days actually we must admit it's celebrity tweets that end up stirring the most traffic there one hundred forty letter messages get retreated to hundreds of thousands of times but let's take a look beyond that what made an impact on our lives the tragic news about the terrorist attack we mentioned earlier on on the boston marathon when that first broke on twitter killed three people the time of course and injured over one hundred witnesses posted pictures of the receipt seen there just minutes after it happened and there's barack obama cheating they actually did it he sounds disbelief that congress forced the shutdown of the u.s. government it was in october and it was closed for sixteen days after republicans and democrats failed to come up with a budget deal and the conflict would also welcome the new pope this last year the first to come from the american continent in his first week the liberal pontiff

from argentina thanked his followers there is one of our own tweets here we were following n.s.a. leaker edward snowden every step of the way reporting on his first arrival to moscow to his time at the transit zone in moscow sheremetyevo airport and him eventually receiving temporary asylum here in russia we've also been reporting on all of his leaks and the fallout from them meantime this is the tweet that gave the japanese a mass when it came out to look at the disaster management center the pool the yokohama the time fire the message that north korea had launched a missile flown fully it to be a fairly but it was a lot of help for a while it was a tweet ready to go in case of a real launch and it was a supposed to by a mistake but another fake tweet actually cost billions to be precisely what to do over a hundred and we took over a hundred thirty billion dollars off the stock market the official twitter account of. well the most trusted news agency the associated press broke this piece of news says two explosions at the white house and barack obama's image of the all over the

news coverage into a frenzy didn't it we will refer to it at the time to treat your tweet was actually posted by hackers they've broken into a piece of that's right let's turn to this tweet by human rights group amnesty international this is their reaction to a whistleblower chelsea manning then known as bradley being sentenced to thirty five years behind bars for revealing alleged u.s. war crimes amnesty believes it's those crimes that should be investigated rather than manning the person who brought them to light. those who followed the million man march of course the. corruption demonstrations taking place across the globe we covered it extensively our twitter feed gathered all the latest reports of all our correspondents who followed the protesters footsteps they retreated hundreds of terms while the mainstream media stayed mostly silent it has to be said on the crowds gathering in front of the white house and also in front of buckingham palace at the time another major news story broke on the micro-blogging site the historic

nuclear deal with iran where diplomacy won over the policy of sanctions for the first time in a decade tehran agreed to roll back its atomic program in return for billions in sanctions relief the spokesperson today used top diplomat tweeted the agreement first quickly followed by other officials and politicians on both sides and lastly some good news on twitter broke concerning concerning the blog itself in a wet november this message appeared in your feet essentially an offer to buy a share in twitter maybe you even invested wishing you good luck with those and kevin of course he tweets once a year for us the new year it's going to rule three to teach me how to do it i'm very displeased i'm. hoping the likes of twitter will bring it into old media like yourselves of course. it's not going to hope right no. very festive in the little of the four scotland is set to erupt into its legendary new year party atmosphere. people do like the scots if you've been there for scopes

have a talk going on in a building welcoming of what could be a year to remember well on september the eighteenth people vote to answer one question should scotland be an independent country we should add that after three centuries spent in not always happy marriage to london now there's no turning of the referee turning off the referendum track and the bill that set the rules will pass in november a couple of weeks later the first minister unveiled a six hundred seventy page blueprint that lays down the main principles on which a future scotland will be governed should it become independent well sir first being one of the news team to cover the campaign extensively for a slip speak to reduce or their own tonight hello again from london that it wasn't that long ago your whole foot but from edinburgh. it depends who you talk to of course in the north or about how popular it is but there are so.