on the finish line there's just a month left before the russian olympic host city sochi starts the ball rolling and we talk to the chief organizer about how the city is going to run the games and keep everyone safe. is losing control of its biggest problems with key cities seized by al-qaeda militants flooding in from syria while the us promises to speed up drone a missile delivery. battling for basic scientist warned that water may become a key factor in world conflicts with it already fueling tension in the arab middle east. and the youngest victim of the terror attacks in volgograd is on the man we are following the fate of this three month old girl who survived the blast that killed her mother.

you're watching r t international coming to you live from the russian capital i'm marina joshing welcome to the program now it's exactly thirty one days to go until the winter games kick off and in russia and all eyes are on sochi as the city gets ready for his big moment scott is in the olympic host city that's wrapping up it's seven years long preparations for the international sports spectacle. organizes a saying that we are on track and that everything is ready here h. of the eleven venues in the coastal cluster which you can see behind me on the mountain cluster have been completed and put to the test on more than one occasion by hosting international spy standard competition and also each of the new transport networks including the high speed rail service which is connecting the

two clusters to one another they're also up and running now there is still some work to be done in and around the city but it's mainly cosmetic it's mainly superficial in terms of sprucing the city up so it is ready to welcome the sporting world come february the seventh from day one the security has been a top priority for organizers of the games but with a month to go today is the day that the security operation really kicks in in earnest and in many ways the security operation in and around sochi is no different from that that you would find for any major public event anywhere in the world a controlled zone has been set up around all of the venues in which there were numerous security checkpoints meaning that any spectators or officials hoping to get into certain designated areas or venues will have to provide either tickets or some form of i.d. well more than thirty thousand police and security officers are going to be on patrol in the region as well and the chairman of the twenty fourteen organizing committee. told me earlier that everything is being done to keep these games secure

. to host the most innovative games ever. reach the olympic mold from the beginning of the construction. security the importance of the games and being in of all international expert. the russian to provide incredible measures incredible things. more secure games ever. safety concerns are a clear priority for the organizers now as i said behind me you can see the cluster or the olympic village which includes the fish stadium about going to be hosting the opening ceremony come february the seven forty thousand fans are going to be packed into that stadium rehearsals are ongoing but the content of the show is a closely guarded secret all set to be on veiled all not big day when the games get underway a month from now well the only thing missing in sochi is the olympic flame and it's

now on its way through central russia on its longest relay in the game's history at a distance of over fifty six thousand kilometers its record breaking journey has been full of firsts with a historic spacewalk one of them most impressive records two russian cosmonauts took it outside the international space station and that's by the way the very torch that will light the olympic flame in sochi next month artie's james brown has been following its voyage which he described earlier to lindsey france. james brown welcome to the studio what do you have with you here the torch of the olympic games can give us a look at this well as you say this is my. personal torch it's as you can see very one of the car in souvenir let me let me have a look at this this is not light by any means heavy this is the ad it is what two kilos for actually really oh yes i'm going to. hold it up that is heavy quite

and this is a better record breaking relay for the olympic torch going places it's never been before you were following it which one of the milestones do you think was the last memorable are important i think for me i've been to several. going to by car was amazing they took the torch on the water into my car so you have the burning flare torches specially made and passed very impressive on the water and then flew the torch back with the man with the jets on to the on to the very good video so that it was it was a sight to be seen. there was one amazing moment and a real once in a lifetime moment was going with the torch to the north pole you see on t.v. and you read it and then you think wow that must be really must be very interesting never going to go there and then this opportunity came up to go on this nuclear icebreaker this huge. ship that was cut through to me to thick ice

and is fueled by two gigantic reactors so you're which is a strange feeling in itself yeah go and stand by. but we were going to go to the north pole with the flame and we made it in less than four half days which was a world record pace and arrived in the middle of the polar nights with the liberty torch in the north pole for the very first time in history. a search of repairs to while gas for the upcoming winter games local businesses appear to be a winning from the city's olympic ambitions or just about would say that a family that was actually so inspired they left moscow to start from scratch in sochi. the caucasus mountains are known to attract days with a love for nature and now they become an attraction for new opportunities and business one family decided to leave behind the metropolis of moscow for a change of scenery and lifestyle and

a new business saw them using the found in this landscape bad to the city winning the olympic bid to play in the influence to. sochi winning the olympic bid encouraged us to take action as we became more sure that the region will now be developing fast and world so yes i'd say this frank did have an influence on our decision to move here leaving well paid jobs behind men's making a living was a number one priority so they turned to so deem are using his head for business to help his creative like christina at first it was not much more than a pastime but the business blossomed to david product line consists of again except shampoos show a gels and creams you might even for gadgil looking at a bar of soap as everything looks appetising there's a whole arsenal of bottles and flasks with essential and cosmetic aisles and

greetings alga nicklas source locally water from the local mountains is used alongside herbs and spices which christina picks has cells. with no previous experience in the soapmaking industry and no formal education in chemistry christina studied up on her own time with the business is doing well this future looks even brighter with plans jasmine an eco friendly hotel for now the magic happens in the kitchen so i believe that i've got across the water the games themselves will add potential clients raw business a future hotel and products or. organizers of the olympics as say the new infrastructure created in the city will draw more tourists and help small businesses a place the elim picks a home based business source saying the local organic products and materials and herbs form are also she as well as the caucasus mountains now if the president saw

it she is bubbling with fever for the winter games but it looks like its future the olympic and paralympic games will blossom if you take the example of upcoming businesses like this. one would say in sochi our team at the olympic clock is ticking and we're closely following sochi as a gears up for the games on air and online as well stay tuned to r.t. international for that and more. violence is escalating in iraq as government troops continue to fight for the city of fallujah which has been held by al-qaeda militants since last friday america has now pledged to help the government fight the extremists by speeding up the

deliveries of surveillance drones and the missiles while extremists reportedly from syria's rebel held eastern provinces have tightened their grip on barre province with the aim of creating an islamic state there on the country's leadership was left to battle al qaeda linked insurgency amid deep sectarian divide since u.s. troops withdrew from iraq two years ago meanwhile the conflict in neighboring syria is seemingly spilling further over the border asked political analyst side are caught told us. you know i spend five years in iraq i've been out of nation spokesman in baghdad and i can tell you this is the worst it's been since probably the american occupation of there was a fight in fallujah in two thousand and four but. this recent one is basically a very dangerous because it bodes ill for the unity of the government and it is predicated on pure sectarian lines aided by the syria conflict the border is so when the so porous and it is really elastic so you have these forces that are

basically the same size i mean they call themselves they slam extended over iraq and a sham which is syria so the spouse the same kind of ideology there's been an influx of weapons and money you know under the guise of aiding the syrian rebels so that they would find its way there are all these things come together and it's coming out for you in just a few moments britain's predatory banks are to talk to a couple of entrepreneurs a lost everything after a high street bank decided to cash in on them with sleight of hand financing instead of being their safety net that's just ahead here it's an international. he survived the trial cities. to make cycles this. has changed his life to the world around him.

by giving. hope. and love to so many children. the rich.

welcome back to watching r t international and the youngest victim of all the grad terrorist attacks in southern russia at the end of december is now showing signs of recovery the guy who's just three months old have been in a medically induced coma for over a week. was in the hospital for us. we have received some good news from the russian health minister and the father of the youngest injured infant in the volgograd terror attack she's only three and a half months old. still in hospital while her condition is no longer life threatening she is no longer in a medical and medically induced coma her father told me that she even started breathing by herself and no response to all objects by moving her eyes but her father was kind enough to provide us with some family food for some home footage of the victorious baptism and here is what else he told me. there is still

a long way to fool rehabilitation we hope it will soon be able to get rid of all of the tubes we're hoping for a positive outcome she has had a neurological examination and everything is fine the m.r.i. scan revealed no knowledge of the condition of another girl another injured in the volgograd terror attack and nine year old olga is also positive she is no longer in a life threatening condition she's showing very good signs of recovery and we also know that sixty more people more than sixty people are still in hospitals all across the country after the volgograd bombing thirty eight of them are still in volgograd and twenty two in moscow and one more in st petersburg and certainly we are keeping track and following all the details and developments on that story. controversial cryptocurrency bitcoin is hitting new highs again the virtual money has value has swung past the one thousand on mark after an online dating company said it would accept bitcoins from its customers all the details on that coins

latest success on r.t.e. dot com. else online for us four months old giant panda cub in the u.s. has made its debut before the media we've got for the rich from that meeting on our in motion page. right from the scene. first rate. and i would think that you're. on our reporters were very. sensitive. to be in the. how to get a business off the ground most of us would need the help of a bank but choose carefully because now them seem to have your best interests at heart arches laura smith spoke to two business men in britain who found their

lender boring them rather than protecting and discovered they were far from alone chris richardson and bernstein used to own this hotel but not anymore three years ago out of the blue they say their bank took it from them nat west style of our hotel this hotel beyond me here because i was always will and it will be coming back if there's justice in this country these guys will be arrested. we will be giving this october back in two thousand and ten chris and ernie had a loan from the west to do up the coniston hotel and conference center in north kent they were just eleven days from opening when their bank manager told them there was a problem releasing the latest tranche of their loan he said no worries don't worry about it. and that is the last we've ever heard of. we have not heard from him since late said the owners know the bank was saying they'd run out of money despite

having one point six million pounds of their agreed loan left now west then revalue to the hotel at just over a third of its original price so the hotel found itself in administration from where it was snapped up by west register the bank's property. the kicker r.b.s. and its subsidiary now west are majority owned by the taxpayer but it's a ruse r.b.s. has been accused of many times over lawrence tomlinson is a small business advisor to the government his recent report exposes the seemingly duplicitous nature of banking operations my report focuses on r.b.s. and what we're saying is that restructuring division georgi acted in a way that the businesses that they were supposed to be helping get back to health were taken put into distress for the benefit of the bank we actually see

b.s. has it's own property company called west register and we're seeing r.b.s. owning those customers property after they've been in distress tomlinson's report is twenty pages of examples and findings under headings like engineering a default and excessive fees in response r.b.s. said in a statement no evidence had been provided to support the allegation that the bank had systematically profited on the backs of their customers and they'd be looking into it fully christened ernie's hotel is now a thriving business fitted out exactly as they left it but it belongs to the bank and their lives have been destroyed. from a very wealthy man back on tax credits. my family suffered heavily through this. where the banks property company in the hotel maid was but after i last year. she sadly i got cancer and

march this year and she doughty my. life for three three goals that one also isn't justice determined to fight back chris and they cling to the idea that one day they'll walk through these doors of the hotel again laura smith otty kent now the world's resources have always been cause for a bitter disputes among nations but for many it may be a surprise to hear that it's water rather than oil or gas that's becoming a reason for conflict and you can see on this map here that the world has witnessed close to one hundred eighty disputes over water resources since the nine hundred fifty s. and these include small clashes and protests as well as more serious large scale conflicts one example is the tensions in the middle east where the struggle for water is a key issue in some ongoing conflicts are just fall asleep or reports. the bible tells us that within a short distance from here jesus turned water into wine two thousand years later

the great american might be turning the wine back into water bubby carballo has been living in the golan heights for over thirty years each day he attends to seventy odd an orchard keeping his wine in a center that was once a syrian bunker he is proud of the wine he produces but knows that in the absence of water none of this would be possible but i know for sure the water is important because it's the second main resource that we have other than the land each crop needs water and without it you will destroy all the crops and destroy all of the farming here it can turn the golan heights into a desert and it's not just about the golan heights rainwater from its catchment feeds into the river jordan providing a food of israel's water supply the disputed region was seized from syria after the six day war and residents of the golan remember that water was a key issue in the conflict and one of the stands here understands the importance

of the world for the water supply of israel because every boy was very mean here but it's grown to the security of god so we can say that it is and must. respect the prisoner to have football over what the fox says it's a worldwide rule that whoever controls the water controls the land but the problem is in some places there's very little water to go around bring you have the common waterfalls shared by several foreign nations is always a possibility of pressure reaches conflicts that should be manageable was spread out of control and examples of possible conflicts are plentiful syria's major water sources travel through turkey and iraq making it vulnerable while jordan is reliant on a river with syria bill today egypt. recently expressed concern of a countries using the upper now to generate electric power in the dry landscape of

the middle east is a prize more precious than diamonds in its absence famine and drought are quick to follow but this is a region that very seldom needs an excuse for war and water shortages might just tip the balance police here r.t. in the golan heights as mentioned in the report egypt is becoming increasingly concerned over a construction project on the upper nile the country relies greatly on the river were upstream of the opium is currently building a massive dam political science professor say today access may face serious consequences when the project is completed in twenty seventeen we have to remember that. only six to seven percent of its land and the rest of the egyptian territory is there's a lot that can really be a serious effort to national security and that's why immediately when the opium there is the issue of the high there the world some experts here is that the we're

talking about go in to a war was this your beer because if you cut water or gas that we would be buying eighty five percent of the water. and water comes from and so it's serious in fact that in two thousand and fifteen egypt will be one hundred fifty million people and we would be needing in addition to the fifty five point five billion cubic meter when two one billion cubic meter extra what would happen to egypt in. two thousand and fifty if we don't have more water. and some other news this hour in turkey three hundred fifty four u.s. officers have reportedly been sacked overnight as part of a crackdown over a massive corruption scandal in addition several high profile officials have been thrown behind bars following investigation revelations sparked fears anti-government protests on the streets but prime minister dawn claims the affair is a foreign conspiracy designed to discredit his cabinet. file and now we're

anti-government protesters have marched to drum up support from bangkok shut down operation demonstrators are planning to blockade major roads in the capital to swart government work and continue their calls for the prime minister to quit. has already yielded to pressure from the streets and announced new elections for family . claim that's not enough and they're pushing for citizens' councils to carry out reforms before any new elections are held. whirlpool of dense air has hit america's east coast with thousands of flights being canceled across the north american continent a shift in the weather pattern known as a polar vortex has dropped temperatures in some parts of the continent to near record lows it's also caused a number of deaths shot schools parks and businesses and it was reported it was so cold that even the polar bears in chicago's lincoln park zoo had to be kept indoors

now moscow has demanded an explanation from senegal over the detention of a russian trawler the ship and its eighty two crew were captured at the weekend off the coast of getting us out in western africa later on tuesday it's hoped the vessel will be freed as russian diplomats are due to meet with the president of senegal to discuss the issue at least two people including the captain were reportedly injured during the seizure you fishel reason is over unlicensed fishing but the senegalese side has failed to produce any evidence to support the accusations sixty two russians are still held on the ship was their passports confiscated. it's christmas day but there's no need to rush to your calendar because it's orthodox worship or celebrating the holiday this time here moscow it began with a grand service and the christ savior cathedral arches were if it was there. this is a holy time for all the russian also looks believe or is that there's around eighty percent of the country's population but there are also others who live abroad

special christmas be jewels are held in around ten thousand churches and monasteries all across russia including crys the civic official here in central most good russia's main church where the ceremony is led by pay trickle mosco and all russia real every year around five thousand to believe attend the ceremony in this particular cathedral including the country's top officials these here prime minister medvedev attended the ceremony here but president putin celebrates christmas in seoul to this year where he traveled several days ago to monitor preparations for winter olympic games the trasher will soon be hostage in a holy relic a very important one for old also those believers. brought here to christ to save a cathedral from greece's atthis mourners three which is paul to all of the magi gave gold frankincense and myrrh that according to the bible and christian

tradition were given to jesus when he was born by a group of foreign travelers who covered thousands of kilometers to see the newborn and to own to him as a king and starting tuesday morning and for the entire week afterwards all those who want to come here and see them will have this opportunity and just a legitimate question that i guess our t.v. audience may still have is why russia's also looks church celebrates the birth of jesus at the beginning of january not in descent. or as most of christians do that is because of the julian calendar the thrushes orthodox church follows and the end which differs from going to go in calendar used by others after christmas we going to see a week of so-called svelte this is a holy time for all believers as well. up next we meet a russian orthodox priest known as father by both his parish and he's seventy

adopted children. there are many internal battles and society liberals and conservatives will never agree on gun rights or abortion but there is one battle that is often more generational than anything the battle for school uniforms teachers argue that uniforms eliminate a big distraction in the classroom and break up the caste systems that can evolve at school between the cool fashionable kids and the ones who can barely afford lunch like me in my younger years but teenagers will scream uniforms crush their freedom of expression and that they have a right to express who they are their individuality who has the right to dictate to

them what to wear the thing they don't realize is that if the school doesn't tell them what to wear that big corporations and m.t.v. will all the cool individuals who dress alike and blindly follow all the trends are just obeying corporate marketing instead of their parents yeah for some reason it is bad if the school punishes you for dressing improperly but if the cool kids make your life a living hell for not wearing the right brand of shoes well that's all well and good for some reason hey look at this way school uniforms are cheap which leaves more money for parents to buy you video games being individual in your actions and not a fake individual in trendy clothes but that's just my opinion. and a chill be given you see find knock and a chill be open done to you.