this is our team tonight on the finish line there's just a month left now before the russian olympic host city sochi starts the ball rolling and we talked to the chief organizer this hour about how the city's going to run the games and keep everyone safe. iraq is losing control of its biggest province with key cities seized by al-qaeda militants flooding in from syria while the us promises to speed up drone and missile deliveries. battling for basics scientists warn that water may become a key factor in world conflicts a little ready fueling tension in the arid middle east. and the youngest victim of the terror attacks in volgograd is on the mend we're following the fate of the three month old girl who survived the blast that killed her mother.

very good evening it's kevin i'm with you this hour you're watching r.t. live from moscow just after eight pm here now our top story hits exactly thirty one days to go then until the winter games kick off here in russia and all eyes are on sochi as the city gets ready for its big moment auntie's pool scots in the olympic host city then that's wrapping up its seventy years of long preparations for the international sports spectacle. organizes are reiterating that everything is on track and they are ready for the start of the games now each of the eleven venues in. which you can see. just over my shoulder on the mountain cluster have been completed and put to the test hosting international competition on more than

one occasion and each of the brand new transport networks including the high speed rail link which is going to connect the two clusters are also up and running there is still some work to be done in and around the city of sochi in the final months but it's mainly cosmetic it's mainly superficial in terms of sprucing the city up so that it looks nice. from the world come february the seventh security has been a top priority for organizes from day one but now with a month to go on tuesday months ago until the start of the games that's the day that the security operation really began in earnest and what's happening here in sochi what's going to happen throughout the course of the games is really not too dissimilar to what you would find anywhere in the world for any major public event such as this basically a controlled zone has been set up in and around sochi which contains not just the venues but also a number of security checks which really just won't allow any spectators or officials into certain designated areas are very nice unless they have a ticket or

a proof. they're going to be over thirty thousand police and security personnel patrolling the region throughout the course of the games in the and in the build up to be. earlier on today i spoke to the chairman of the organizing committee dimitri who told me that every possible step is being taken to secure the games safety. so we already saw each other on the olympic mall from the beginning of the construction. security was the paramount importance of the preparation for the games and by being in all for all the international experts and. the russian state sora to provide incredible measures incredible things to guarantee is the safest and most secure games for security is clearly a top priority now behind me you can see as i mentioned the coastal cluster you can probably make out the fish stadium just over my right shoulder that's going to host

the opening ceremony come february the seventh forty thousand spectators will be packed into that stadium forty thousand lucky ticket holders rehearsals are ongoing at the moment the content of the show is a closely guarded secret it's all set to be unveiled on the big day the day that the game starts a month from now. scott there will the only thing missing is she right now that is the olympic flame it's on its way through central russia and its longest relay in the game's history at a distance in fact there were fifty six thousand kilometers it's record breaking journeys full of first social motion watching us over the last couple of months with historic space for one of most impressive records two russian cosmonauts took it outside the s.s. and that by the way the very top that will light the olympic flame in sochi next month to what is james brown's been following its voyage which he described earlier to lindsay from its. james brown welcome to the studio what do you have with you here the torch of the olympic games can you give us

a look at this as you say this is my. personal torch it's as you can see very one of the color and souvenir let me let me have a look at this this is not light by any means heavy this is yeah it is what two kilos for actually really yes you could. actually hold that you hold it out that is heavy quite and this has been a 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 most memorable are important i think for me i've been to several. going to by car was amazing they took the torch down under water into my car also you had the burning flare torches specially made then passed very impressive underwater and then flew the top back with with a man with a jet pack on to the on to the shore very good video so that it was it was a sight to be seen but there was one amazing moment a real once in

a lifetime moment was going with the torch to the north pole you see on t.v. 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 can cut through to meet a thick ice and is fueled by two gigantic reactors see your which is which is a strange feeling in itself you 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 limbic taught in the north pole for the very first time in history. but as such you propose to a wild guess that the winter games local business is appear to be willing from the city's limpid ambitions to cover that side of. bed a family that was actually so inspired the left moscow to start from scratch in

sochi. yeah the caucasus mountains are known to attract days with a love for nature and now they've 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 the city winning the olympic bid to play in the influence to. sochi winning the olympic spirit 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 fact did have an influence on our decision to move here leaving well paid jobs behind meant making a living was a number one priority so they turned to soon d.-ma 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 appetizing there's a whole arsenal of bottles and flasks with essential and cosmetic oils and greetings are going to get a source locally water from the local mountains is used alongside herbs and spices which christina picks herself with no previous experience in the soap making industry and no formal education in chemistry kristina studied up on her own time with the business doing well their future looks even brighter with plans to open an eco friendly hotel but for now the magic happens in the kitchen. so little when i got to the games themselves who are potential clients raw business or future hotel

and product. organizers of the olympics or see the new infrastructure created in the city will draw more tourists and help small businesses and the elim picks a home based business sourcing local organic products and materials and herbs from our own thoughts here as well as the caucasus mountains now if the president thought she is bubbling with fever for the winter games then it looks like its future after the olympic and paralympic games will blossom if you take the example of upcoming businesses like this one with a in sochi r.t. so the olympic talk clock is ticking we're closely following so choose it to gears up for those games on air and online as well stay tuned to r.t. international.

the cyclone more of the day's news at least twenty nine people have been killed as a rocky troops continue to fight for the cities of fallujah and ramadi which have been held by al qaeda militants in the last friday america's no pledge to help the government fight the extremists by speeding up deliveries of surveillance drones and missiles province where the city's located was a key insurgent stronghold for years following the u.s. led invasion then last week fallujah was of course reclaimed by syria based extremists who declared it an islamic state i spoke to political analyst side out a cat he believes the current situation in iraq is evidence that the syrian war is spilling over its border you know i spend five years in iraq as a united nations spokesman in baghdad and i can tell you this is the worst it's been since probably the 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 porous and it is really elastic so you have these forces that are basically the same size i mean they call themselves they slam exterior of iraq and the sham which is syria so their spouse the same kind of provide the r.v. there's been an influx of weapons and money you know under the guise of aiding the syrian rebels so that they would find a good way there are all these things come together. kind of a few minutes here on r.t. britain's predatory banks were exploring them r.t. talks a couple of one of those entrepreneurs who lost everything after a high street bank this side of the cash in on them with sleight of hand. financing instead of being this safety net we call this story just after this break.

for three to. slow motion housing time by the way of the british economy over which george osborne presides he says twenty fourteen will be a year of hard truths the hardest of all being that many must live so that the few marginal seats letters he needs. at the property roulette wheel so the hard truth for twenty fourteen is that in the property market never must supply meet demand for the libyan foreign market protesting you know so very bottom now to get the job they no jobs get a loan because if you don't get the government back scheme will face a year of hard. truths.

the youngest victim of the terrorist attacks in southern russia at the end of december is now show you some signs of recovery because only three months old has been in a medically induced coma for over a week and next year you have skis at 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 now responds to objects by moving her eyes but her father

was kind enough to provide us with some family food for some home footage of the victorian 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 now mage the condition of another girl another injured in the volgograd terror attack a ninety 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. absolutely online to a controversial cryptocurrency bitcoins hitting new highs again it goes up it goes

down the virtual money is valued now as well as the one thousand dollars mark after don't like game company said it would accept coins from its customers if you read about that keep breast of what's happening with bitcoin is say this kind of volatile dot com. also online as well the story of the four month old giant panda cub they are lovely in the u.s. made its debut before the media i hope will be well with it we've got footage from that meeting you know in motion page. write the scene. first for you and i think that you're. on a reporter's twitter. instagram. and .

to get a business off the ground most of us would need help from a bank but the lesson is apparently choose carefully because not all of them seem to have your best interest at heart says laura smith spoke to two business men in britain who found their lender bullying them rather than protecting them discovered they were far from alone either. chris richardson and ernie 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. hotel this hotel beyond me these hours always will be and it will be coming back if there's justice in this country these guys will be arrested. and we will be giving this back in two thousand and ten chris and ernie had a loan from now 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 our words don't worry about it. and that is the last we've ever heard of a valid offer five we have not heard from him since later 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 laurence tomlin from 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 into distress for the benefit of the bank we actually see. property company called west register and we're seeing r.b.s. owning those customers property after they've been in. stress tomlinson's report is twenty pages of examples and findings under headings like engineering a default and extensive 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 it was put me from a very wealthy man back on tax credits. more family suffered

heavily through this. west register of banks property company and the hotel more was but after last year. she sadly. got cancer in march this year and she'd already my. three three girls the one answers and justice determined to fight back chris and ernie cling to the idea that one day they'll walk through these doors as owners of the hotel again laura smith artie kent. it was resources have always been cause for pretty disputes among nations but for many it may be surprised to hear what we're facing most disputes over water rather than oil or gas is becoming a reason for conflict indeed you can see on this map here in the news wall that the world has witnessed close to one hundred eighty disputes over water resources way across there since the modern fifty's this includes small clashes and protests as well as more serious large scale conflicts to one example the tensions in the

middle east where the struggle for water is a key issue in some ongoing conflicts is what is paulus leah. 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 caballo has been living in the golan heights for over thirty years each day he attends to seventy odd in orchards 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 don't know usually 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 work that all the water supply of israel because every door was raining on it's grown to the security of god it's all we can say that it is and must. respect the resolve to have all over it's 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 sovereign nation there's always the possibility of a clash of riches conflicts that should be manageable was put 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. also recently expressed concern over countries using the upper nile to generate electric power in the dry landscape of the middle east water 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 for this year r.t. in the golan heights well as mentioned in that report age is becoming increasingly concerned over a construction project on the upper nile the country relies greatly on the river where upstream ethiopia is currently building a massive i spoke to political science professor side so that he says egypt may face serious consequences when the project completed in twenty seventeen. we have to remember that egypt has only six to seven percent of its land and the rest of

the egyptian territory is there's a so that can really be a serious affecting national security and that's why immediately when the slogan there is the issue of the high there in the world some experts here is that the we're talking about go in to a war was this your be or because if you cut water on us 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 fifty egypt will be one hundred fifty million people and we would be needing in addition to the fifty five point five billion cubic metres when two one billion cubic meters extra what would happen to egypt in the year two thousand and fifty if we don't have more water. in turkey three hundred fifty police officers reported being sacked overnight as part of a crackdown over a massive corruption scandal that in addition several high profile officials have been thrown behind bars after an investigation the revelations spot fierce

anti-government protests on the streets but prime minister it one claims the affair is a foreign conspiracy designed to discredit his cabinet. also lining today in thailand antigovernment protesters of march to drum up support for operation shut down bangkok demonstrators planning to blockade major roads in the capital to thwart government work and to continue their calls for the prime minister to quit shinawatra her parts already yielded though to pressure from the streets and announce new elections for february the protesters claim is not enough they are pushing for citizens' councils to carry reforms before any new elections are. tracking that subzero are sick phrases now spread to america's east coast with thousands of flights still being cancelled across north america 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 to it shut schools parks and businesses it was reported it was

so cold in fact that even the polar bears in chicago's lincoln park zoo had to go indoors. moscow's 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 western africa later on choose daves hope the vessel is going to be freed as russian diplomats are due to meet with the president the cynical to discuss the issue at least two people including the captain reportedly injured during the ship's asia if issue will reason is over quote unlicensed fishing fit fishing and quote but the senegalese side has failed to produce any evidence to support those accusations sixty two russians are still held on the ship with their passports confiscated. thanks to using r.t. international review watching around the world is very good to have you with us up next why the u.k. housing market is a ticking time bomb for the british economy because the report is on the air.

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 brain. and 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 be an individual in your actions and not a fake individual in trendy clothes but that's just my opinion. welcome to the kaiser report max kaiser five four three two two blue. bust slow motion housing time ticks away under the british economy over which george osborne presides he says twenty fourteen will be

a year of hard truths the hardest of all being that many must lose so that the few marginal seat voters he needs may win at the property roulette wheel so the hard truth for twenty fourteen is that in the boom and bust property market never must supply meet demand for those before our market pricing it all so her panic now to get the job they ain't no job get a loan because if you don't get the government back scheme you'll face a year of oz bourne's hard go bust austerity troops oh. yes max cory doctorow of boeing boeing says this factor slow motion housing time bomb housing in the u.k. is a microcosm for everything wrong with neo liberalism corruption cronyism grinding human misery and funny accounting to prove that it's all working honestly so he's talking about and everybody in town has been talking about james meeks piece in the london

review of books called where will we live because right now at the moment there are about two hundred fifty thousand households being formed per year in the united kingdom and yet only about one hundred thousand private properties being built that's included for the private sector prices are soaring and yet for some reason no private contractors want to come in and build homes well it's the economics of extinction so they're not building homes for british people and as they become extinct through austerity measures that starve them to death. their remaining hours and stock goes up in value just like the japanese fisherman who fish big bluefin tuna to extinction the tuna in their refrigerator is worth more because there's less of them so they're applying this mentality of let's commit economic genocide in britain to force the remaining houses up in value and then we can use those.