and. this is why you should care only dot com. tonight on the finish line there's just a month left before the russian olympic host city sochi starts the ball rolling we talked to the chief organizer the about how the city's going to run the games and people everyone say. rak is losing control of its biggest province with the city seized by militants flooding in from syria while the u.s. promises to speed up drone a missile delivery hopefully coming up. also ahead. basics scientists. may become a key factor in world conflicts with it already fueling tension in the arab middle east. and an update to all the youngest victim of the terror attacks in volgograd all the men now we're following the fate of the three month old girl who survived the blast that killed her mother.

very good even this is out international thanks for company money is kevin now in our top story that it's exactly thirty one days to go until the winter games kick off here in russia and all eyes are on sochi is the city gets ready for its big moment. in the olympic host city that's wrapping up seven long years of preparations for the international sports spectacle that it's set to be. 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 both the coastal cluster which you can see behind me 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 prepares to welcome the world come february the seventh security has been a top priority for organizes from day one but now with a month to go and choose day 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 or venues unless they have a ticket or a proof of. their 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 the. earlier on today i spoke to the chairman of the organizing committee dimitri he told me that every possible step is being taken to secure the games safety. reach the olympic mall from the beginning of the construction. of security is the paramount importance of the games and. of for. all the international experts and. the russian sort of to provide incredible measures incredible things to go into this if it's more secure gives them more 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 going 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. absolutely paul scott well the only thing missing of course insult you know is the olympic flame is 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's been full of firsts with historic space walk of course for the most impressive records two russian cosmonauts took it outside the international space station there it is . by the way the very top two that will light the olympic flame in sochi next month artie's james brown has been following its voyage which he described earlier to my colleague lindsay from. 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 car and souvenir let me let me have a look at i mean this this is not light by any means heavy this is yeah it is what two kilos about four actually really oh yes i'm going to. hold that you hold it out 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 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 area get video so that it was it was a sight to be seen but 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 can cut through to meet a thick ice and is fueled by two gigantic reactors so your visitors it 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 libby taught in the north pole for the very first time in history. so as such he prepares to work guess that at the upcoming winter games local businesses appear to be winning from the city's olympic ambitions to. met one 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 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 when the olympic bid play an 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 men's making a living was a number one priority so they turned to so 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 gadget looking at a bar of soap as everything looks appetizing there's a whole arsenal of bottles and flasks with essential and cosmetic on aisles and greetings alga nicklas 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 is 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 you could i got across the way the games themselves will add potential clients raw business our future hotel and products. organizers of the olympics as say the new infrastructure created in this city will draw more tourists

and help small businesses and place the elim peaks at home base business sourcing local organic products and materials and herbs from our own thoughts as well as the caucasus mountains now if the president thought he is bubbling with fever for the winter games then it looks like its future after the olympics and paralympic games will blossom if you take the example of upcoming businesses like this one with a in tsotsi r.t. so the limpid clock is ticking down we're closely of course following such user gears of those games on air and online hoping to stay with us here at r.t. international.

at least twenty nine people have been killed as a record troops continue to fight for the cities of fallujah and ramadi which have been held by al-qaeda militants since last friday america's no pledge to help the government fight the extremist prospering of deliveries of surveillance drones and missiles and province where the city is located was a key insurgent stronghold for years of course following the u.s. led invasion last week for jews reclaimed by syria based extremists who declared an islamic state there as part of political side out a cat he believes the current situation in iraq is evidence that the syrian war is spilling over the border. i spent five years in iraq as the united nations spokesman in baghdad and i can tell you this is the worst it's been since probably the american occupation 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 there are basically the same side i mean they call themselves the islamic state of iraq and the sham which is syria so the spouse the same kind of of ideology there's been an influx of weapons and money you know under the guise of aiding the syrian rebels so that it is finding its way there are all these things come together. in syria the first batch meantime of the country's chemical weapons stockpiles been removed by a ship a danish vessel left the portal attack you for international waters where it's toxic cargo said to be destroyed this is turkey's prime minister now everyone is pushing for the removal of president assad to be on the agenda or at the upcoming geneva two meeting planned for the end of this month for the twenty second let's talk more about this with independent political analysts and journalists go to coleman is joining us live either. seems to be changing the goalpost moving here

initially the geneva two was never about regime change it was about peace talks so where is the turkish prime minister coming from the o. do you expect this to anyway. well this is typical from murder one it's hardly surprising that arizona would come out with such a ridiculous line he's been behaving mostly radically since the very start of the war. talking about regime change is not on the agenda obviously though in this himself under threat of regime change in turkey so he's probably the last man in the region who would want to talk about regime change at this stage of course you can't have political negotiations if one side say it's ridiculous preconditions and of course regime change is never really been an option in syria to be absolutely impossible to stage a regime the only way you can have regime change in syria is if the regime is

overthrown as it were that hasn't obviously is not the case and they failed to defeat the syrian army and talk about regime change is really on helpful at this stage and of course the big question marks of who's actually going to tell there are no on the twenty second of january the syrian national coalition which is the big part of it is still undecided if they're going to go there is the question if they're so on the fence how can any progress be made. well the problem of course is that in syria you have an electoral process there is a presidential election this year and the big problem for the opposition is that they don't have any support on the ground in syria because they don't represent anyone other than western powers the western imperial alliance the transatlantic alliance nato and the gulf cooperation council so they are supporting syria is very very minimal and that's why they don't want to take part in the actual election

process in syria to try to process so this is a big problem because how do you negotiate negotiate with people who essentially represent western interests and don't represent the interests of the syrian people so they would rather not have to enter into any kind of rational negotiation and the reason for that of course is that they have no political program they have never had a political program they have no economic program and if they had their way they would simply destroy the country get in there tear the country apart privatized everything and sell it out to the gulf cooperation council countries particularly saudi arabia and qatar and they would serve western corporate interests so they have no coherent program and this is the reason why they don't want to enter into any kind of negotiation let's just didn't represent the syrian people let's just for a minute let's just for a minute while we've got your law in triumphal of the past. is going that if we try to follow his logic if he wants assad out of the picture at some point in the

future there's a power vacuum who's going to fill it. well this is the this is the question we saw what happened in libya libya is now a country that's been overrun by gangs and criminal gangs and it's been a minute of the country chaos and it's falling apart there is nobody replaces. there could be. decent candidates this year i mean what we really we should be talking about now is a cease fire and then some sort of international monitoring commission of the elections and those proposals could be put to the syrian government saying you know let's have some kind of monitoring commission of the elections to see if they're fair and open and so on and if the syrian opposition had some kind of political program maybe they could then go to geneva and say look we want to participate in these elections and so on and maybe a mechanism could be found by you know sections of the opposition.

could participate in those elections i think that is the only rational solution to the problem right now because syrian people are not going to accept a government imposed upon them trying to on the gulf cooperation council so talking about asad stepping down is really not talking about reality there is no there is no question of our side stepping down. and categorically that he will not step down but he will either be elected or defeated. and that is how it works in every country if you have an election you lose the election then you are no longer the president regularly visit if you like your thoughts on the road or opposition are going to have to accept that and then. we're going to lose a lot too so we're going to see disappear what i said they were there so it's nice to say on the program got a call when the journalist and author thank you for coming up in just a few minutes to an r.t. britain's a predatory buying socks he talks to a couple of entrepreneurs who say they've lost everything after

a high street bank decided to cash in on them with sleight of hand financing is stead of being a safety that is just ahead. he survived war atrocities. to make a final decision. has changed his life and the world around him. by giving. hope. and love to so many children. nikolai the american worker on t.v. . dramas that can't be ignored to. stories others to refuse to notice.

faces changing the world right now. so picture of today's leaves. from around the globe. looked. to me. again update now for you on the youngest victim of the volga grad terrorist attacks in southern russia at the end of december the update is she's now sewing showing some signs of recovery which is good news is just three months old had been in a medically induced coma for over a week and his lectures eskies 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 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 damage. the condition of another girl another injured in the volgograd terror attack a 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. online too controversial cryptocurrency big coinciding new highs again it goes up it goes down it's back up the virtual needs values swung past now the one thousand dollars mark after an online game company said it would accept coins for its customers going to read it more about that it said r.t. dot com also online too cute this four month old giant panda cub in the u.s. has made its debut before the media we got footage from the meeting and are in motion section which makes you go on. to get a business off the ground most of us would need help from a bank i guess but choose carefully because not all of them it seems have your best interests at heart arteries laura smith spoke to two business men in britain who found their lender bullying them rather than protecting them and 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 style hotel this hotel beyond me here these hours 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 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 no worries don't worry about it. and that is the last we've ever heard of. we have not heard from later the owners learnt 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 they're restructuring division georgi today in a way that the businesses that they were supposed to be helping get back to health . put 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 distress told linton's report

is twenty pages of examples and findings under headings like engineering and defaults 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. recent 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's put me from a very wealthy man back on tax credits. more family suffered heavily through this. west register of banks property company in the hotel moore was birthday last year. she sadly. got cancer in march this year and she died in my. life for three three goals that 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. those water resources of always been a cause for bitter disputes among nations but it may be a surprise to hear that it could cause wars in the future rather than oil or gas it is becoming a reason for conflict take a look at this news wally on a map the world's witness close to one hundred eighty disputes over water resources since the one nine hundred fifty s. are in fact right the way across the board there these include small clashes and protests as well as more serious large scale conflicts to one example the tensions of the middle east where the struggle for water is a key issue in some ongoing conflicts is artie's 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 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 third of israel's water supply the disputed region with cease 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 before the brain

. is prone to the frequency of the fold we can say that it is a must will. respect the resolve to have all over it's what the fall 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 nations is always a possibility of pressure reaches 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 bowl 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 was mentioned a pause report where egypt's become an increasingly concerned over construction project on the upper nile the country relies greatly on that river where upstream ethiopia is currently building a massive dam political science professor side said it told me egypt may face the serious consequences when the projects 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 there can really be a serious affecting national security and that's why immediately. and with the issue of the high there the world some experts here is that the we're talking about going to war war was this your view of 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 meter twenty one billion cubic meter extra what would happen to egypt in. two thousand and fifty if we don't have more water. in turkey three hundred fifty police officers have reportedly been sacked overnight as part of a crackdown over massive corruption scandal in addition several high profile officials have been thrown by following an investigation revelations fierce antigovernment protests on the streets but prime minister erdogan trader's the affair is a foreign conspiracy as he put it designed to discredit his cabinet. in thailand anti-government protesters of march to drum up support for operation shut down bangkok demonstrators are planning to blockade major roads in the capital to thwart

government work and continue their calls for the prime minister to quit. what's already yielded to pressure from the streets and announced new elections for february but protest a plane that's not enough they're pushing for citizens councils to carry a reformist before any new elections are held. to raise we're tracking that now it's spread to america's east coast with thousands of flights being canceled across north america now a shift in the weather pattern known as the polar vortex has dropped temperatures in some parts of the continent near record levels at least sixteen deaths have been blamed on the weather which is shut schools parks and businesses indeed it was reported to be so cold that even the polar bears in chicago's lincoln park zoo had to go into. here in moscow next on r.t. meet the family of a russian orthodox priest to open his home to seventy abandoned children we got the story of nicholai the miracle worker that's what they call him.