breaking news on r.t.e. police come under vicious attacks from hordes of anti-government protesters in the ukrainian capital where buses have been burned during street battles. also in a roundup of the week's top news the international criminal court could soon see top british military officials in the dock for the first time over accusations of war crimes committed by troops during the iraq war. a price worth paying vladimir putin speaking out about the record breaking cost of the sochi games while dispelling fears over the safety and security of those attending. breaking top ranking lawmakers on capitol hill attacking president obama's proposed n.s.a. reforms in effect it was criticizing the president for creating a climate of uncertainty.

it's five am in moscow i match reza bring you today's top stories and a look back at the week's news beginning though with breaking news disturbing images emerging of violence in kiev where dozens have been injured in bitter clashes well after anti-government demonstrators attacked police cordons this is one of the most dramatic pictures we've received footage from marty's video agency ruptly showing rioters beating officers with sticks crowds also threw stones and fireworks at police who responded with water cannons and tear gas ukrainian journalist and avoid told us what he saw i saw the most difficult times thrown to the rows of police so it's happening all the time when police is trying to stop the protestors sent to come to them closer to the protesters. throwing

stones to write articles young people tried to break through. for police to go to the governmental. the city police are trying to trying to stop them people want to build in the barricades the use of the cars which are standing on the square they want to choose to achieve the goals now so be it one two three and of course to go away to be not president they want to have another government and they want to have this one moment they don't talk to journalists so they can't explain what they want so they want to fight activists and opposition leaders pushing for the government to step down over a new law they say is in breach of the constitution they say it'll make it easier to prosecute demonstrators campaigning for change meanwhile an adviser to barack obama expressed support for the ukrainian opposition cross writing on twitter that protester violence is a result of the actions of president want to publish in his party this is the white

house demands police leave central kiev so far as to threaten the government with sanctions or to go was in the city when protest was started and shared your experiences with my colleague ivan no. there had to say burst into flame earlier right when they started back in november or it got to the point where they have to do something and by they i mean the protesters and of course the government as well but most of the protesters because for a while there they tried to you know keep it coming in waves they're waiting for the dispersal of the mind they kept saying it's going to happen people kept getting messages through their phones and through twitter. threatening messages which were essentially saying we're about to be ambushed at the police because there's going to be you know essentially all hell breaks loose and it never happened it's really quite safe to say that we probably had several hundred of these ultra nationalist activists but i would say this is exactly what they wanted them to mayhem and that

one point they tried to direct the bus somebody got into the bus and tried to direct them at the police if we go. back to back to december there was already an incident when they tried to run a bulldozer into the police as well so this is sort of a repeat of what we saw back then just a month ago essentially but it does look a lot does look a lot sillier of course it's much more colorful now rewinding the clocks. very briefly how all this started. back back in the day basically it was about the fact that you know college pulled out at the very last moment from signing a trade agreement with the european union but now they're completely different now it's against the government now they're protesting now they're saying this is a revolution and one of the government to step down were over the second month of protests and they cannot agree on anything they decided not even to bring out a unified candidate should the elections take place and a lot of people i think were really upset by that but that's what people were

chanting earlier today they were they were shouting leave their leader because that's exactly what they need and they don't see that and. says he's ready for talks with the opposition to resolve the ongoing political impasse in ukraine neil clark a u.k. based journalist monitoring the unrest in kiev so the opposition is trying to topple the government because it thinks it would lose at the ballot box. the opposition. they claim to have then why don't they simply wait elections we're not talking about five years' time we're talking about next february really took about thirty months time so i think the opposition now trying to bring down the government to try to bring the very early elections we call the elections talk of the government which is undemocratic because you know the majority of people are not represented by the party there's no evidence. and i think that if the goal of this would be undemocratic moves really. the western leaders about this is quite

striking because you have a coach who was a democratically elected leader ukraine is not north korea it's not so. you're right it's a democracy and you give up to see if you want to remove the government and what you do is you try to persuade people to. free elections and that i mean not as i say that we're trying to keep doing so why don't you opposition to them knowing what we're seeing in ukraine as an attempt for a wedgie change. parties like ships can you cover the last years you carry on protesters following turmoil and you have with the latest on his twitter feed follow him for the most dramatic pictures and up to date information. out of some of the week's other top stories top u.k. military officials could be tried for war crimes for the first time a report by the european human rights group claims the burden is concealing evidence of abuse by its forces during the iraq war thousands of former detainees testified they had suffered violence and torture of the hands of british troops a dossier now being examined by the international criminal court as artie's polly

boyko reports up until now the international criminal court at the hague had mostly tried to african dictators and tyrants but the i.c.c. has been asked to investigate thousands of allegations of war crimes committed by british forces in iraq a two hundred and fifty page dossier presented by a human rights organization in a british north contains allegations of beatings of electrocution smoked executions and sexual assaults committed by u.k. forces and according to the all says of this report the finger of blame extends to the very heart of the british government at the time said the head of the british army the former defense secretary and the former defense minister could face prosecution for what this stuff say cools systemic war crimes there are many hundreds of cases where the people have been interviewed in the provided reports

about this abuse and it varies from what people might think are. relatively mundane examples of the abuse to really quite appalling physical there put says that british military commanders knew that their forces were committing war crimes and moreover that their civilian superiors cautiously ignored such information at that disposal but the case foreign secretary william hague has already firmly rejected the suggestion that those that help here in westminster knew what was taking place on the ground in iraq we reject allegations of systematic abuse but whether all substantiated allegations of things going wrong these things have been being investigated that does not require references to the international criminal court the position of the british government has constantly been oh we're doing enough the point of this is simply that they still haven't done

enough there are right now at the international criminal court two heads of state one of them the sitting head of state of kenya and the other the former head of state of cold d'ivoire they're both on trial at the international criminal court not for getting their hands bloody they didn't do anything themselves but people under their authority or people they should have controlled were committing the crimes so if it's good enough for the african countries it should be good enough for the u.k. to the international criminal court has come under increasing pressure to act against war crimes committed by western countries it's now up to the prosecutor at the i.c.c. to go through the claims of abuse and to decide whether to call high ranking british officials into the dock at the hague probably boy artsy and. the majority of the reports contents are being kept away from the public but some parts of it have come to light the dossier contains reports of killings beatings rapes in various torture methods u.k. forces allegedly used on iraqis families of inmates also reportedly targeted the

year old son of one man suspect was supposedly slapped by an officer as his father was arrested another former detainee claims soldiers threatened to sexually abuse his sister we spoke with one of the report's co-authors for more. evidence shows that it's not only about individual and single cases and incidents it's really a systematic pattern of reparative acts which appeared and that finding in our report or communication to the i.c.c. it's mars and single isolated incidents it's now is the time because the u.k. had ten years to investigate to prosecute the direct perpetrators but also the higher ups in the u.k. ten years and there are still hardly any prosecutions in the country so now it's simply the time that the international courts have to step in. syria's main

opposition group voting in favor of attending geneva two peace talks you look back at the week's diplomatic twists and turns days before the start of negotiations i could pave the way for a political solution to the country's deadly civil war after a short break. the playing. field in big spirit travels with the flame from its place in greece. julian jaynes elemental and epic journey around russia and beyond. where i think.

thirteen minutes past the hour putin says russia will do everything it can to ensure a safe winter olympics without making security measures too invasive with less than three weeks to go before the start of the sochi games the russian leader sat down with the international media addressing the huge cost of staging the event and dispelling fears that gay visitors would suffer discrimination my colleague leadership of all. i spoke with our teams and you're

a farmer who's in sochi about the president's address these games are the most expensive in the olympic history in five times the original price tag but mr putin did stress that over the last five years so cheap was the biggest building site in the world all the venues had to be built from scratch in this huge infrastructural development in terms of roads and rail links and he said because of that it was expected things would go over budget but he said where overspend has not been justified action has been taken and people have actually lost their jobs including a russian olympic committee member who was in charge of the ski jump the city which went six and a half times over budget and he was fired however mr putin did say that there was no corruption among government officials are they if evidence was presented it would be investigated russia's law against gay propaganda to mine is rose a lot of calls to boycott the olympics from abroad so this issue was also mentioned

wasn't it it was and again he stressed that homosexuality is not a crime in russia but he did say that calls for a boycott on the games on this topic was a throwback to old style thinking which he did not think was helpful and he said that he thought that the worst still people in the west they were looking to restrain emerging countries in the east that had become global competitors and you also drew a parallel with china saying they also experienced call for a boycott in the run up to the beijing games back in two thousand and eight and it was because. i don't think that these are manifestations of the cold war but it is a demonstration of competition when such a powerful country like china starts showing rapid pace in growth it becomes a real competitor in global politics and being lobel markets and of course tools to restrain such growth are switched on probably some old approaches towards russia still exist from the perspective that there is a need. restrained. and finally security and how it will affect big gains is

a cool so many people that one of the president's comments on that. is a major issue particularly after the bombings in volgograd he did say that forty thousand troops and police. in and around the sochi area a moment he did say it was necessary but he also did stress that they would do all they could to make sure that they would not be to ensure you see the members of the public and all these people come to sochi to try and enjoy the games my own experience i was walking along the promenade yesterday and on the horizon was a warship and yes you do you see small patrols of police on the streets and also regular police write checks but i wouldn't describe it as overbearing in fact i would say that i think many people will find it reassuring certainly at the moment with around three weeks to go before the start of the games you can watch the prelim big interview with the russian president in full on our website r.t.

dot com. our early anticipated address by president barack obama on reining in the n.s.a. spying has been criticized some lambasted proposed reforms as being cosmetic and most likely ineffective what others said they carried additional risks one of the key points of the speech was that any data gathered by the agency will no longer be stored by the government but the sparked fears that a third party could access the data if it was stored beyond official control also lawmakers accuse the president of failing to bring forward actual reforms and creating a sense of also of uncertainty probably to raju a former f.b.i. agent and whistleblowers among those left unsatisfied by the president's address. well i think the speech was a few baby steps in the right direction but it was a lot of i dissembled lane and certainly it was a reassurance to the n.s.a. and its employees that they have been doing the right thing he talked really focus was on the two fifteen telephone metadata program that is just one of dozens of

massive collections nothing in obama's speech put any rain rain than this collected all approach there was a big revelation of our call dish fire program that just fire program was collecting all tax calls literally hundreds of thousands of text calls every day are going into the n.s.a.'s vacuum it's giant gigantic hoover and as a tactics angered many across the world some comparatives activities to the full scale espionage of the cold war artist peter over to work. on finding out that the united states attempt to private mobile phone and glimmer cool confronted president obama with this claim. former offices in the east german secret police which was known as the stars of

a warning for the n.s.a. if they think must surveillance is the solution to a nation's problems who quote if it's even the best qualified and most advanced secret service cannot save the state we showed you that away from the professed shock of the politicians at the n.s.a. spying ability how does it compare with the actions of the east german secret services during the cold war to this can now is truly this is exactly as illegal as some of the tactics that the stars are used to employ it is a breach of human rights but the government machine is so powerful that you can't stop it i would snowden's leaks about the shape and scope of n.s.a. surveillance show in germany as one of the top targets for u.s. snooping again. on top of the ominously named devil's mountain life the remnants of the last major n.s.a. spying program to look into the private lives of the people of berlin or its

abundant now but back in the day this post with ears to listen in normally private phone calls of thousands of citizens in both the east and the west of the fifty then it was thousands of calls now it's millions sometimes tens of millions of data connections that are tracked and logged with them and they move the way they do it now is much more intensive your web browsing history credit cards they can build a profile on you way easier than was ever possible in my day. didn't have access to this type of technology they rely on developing personal contacts in the sense version even those who are working in counterintelligence in the west were ours even they said it we were pretty good even then the fear of being listened into was taken seriously as one former officer charged with looking into nato told us human those fyrst my superior office. is there any technology that they can use to stop

eavesdropping on my calls you know it's just don't you know these veterans of the spy game might be impressed by the capabilities of the n.s.a. but they cool issues about the quality of the information collected for lessons yet they relied too much on technology that technology might let you locate a person or listen to their calls it doesn't let you know what they think with the usa doing all it can to justify its intelligence gathering the operation. two point zero by critics like sense to continue with some sign yet these are all of the gemini running out of some other stories making international headlines in iraq government forces launched a long awaited attack on militants who seized large parts of ramadi in december here is fighting broke out leaving at least twenty police and their allied tribal militia dead or wounded in the nearby city of fallujah also founder control of the same militant group that later declared an independent islamic state in the city.

that violent clashes broke out in istanbul as thousands marked the death of a journalist seven years ago at the time of his death a reporter was pushing for reconciliation between turks and armenians but the campaign sparked anger among nationalists the two countries have been at odds over whether turkey engaged in genocide after invading our media almost one hundred years ago. ages listed president morsi facing a fourth trial on charges of insulting the judiciary when still in power he apparently claimed a judge oversaw corrupt elections the military backed government has been stepping up pressure on the former leader's muslim brotherhood power base by declaring it a terror group. in our region a village famous for its picked arrest wooden buildings has been severely damaged by fire thirty properties burned to the ground at least ninety people were needed hospital treatment fire crews eventually managed to put out the flames but police warn it could flare up again because of the blaze under investigation. this news

just in the syrian national coalition says it will withdraw from the geneva two peace conference unless the u.n. cancels its invitation for iran to join the talks that according to a twitter post quoting the group's spokesman tehran has reportedly already agreed to join the talks that are set to start in switzerland wednesday or he's eager piskun of takes a look at the week's developments with time running out before the start of geneva two conference on syria it was a busy week for global diplomacy it's our hope that in the face to face meeting of the regime and the opposition will be the beginning of the beginning of the end to this unspeakable conflict never before have russia and the us been so united over syria holding damascus and the rebels both responsible for atrocities standing together for a political solution and going further still. going to try to send the signals to

the syrian sides on the need to establish localized ceasefires to consider the lists of prisoners of war including civilians and also to allow humanitarian aid. washington even turned around its stance on iran saying it could also take part in the conference so long as it supported previous international agreements on syria to keep our saying the foundation for me would say you are on the same page when it comes to the most important issues the same can be said about some western nations who may be risking it all of them have right now just one wrong move is enough to bring down this diplomatic house of cards such as the mixed signals sent from france to the rebels who themselves took the whole week to decide whether they'll take part. we don't have the assad regime on one side and terrorists on the other it is the regime that is fueling terrorism. such statements may be music to their ears but these are cynical statements the western military alliance has been

recruiting right from the outset and it's confirmed by numerous. reliable sources from pairs the diplomatic ph moved to moscow which was visited by syria and iran's chief diplomats a month because has confirmed it will be a geneva two and after much debate so has the opposition. former french prime minister dominique de villepin explain why he thinks it's crucial that iran participate in the conference ron should be as much a spot symbol. of the talks because you want he's a very regional important players i believe the dialogue that the international community is how do we speak on the nuclear question he's a very bold to what he should try to go forward and settle and if he can you run forward to discussing the crisis of the region we of course we would be much more efficient how can we solve the iraqi crises. how can we solve the cedar and crises

we value and that's why i really believe that the dialogue with this country is important and we should really take into account the fact that we've got out having you run a border days no solution to be the least of it in today will bring us special preview of the long awaited geneva two peace conference and don't miss our full coverage of the talks that start on wednesday. after three years of. this and just total of over one hundred thousand. lomas see in common sense come together with one. war is not d.h. . does peace have a chance. next our review of the record breaking relay of the olympic torch as it heads to the sochi twenty fourteen winter games stay with us after this short break.

another whistleblowers facing a lot of heat including a wave of death threats but what did she discover some sort of dark secret cia plans or some other plot for a new war of luxury no she exposed something far more dangerous and important to the zombies on their couches the university of north carolina athletes are mentally unfit for college and even high school mary willing him blew the whistle on the fact that between eight and ten percent of the school's football and basketball players read a fourth grade level and many others are sub college level she also claims that these students were allowed into the university based on the screening process done by the university i.e. implying that the use of n.c.

knew exactly who they were letting into the university remember college football makes a lot of money i always had a feeling that something like this was going on i mean according to usa today many college athletes claim that during the season they put in more than double the amount of hours on sports that they are allowed that's fifty to sixty hours a week how can they possibly learn anything maybe it isn't so sad that this goes on it is a reflection of economics what is sad is that the whistleblower is getting death threats just for saying that it is going on by those stupid hard core fans but that's just my opinion. there is so little self reflection on the part of both the american public and the american decision makers i wonder why is that we are there continentals country of three hundred fifty million people very self-absorbed we are.

slated from the world by two large oceans. we tend to think of foreign policy is something we do to other people. but something we participate in. we have corruption like we've never had in this country you can say that this is a great economy right now it's a great economy if you're rich or we're trying to get the wall to wall street cranked up again if you've got all your money in stocks it's beginning to show a little life it's not if you're an average person in this country i would i have to tend to agree with doug i mean i see a lot of public relations here i don't see a lot of really good policy for the average person i just like to pick up on an earlier point that doug made though which i also thought was quite important and significant especially insofar as historians can provide value by looking for trends and putting things in context which was the assassination of a u.s.

citizen overseas really you might say the power of hiking to have life or death over their citizens without without an open trial. it was supposed to be just another news or of course although admittedly for a special occasion it was one hundred twenty three days before the start of the winter olympic games in sochi and i was in greece for the lighting of the olympic flame the ruins of the limpia one of the most famous monuments of ancient greece the site of the very first olympic games where stones like this would have been part of the temple. the temple temple .