well you know she was. reaching out to protest as the u.s. secretary of state will meet ukraine's opposition leaders for the first time in you need this as washington considers sanctions against the government. a crisis in capital punishment a shortage of lethal drugs falls america's death penalty states to look at alternatives often wall painful methods of execution. or some stumbling in only partly. leading. to an expose to find out what condemned prisoners face and there's no drugs to kill the. president he slips into the olympics light inside to find out what awaits the top plays and commuters competing for medals in the winter games.

under a very warm welcome to our senior national twenty four hour news a live from moscow my name is our thanks for joining us. the u.s. secretary of state john kerry will need to ukraine's opposition leaders for the first time on the sidelines of a security conference in munich on saturday and washington's also keeping up the pressure on president unocal bitch who is now on sick leave calling on him to resolve the crisis while thrashing restrictions if he doesn't. we're willing to consider sanctions no decision has been made meanwhile the dividing ukraine appears to be a whine to me as if he's an executive chef came reports from kiev. ukraine is now in an absolutely unique situation i don't think there's ever been anything compared

to what is happening in the country right now half of it is now paralyzed with a regional administration has taken over by the protesters make it completely impossible for this part of the country to be properly governed by the authorities there already been cases we've heard reports that some of the some some of the reasons authorities are actually running their regions online exchanging correspondence through different messaging services was there and mabel to go to their work their regional ministrations have been blocked and there's no chance of a compromise as of now and to give you a proper feeling of what it's like in the heart of the protest in the west of ukraine my colleague paulus near did this report. this is the regional administration building event notes on cards skin western ukraine where at the till a week ago the regional governor had his office but as you can see just liking kiev's there is now a giant barricade surrounding the building with snow tires and planks of wood radical and and he russian this is the heartland of nationalism where anti on

a common sentiment runs deep and that's the way natalia and her comrades want to keep it the twenty nine year old entrepreneur has been here since the building was overthrown she says work can wait this is more important. is supposed to have no president than to have you know called which but with the opposition as fragmented as it is that tully is the first to admit no yanna coverage could well mean an alkie whitney bishop along with the problem is that we don't have any person to replace him and we will need to take someone from their position which won't be easy the sentiments blown across central and western ukraine where regional offices are being picketed and seized by protesters. in the knees a group of right wing radicals some wearing masks stormed the municipal building chanting we have the power they used fire extinguishers and wooden sticks against.

in china gov demonstrators set up barricades made of vehicle parts and sacks of snow they demanded police in the building similar scenes played out and she can see where protesters trying to said night to furniture they smashed windows and threw stones at security forces. the anger has moved even further westwards engine off ski protests and ukrainian hymns while ignoring the governor's attempts to disperse them. in a van or from coffs those now laying siege to the municipality building a forbidden in symbols or sentiments of the ruling party they claim it goes against the will of the ukrainian people no one knows why. the head of the administration is there are parts of this building that are still functioning for example the day to day running of the city but on a political level everything is come to a standstill all this process might. lead to door division of the country of course as a result in some the arab spring helps in the long term perspective which is

quite dangerous process and the process with my rate. of. disturbers of this it weighs on the internal situation in ukraine but my also process in the neighboring countries like poland on the one hand. hungary on the other hand those countries which are now in the european union despite the criticism of the army coverage these protesters have nothing better to offer policia r.t. even a front costs western ukraine. presenting coverage said the authorities have done everything they could to try and resolve the crisis but the opposition dismissed this statement as misleading and foreign affairs expert. says they're also made goal is to topple the government but after that there's no plan the opposition keeps moving the goal posts obviously they want the government to unconditionally surrender and all of their demands whatever those demands might be they've made it

obvious that only unconditional surrender will do they're like a dog chasing cars they have no idea what to do when when they catch it their whole gambit is to take over the government short of taking over the government the will their efforts will be a failure they need to capture the government to be successful this is these are the marching orders they were given by the people financing them so anything short of dismantling the government and handing it over to them would be a failure this is why they cannot compromise even if they wanted to. assistant secretary of state rick turin newland house plans to visit the ukraine again head to our calls and more details on that and to follow minute by minute updates on the tabulate situation in ukraine. u.s. lawmakers are looking for alternatives to help them kill the lethal injection drugs

used to execute prisoners on death row are in short supply and there is concern over how effective they are anyway but some of the other methods being considered on neither new or campaigners say humane is more important in our reports. in just the first month of twenty fourteen six executions have already been carried out on u.s. death row inmates however the shortage of drugs coupled with an increasing concern surrounding the efficiency of lethal injection has prompted lawmakers in some states to push for the reintroduction of long abandoned torture methods in missouri some officials have raised the notion of rebuilding the state's gas chamber and also proposed making firing squads an option for executions death by gun has also been proposed as an option in wyoming meanwhile in virginia there's been a push to make electrocution an option so why are u.s. states now advocating to bring back these relics of the past in recent years

european drug makers have stopped selling their drugs to prisons because they say they don't want their products to be used to kill prisoners as a result many u.s. executions have been delayed in other cases the use of new drugs for lethal injection caused slow painful deaths lasting over twenty minutes richard dieter of the death penalty information center says old execution methods being advocated are prone to even more mistakes you can imagine with a firing squad you know. only partly. leading it you know these are things that are also prone to error to pain to to you know from the public's states changed to protect the death penalty to lethal injection so to go back would certainly jeopardize their whole purpose of carrying to carry out executions some u.s. states already provide alternatives to lethal injection alabama arkansas florida

kentucky oklahoma south carolina tennessee and virginia it administer the electric chair if requested by the defendant delaware new hampshire and washington state allow inmates to choose hanging while arizona. and wyoming legally allow gas chamber executions as an alternative currently lethal injection remains the only enforceable method of execution in the us but if states get their way somewhere down the line death by firing squad or electric chair may become the new norm in america reporting from new york. r.t. . the head of the national i'm gonna stay on faces the looming threat of tahn about her senator and this with the militant group gaining strength just as kabul and washington wrangle over a post pullout security deal. on britain and france are set to pull that counts to come up with some new deadly troubles despite the growing evidence and criticism of

the number of civilians falling victim to on land i have cropped off of the brain. stalled talks accusations traded and endless demands made this sums up the process being played out in geneva with virtual stalemate on the battlefield outside proxies for left to make the hard decisions and compromises to alleviate and then to finally end the civil war but do these outside powers have the political will.

welcome back to national let's move on now time is ticking away before american troops pull out of afghanistan and the security box which they're supportive role they will play one back combat mission is over isn't in bad relations between washington and kabul heading for the deep freeze and as this economy reports they talabani could be the ones to benefit here after thirteen years in afghanistan washington is counting down together with our allies we will complete our mission

bare by the end of this year and america's longest war will finally be over. but ending a war isn't the same as winning one when it comes to afghanistan peace is far from certain security situation is worsening in the country india is a new sign that americans. need to will be able to stop the war in afghanistan and to degrees that the activities of taliban and the taliban have been active in the past two weeks alone the group has staged numerous attacks in kabul kandahar nimrods helmand and nanga hard in fact ministry of interior incident reports reveal clashes with the taliban in a most of the eleven provinces bordering pakistan the group also controls several districts in parwan just a short drive from the country's capital some provinces are believed to be controlled by shadow governments that answer directly to the taliban be the one

that said it was not the taliban run the area the district government is just there but there is no real security either and it could get worse a classified american intelligence assessment warns that the initial objective in afghanistan removing the taliban and disabling al qaeda operations in the country could fail and that the taliban could return in full swing by twenty seventeen the u.s. wants. some troops to remain in the country by the pentagon's logic the pursuit of terrorists is best based in the region same goes for u.s. drones and without american help the afghan army could collapse but the u.s. first needs the afghan president to sign off on a key security pact something he has been refusing to do so far in our position continues to be that if we cannot conclude a bilateral security agreement promptly then we will be forced to initiate planning for a post twenty fourteen future in which there would be no u.s. or nato troop presence in afghanistan there's also the issue of talking with the

enemy the consensus seems to be that the afghan war could only end in a negotiated settlement with the taliban not a military victory but that's proven elusive the taliban are internally divided and the rift between kabul and washington has reportedly empowered hardline commanders who want to keep on fighting at the expense of those who support peace talks the u.s. war has succeeded in toppling the taliban regime and many afghans have seen their lives improve but those gains could easily be lost depending on who wins control over afghanistan a country that's once again could be up for grabs reporting in washington for our team i'm lucy catherine. president karzai is demanding washington and peace talks with a ton of fun as a condition for signing a security deal and was. council of foreign relations who was a person of the town upon his says the u.s. is not able to curtail the group which is on the rise. it is

a continuous war for over twenty years they have continued to fight some of them and since the american invasion in october fifth two thousand and one they have if anything increased their their ability to attack their holding for the united states even with its search in two thousand and nine announced by president obama has not been able to really curtail the taliban they are as strong as ever as committed as ever and i think this is one reason why there is such difficulty throughout nato throughout the west figure out how to leave afghanistan and what to do with the taliban. washington has spent billions waging the ongoing war and a still spending despite its mission winding down so as to thousand and one it has cost the u.s. taxpayer over seven hundred billion dollars and here's what's still to come in twenty four seen every american soldiers serving in afghanistan will cost and

average two point one million dollars withdrawing isn't cheap either the u.s. has decided not to ship back more than seven billion dollars worth of equipment so it will be destroyed and a brand new military headquarters built in twenty thirteen at a cost of city of four million dollars will probably never be used with the u.s. troops pulling out the obgyn government will now have to reach and deal with the taliban according to richard williams a former british s.s. officer. and those who have teamed with him as they approach these next elections. and his supporters and those who he is supporting in the elections need to do a deal with the taliban going forward in twenty fifteen the taliban in certain provinces the conflict provinces in the south certainly will be the dominant political element and as the president goes forward there's going to need to be an

accommodation with them so this is a political gesture and so yes he is taking risks with the lives of his own soldiers the afghan army and afghan police are all fighting hard at the moment in these conflict probably says yes he's taking risk there but it's for a higher purpose and the higher purpose is clearly some form of political solution with the taliban. right now and i was here for you an oil giant claims victory in court and stops an american woman from being able to move around almost on her own state all because she criticized franking the full story is online for you. and also that cat and paste interest for your keyboard anymore chinese researchers have created genetically modified monkeys by copying d.n.a. into living beings had to r.t. dot com to see how this could help human. rights the sea. search tree. and i think that you're.

going to. be in the. written and francis at paul technological and financial efforts to build the latest line in lethal counting out. the production of the. new predator tai bros will not begin for at least three guesses the two countries want to produce an alternative to u.s. manufactured unmanned aerial vehicles despite the controversy surrounding the technology while its size and says drivers are essential for their militaries how about one antiwar activist told r.t. international the u. kand france or just following america's policies and devaluing the lives of civilian people. it becomes very easy to sell a war based on drones to the domestic audience because there's no soldiers there's

no room and there's no pilots put in their lives at risk. this makes drone war for . fairly acceptable to most countries in terms of the collateral damage yes we have we have missiles do kill those in the surrounding area and i don't think that even the british military take much if they need to take out what they consider an insurgent if there is in a crowd of people i think we carry on the right certainly the cia drone attacks of the known to do that. even when the study when person in the vicinity we've run we've managed to kill a person. right or that they've been civilians. going on in utero the moment blueboy afghan civilians because their family members were killed. let's not check some other news making headlines around the world the u.s. has expressed discontent over syria's efforts to destroy its chemical weapons calling on the country to comply with the un resolution just four percent of the declared toxic stock has been eliminated so far the first deadline has been missed

and they postponed date of february the fifth is also unlikely to be mad it's just a day since america's chief of intelligence claimed syria's government laboratories are still capable of developing biological weapons. in fines or that fourteen people including the head of the country's main islamist opposition party have been sentenced to death they were charged with smuggling weapons and ammunition after police intercepted congo being shipped to a rebel group in neighboring india about three hundred people have been killed during political violence in bangladesh over the last year. while the sons and people have filed a joint lawsuit against the companies that built japan's fukushima nuclear plant they claim the fast should take for national responsibility for the facilities meltdown in twenty eleven which was caused by a most of us quake and tsunami accident it was a one of the worst nuclear disasters in history experts say it would take decades

to finish the cleanup operation around the quake both facility which has been leaking radiation into the sea. james clapper the director u.s. national intelligence has a should a blistering condemnation of edward snowden calling his leaks to the press a perfect storm that would endanger american lives and later today i've been marching on breaking the said polls that have popped shortly after perjuring himself about how the u.s. government is not spying on every american citizen national intelligence director james clapper appeared before a senate judiciary hearing to blow some more hot air according to transcript clapper called on snowden in his quote accomplices to return the remaining stolen documents pertaining to the n.s.a.'s global spying apparatus yes aside from painting snowden as a criminal clapper also seems to believe that the dozens of journalists who have simply reported on the league documents as his criminal accomplices copper stands on journalist simply doing their jobs sends

a chilling message one echoed by the british parliament recently when it accused guardian journalists of aiding terrorists but equating journalism with terrorism seems like a trend that's becoming more commonplace among government officials on the plus side it seems like a desperate attempt by the intelligence community to stay ahead of mounting up or against the ever more invasive and pervasive surveillance state which means us troublemaking journalists must be doing something right. if this is of the winter olympics is sliding in all its many forms then such as sign kerry now will be central to that coming game is. a continuous have peeped through the cuttings of the venue's by heading to the sliding center and meeting some skeletons. the olympic hopefuls in bumps later lucia and skeleton will be chasing the dream

here at the sun being sent to them. the movie cool runnings they use retelling of the true story of jamaica's bobsled team could perhaps you resume to inside this old sheep but i've always wondered how do they get the shape of the track to be able way it is i also how do they get it so smooth while i've already answered today and it takes one polit to actually solve all of the shape of the track and want that dad this big baby here comes into action what it does is it was flooded like a vacuum machine so it got up over the off of the tribe and then moved put over the causes a for us in russia to have three up and slopes which help to slow speed and keep athletes sleep but competitors can still pluck up to one hundred and thirty five

kilometers an hour and get the tribe members takes a few called the to lose and to educate and convents i wasn't making my way all the way to an olympic track without testing my carving skills say i dig in. and this is how we get the tracks need. well. it really isn't as easy as it looks so you really need men like a here who know what they're doing has been trained to do what they're doing right now to actually carve out the ice now twenty seven of them including jamie how will we add during the olympics basically taking care of this entire tribe making sure that the bobsled and the sledging competitions go exactly the way it is because a truck is too big to get through the narrow lanes it's done the old fashioned way with this new shovel and

a broom. for russians speeding down snow reveals is a form part of growing up and that's why this venue has been called funky the russian word the slang the bum would say at the sign peace loving center. so i would say is keeping you up to date with everything that's happening in sochi and follow our coverage on our hand online at www dot com over the coming day. yes. how do you operate dylan but i'm going to was good sports such. as. poppy. wheat. my fire. until a bank with more news in about half an hour but before that. discussion in the global headlines with a panel of guests and crystal stay with us from his home to. take

me up to the ballgame and take me through the metal detectors so wait that's not how the song goes well as the country changes sadly so must the national pastime they settle mariners released a statement that they like all of the teams for twenty fifteen are setting up metal detectors to screen all fans entering their stadium for get visions of hotdogs and home runs now everyone will be able to tell their grandkids about how their bags got searched because they had metal buttons at company name stadium baseball memories the team's management is also continuing their ban on bags larger than forty by forty by twenty centimeters because if you're going to stick an explosive device it had better be compact their body maybe i'm jumping the gun metal

detectors can't touch your genitals or do a naked body scan they're probably the least intrusive coming form of security scan then again think about it they want to prevent some terrorist from blowing up a densely packed crowd of people in the stadium so the m l b wants teams to create densely packed lines of people outside the stadium before the game starts with these security measures really stop a psychotic terrorist murder nope but that's just my opinion. choose your language. clearly we can't without intervention from the. truth is that the consensus i can. choose to use that you think a great tool. to use to stories could even. choose. to.

leave you. alone and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle stalled talks accusations traded in endless demands made this sums up the process being played out in geneva with virtual space on the battlefield outside proxies are left to make the hard decisions and compromises to alleviate and then to finally end this civil war but do these outside powers have the political will. to cross-talk developments in syria i'm joined by my guest and our bell in washington he is a member of the brookings institution and a scholar in residence at the american university and in new york we cross to joe

lauria he is a u.n. correspondent for the wall street journal all right gentlemen welcome to the program crosstalk rules and in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want joe is the weekend's here are where does the geneva process stand i mean maybe the best thing that's happened is that it's even happening. yeah i guess it that it stands pretty much where it began irreconcilable differences between the two parties they sat in the same room they spoke through mr brahimi the u.n. negotiator they spoke to each other there are a lot of rumors that the syrian government had decided that they agreed certainly to talk about a transitional government that's been shut down so really no progress was made no progress was expected except on the humanitarian front there was an attempt to get aid into homes that's not over yet that attempt has happened yet so even that minor victory that they were hoping for the in ago she is the u.n. may not happen ok dan where would you agree with what we just heard from joe here i mean the best thing that's happened with these talks is that they even are happening in the first place i think it's of the chief meant to have both parties

in the same room and being able to finally after days of waiting to talk to each other and there was some reported progress being made inside the room we don't haven't seen concrete results yet but one has to hope that these direct talks can go somewhere and become more concrete news from you know there's a stalemate on the ground but news from syria coming out from syria this morning are very disturbing just. syrian regime the assad regime targeting different neighborhoods of rebel forces continued strife humanitarian and just we heard here in washington yesterday the chief intelligence. official of the administration talking about syria becoming a hotbed for islamic fundamentalism and for terror.