ukraine's president granting amnesty to those detained during riots in the country . more support from the west. drugs is set to change the face of capital punishment. and. pain. we hear from experts who describe what prisoners will face when the old methods are brought back. we will support a unified afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future. future well. the government of. afghanistan faces a looming threat of

a. washington wrangle over a proposed security deal to end the thirteen year war. this is not international live from our studio center here in moscow where it's just past nine pm and seven pm in ukraine where the president has signed the law that gives amnesty to all demonstrators detained during the riots in the country except those who committed serious crimes however for the amnesty to take effect the. blockade of streets and government buildings the protesters have been opposed to going to war demanding a full pardon without any preconditions spoke to political blogger alexander mccurry says any concession by the president will make little difference to the

increasingly divided opposition. if we take the two mainstream parties the two the leaders of the leaders of those bodies mr yates and you can mystically they they have not been able to agree between them which of the two lead to the opposition of all who should be president it's quite clear that they don't control any of the people in the street the leader of one of the militant activist groups has now said that he wants to be involved in the negotiations with the government as well separately from the two main mainstream leaders or it will let me just quickly ask you clearly the u.s. secular state and the foreign policy chief of the e.u. do you see this as a credible opposition because they're going to be meeting them very soon what do you make of that meeting was going to come out of earth well it's an attempt to legitimize the opposition to and in effect de legitimize the government if you remember mr as are of the prime minister when he went to dabbles when he was still

prime minister he's invitation was disinvited and now we see opposition leaders being invited to the munich security conference instead the fact is however what goes on in munich or washington or or wherever or brussels is one thing what good what happens in the ukraine is something completely different in it is in the ukraine itself where this issue will ultimately be decided and it is to yannick over which reassert control regardless of how it's done the u.s. will have to deal with in. world with robots now spreading wide across ukraine's west it seems unlikely further talks will bring any solutions paula still reports from one of the hope beds of the under arrest. this is the regional administration building in even a song called 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's 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 wear and he on the cover 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. isabella 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 yana coverage could well mean an alkie whitley 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 i believe 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 police. in china government demonstrators set up barricades made the vehicle paths and sacks of snow they demanded police leave the building one of the. similar scenes played out and she can see where protesters trying to said like to furniture they smashed windows and threw stones at security forces. the anger has moved even further westwards. ski protests descend ukrainian hymns while ignoring the governor's attempts to disperse them. in a van or from coffs those now laying siege to the municipality buildings have forbidden any symbols or sentiments of the ruling party. they claim it goes against the will of the ukrainian people no one knows where 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 arab spring hopes are in the long term perspective. despite the criticism of you on the coverage these protestors have nothing better to offer policia r.t. even a front costs western ukraine. one ukrainian protester who had gone missing for more than a week has turned up alive i mean three blocks of claims he had been abducted and tortured well the police are already investigating his case dot com for the latest news on matthew and also from ukraine. gas chambers electric chairs foreign squads what seem to be a thing of the past could soon be making

a comeback in parts of america lethal injection drugs used to carry out the death penalty are in short supply and more makers in some u.s. states are looking to return to the old methods some of which critics say verge on torture report not as more. 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 stumbling and no only partly. leading it you know these are things that are also prone to to error to pain to to you know from the public and so 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. . as time ticks away before nato troops pull out of afghanistan the u.s. is growing increasingly frustrated with the country's government is still refusing to sign a security pact which would permit american soldiers to remain in the fragile state there's a couple of explains the absence of an agreement could leave afghanistan vulnerable to a major taliban resurgence after thirteen years in afghanistan washington is counting

down together with our allies we will complete our mission there 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 and the past ten years there were not able to build afghan security for forces to be able to face the challenges and this country and to be able in the future to confront the challenges and the taliban forces and the taliban fighters and al-qaeda and the taliban have been active in the past two weeks alone the group has staged numerous attacks in kabul kandahar nimrods helmand and nangarhar are 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. the taliban run the area the district government is just. but there is no real security bill. and it could get worse a classified american intelligence assessment warns that the initial objective in afghanistan removing the taliban and disabling al qaeda as 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 the taliban as a condition for signing the security deal jerry van dyke is a terrorism consultant and former prisoner of the taliban and he says the u.s.

is not able to contain the group which continues to bolster its ranks. 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 all 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 what to do with the taliban. washington has spent billions waging the afghan war since two thousand and one it has cost the u.s. taxpayer just under eight hundred billion dollars and here are some bills still to

come every american soldier serving in afghanistan this year will cost an average two point one million dollars more than seven billion dollars worth of equipment isn't going to be shipped back so will have to be destroyed and a new thirty four million dollar military h.q. is now unlikely to be used and their full will need to be demolished but according to former british i say as officer richard williams the u.s. drawdown means the afghan government will have no choice but to reach a deal with the taliban president karzai and those who have seen 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 risks there but it's for a higher purpose and the higher purpose is clearly some form of political solution with the taliban. well news just a few here not international including all nations report from the olympic city of sochi stay with this. is obviously more for the ladies because it's pink. women wanted to avoid rape they really need to buy guns environ how to use them. this is the one that i want

to go with them once again to the field for women definitely the target of the gun lobby the one you don't kill them when you're killing money but if somebody would he would piss with her. i'm noticing more and more and that's really scary marketing tactics which implies that women have some sort of moral obligation to own guns to protect their family and young girls shoot out here too so we do have a pink or. more kids young kids choke on food than are killed by firearms if being armed made us safer in america we should be the safest nation on earth were clearly not the safest. look it was a relief very hard to take. the long.

view that sat with her right there look at. me. please. please. please please please. please. cut the power. to the sochi winter olympics reached top speed well just as the athletes will be

jumping into that boat sleighs amount of evolution's and then heading down the track at speeds of around one hundred thirty kilometers an hour well he's divine what's a went to examine the icy room. the olympic hopefuls in bucks lady lucia and skeleton will be chasing the dream at the sunday's sliding center them. movie cool runnings they use retelling of the true story of jamaican bobsled team could perhaps you resume to get in from the selection but i've always wondered how do they get the shape of the track to be the way it is i'd also how did they get it so smooth while i was on the today and it takes one polit to actually hauled out of

the shape of the track and once that's done this big baby here comes into action and what it does is it was flooded like a vacuum machine so it got up over the i often tried and then move it over the causes of 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 truth and that you created convents i wasn't making my way all the way to an olympic track without testing my carving feels the same way i dig. and this is how we get the tracks knave. well. it really isn't as easy as it looks so you really need men like being

a hero who know what they're doing they've been trained to do what they're doing right now to actually cover the ice now twenty seven of them including jamia 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 it is a form out of going up and that's why this thing you have to call funky the russian way would feel. some of them would say the funky sliding center. and there we go some more reports from to bang let's say giving you the best impression of the venues in and around the city of limping dreams just before the flame finally reaches sort she said don't miss those in the next couple of days on and of course online at r.t. dot com. yes. how do you operate dylan but i'm going to

embarrass could you sports such. as ruth's lol i'm not an olympic hockey. league and my fire. management is a major u.k. nuclear reprocessing side all of many of its staff to stay home on friday and reveal exactly what went wrong that may have given some workers an extra day off but it startled many locals. also a law does not know more than we think as scientists is suing the agency demanding disclosures on a mysterious new object on the martian surface which the space agency is simply calling a rock. right to see. the first rock. and i think that you're.

on a record with the. instrument. being . on. the geneva two peace talks between syria's government and the opposition have yielded no breakthrough so far but have seen the two sides meeting face to face for the very first time a conference which aims to find a political solution to the bloody civil war is set to resume on the tenth of february in a statement to the media at the un syria envoy lakhdar brahimi a knowledge of the slim but tangible progress to date sides have become used to sitting in the same room they have positions and listen to one another progress is there is slow indeed but the sides having gazed in an acceptable manner. this is a very marcus beginning but it is

a beginning on which we can. but even as the very first signs of progress begin to appear in geneva washington is accusing damascus of validating previous u.n. agreements it's questioning the regime's commitment to chemical disarmament claiming just four percent of stockpiles of been destroyed moscow has reacted by saying there's no need to put pressure on the syrian government which is moving towards achieving the goals of the disarmament deal with the u.s. secretary of state john kerry reminded the messages of the possibility of military action if it fails to comply with the agreements we now know that. assad regime is not moving as rapidly as it promised to move the chemical weapons out of syria so we have serious issues to talk about in terms of compliance with the agreement that the united nations security council has ratified that is now

a global legal international obligation. and i would remind. that . the agreement that we reached in new york with the security council makes it clear that if there are issues of noncompliance they will be referred to the security council for chapter seven syria began to get rid of its chemical arsenal following a russia u.s. a brokered un agreement in september last year before the us president barack obama called damascus possible chemical attacks a red line for military action against the war torn country. today for the most news in just over half an hour from now in the meantime what does earning one's daily bread become a human rights and fun of breaking the said. take

me 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 said the 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 hot dogs in 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 seek 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. of. what's up out here on i'm not a martin and this is breaking the set shortly after perjuring himself about how the u.s. government is not only spying on every american citizen national intelligence director james clapper. before a senate judiciary hearing to blow some more hot air according to transcript clapper called on snowden and 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 and 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 against the ever more invasive and pervasive surveillance state which means us troublemaking journalists must be doing something right now let's break the set. the please please. please very hard to tell. you that her act without her there will be. a.

little. celebrity peace envoy scarlett johansson just stepped down from her role as the global ambassador for the charity group oxfam the move to resign stems from a conflict of interest involving her other job in the face of the israeli company soda stream. soda stream as manufacturing base is located in the west bank and palestine territory occupied by the israeli government now given the fact that oxfam opposes illegal israeli settlements johanson sponsorship posed

a glaring problem but instead of choosing to stand by a charity group committed to fighting poverty she chose instead to be a symbol of oppression in fact in an open letter explaining her decision to the criticisms against her as mere noise her media rep added that johanson decided to end her oxfam ambassadorship because quote she in oxfam have a fundamental difference of opinion in regard to the boycott divestment and sanctions movement a fundamental difference of opinion indeed now because you've never heard of the boycott divestment and sanctions movement or b.d.s. as a nonviolent tactic in support of the rights of palestinians and its exact. what it sounds like a call to honor countless un resolutions to pressure israel until the country complies with international law and stops building settlements and calls to boycott products manufactured in these occupied territories just today a spokesperson for the palestinian b.d.s. national committee said quote scarlett johannson has abandoned her reputation as

a progressive celebrity in exchange for the money that accompanies becoming the new face of israeli apartheid johanson will be remembered for having stood on the wrong side of history cutting truths but this goes far beyond just soda stream the corporation is joined by the likes of starbucks mcdonald's motorola victoria's secret among several others in fact according to human rights group global exchange companies that produce in the settlements enjoys several advantages such as tax incentives to lax regulations and additional government support however there is a growing support for the b.d.s. movement which includes backing from high profile individuals and celebrities such as stephen hawking roger waters stevie wonder and the red hot chili peppers clearly these are the people who won't sacrifice what's right for a lucrative endorsement deal so while the corporate media.