shoot the place up just because they can and. today's news and the week's top stories from our team international brains opposition support from the west at a security forum in munich this spied russia's foreign minister asking politicians to open their eyes to the violence in the protests. cause in the syrian crossfire r.t. travels to draw near the capital damascus to meet the survivors of an attack by hardline rebels who still occupy parts of the stricken city. but also this week bitcoins breaking bad one of the digital currencies main advocates is arrested over money laundering connected to the silk road drug trafficking website.

what you are to international coming to you live from moscow was memory the joshua welcome to the program leaders from ukraine's opposition one pledges of support from the united states and the european union when they appeared to have the munich security forum feeling for greater involvement from the west russia's foreign minister called on politicians to look closer at the violence being used by protesters and to question whether it's sad really is an if you do with democracy group is going off reports from germany. he. clearly the west has already taken the side of the protests or so u.s. secretary of state john kerry said that the time has come for kiev to decide whether it's what one country or what the rest of the world and he added that washington supports the people of ukraine but some have been calling this a one sided approach and criticizing it including russia's foreign minister sergei

lavrov. when you get that from there are some fundamental questions that need to be answered in particular about the situation in ukraine how does fuelling street riots that are becoming more and more violent to promote democracy why is there no condemnation of the siege and even still occupying government buildings were those who burned police officers racist anti-semitic and nazi slogans why do many leading european politicians encourage such actions while any violations of the load holds are dealt with harshly some strong words there from russia's chief diplomat also added joking that next time they meet was mr kerry is going to ask him what grades he had in school asking how many countries this you think are in that group that he called the rest of the world.

and there were some fiery exchanges between the two sides in the ukrainian standoff too when boxer turned opposition leader metallic leach go was seated next to the country's foreign minister are you with the next few minutes groups who were some. looks like. nazi style some of them are you with them. go argue dad the protesters are demanding their european and missions against repressive measures and he used the opportunity to meet the ukrainian foreign minister face to face to show him an album which he said contained photographs of police brutality law enforcement consultant chuck joiner and used to work for cia and f.b.i. gave us his thoughts on the training security's handling of the situation different if you are in the situation where i've seen videos of police officers on fire and that's a deadly situation and they certainly in the united states would have the legal

right to use deadly force in response to that so if a police officer perceives that there's a threat to themselves or somebody else they can respond with pepper spray but tons person a weapon strikes electronic control devices if the threat rises to the level where they think either they or somebody else are being threatened with death or serious bodily harm then they can respond with deadly force i think throughout the history of variety you see if there's not a strong police presence then the the tag and eyes of the agitators they become emboldened and they become more violent and more aggressive so there needs to be a strong police presence in those circumstances to control the violence. now the latest polls show two thirds of ukrainians are dance to havoc that's been plaguing the country's regions and over a dozen cities local administration offices were either seized or stormed and maddi

feel the country is under the threat of civil war policy or has more on the ukrainian divide. this is the regional administration building event at sun card 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 where antione common sentiment runs deep and that's the way an italian 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 moolah which is supposed to have no president bush is going to have you know call 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 that 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 that a group of writing radicals some wearing masks stormed the municipal building chanting you have the power they used fire extinguishers and wooden sticks again i intend to go the demonstrators set up barricades made of vehicle parts and sacks of snow they demanded police in the building was similar scenes played out and she can see where protesters tried to signify to furniture they smashed windows and threw stones at security forces. the anger has moved even further westwards. and 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 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 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. of the country of course i also result in some here spur high ups in the long term perspective. despite their criticism of the army coverage these protestors have nothing better to offer policia r.t. event or from coffs western ukraine. that has been more than a month since al qaida sympathizers partly counter in syria's industrial town of

north of damascus dozens of civilians were allegedly slaughtered there and hundreds displaced the rabble still occupy major parts of the city but our team managed to make it inside and speak to some of the survivors. address is just a twenty minute drive from damascus but the highway runs through an area firmly under rebel control so instead we take a newly created pass driving through high mountains of sand and piles of old tires the army uses to shoot its convoys from a tanks it's maybe longer but it's a safer route pocket. where the first foray into recruit to get this close to address after the siege began a month ago it's still not clear exactly what happened in this industrial city last december back then reports emerged of numerous killings and violence after alger was attacked by militants belonging to al-qaeda linked groups and the free syrian army. they stormed into the city and they kept the civilians in their buildings

using them as human shields which made our mission very difficult this is why it takes so long we want to avoid civilian losses. to reported allegations the dozens of civilians had been executed that people were be hadad and burnt in over ends and one claimed the doctors and patients were killed in a clinic which travelled to address hoping to verify these reports but there is still no way of getting into the besieged areas of the town to confirm if any of that actually happened we got as close as the army can there actually to the old town admiral blood and the work his house in complex nearby a drama lear both are now besieged and i could go looking for love and other with maybe some blankets here to separate other out below and that room a lier and to prevent the militants uniting. these corridors go all around the besieged cities with the army watching the area day and night. this is one of the

checkpoints of the syrian army behind this wall is territory held by militants and the soldier's strategy and mission right now is just to watch this area and to shoot if they see the enemy approaching. and this is actually all they can do any military operation could threaten the lives of those who remain hostage and was no access inside it's impossible to tell just how many the are but luckily most of the residents managed to escape address we meet some of them two kilometers away a shelter around what used to be a large sum and factory life in this hotel's me he doesn't go to school anymore but this place because a terrorist attack this heat and we had to escape the occupied and we can't go there their rooms are blocked. he says his father is a government employee this is why it is dangerous for his family to stay we ask

where they live now. he has mother appear from the darkness of a room barely ten square meters in the silence and everything what is happening is wrong there was no need for any of this see where we are now what degree we have reached now it's a question that many here are asking because these children haven't seen their mother for a month already seriously ill she couldn't get her medicine due to the siege with her condition deteriorating she was sent to a hospital far from her family. we were living in peace and now where are we i wish peace would come back to all of syria. a month later it's still not clear exactly what happened another drug most of those we talked to here in this camp fled before the militants arrived but occasionally we meet some who didn't escape so quickly and alone and up they were looking for anybody serving in the syrian

army and i saw the virus of the syrian soldiers beheaded at the sewage system. we were in a group of about twenty people they were beating us three at a time and killing us i saw with my own eyes people stoned i still see them in my nightmares. and i fish out of a cup drinking water and they prevented the bakery from working for us and young children are about to die from a lack of water and they tried us with machine guns. are drawn once an important industrial and peaceful city has become yet another syrian battleground for weary forces whose three year long confrontation has left well in excess of one hundred thousand dead and millions displaced and yet it's another place where no side looks able to win and it's the ordinary syrian people left to pay the price roof notional tea from our drive in syria. also to come here in the program or to international

business by bitcoin one of the key advocates of digital currency is arrested suspected of laundering money through a notorious drug trafficking website. needs super hobo a brand new type of superhero who lives on the streets while planning a mob of criminals that are more still ahead here in the program. community board alone more than somewhere around two hundred children all four of them they also found that child abusers convicted child abusers got access to those kids these whole recalling phenomenon and what i'm saying is overall it's an amazingly rosy picture in that adopted kids international as well as domestic are treated better than regular kids growing up in untroubled biological families in the united states.

right to. her street. and i think the church. reformers with their. instrument. welcome back this is our international from the highs of being a lot of the bitcoin millionaire to signifying the darker side of the digital currency the vice chairman of the big coin. charlie sram was arrested in the u.s. earlier this week has been charged with trying to launder

a million dollars worth of big coins using the infamous outlawed website silk road found guilty the twenty four year old faces more than a decade behind bars sram is out on bail but remains under house arrest financial analyst mark sorenson thinks that actual legal issues have very little to do with this case the u.s. dollar is actually the major facilitator of the illegal transactions of drugs human trafficking all sorts of nasty businesses most of the trade is done with the u.s. dollar not a big one big point is a small player it is a small percentage of its transactions are illegal that's true but the majority are for legal goods whereas the u.s. dollar is the primary player in international trade in illicit items but this was a political event not a legal or judicial event this arrest it was a political event meant to intimidate people in the big point space and it was

a perfectly foreseeable event as well. well canadian rock group has made it onto the guantanamo prison play list. and they are not happy about not getting paid for it and they are planning to build the u.s. government which is allegedly using their songs as a means of psychological torture had a line for more details on this one and. lost in translation r.t. dot com reports on how britain's having to hire interpreters for pupils as it's revealed that english is no longer their first language and seventeen hundred schools. write the same. first rate. and i think that you're.

on the reformers with their. instrument. and. look at what else is happening in the world today and scuffles in athens have broken out between riot police and a fascist protesters who were enraged by gathering of right wing golden dawn party supporters officers used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the troublemakers there were several arrests after a leftist wider spot of anna chapman a man carrying a green flag the golden dawn rally was commemorating the deaths of three navy officers which brought greece and turkey to the brink of war and nine hundred ninety six. protesters in thailand are making their presence felt at the general election and that's already been beset by months of anti-government violence and forced the closure of polling stations and more than a third of constituencies by disrupting the delivery of ballots and the reckoning

blockades and government demonstrators have. when calling for the prime minister to quit being able widespread public political reforms the arrest was sparked by fearless she was forcing through an amnesty to let her exiled brother back into the country. indonesia's mount cinnabon has erupted again killing at least sixteen people in the western island of sumatra clouds of thick gray ash and gas and goals to nearby homes just a day after authorities allowed sauza villagers to return saying it was safe and will cain has been active with smaller options since september having been dormant for three years. in lebanon a car bomb has exploded near a school in the northeast close to syrian border at least four people died and eighteen others injured in the town of caramel which is a stronghold for the militant group hezbollah the interior ministry suspects it was

a suicide attack sunni militants often target shiite areas of lebanon invitation for hezbollah sending its fighters into syria. well it's time to get our skates on for another look at what such he's got to offer for some of the finest winter sports athletes by which he has been checking out the ice on the inside. we've just arrived here at the adler skating center this is where the speed skating competitions during the twenty fourteen winter olympic games is going to be taking place now we've been invited inside to actually take a look at the four hundred meters in length the skating rink it's very important that this rink be maintained properly particularly for the skaters and they going to show us how they do that so let's go and see it. as you can see it's spectacular on the outside but the real beauty is how it works on the inside no expense was

spared in the creation of the venue at the olympic park and you can certainly see where the money went a crystal face is reflected by and you know walls and triangular stained glass windows the gray and white color of the building in hans's this impression even the facade is transparent so the spectators inside the arena can see out the focus of the arena doesn't disappoint with leading sports men and women coming forward to trace the circuit it features two competition tracks and one training track all designed to provide the best possible performance for athletes the quality of ice can make a huge difference in winning that goal and edler quality is the main priority with optimal micro climatic conditions to show a world class on the surface. it's just a limp to the games every forty five minutes we'll have to bring.

machines and bring them on the circuit. along the floor one hundred meter of the circuit it's very important that they do this because they'll be a lovely lovely ice rink as well as making. all week a limb pins will be skating. close on the machine feeds. the well the have to do that every forty five minutes during the games so that the libyans was beaten like can have a much smoother and last day it's going to be all about speed speed and both speed and the endless stadium and sochi is ready to bomb the thing. in sochi for. the next he's not your usual hound some comic book hero but he's here and to hell berlin's down and out back on their feet this craggy face superhero dreams of beer while the people he rescues gag at is wreaking press but german fans

can't get enough of him boy because now reports. his muscles affair but he has no fixed abode it's super hobo the unlikely superhero inherited his super powers accidentally after savoring some discarded beer. normally like bettman or iron man they are very very rich playboys who rescued the world no it's the guy from the on the ground who rescues which gets to the city because it's very attractive for people all over the world not because it saw correct or clean city but because of his shabby charm so it's logical that the glorious superhero of. the so bomb super hobos creators says the idea was spawned while watching a homeless man trying and failing to sell a newspaper on a train. so stefan went to the stratum fagen newspaper which is sold by the

homeless and unemployed and offer to launch the charity supplement in order to boost its sales for sure it's a little bit political incorrect but this is the only way to get more people into the subject homelessness and so we decided to do it the newspapers distributed through kiosks such as this one so the city's homeless can come here and buy in copies for sixty cents apiece which they then sell on for one year a fifty and they're able to make a profit but certainly in the time that we've been here several people have come up trying to buy in more copies of that super hobo supplement that has been selling so well super hobos breath stinks he dreams of oceans of beer and yet the homeless vendors don't take offense it's a very good idea it should have been thought of earlier the comic supplement makes it heavier and i can't carry as many copies but it's not too bad you just don't

carry on. now the customers are asking for. it's comic because they had super hard to. the document publication a step brighter than the fortunes of it says the soup kitchen. station has an increasing number of hungry mouths to feed the crisis is doing and or bringing in bringing much more people into difficult situations a lot of foreigners you foreign law to come and people are telling them germany is a rich country and please come and you will have a good life but in fact it's very difficult to get jobs here and it's very difficult to get flats i'm thinking that's the number of people. especially in the believers increasing in the next years enormously but there is trying to shift the papers daily say the comic strip has at the very least added that little bit of

comic relief polyploid. well up next the abuse suffered by adopted children is discussed in worlds apart. i've always had mixed feelings about speed traps it seems like it's a waste of the police officers time but on the other hand they sure do make people paranoid and drive more slowly one man from texas is completely sure of his opinion about speed traps and he set out to save his felt texans from being fined for speeding and much more importantly from potential traffic accidents caused by the hidden police and now he's the one who is in deep trouble according to fox news runner martin faces a misdemeanor charge for violating for texas sign ordinance that says that you may only stand around holding a sign on private property martin claims that he was doing the exact same thing as

a speed limit sign reminding people to slow down and i think ultimately he is right you should be able to tell other people where the police are setting up speed traps because that will cause them to drive more slowly which is the real goal of speed traps in the first place the only reason local authorities would be against this is because they love the income that comes from a nice big bio speeding tickets i hope that mr martin finds a way to go right back to holding his sign but this time on private property but that's just my opinion. alone and welcome to world the part of the conventional wisdom is that a child is always better off in the family than in an institution even if that family means losing all existing social ties but it is international adoption of

always past interest of a child well to discuss that i'm now joined by elizabeth bartholet buckle to director of the child advocacy program at harvard law school. this bartholet i really appreciate you being on the show i think it's a very sensitive issue and we are all for a very very interesting discussion thanks for having me now i know that you are one of the most vocal advocates in your country for international adoption but after growing steadily for almost six decades the number of children being adopted into the united states has been. falling sharply recently if i'm not mistaken number drawn by a hospital in two thousand and four in two thousand and ten and russia just recently became yet another country in this growing list of countries banning or restricting adoption into your country how do you explain that well i don't think it has anything to do with any diminishing need for homes for children i think it's

because the forces. or hostile to international adoption notice the numbers going out and set out to turn that around so i think it's very deliberate political action both by governments and by n.g.o.s and why would be those hostile forces those host governments interested in. doing what seems to be against the interests of children well that's a great question i think the primary forces here are organizations that purport to be child friendly so. save the children and other child. human rights organizations are driving those numbers down even more than governments and i'm not entirely sure why that is i think press people have to ask

those organizations what their motivation is now i heard you say in one of your previous interviews that there is a lot of quote phony remand to says when it comes to justifying why children are better off in that home countries and the issue of heritage for example often comes up here but i wonder if there is there is not just as much phony remand to system when it comes to adoption especially international adoption because the default assumption here is that a child is always the better off in the loving family down in an institution but the question is really how many of those adoptive children and up with loving families who can properly take care of their needs well i think the social science is very clear on that there have been lots of studies of adoption both domestic and international and the studies show overwhelmingly the almost all the children placed in adoption do extraordinary well bond with their parents and almost all the

problems that those children may have have to do with being placed late in life in other words the problems they. may have in adoption some of them almost always have to do with the fact they didn't get adopted early and they got damaged by the life they lived when institutions but ms bartholet isn't it also also the case that the studies that you're referring to they studied adoption in general as a phenomenon rather than being a specific study on how successful international adoption really ease because at this point at least i could find no use data on the success of foreign adoptions there is no centralized authority in your country that would keep track of those children and at this point we simply don't know how many of those children were successfully integrated into their families and how many of them were later given out for re adoption and of course we would all like to believe in the goodness of human nature but i think.