today's news and the week's top stories from r.t. international an amnesty for rioters comes into force in ukraine as the country's opposition cozies up to western politicians at a security forum in munich spied moscow once again warning that you again stake in science and the young grass plus. young troops are about to die from a lack of water and they threatened us with machine guns there would be us three italian and killing us r t becomes the first foreign t.v. channel to gain access to the siege the syrian town of drug after reports of rebels massacring dozens of civilians there including children. found one of the biggest names in the world of digital currency is arrested over accusations of laundering over a million dollars worth of bitcoins. visitor

to international coming to you live from moscow with me marina joshie welcome to the program an amnesty has come into force in ukraine giving rioters in downtown kiev and to rob the country's west fifteen days to disperse and leave all government buildings this amid the seeming triumph of the country's opposition front men at a security forum in munich were scored pledges of more support from washington and the european union meanwhile russia's foreign minister has called against taking a one sided view of the unrest in ukraine you are pissed off reports from germany. clearly the west has already taken the side of the professor so u.s. secretary of state john kerry said that the time has come for you have to decide

whether it's one country or what the rest of the. world and he added that washington supports the people also 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 if there are some fundamental questions that need to be answered in particular the situation in ukraine i'll just fueling street riots that are becoming more and more violent to promote democracy why is there no condemnation of the still occupying government buildings or those who burned police officers show racist anti-semitic and nazi slogans why do many leading european politicians and current such actions while any violations of the law and hold or don't with harshly some strong words there from russia's chief diplomat also added joking that next time we meet with mr kerry he's 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. while during discussions in munich both boxer turned opposition leader of atomically and ukraine's foreign minister have had zero say with a top diplomat blaming is opponents for the increasingly nationalist violence in his country klitschko however diverted the debate by blaming the violence on police brutality security consultant chuck joyner he used to work for the cia and the f.b.i. gave us his thoughts on the ukraine's handling of the situation. if you are in the situation where i've seen videos of police officers on fire 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

personal weapon strikes electronic control devices pick 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 tagon 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. and the latest polls show two thirds of ukrainians did not support the turmoil datsun golfed the western regions and most of which local administration offices have either been stormed or besieged advantage feel the country's under the threat of civil war policy or traveling to one of the hot bads of the unrest. this is the regional administration building in even

a song called skin western ukraine where up until 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 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 moolah which is supposed to have no president then to have you know called which but with the opposition as fragmented as it is that tully is the first to admit no you have a cup which could well mean an alkie whitney bishop problem 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 we 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 we have the power they used fire extinguishers and wooden sticks against the i intended of the demonstrators set up barricades made a vehicle parts and sacks of snow they demanded police in the building was 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 west with. engine off 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 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 all scorers so i also result i hear some arab spring hops in the long term perspective. despite the criticism of the army coverage these protestors have nothing better to offer. t. even a front cost western ukraine. you're. well right now you're looking at live pictures that are coming out of the ukrainian capital kiev where despite the amnesty there's still a mass and a government really underway according to authorities there up to fifty thousand people who have gathered in the embattled independence square of course we'll be

bringing you the very latest on the turmoil there as we are monitoring the situation there on the on the air and online at r.t. dot com. now it's been over a month since reports emerged that hard line syrian rebels had captured the town of outside damascus dozens of civilians were allegedly slaughtered and sauza is displaced the rebels still occupy key parts of the town making it hard to verify information coming from their arses and her crew were the first foreign journalist to make it inside and speak to the survivors. 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 its convoys from attacks it's maybe longer but it's

a safer route talking about where the first foray into vickery to get this close to are dry after the siege began a month ago it's still not clear exactly what happened and they said 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 burned 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 address

the old town admiral blood and the work his house in complex nearby a drum a lier both an al besieged and i think. we may be some bankers here to separate other our beloved and out room earlier and to prevent the militants uniting these corridors go all around the besieged cities with the army watch in the area day and night. this is one of the checkpoints of the syrian army behind this wall is territory held by militants and these soldiers 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 they 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 the seat and we had to skate they occupied and we cannot 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 yes mother appear from the darkness of the 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. and. 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 the luna up they were looking for anybody serving in the syrian army and also 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. about how might this sort of cut drinking water and they prevented the bakery from working for us and young children or about die from a lack of water and they threatened us with machine guns. 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 they still would new syrian people left to pay the price. see from our drive in syria meanwhile u.s. intelligence has a raising suspicions that the syrian regime is capable of producing biological weapons despite the ongoing chemical disarmament washington is also warning damascus of possible military action if it misses the deadlines to destroy its arsenal anti-war activists brian becker told us what he believes lies behind the threats. it's a clear indication that the obama administration is looking for other rationales other pretext to keep the pressure on the assad government and when i say pressure that's kind of euphemistic what they're really doing of course is creating

a great international crime by funneling arms and weapons and money to an arms struggle in other words for mental and civil war so that they can destroy an independent nationalist government in this region of the world we've gone through this script before we saw it in iraq we saw it in libya we're seeing it in syria the united states government is carrying out an armed struggle policy a civil war policy and they need to keep up public rationales also they need a way to balance against geneva he need to find a way to continue to demonize the assad government because the ultimate goal is to get rid of assad not for a negotiated settlement. coming up here on our to international reinforcing afghanistan. will support a unified afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own if you knew that the taliban in the future well joining the peace process with the government of afghanistan. the volatile country faces the looming threat of a resurgent taliban us kabul and washington wrangle over

a post pullout security deal and the thirteen year war. community board alone more than somewhere around two hundred children all for them they also found that child abusers convicted child abusers got access to those kids through a 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. first right. and i think the church.

on our reporters with. the. welcome back watching r.t. international young american entrepreneur and bitcoin millionaire charlie shrem was a rare. in the us this week the c.e.o. of the digital currency exchange bit instant is accused of laundering more than a million dollars worth of betweens through the controversial website silk road known to be used by drug traffickers the twenty four year old was also accused of not putting necessary regulations in place to keep criminal activity out of the financial system if found guilty he faces more than

a decade behind bars he's now under house arrest after being released on bail financial analyst mark sorenson believes the arrest was aimed at setting a political president not a legal one the u.s. dollar is actually the major facilitator of the illegal transactions of drugs and human trafficking all sorts of nasty businesses most of the trade is done with the u.s. dollar not bitcoin 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 holiday makers on the beaches of spain may have to get used to an ominous civil would on the horizon that's after

america's table listing missile defense of the store to the area this of course is not the welcome by moscow which is warning of a counter move learn more online wants. iran to say u.k. are as bad if after a seeking compensation of over a half a billion dollars follow the dispute which goes all the way back to the nine hundred seventy s. our two dot com. presidential campaigning starts in afghanistan as american troops continue there was draw from the country kabul is still refusing to sign a security pact which would permit us to olders to remain in the fragile state after two thousand and fourteen are just losing confidence reports on how the taliban could be the ones benefiting from the friction between washington and the afghan government. after thirteen years in afghanistan washington is counting down together with our allies we will complete our mission bear 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 forces and the taliban have been active in the past two weeks alone the group has staged numerous attacks in kabul kandahar nimrods helmont 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's any with not the taliban to run their own district government is just there but there is no real security. 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. now 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 r.t.e. i'm lucy catherine. twenty fourteen could have told the and have direct u.s. military involvement in afghanistan but private security contractors are still likely to be left behind one company formerly known as blackwater operated in iraq until accusations their employees killed armed civilians back in two thousand and

seven actually sophie shevardnadze spoke to erik prince who founded the firm you've said that your men were guards not investigators stationed to kill and check the policy and that's from your book that's a direct quote what gave you the right to behave in that way. well look there is there are there performing a defensive mission so you know every day between iraq and afghanistan the company did more than one hundred thousand missions protective missions and no one under our care was ever killed or injured and each time there was a and event where our men had to use their weapons it was documented and of all those times it to use the weapons it still comes out to less than one half of one percent. of those of those incidents so the idea that they were trigger happy is just it's not accurate.

and in a matter of days breathtaking sprains false starts have photo finish is all on ice it's time to get your skates on for another look at whether such a twenty fourteen winter olympics has got ya for us to bond with say. 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. the focus of the arena doesn't disappoint with leading sports men and women coming forward to trace the circuit it features to competition tracks and one training track all designed to provide the best possible performance sport after. the quality of ice can make a huge difference in winning that goal and edler quality is the main priority with optimum michael climatic conditions because. it's just a limp. every forty five minutes we'll have to. machine them on the circuit for. the four hundred metre. it's very

important that they do this because they'll be a leveling up ice rink as well as making. all week a limb pins will be skating. close on the machine feeds. every twenty five minutes during the games. have a much smoother. it's going to be all about speed speed and boards and the endless stadium and sochi. olympic park in sochi for. and up next it's worlds apart without a boy. 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 frisco 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 pile of 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.

on the welcome to world that 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 the best interest of the child to discuss that i'm now joined by a little bit by the last. buckle to director of the child advocacy program at harvard law school ms 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 unicef 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 the 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 romanticism 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 that 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 exteriorly well bonded with their parents and almost all the problems that those children may have have to do with being placed later 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 barr still isn't it also also the case that the studies that heretofore into they studied adoption in general as a phenomenon rather than a.