the e.u. is offering financial support to ukraine as the country and jurors a severe political crisis amid ongoing protests this comes hot on the heels of western diplomats backing the opposition's bid to seize power. the children will die from a lack of water and they try to dust with machine guns there would be three at a time and killing us r t is the first foreign channel to gain access to the besieged syrian city of where the survivors of the alleged massacre recounted the horrors they wouldn't. i. traditional family values take center stage in france as thousands of rally to protest against the policies of francois.

my from our studios in moscow recapping the weekly top stories this is our team now all eyes have been on ukraine this week the cabinet was dissolved government buildings across the country besieged while the opposition enjoyed huge backing from the west. e.u. foreign policy chief catherine ashton was offered financial has offered financial aid to ukraine's interim cabinet the aid package is it now being discussed by the e.u. and the us now meanwhile top diplomats from america and europe have already pledged their political support for ukraine's anti-government movement at a security conference in munich u.s. secretary of state john kerry called the rallies a fight for democracy if you sharply contradicted by russia's foreign minister

sergei lavrov artes you go to peace get off explains 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 to 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 you know. there are some fundamental questions that need to be answered in particular about the situation in ukraine how does fueling street riots that are becoming more and more violent promote democracy why is there no condemnation of the siege and even still occupying government buildings were those who burned police officers who shot races and you see media and nazi slogans why do many leading european politicians and current such actions while any violations of the law and home are dealt with harshly. some strong words there from russia's chief

diplomat also added to joking that the next time we meet was 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 calls the rest of the world. ukraine's prime minister along with the whole cabinet who resigned earlier this week in a bid to ease tensions and of the ongoing crisis peacefully the move comes after weeks of violence left dozens injured including many police who were both beaten and burnt in confrontations with rioters are there we spoke to a former agent of the cia and f.b.i. who now advises law enforcement on crowd control to ask him how authorities should respond. 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 tang's personal 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 and then the the tagging eyes is 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 riots have not remained a solely in kiev in western ukraine many local government buildings were stormed by protesters who clashed with police while the latest opinion poll shows two thirds of the country are against the current wave of violence or two supposedly are

reports from one of the regions that witnessed the turmoil. this is the regional administration building event notes on cards skin western ukraine where at them 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 he russian this is the heartland of nationalism where anti unequivocal 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 which is supposed to have no president bush is going to have you know call which but what the opposition has fragmented as it is that tally is the first to admit no yanna coverage could well mean an alkie alertly 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 that a group of writing radicals some wearing marks stormed the municipal building chanting you have the power they used fire extinguishers and wooden sticks again i intend to gov the demonstrators set up barricades made a vehicle pass and sacks of snow they demanded police in the building was similar scenes played out and she can see where protesters tried to set light to furniture they smashed windows and threw stones at security forces. in a van or from coffs those now laying siege to the municipality buildings are forbidden any symbols or sentiments of the ruling party they claim it goes against the will of the ukrainian people. policia r.t.

even a from cosco western ukraine. meanwhile thousands gathered in the capital kiev on sunday for a mass anti-government rally we've got more on the unrest in ukraine at r.t. dot com. it has been more than a month since the islamist rebels seized the industrial syrian town of hadera just outside the capital damascus after that offensive dozens of civilians were allegedly massacred and thousands displaced now extremists still occupy key parts of the city or he's more of an ocean and her crew are the first foreign journalists to get close to the city 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. where the first for him to be crude 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 limerick's 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 handed and burned over ends and one claimed the doctors and patients were killed in a clinic which revelled 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 they're actually to the old town. and the work is house and complex nearby a drama lear. both are now besieged by people with maybe some bankers here to separate other out by law and out room aliya 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 the 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 for 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 our dress 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 student who had to escape their compiled and we cannot go there their roots 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. the hours mother appear from the darkness of a room barely ten square metres and a silence 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 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 in our drive 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 loner they were looking for anybody serving in the syrian army and also the vitus 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 and i saw with my own eyes people stone and i still see them in my nightmares. that are like this sort of they cut 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. 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. see from our drive in syria now damascus has rejected face to face talks with the opposition when the geneva peace conference restarts that is unless the us secretary of state apologizes for saying president assad has no future in syria syrian political activist omar walk off earlier told my colleague kevin owen such a verbal attacks could jeopardize the next round of talks which are scheduled to start in a week. the u.s. congress is looted jewelry because he she was to arm the rebels so there is a lot to answer for around from the language really really americans they don't

seem to be you know having any shima that you know what about that threat from washington that would use force if syria failed to get rid of its chemical stockpiles by the summer there are some pretty cool reasons why this is happening you know i knew from from friends and family that whoever travels along that route between damascus and the will who are southward there are certain segments of that when they have to drive closer to like a hundred miles an hour or under sixty can orders an hour because of fuel sniper power sniper shots from moderate opposition so if you want to move military grade equipment and vehicles into that through the they have to be moved you know that much slower than that and they would be vulnerable especially if they're carrying you know chemical. warfare material that was that was used also questions the commitment and the you know the american position whether they went into this agreement in good faith or not because they might seem to be using this agreement to punish is use rather than using this agreement to get rid of the chemical

warfare is. a calmer waters for file sharing website pirate bay after a dutch court overturned an earlier ruling allowing the side to restart operations in the netherlands we have more on that in just a few minutes. tens of thousands of people have marched through paris and of the city of leone in support of traditional families and marriage the protesters are demanding the government abandon its policy allowing same sex couples to marry and bring up children our correspondent peter oliver reports from the french capital. well on sunday paris saw the latest wave of discontent to sweep across france as we saw thousands upon thousands of people come out onto the streets vent their anger at what they see as the erosion of traditional family values in the country is being particularly i'm get towards suggestions that france could legalize homosexual marriage also that it could do laws could be brought in

they would see they could see gay and lesbian couples either adopt all conceived children to i.d.f. treatment they say that that's isn't what the traditional family is about and that's why they've been coming out here and telling me that they want to get the french government in particular france warland the president to hear their anger the government is very firm exists in this matter i mean they don't want to go but there are many many people who just want to hold things a right of two germans and just don't care and that's is this is even more so use for a long time his personal popularity well that is it an all time low and he's currently seems the the most unpopular french president in recent memory and what that seeing is more were more people coming out onto the streets to vent their anger against all odds and against the rules that he's trying to impose on them that they say infringes upon traditional family values here. artie's put it all over there for us

now as one french journalist told us earlier francois lawn's focus on sexual orientation issues is a smokescreen to direct attention away from his low ratings. to seize an issue that he used to be raised to distract attention from his own popularity you want to get see oppression of the ministers each year is actually looking at these issues but he clearly it's true there isn't i suppose about one so the population who do feel very strongly about this we talked about this a year ago at that time i said there is the celibacy population who will not not let go on the subject of the old the government issues the old they will push back to the background there is the new pope which is exploring them to try all of it or if you like this is not t.v. she's even favor of a family was a pair of children this is a fight for the suffragists family. still ahead this hour testing of the ice for future world records correspondent joins the staff at such a speed skating arena to make sure the search services for the upcoming races are

gold and as smooth as can be. made. with the economic ups and downs in the final months day the longer the deal saying i and the rest the life they need casey will be everything we can all sleep . well if you're going to like these policies i think you know.

lisa. a pleasure to have you with us here on our team today. and welcome back you're watching the weekly here on our team down just days the brand new adler venue and so on she will play host to the real stars on ice when dozens of top sportsmen and women will compete for the big gold a real drama on ice with taking sprints false starts and photo finishes that's what fans can count on a tease to bung months a has been checking it out. 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 a skating rink it's very important that this ring can 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 we did 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 say speed 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 ten make a huge difference in winning that gold and at adler quality is the main priority with optimal michael climatic conditions to show a world class surface. it's just a limp. every forty five minutes will have to bring on machines and bring them on the circuit for. the four hundred meter this is very important that they do this because they will be leveling up ice rink as well as making pasta all week a limb pins will be skating. close on the machine feeds. the well the have to deal with every twenty five minutes of the games so that the libyans was thinking well can have it much. lost. it's going to be all about speed speed

and bullets and the engine and sochi is ready to bomb the thing in the big poppy in sochi for. now and get more of our tour of the olympic park at our to dot com and make sure you're here when the games get going we'll have special coverage on air throughout sochi two thousand and fourteen. now u.s. and e.u. sanctions will continue to burden iran's economy that is according to u.s. secretary of state john kerry during a meeting with his iranian counterpart in munich some of the restrictions were

lifted under a deal reached in november in exchange for tehran scaling down nuclear enrichment a former advisor to iran's negotiation team. says the comments do more harm than good. and let's take a pressure tactics which is part of these two prong. of diplomacy the idea pronk being rising many thirty threats and is very dangerous. a threat that we saw in president obama's state of the union address is really content put duct if they're poison as they invite them and for the coming talks they brought the iran to the table by pressure and they need to escalate that pressure to to gain maximum concessions and secretary of state kerry has been referring to dismantling aspects of the opinion nuclear program which is contrary to the content of the geneva agreement and flatly rejected they did in four minutes that. entrepreneur and

a bit coin a millionaire charlie shrem was arrested in the u.s. this week has been charged with the laundering of more than a million dollars worth of cyber currency through the online market silk road a site closed for selling drugs the twenty four year old is well known as one of bitcoins biggest promoters and if found guilty he now faces more than a decade behind bars sram is currently out on bail but remains under house arrest financial analyst mark fortune thinks that actual legal issues have a very little to do with this case the u.s. dollars actually the major facilitator of illegal transactions of drugs human trafficking all sorts of nasty business is most of the trade is done with the u.s. dollar not bitcoin bitcoin 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 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. holiday makers on the beaches of spain may have to get used to an ominous silhouette on the horizon. it's after america send a ballistic missile defense destroyer to the area this of course has not been welcomed by moscow which has warned of a counter move more on line. and that the big bang in practice the one hundred sixteen of metre high german skyscraper was leveled in one of the largest ever controlled building explosions in europe at online for the dramatic footage. a dutch court has given internet freedom activists a reason to celebrate this week after it ruled it to restore users access to an

online file sharing service the pirate bay the hague appeals court has reversed a two thousand and eleven decision to block access to the website stating that the ban didn't help to reduce copyright infringement political columnist ted rall believes it's almost impossible to defend property rights in this high tech air. anyone who tries to regulate the internet at this point seems to be failing it's a very interesting case though because it seems to rely on the concept the legal concept of arbitrary and capricious ness in other words. the which applied specifically to this site would be which should apply to all sites obviously and if they were only going after this one and effectively it what's the point and it's unfair but you know there's obviously broader implications of such as intellectual property rights the motivation of for example movie studios creative people

cartoonists and writers those kinds of people have to be able to earn a living so it's you know it's an interesting balance between internet freedom and the fact that digitization has made it very difficult for copyright holders to enforce those rights. take a look at some other world news making headlines around the world this hour the iraqi army has stepped up its bombardment of the city of fallujah reportedly ahead of a full on the ground offensive in the city was seized by al-qaeda linked militants in early january and has been under intense and shelling for days the government has been holding off on sending in troops to give local tribesmen time to oust of the rebels security in iraq has been getting worse with almost eighty thousand people killed in sectarian violence last year alone. thailand's electoral commission says it is unable to announce of the results of a nationwide vote after anti-government protesters forced the closure of thousands

of polling stations they disrupted the delivery of ballot papers and set up blockades the early general election comes after months of protests calling for the prime minister to quit to pave the way for far reaching political reforms the unrest was sparked by fears she was forcing through an amnesty law to let i'd rather back into the country. at least five people have been killed in blasts at a cinema in the pakistani city of peshawar at least another thirty were injured and some are in a critical condition i witness is playing a man sitting in the back row of the auditorium through grenades. a new superhero comes to the rescue of homeless people across berlin his clothes are unkempt and his breath reeks of beer yet his fan base continues to grow as are trees public boyko 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's so correct or clean city but because of his heavy 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 stratton fagen newspaper which is sold by the homeless and unemployed and offered 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 this comic because they have super car too. the document publication aims to brighten the fortunes of itself as the

soup kitchen at zero 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 mumbai leaders 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. next to it is katie pilbeam with her weekly round.