we're clearly not the safest. place activists go on trial in the u.s. for taking a stand against their government drone warfare campaign. a teacher and a police officer die in a rare moscow school shooting while the suspect being described as a model student. and israeli cabinet minister is his time to be u.s. secretary of state after he warned that the country could face a boycott if you've failed to take real steps to strike a peace deal with the palestinians. hello there it's nice to have you company you're watching r.t. international. now activists calling for

a world without drone strikes will be defending their actions this week in courts across america three groups are standing trial separately for their protests against the use of unmanned war machines with more on the cases here's our correspondent. in washington. four activists appeared before a judge in california this monday for their attempt to deliver a letter of protest to a military base commander the letter accuses the u.s. government and all military personnel involved in the drone program of crimes against humanity more activists are on trial for similar actions seventeen people are facing charges in new york for protesting at the premises of a base where piloted also this week by other activists will be appealing their trespass conviction nearby at the central intelligence agency where they tempted to deliver a letter to the head of the i.a.e.a. john brennan the letter that these people are on trial for says our government has become a lawless power acting those judge jury and executioner just because he can the us

uses remote control drones to kill women in their kitchens elders meeting in their jirgas mourners at funerals and rescuers who try to help the wounded by most independent studies the vast majority of those killed are civilians and president obama's statement about quote unquote near certainty of no civilian deaths in drone strikes sounds cynical especially in light of reports like the one two months ago where a drone strike hit a wedding convoy in yemen last october i met with survivors of a drone strike in pakistan they were here in washington to testify before a near empty panel of congressmen about a strike that left their family devastated and nine year old girl and her teenage brother nearly escaped death the drone strike killed their sixty seven year old grandmother she was picking vegetables and hunting aren't the activists who are on trial now point out the said irony no one has been held responsible for the strikes that killed innocent people and yet they're the ones to port. goes on amid

relative silence in the media and widespread public ignorance of washington's many killings at least that's what we've been hearing from david swanson and antiwar activist and author of the book war is a lie. well serving a six month prison sentences we've had people facing horrendous charges for exercising their first amendment rights this is an ongoing activity across the country and it's noticed in the local media that there's a virtual blackout in the national media in the united states you would have no idea this was happening it's that there's an extensive protest resistance movement against these drone murders and unfortunately most americans don't even know it's happening don't even know what the drones are being used for much less that they're being protested exactly why are they against these trained strikes wise why is this any worse than any other military action. when these missiles go and kill innocent

men women children infants in pakistan afghanistan again and somalia there's no discussion there's no debate it just happens under the radar and there's a little blurb the next day saying militants were targeted and nobody knows what that means who they were and good reporting has shown that many many innocent people who have done absolutely nothing wrong have been killed by these drones which are counterproductive in their own terms they are making the united states more hated. according to various estimates the drone warfare cost hundreds of innocent lives in countries including pakistan and yemen one of our correspondents traveled to both countries to hear the harrowing accounts of drone strike victims and their relatives and as you've been hearing already one of these families went all the way to capitol hill to get out says from u.s. politicians you can find their stories in our reports at r.t.

dot com also online the unmanned killing campaign moves on the ground as the u.s. military makes a breakthrough in driverless vehicle technology it is all there for you on our web site. the teacher and the police officer have been killed in a hostage crisis at a moscow school over twenty students who were in the classroom at the time we're really stunned hurt the gun man is who is now in custody is reportedly a model high school student who harbored a grudge against his teacher artie's margaret how reports from the city. i'm standing just outside the school in northeast moscow where a tenth grade boy walked inside and opened fire know he taken two rifles out of his father's home and killed one security officer killed one teacher and entered a third person a security guard who is currently in hospital then he proceeded to take twenty four

students hostage now these students he tipped he took hostage were tenth graders fellow students and they have since been let go now archie caught up with a friend of one of those hostages earlier here's what he had to say. my friend told me to switch on the t.v. i didn't saw my school and he said the security guard had managed to push the emergency bachmann time students were evacuated from the building i saw some of them later and they said the teacher was injured but then my mother said he was dead it was quite a chaotic morning this young man fired eleven shots in total his father was able to communicate with the young man he did let the hostages go and then he did ultimately surrender to law enforcement it said that he is currently under psychiatric assessment the educational minister did make a statement saying that this wasn't a situation where the young man had any grievance against students or teachers it

was believed that he just has an emotional problem however originally it was reported that this was a revenge killing particularly for this young teacher who's believed to be between twenty nine and thirty years of age that this young man did kill him but at this time we don't have any information regarding his emotional state although we do expect that to be forthcoming. but it's reports claim of the young man used to brag to his friends about his shooting skills acquired with the help of his father to take him to a foreign right and you can head to comb for all the updates on this story. now another spat seems to be brewing between the u.s. secretary of state and the israeli government it all started after john kerry expressed his concern over the lack of progress in peace negotiations with the palestinians mr kerry says the status quo being maintained by israel is not

sustainable he also warned that many countries could seek to boycott telaprevir if peace negotiations fail in response to this prime minister benjamin netanyahu replied that any efforts to boycott israel would be unjustified and then the strategic affairs minister weighed in saying israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a gun to its head and finally the economy minister called on israel's allies to stand up against those trying to push the anti semitic agendas against his country and some two thousand israelis gathered outside the western wall in jerusalem last week for a prayer rally against u.s. efforts to broker a deal israel resume peace talks with the palestinians last july deadline for a framework agreement has been set for april with israeli settlements in the west bank and be sure to slim remaining became a sticking point. we spoke to a mere oron senior correspondent and columnist at the how it's newspaper he says

pressure from the u.s. could mean a blow for the israelis. american pressure could have many forms. there will probably not be any direct overt physical sort of pressure but even holding off on supporting israel indeed diplomatic arena including the united nations security council if the palestinians godor and claimed their right to establish a state this could also put a lot of pressure on israel and the very fact that we see a public spat between the. obama administration and the netanyahu government this is already putting pressure on israel because israel's main strategic asset has always been its good relations with washington if this is taken from israel

israel could no longer be considered the major power originally that it was considered to be for the last fifty or sixty years. thanks for being with our see this evening coming up later this hour catching the cops. being charged with assaulting a police officer obstruction and resisting arrest that could have been six months in prison and that would have completely irrevocably changed my life r.t. speaks to a student a man how a video that went viral helped him win his case of police misconduct. a group of computer hackers and human rights campaigners a far as a criminal complaint against the german chancellor over her role in n.s.a. spying the document accuses the country's leadership as well as american and british secret agents of illegal covert intelligence operations and violating privacy rights we spoke to one of the activists behind the legal action about the group's goals we have strong indications that the german government. and or worked

. i gather with the american spies on all of our details to live at the moment even if the whole media blitz covering bad they stay very very passive and they for us it looked like they were just debating until the storm is over and that's why we want to force the federal prison prosecutor to start a real investigation on what is going on and want to found wrong and hala the government not only the american all the others are in truth invading our addiction to lies it's still not proven that any of these measures really help finding terrorists and all the other excuses they find i think it's just a question of power that that the person who tries to read all the communications of all those citizens and tries to to make a a digital copy of everybody's life and that's just

a new way of power and which is cement destroying every everybody's privacy and probably will also be a big danger for the markets. so has he writing the raise. it's something i have never seen before at the olympic games. sochi olympic venues get the highest praise from the international olympic committee find out more in a couple of minutes. we made a perfect targets to go after. and we really got caught in the politics of the the left versus right the left trying to go after george bush and his policies unfortunately we were we were a victim of those kind of plate tectonics right against each other but do you feel betrayed by your own government that's why i'm asking having you know building your

business based on the merits winning competitively bid contracts performing well doing one hundred thousand missions with no one on earth care killed or injured and then having it trashed because of politics yet it's you don't want to go through that again. dramas the. stories others refuse to notice. foods is changing the world. picture. from the. book to. ready set and only a few days to go the sochi twenty fourteen winter games have received the final

stamp of approval from the president of the international olympic committee and thomas back even held back as he was addressing the media describing the inequalities of some of the facilities the olympic stages is ready for the best winter roughly of the world. we can see this in the sports facilities droll state of the art they're about eighty percent of the of leeds literally walk from their beds in the real each to their competition when you use something i have never seen before at any olympic games while the top athletes at the winter games in sochi would of course take home their whole of medals the luckiest ones will even get a slice of the bins meteorite but what is left for those who don't make the podium and for the army of fans that have traveled there will earlier i went along to find

that. well if you're looking to buy a souvenir enjoying the olympics you probably want to get your hands on one of the mascots either the snow leopard or the polar bear and if you want to go to the high end of the market you could try one of these porcelaine figurines these have all been made in a very famous village just outside moscow this workshop english has produced russia's famous blue and white china for the last two centuries but has not played some parts of the taking up it shelf enough in space at the moment smiling mascots for the sochi games are being produced in abundance crafted a molded from the region special class sixty kilometers southeast of moscow that's poured into special moments made for the. polar bear benefactress forty craftswomen get to work carefully how many painting each one on average it takes fifteen minutes to load the letter is a bit tricky and takes a little longer than is the whole day spent in the oven during which the black ink

tunes into that trademark blue after that they're left to chill boxed and sent to the show yes it is an intricate process that even mirrors the slogan for these lympics cool yours andrew farmer. and of course we'll have our own special coverage of the games here on r.t. over the next three weeks.

following calls for greater support by opposition leaders in ukraine brussels and washington are putting together a significant short term assistance package despite concessions from president yannick over which mass rallies are still being held in kiev with people refusing to leave the streets unless he steps down foreign policy chief catherine ashton says the western aid is supposed to help the country through a transition period but the money will be dependent on a new ukrainian government approving political and economic reform and investment or so on the cards the energy giants have been eager to exploit the country shale gas potential and that's got locals worried as poor asli explains. western ukraine a beleaguered battleground for american oil giants two months ago kiev signed agreements with chevron to use this area for fracking. flammable tap water toxic chemicals pumped into the earth contaminated environments

just some of the risks that have sparked protests against fracking in the united states and europe. thanks now it's ukrainian farmers that orlick will buy milk or who are left in the cold sweat less time our lakes and rivers will get dirty sporadic protests have fallen on deaf ears unable to match the might of the fuel lobby if america comes to ukraine we can lose our position and america will control ukrainian money and business meanwhile countries like france switzerland and the netherlands of what we do enough to have banned the technology the ten billion dollar deal allows chevron to operate in the country for fifty years it has the right to sell the gas it up pertains with quotas to other countries so all claims that ukraine will make a lot of money are in fact nonsense and in

a play. and employment his wife gives promise of thousands of new jobs is enough bait for people next an asian forty four years old and employed and trying to care for his sick mother. hopeful gets a job people in ukraine are not scared of work we must just learn what to do the carriage for kiev is energy independence and cheap fuel for a country struggling to pay the bills even though russia dropped the cost of its gas by almost a third to calculate the shale spoils industry experts look at precedents in neighboring poland companies promise the earth only to significantly scale back which is very high risk for this bush because after the five years of exploration brought us. decide to stop their activities because they are trying to disarm places where it will be possibility to produce gas pressure on fear to keep these firms out is growing but not fast enough it seems to quell the government's

desire to have its own gas whatever the cost or concerns of the people policy our team have live coverage of western ukraine. and reaching out to chevron and shell ukrainian authorities say the firms will help the country achieve self-sufficiency and even enable its own energy exports american environmentalist fears scroggins says however financial gain would come to greater cost for ukrainians. the process itself is a lot you cannot for millions of gallons of liquid laced with sand and chemicals under super high pressures down into all these drilled holes without having a consequence this whole fracking. madness is spreading all over the planet they want to frack as many countries as fast and so more people are getting aware of it and i'm getting people here from little green europe north america africa to come

here to see for themselves the signs what they hear from the gas companies because the gas company will admit to no problems everything is hunky dory everything is covered all the bases are covered we have nothing to worry about folks we know what we are doing. and r.t. dot com right now for you the iraqi army is reported to be gathering for a ground offensive on the city of fallujah that's been under the control of bizarre mystic stream is since early january and we've got the timeline of events and some expert analysis there also online nasa wants to create what it calls the coolest spot in the universe on board the international space station and to r.t. dot com to get more on what chile experiments are planned at the orbiting laborde tree. when you go up against the british police force it's your word against say one student who learned the hard way how important hard evidence is when that

happens to syria as his story i was being charged with assaulting a police officer obstruction and resisting arrest so i could have been six months in prison and that would have completely irrevocably changed my life and devastate . are going to make us more had intended to attend the talk of by the education minister in june two thousand and eleven and found himself in a crowd of protesting students and just outside this university who was later arrested and the police officer said. the shop had pushed him twice before running away. i'm not really very much but this video appeared on you tube where a shock is made or seen and it offers a different version of events. i thanks to this video the charges were dropped scotland yard agreed to pay a shock twenty thousand pounds in damages after he launched legal action for

wrongful arrest as a result of video evidence produced as part of a civil claim against the metropolitan police service three offices are the subject of the i.p.c.c. supervised investigation but such outcomes may not always be so easy to come by it's very often the case. people have been wrongly accused by police. often committed an offense but the evidence of the off court has given more credence to not off the accused individual they just have to mull to try and give his best occurrence as they can to gather as much evidence as that possibly can and once again the conduct of the police is put firmly under the spotlight and that's money eleven twenty twelve period at the independent police complaints commission saw a decrease in complaints but an increase in appeals made about the handling of complaints by police compared to the year before where it's found that offices are for little below the expected. behavior the public would want to see

accountability the police misconduct show it's sort of like specific to be. for someone who's been on the receiving end of this misconduct a shock says there's something he'll now keep in mind we need to videotape the police whenever we can because it's their word against ours the only way we're going to win is if we actually proved to a court without a shadow over doubt that they were lying i. do so sylvia r.t. london. over one hundred thousand people marched through paris and leon on sunday once again venting their anger at the policies of france his embattled president along. i. the crowds were protesting against possible amendments to gay marriage and adoption laws which would grant same sex couples alternative ways to have children however

authorities have said they're planning no such changes and this comes exactly a week after a so-called day of anger saw tens of thousands across france demonstrate against the government and one french activist is so unhappy with the president alone she's gone on hunger strike. it's been a day since i've been fasting i only drink water because we are many people demanding the resignation francois land i've been fighting for ten years in defense of family values the french government is destroying the family and this is bringing the country down because if the family is not strong the state is not strong either. let's have a quick look now at some international news in brief in lebanon state media says a suicide blast in a minibus in beirut has wounded at least six people the incident happened during the evening rush hour in one of the capital southern districts which is close to shiite neighborhoods two days ago at least four died and eighteen were wounded in

the northern hezbollah stronghold shiite areas of lebanon are often targeted in retaliation for the group sending fight is to syria. a series of explosions at the cinema in pakistan have killed at least five people eyewitnesses say a man sitting in the back row hold several grenades into the audience around thirty people were injured some critically during the incident in peshawar. up next before the limpid games steal the show all round up of the latest international sports news and if you're watching us from the u.k. it's going underground with host afshin rattansi. the first recreational marijuana shops are now open in colorado finally the question of what effect legal marijuana will have on the american public can be

answered with real world experience you know there are a lot of people out there with strong arguments as to why we should legalize this controversial planet firstly there are plenty of things just as bad for us as marijuana or worse like beer cigarettes anti-depressants and mystery fast food meats which are totally legal secondly young men are often thrown in jail for the absolutely victimless crime of smoking marijuana i can see punishing someone for drugs like crystal meth which can and do turn people into maniacs but have any of you out there ever heard of someone breaking into people's houses on a we ramp age no no you haven't the downside to all this is that across america the world people are looking for change and they want a massive storm rise but when the masses are stoned out of their minds it makes things in life that we shouldn't tolerate become very tolerable we now call allow us to make it through another day of our miserable lives so that we can live without going through all that effort of trying to make things better or challenge the system legalizing weed will just pacify the masses even more but that's just my

opinion. of those who are. such of the b.b.c. news titles as we enter the chinese new year which is course is called the year of the horse alas i believe the b.b.c. reveal a lot more about the true state of the british a global economy that which is not allowed to be said publicly by the likes of the beloved b. if you think about it the elites in government think tank and business have been forcing public assets and their populations to turn tricks for bankers using the pip slap of death. it's the financier's plug goes national out of the budget but a lot of debt and then a bed of the trickles and of a nation screaming for more debt for all the way to the blue factory.

hello welcome to this week's r t sports show another twenty six action packed minutes of sport from russia and around the world with me take part and here's a taste of what's to come. they didn't triumph the seattle seahawks crushed the denver broncos forty three point two eight in super bowl forty eight to win their first f.l. title. last davis cup set russia plays a crunch autumn playoff to say their second tier status after the men's tennis team separate three two defeat to poland here in moscow. and the top fielder limping a high jump champion eva who called it leaps to gold as a star studded lineup takes part at the russian winter indoor classic championships here in moscow. but first american football and the celebrations are underway in

seattle after the seahawks won their first n.f.l. title by trashing the denver broncos forty three points to eight at the super bowl to lift the vince lombardi trophy in the battle between seattle's league best defense against denver's top off friends led by veteran quarterback peyton manning it was the seahawks who triumph totally dominating the misfiring broncos at the met life stadium in new jersey in the first super bowl states at doors in a cold weather state marshawn lynch is one yard touchdown run and most valuable player malcolm smith sixty nine yard interception return helped seattle to a deserved twenty two zero lead at the break then percy harvin returned to the second half pick up eighty seven yards for another touchdown to effectively end the one sided affair. that's the great challenge is can we carry our football and do the things that we've been doing all along on this stage with all the screwed in everybody said oh you'll be distracted you're not old enough and all that has it that made any difference.