it's torched time and saw the olympic flame will complete its epic journey in a few hours to get the winter games going. on talks with the taliban it's revealed of been trying to secure peace with minutes and speed line closed doors while washington tries to keep some kind of military grip in the land ravaged by ten years of war. and britain's leaders are told to get a grip on american spying after seeing a parliament figure say u.s. bases on u.k. territory are getting away with taken liberties.

live from our headquarters in moscow this is our senior international with me during our call sort of a very warm welcome. now before the winter olympics begin the one journey has to end the iconic flame of the games has traveled more than sixty thousand kilometers and arrived in the host city in just a few hours paul scott's as in song for us. over the next three days three hundred volunteers are going to carry the olympic torch i spent longer in sochi than it has done in any other city on edge journey and then of course it all climaxes on friday evening during the opening ceremony journal spectacular ceremony where the olympic cauldron it will be later another person task without the identity of our person of the moment is a closely guarded secret of course the olympic torch began its journey in moscow in october since then it's traveled sixty five thousand kilometers around the world's largest country it's gone to the bottom of the world's deepest lake lake baikal

it's gone to the top of europe's highest paid mt albert and of course it's traveled on board the international space station where it's been taken on a space walk but as of now upon its arrival here in sochi all eyes are slowly turning to friday the one hundred twenty sixth international olympic committee session has begun here in sochi now thomas park who is the president of the i.o.c. he's addressed a number of issues surrounding the sochi games and in particular a number of political leaders a decision to boycott the games in an apparent protest at russia's so-called and hotly debated antigay low now thomas park says that the olympic movement should be above political point scoring we are grateful to those who respect the fact that sports can only contribute development and peace if it's not used as a state for political dissent or for trying to score points in internal or

external political contests to other political leaders we say have the courage to address your disagreements in a peaceful direct political dialogue and not on the backs of the athletes while another issue that is never never far from the headlines in the build up to these games is the issue of security the twin suicide attacks in volgograd in december which is less than a thousand kilometers from here volgograd has been. the issue of family in the spotlight once more my colleague martin andrews now reports on the issue of security. defense missiles roads sophisticated so it was difficult to take some things at high speed trails but it's a vast array of high tech gear is being deployed to make searching look the safest places on earth with any global event security is the number one priority and the

expense is being spared to achieve that end at the twenty fourteen winter olympics a ring of steel is in place around the city and no one from residents to work is to enter without an official pass but it's a case of high visibility and minimal fuss was that you did know many of the athletes have been saying that back home they saw very negative media coverage about the olympic village some are even afraid to come here but monday arrived this started wondering what all the bad press was about and were very impressed by what's going on here they say there is much less hassle and discomfort is specially when it comes to security checks compared to previous game. but it's not just about tighter controls and manpower police officers are into growing extra training for mounted patrols that have distinct advantages such events over. to work all year ahead of the games mounted police are more effective during mass the burns officers and our over the people and have

a better view of the crowds the beefed up security including assistance from the u.s. government is prime to keep a protective i'll locals and this is more than ever before almost five hundred cossacks warriors of russian law will also be on duty at various olympic locations with their traditional black hats and coats with apple lets they will be on standby to assist the police because those sites have been. for centuries traditionally based in southern russia and we know the region and its people very well when the cossacks job is to offer assistance spread safety culture and peace to various religions and people from different countries like normally patrols without any weapons they can only stop a crime in progress and they can only call the police and wait for the authorities to arrive so as the population of this black sea resort swells by the thousand whether it's sniffer dogs or horses patrol boats or cost x.

sorties visitors locals are certainly in good hands and with an estimated one hundred thousand police security services and armed troops here the aim is to ensure that these will be the safest a lympics in history martin andrews r.t. sochi well brainy live updates from saatchi as the olympic flame arrives plus you can go to our website and revisit the most exciting moments of his journey from ancient greeks to the russian black sea resort. in other news it's emerged that the afghan government has been holdin secrets talks with taliban officials to try and tackle the country's volatility discussions took

place three weeks ago and reports of the achieved little although afghan officials remain confident they will eventually bear fruits now the u.s. has a voice that supports the spy it's washington haven't spent billions of dollars and ten years flights in taliban militants there and there's the on going wrangling over america's role in the ganesan beyond twenty fourteen marina porton i looks at what's been achieved after a decade of war. one of america's longest and most expensive foreign investments is turning into one of its greatest obstacles the u.s. intervention in afghanistan has essentially created a new taliban movement far more powerful you know no comparison really with the taliban that existed before nine eleven or before the u.s. intervention in afghanistan matter of fact as the taliban and afghan president

reportedly remain in secret talks about reaching a peace deal washington's future in the country after twenty fourteen remains in limbo president hamid karzai still refuses to sign a long term bilateral agreement with washington and last week that of the afghan leader cited poet percy shelley when describing that painfully strained relations with america i believe the best way to summarize this is to put it in the words of shelley the great british put i met murder on the way the whole twelve years was one of constant pleading with america please treat our civilians respectfully and treat their lives as the lives of people. the u.s. has reportedly spent more than ninety billion dollars on reconstruction and relief in afghanistan i just did for inflation that's more than any european country or sieved after the second world war however journalist gareth porter says in this case no amount of money can buy love what the united states has accomplished in its

escalation of the war in afghanistan is exacerbation a tremendous increase in anti-american sentiment and a large part of that of course was the use of night raids of on people's homes knocking down doors in the middle of the night and antagonizing hundreds of thousands. who was channel a friends neighbors were affected by this tactic and it's tremendously antagonized . the afghan population is going to be a problem that will affect us national security for many decades to come in the year to come victory for the us may turn out to mean leaving afghanistan in the same circumstance it was when it was invaded. new york. for more in america's involvement in afghanistan and reports of a farm then human rights abuses in control territory stay with r t for abby martin

and breaking the sets. this is the longest war in u.s. history still going strong ninety percent of the world's heroin is coming out of that country we're still funding billions of dollars in there i mean at the same time bombing the hell out of it i guess afghanistan becomes a little bit more complicated because the u.s. is still occupying have rights and so the u.s. is still running a lot of these a lot of the infrastructure there so we're seeing widespread cases of human rights abuse widespread abuses i mean irrefutable evidence of torture happening in prisons in afghanistan. american military bases in britain might come under greater scrutiny that's after a series of allegations that washington has been using them for drone strikes and spying revelations includes fondling the german chancellor is phone data the emergence of which caused outrage in berlin last year now senior u.k.

politicians want the government to overhaul its current and salad and so range once upon a boycott explains. well they arrived during world war two and they stayed throughout the cold war and now there are some ten thousand u.s. military servicemen working here in britain in dozens of facilities but what are they still doing here well it's alleged that one of the u.s. military bases here in the u.k. was relaying data back from a network of spy posts alleged to have been monitoring the phone calls of german chancellor angela merkel so now three senior peers from all three major political parties here in the u.k. say they want to see greater transparency in relation to u.s. military bases and they want to know exactly what the u.s. military servicemen are getting up to on british soil well to talk about this i'm joined by one of the authors of the proposed amendments to defense legislation lib dems baron s. miller barnett's miller thank you very much for joining us the u.s.

and the u.k. have a special relationship with every part of nato what does it matter what they're getting up to on these spaces. where you're quite right we do have a special relationship but the global surveillance program that the american national security agency has been up to has gone well beyond what we think is acceptable in terms of security are you saying that these bases have basically become a war on to themselves within the u.k. what we're really talking particularly about menwith hill anyone living in new york should be familiar with it huge goals bulls thousands of people working at the scale of it should have told us that something was going on. and same parliamentarians like myself would be no asking questions over the last couple of decades but we've received a brush off and not very good. now either our ministers didn't know what was going

on which would be pretty appalling or they did know what was going on and were quite comfortable with it but either way i think we need to know to see these bases become far more accountable to the british parliament it really does need to be something that we do knowingly and not just wandering into what we've got now which is a big brother state run from the states proposed amendments to defense legislation currently being revised but certainly here in the british government there are those that say while they are on british soil u.s. bases should be added harrying to british laws. r.t. london and in the fi minutes here on art see the brits being trapped by their bedrooms the government denies that it's penalty on people spare space in their homes as punishing the poorest as the un suggests. plus we'll tell you why it's no longer glamorous amorous in japan where thousands

are finding their sex drive into homes and more than just a few moments. one . drug goes wild. and the other corners the evil refused a long term capital management. buddha. will rescue this. ball in the wall street jungle with a seven hundred billion times. the audience yes the game.

join me. for in-depth impartial and financial reporting commentary for news and much much. only on past and on. new york london. the whole world. on the end. of the course of the end of the street another one more

transparent society gets the money or the tears become we see military and police. falses mobilized against people who blend into the city do we know how big the city the more people trust electronic devices the more defenseless they are the fear that has a thousand on. barkey. choose your language. make it with no different. from the. treatments that the consensus. choose to give the to the great to. choose the stories that impact the. choose the access to.

almost everywhere you look that seems that sex sells t.v. and films and music but in japan at cern in thousands of people off and looks at a chef school explains why they're getting bored and the bad. thanks but no sacks says this japanese woman in her mid thirty's she's now on her second marriage but intimacy with her husband is off the marital menu must be after i had a child with my first husband i lost interest in sex we divorced i remarried but my second husband lost interest in having sex with me so i have actually got used to having no sense at all this is becoming a trend which now has its own name in japan sexless according to recent polls more

than sixty percent of unmarried man a near hall full of women aged eighteen to thirty four are not in relationships more. and a quarter of men aged sixteen to twenty four were not interested in having sex at all for the country with one of the world's lowest birth rates this spells huge demographic trouble we used to have a very large population but now we're rapidly shrinking and if things carry on as they are japan's population will be half of what it is now by the year twenty fifty that would be seventy point eight million we have indeed struggled to find many couples openly showing their affection in the multi-million capital of tokyo and what makes the situation even more bizarre is that japan has always been a world heavyweight when it comes to the matters of sex but your show our area in tokyo is one of the all this red light district in the world for centuries it has been thriving now its streets are practically empty for almost four hundred years

it has been restricted to the locals now with japanese people having less sex the businesses here had to open their doors to foreigners. the homo could not here. she used to be called queen love and worked in one of those brothers now runs a special course called sex counseling she helps people resuscitate their basic instinct sometimes through hypnosis she even urges men to dress as women to make them understand what the opposite sex feels like she says the government is partly to blame for the situation taking on. the government's strict regulations on sexual content even sixty commercials disappeared from t.v. these first young people to go there show in their sex lives that now they have more interest in social media and dating becomes annoying to them. not only social networking but also high unemployment among the youth generates this widespread celibacy and sexual reclusion say researchers many simply have no

money to date and get married oh yeah i'm out of just to help up to one hundred people every month but with growing numbers of those are interested in intimacy in population of one hundred sixty million. this is just a drop in the ocean. reporting from tokyo. at cern south that spending millions on cyber security isn't stopping the hackers getting into u.s. federal agency websites and it's all down to the basics of using computers artsy dot com we'll tell you why staff are and what seeing me holding the door open to online criminals. on our online envisioned section we've got pictures from i see wrong which has endured one of its heaviest snow storms and tears. on your. face it's

a. pleasure to have you with us here on. britain's brushing the findings that its so-called bedroom tax is punishing the country's poorest people who receive housing welfare get their payments slashed if they have spare rooms but the governments the smiths the united nations study calling that this credit said. has the details. the united nations special rapporteur and housing released a report on the u.k. social housing conditions and call for the suspension of the so-called bedroom tax saying that it negatively impacts one's right to adequate housing as well as

a general wellbeing of the most vulnerable individuals and households have since the introduction of this bedroom tax and those who are of working age and receiving house it benefits may have found this money reduced if they are found to be living in flats with spare bedrooms at the u.s. report also says that britain is facing a crisis of availability and affordability with tenants finding themselves with quote a few rights and a little security but the u.k. is a house it has this this this report as partisan and he says it's disappointing that the united nations has chosen to associate itself with a quote misleading marxist diatribe rages mean to accuse this u.n. report of being marxist diatribe is to be like accusing. being a marxist organization these are basic human rights we're dealing with here this nasty party has to crusade against the poor in this country what they've done quite apart from already forcing the poorest families in this country to choose between

heating and eating now they've got them worrying about shelter these are the basic tenants of civilization this awful awful government is stripped from the poorest people in this country it's driven them to depression and even suicide this isn't the first time that the u.k. and the un have exchanged words on the matter but the u.k. government stands by its decision saying that this will allow the free not to have bigger flats for families that need it more and it also talks about tax savings of about four hundred eighty million pounds in the first year however this is likely to continue as campaigners say they will continue to fight it on human rights grout in fact a liverpool council is reporting david cameron to the united nations saying that his government may be violating international rules on keeping people out of poverty reporting from london i'm tess or so. so more world news for you now a blast has the royal the passenger train in pakistan killing up to four people local police say an infant is among the dead its thoughts and foremost placed on

the railway track the incidents followed a suicide forming outside hotels restaurants and peshawar that killed at least nine people the violence comes as prime peace talks between the pakistani government and the taliban have been delayed. as saudi journalist has been sentenced to twelve years in prison for the supply in the king and claiming the country inside to terrorism the courts also found him guilty of the dish and undermining the nation's press these even after he's for even be banned from traveling abroad for twenty years the move follows a recent ruling that brands people as terrorists for insulting the king or defaming the country's reputation. troops from france and the african union have been unable to stop the looting and muslim neighborhoods in this african republic peacekeepers on choose they've repelled attacks by radical christian militias

almost license but have so far failed to completely restore states to their the country has suffered months of sectarian unrest that has claimed hundreds of lives and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. now after the break why can and does got its eyes on detroit's a bargain property sells but if you're watching us in britain afshin rattansi dissects the country's biggest issues that's invite on the ground. it's technology innovation all these developments around russia we've got the

future covered. choose your language clearly we can we know if they feel some of the. choose the news the concerns get to. choose the opinions that invigorating to. choose the stories that impact your life choose b. access to your office or. no the playing. field the big spirit travels with the flame from its place a great. joy james brown for an elemental and big joke around russia and beyond.

where of are supposed to go. there i marinate this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. coming up a white collar crime expert sam antara joins me live on today's show to discuss financial fraud in all of its forms then debt ceiling drama is back the treasury secretary says we must do something about it but we're asking the question why are we in this position in the first place find out just ahead and finally in today's big deal ed harris and i discussed free trade brand or pro it's all coming up and

it all starts right now. our story today the debt ceiling or lack there of secretary treasury secretary jacob lew says. after february seventh will have to start using emergency measures to avoid a first ever default on national debt and lew says he expects to exhaust those measures very very quickly now congress suspended the debt limit last october as part of a deal to reopen the government for a partial shutdown however the suspension ends on friday and after that it's only a matter of time until we breach the dreaded debt limit now lou has urged congress

to quote act without delay and increase the debt ceiling no delays here he says any delay could jeopardize the credibility of the world's largest economy and hurt the global financial markets but here's the question though instead of suffering through the self-inflicted wounds congress caused last october why not just fast forward through all the drama and just raise the debt ceiling why do we feel this need is americans in congress america to sell fluctuate now we're going to ultimately end up raising it it's going to happen anyway if congress has any sense at all and as silly as congress may be i would hope that they'd prefer to raise the debt ceiling than to bolt on our obligations that would not be good now on the other side of the argument there's a sense that government spending is just too large and it's got to be reined in i get that i understand that but the fact of the matter is this the u.s. has been in debt every year except for eight hundred thirty five which by the way was followed by a massive massive credit crisis and depression so how do we deal with this in

a way that doesn't make us look like the largest banana republic in the world. i'm looking at your congress. now on monday's show we looked at the latest drama surrounding herbalife the multibillion dollar nutritional supplement distributor that many have accused of being a pyramid scheme shareholders and consumer activists are calling on regulators specifically the federal trade commission to step up and do something about it now joining me is a man who knows a thing or two about fraud it's white collar crime expert and convicted felon sam and are now sam what do you think of companies like herbalife an amway and even avon whose entire business model is based soley on multi-level.