it's torched time inside the olympic flame will complete its epic journey in a few hours to get the winter games going. on that stein talks with the taliban it's revealed of ghana's to secure peace with militants behind closed doors while washington tries to keep some kind of military grip in the line drive by ten years of war. and britain's leaders are told to get a grip on american spying after senior parliament figures say u.s. bases on u.k. territory are getting away with taking liberties. you

watch an r. c. international with me marina call survivor warm welcome to the. will of the when she began the one journey has to end the iconic flame of the games has traveled more than sixty thousand kilometers and it arrives in the host city in just a few hours paul scott is and song two for artsy and he joins us now. hi paul now can you tell us will that swartz's journey how will it actually culminate. well it is the symbol of any limpid games in the olympic torch is arrival here in sochi is going to be greeted with an increase in excitement levels over the next couple of days or so three hundred volunteers are going to carry the torch as it continues its journey all around this region and then of course it comes to a climax on friday evening during the spectacular opening ceremony where the olympic cauldron will be legs another person who is tasked with that at the moment

we simply don't know it is a closely guarded secret and of course the olympic torch began its relay across russia the world's largest country back in moscow in october since then it's traveled sixty five thousand kilometers it's gone to the bottom of the world's deepest lake. into the top of europe's highest peak mount and it's also gone on a space walk as well on board the international space station but now it is here in sochi all eyes are turning to friday. how imminent the games are is the international olympic committee gathering and what are we hearing from them yes well the international olympic committee they're having their one hundred twenty six session it's basically an opportunity for the i.o.c. members to get together and discuss the way forward for the organization now the president of the i.o.c. is thomas he is here in sochi and has addressed

a number of issues around these particular games and in particular he's addressed the issue of a number of political leaders who have decided to boycott the games in an apparent protest against russia's so called in hotly debated anti-gay law back says that the olympic movement should be above and beyond any political point scoring. we are grateful to those who respect the fact that sport can only contribute to development and peace if it's not used as a stage 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. well another issue that has been firmly in the spotlight in the lead up to these

games is the issue of security of course december's twin suicide attacks in the city of volgograd which is less than a thousand kilometers from here has heightened tensions and my colleague martin andrews now takes a look at the issue of security around such an. air defense missiles drones sophisticated settlers capable of detecting summaries and high speed patrol boats a vast array of high tech gear is being deployed to make such a fool of the safest places on us with any global event security is the number one priority and no 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 this can 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 present when it comes to security checks compared to previous gainey. but it's not just about tighter controls and manpower police officers are into growing extra training for mounted patrols that have distinct advantages at such events overcall nobody thought i would work all year ahead of the games mounted police are more effective during massive burns after there's a tower 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 have been guarding russian borders for centuries traditionally based in southern russia and we know the region and its people very well. because it's 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 lympics in history martin andrews r.t. saatchi and we'll bring you live updates from such as the olympic flame arrives

plus you can go to our website to revisit the most exciting moments of ensuring they from ancient greece to there are blacks in resorts. in other news now it's emerged that the afghan government has been holdin secrets talks with taliban officials to try and tackle the country's volatility the scotians took place through weeks ago and reports of lee achieved little although afghan officials remain confident they will eventually bear fruit the u.s. has voiced it supports the spikes washington haven't spent billions of dollars and ten years fighting taliban militants there and of course there is the. over

america's role in the beyond twenty fourteen marina portnoy 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 television 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 last week that the afghan leader cited poet percy shelley when describing the 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 adjusted for inflation that's more than any european country received 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 for the 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 of people. 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 for the u.s. may turn out to mean leaving afghanistan in the same circumstance it was when it was invaded marina porter r.t. new york. and for more on america's involvement in afghanistan and reports about foreign then human rights abuses and control terror terry do you stay with artsy for abby martin in breaking the set. this is the longest war in u.s. history still going strong nine years 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 to it becomes a little bit more complicated because the u.s. is still occupying have various 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 of torture happening in prisons in afghanistan. american military bases and britain might come on there greater scrutiny after a series of allegations that washington has been using them for drone strikes and spying there are violations include fun then the german chancellor is phone data the emergence of which caused outrage and britain last year now senior u.k. politicians want the government to overhaul its current intelligence arrangements as father boy 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. baron s. miller barnett miller thank you very much for joining us the u.s. and the u.k. have a special relationship they're both 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 lauren 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 balls thousands of people working at the scale of it should have told us that something was going on beyond simply missile defense so perelman terrence like myself have been asking questions over the last couple of decades but we've received a brushoff a not very good answer now either our ministers didn't know what was going on which that 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. no 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 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 herring to british laws. ought to see london. and in a few minutes on our it see the brits being trapped by their bedrooms the government denies that it's penalty on people spare space in their homes this punishing the poorest as they go on suggests. plus we'll tell you why it's no longer glamorous to get amorous and japan where thousands are finding their prime thing to a halt that's and more in just a few moments. the united states has significant technological over the rest of the wild and it is now

using that supply on the rest of the world then there was the deal between the u.s. and england where us spy agencies couldn't spy on people in the u.s. but british spy agencies could spy on people in the u.s. so the two governments said alright each of us will spy on the other's citizens and then we'll trade and that we will be. sure veiling our own people so this is what i think of as the scandal. place.

please. new york london. the whole world is on the go. to feature of the original one a foot the one on the end there are five the two hang up the corners out the link at the end of the street another one of the more transparent society gets the money or the puppet tears become we see military and state unfairly falses mobilized against people who blend into the city doing the hobbit the city the more people trust electronic devices the more defenseless they are the fear that has a thousand on. the place it was a. very hard to take

a. chance to get along here is a plane flight pattern that has sex with her hair plugs. plenty. of please. please. please. please if the people. i. welcome back to r.t.

international almost everywhere you look at seems that sex sells t.v. films music but in japan at cern in thousands of people off and looks at us ask explains why they're getting bored and the bedroom. thanks but no sex says this japanese woman in her mid thirty's she's known her second marriage but intimacy with her husband is off the marital menu. 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 and near half of women aged eighteen to thirty four are not in relationships more over forty five percent of women 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 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 oldest red light districts 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 and now with japanese people having less sex the businesses here had to open their doors to foreigners mostly the whole market now 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 puts to. two regulations on sexual constant even sixty commercials disappears 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 all your manages 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 lets us have c.r.t. reporting from tokyo in japan. it turns out that millions are in

fact spending millions on cyber security isn't stopping hackers getting and seeing u.s. federal agency websites and it's all down to the basics of using computers that are to dot com would tell you why stocks are on what's only holding the door open to all line criminals. plus on our online envisioned sites in we've got pictures from i see iran which has endured one of its heaviest cell storms any years. one of the new. policies i think you.

could have you with us here on our t.v. today i roll the sushi. britain's brushing off findings the so-called bedroom tax this punishing the country's poorest people who receive housing welfare get their payments slashed if they have spare rooms but the governments this miss the united nations study call and it's this crowd that it says arcilla has the details. the united nations special rapporteur on 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 now since the introduction of this bedroom tax 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 and the us 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 a given a sister has this list 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 absolutely outrageous i mean to accuse this u.n. report of being marxist diatribe is to be like accusing him of 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 party this awful government has 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 celia. so more world news for you now a blast has the royal the passenger train in pakistan the killing of two four people local police say and then fences among the dead it's a ball most placed on the railway track the incidents follow the suicide bombing at a hotel restaurant in paschal or killed at least nine people the violence comes as planned peace talks between the pakistani government and the taliban have been

delayed. a train carrying liquid gas has the rails in central russia calls and twelve of the carriages to explode it's not known what caused the trying to come off the rails and margins the services say the fire will take a few more hours to put out more than four hundred people have been evacuated from the area and no injuries have been reported. a saudi journalist has been sentenced to twelve years in prison for disobeying the king and claiming the country inside to terrorism the courts also found him guilty of there and sedation and undermining the nation's for thieves even after he's for ethiopia banned from traveling abroad for twenty years the move follows a recent ruling 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 in muslim neighborhoods in the central african republic peacekeepers on choose they have repelled attacks by radical christian militia shows on the rise the nz thought they have so far failed to completely restore safety there the country has suffered months off six hereon on rice but has claimed hundreds of lives and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. now as the olympic torch and saw the seas stay here with artsy fords for over its incredible journey.

the. economic downturn in the final. days the sang i and the rest because i. believe if we. in one corner of the wall street superhero jamie the table and diamond drug goes wild. and in the other corners the evil no good to kill refused to help bellow long-term capital management always dick the gorilla move move. here to mediate this fight as hank family paulson will the rescue this stage rumble in the wall street jungle with a seven or billion times out the audience shrinks yes the game is rape.

is there a new cold war brewing pitting the west against russia what is being called a reset relations at the start of the obama presidency today is in tatters western media and politicians are determined to between russia and the worst possible light even to the point of undermining the sochi games what are these new cold warriors fulfilling to achieve. it was supposed to be just another news or of course although admittedly for a special occasion it was one hundred twenty three days before the start of the winter olympic games in sochi and i was in greece for the lighting of the olympic flame the ruins of the limpia one of the most famous monuments of ancient greece the site of the very first olympic games where stones like this would have been part of the temple. the temple of the.

temple laws. and from.