even to the point of undermining the sochi games with all of these new cold war years. it's torch time in the olympic flame completes its active journey to get the winter games going. that's how it's revealed of been trying to secure peace with militants behind closed doors while washington tries to keep some kind of military grip in the lines ravaged by ten years of war. and britain's leaders are told to get a grip on american spying after seeing a parliament bigger say u.s. . territory are getting away with taking liberties.

you're watching artsy international with. before the winter olympics begin one journey to end after traveling more than sixty thousand kilometers the iconic flame of the games has reached its final destination paul scott says in the host city of sochi for our city. in pic torches 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 laid another person who is tasked with that corner 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 lake by college going to the top of europe's highest peak mount elgar's and it's also gone on a space walk as well aboard the international space station but now it is here in sochi all eyes are turning to friday the international olympic committee they're having their one hundred twenty six session now the president of the i.o.c. is thomas park he is here in sochi as and 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 another issue that has been firmly in the spotlight in the media. 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 sochi. air defense missiles drones sophisticated suttles capable of detecting somebody's remains and high speed patrol boats a vast array of high tech gear is being deployed to make such cheap but of the safest places on earth 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 is to enter without an official pass but it's a case of high visibility and minimal fuss was that you didn't know many of the athletes have been saying that back home they still very negative media coverage about the olympic village some are even afraid to come here but monday arrives 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 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 at such events local 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 and 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 cossacks have been guarding russian borders for centuries traditionally based in southern russia and we know the region and its people very well. because sex 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 cossacks 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. . and we'll bring you live updates from sashi as the olympic flame completes its journey plus go to our website to revisit the most exciting moments of its trip from ancient greece to the russian black sea resorts. it's march that the afghan government has been held in secret salt's with taliban

officials to try and tackle the country's volatility the scotians took place three weeks ago and reportedly achieved little although afghan officials remain confident they will eventually bear fruit now the u.s. has a voice that support the sprite's washington haven't spent billions of dollars and ten years fighting taliban minutes since there and there's the arm gone wrangling over america's role in afghanistan beyond two thousand and fourteen maria 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 tell about it 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 shelly 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 port 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 a war 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 whose family friends neighbors were affected by this tactic and it's tremendously antagonized the afghan population and that is going to be a problem that will affect u.s. national security for many decades to come in the year to come victory for the u.s. may turn out to mean leaving afghanistan in the same circumstance it was when it was invaded marina porton r.t. new york and for more on america's involvement in afghanistan and reports of its fun the human rights abuses and control of territory they say with art see for adam

arthur and writing the sets. this is the longest war in u.s. history still going strong ninety 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 and becomes a little bit more complicated because the u.s. is still occupying however it is that 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 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 include fondling the german chancellor's phone dates the emergence of which caused outrage and berlin last year now senior u.k.

politicians want the government to overhaul its current intelligence arrangements as polly boyd 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 law 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 pulls thousands of people working at the scale of it should have told us that something was going on beyond simply missile defense so perelman terence 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

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 but run from the states proposed amendments to defense legislation are 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 adhering to british laws. ought to see london. and in a few minutes on ard see the brits being trapped by their bedrooms the government to deny is that it's penalty on people spare space in their homes this punishing the forest as they go on suggests. plus we tell you why it's no longer glamorous to get amorous and japan where thousands are finding their sex

drive as grinding to a halt that's and more in just a few moments. you . know what. i marinate join me. in down impartial and financial reporting commentary interviews and much much. only on the bus and only on. the interview.

the united states. significant technological over the rest of their wild and it is now using that absolute spy on the rest of the world then there was the deal between the u.s. and england where u.s. spy agencies couldn't spy on people in the u.s. but british a 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 way we'll be surveilling our own people so this is what i think of as the scandal.

it was terrible a. very hard to take that. once again there was a lot that we never had sex with her there. it was.

one of the. of the of the. welcome back you're watching r.t. international now almost everywhere you look at seems that sex sells t.v. films music but in japan that's certain thousands of people off and looks at a chef ski explains why they're getting bored and the director of. thanks but no sachs says this japanese woman in her mid thirty's she's no on 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 sex 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 a married man and near health of women aged eighteen to thirty four are not in a real. 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 now with japanese people having less sex the businesses here had to open their doors to foreigners. she used to be called queen love and worked in one of those broader walls 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 put stricter 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 a. hundred and sixty million this is just a drop in the ocean. reporting from tokyo. it turns out that spending millions on cyber security isn't stopping the hackers getting and see u.s. federal agency websites and it's all down to the basics of using computers that are at sea dot com would tell you why staff are on the but it's only holding the door open to all line criminals. plus on our online and version section we've got pictures from what i see of wrong which has endured one of its heaviest snow storms and here's. one of your. colleagues face it's

a. pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today. britain's findings that its so-called bedroom tax is punishing the country's poorest people who receive housing welfare get their payments slashed if the have a spare room but the government's the smiths the united nations study calling that this credits it. 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 the

general wellbeing of the most vulnerable individuals and households now since the introduction of the 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 or 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 the outrageous i mean to accuse this un 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 freeing up of 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 at 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. some more world news for you now a blast has the rail the passenger train in pakistan will end up to four people local police say an inference is among the dead it's almost placed on the railway

track in the incident follow the suicide bombing at the hotel restaurant in peshawar that killed at least nine people the violence comes as planned peace talks between the pakistani government and the taliban have been delayed. train carrying gas condensates has the rails in central russia calls and twelve of the carriages to explode it's not known walk cause the train to come off the rails emergency 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 this of being the king and claiming the country inside to terrorism the courts also found him guilty of sedition and undermining the nation's prestigious even after he's freed he'll be banned from traveling abroad for twenty years the move follows

a recent ruling that france 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 the muslim neighborhoods in the central african republic peacekeepers on tuesday repelled attacks by radical christian militias on most muslims off they have so far failed to completely restore safety there the country has suffered months of sectarian on rice that has claimed hundreds of lives and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes. up next it's crosstalk on the weather we're out the precipice of a new cold war so stay with us here on arts.

in more of the building behind me the become the center of start up communities from around the world come together to talk about the best way to birthing new ideas. on the most boats to go to a global notion of some of the places most.

it. was a pledge it was a compliment very hard to take on a problem to get a long career as a plumber that he ever had sex with the perfect their lives let's play. lists and lists lists lists lists legislative. lists lists

about. united states. significant technological over the rest of it while it is now using that to spy on the rest of the wall then there was the deal between the u.s. and england where u.s. spy agencies couldn't spy on people in the u.s. but british a 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 way we'll be surveilling our own people so this is what i think of as the scandal. new york london. the whole world is on the hook.

of the original one a further one down the end of the to hang up the court that building at the end of the street another one the more transparent society gets the money or the puppet tears become we see military and state and police forces mobilized against people who blend into the city who inhabit the city the more people trust electronic devices the more defenseless the. fear that it is a thousand on. wealthy british soil sun it's time to. market find scandal find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to name two kinds of

reports. recently. hello and welcome to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lobo is there a new cold war brewing pitting the west against russia what is being called a reset in relations at the start of the obama presidency today is in tatters western media and politicians are determined to betray russia and the worst possible light even to the point of undermining the sochi games what are these new cold warriors hoping to achieve. whether there is a new cold war i'm joined by my guest stephen cohen in new york he is a professor emeritus of russia.