the. more success for the host nation on a limb pick ice with a bronze medal in the short track that's off the russian team took figure skating gold with a commanding performance in the team at that. brussels warns switzerland to pick and choose which agreements to follow as a curb on immigrants threatens to invalidate certain treaties with the e.u. . there's a lot of this they have been forgotten they were just collateral damage and r.t. travels to the us state of arkansas to check on the residents of mayflower they say that last year's oil spill left no choice but to flee the area just to protect their health.

thank you for sharing your monday with us here on r.t. international. headlines from moscow it is day three of the winter olympics in sochi and another medal for the hosts victor originally a south korean has taken bronze for the russian short track team let's go live to sochi right now are standing by for us at the moment paul good to see you give us all the juice you know the deal here the latest bronze for russia. yes well the party atmosphere is continuing around me the russian fans have a medal to cheer on day three as you say victor has become russia's first ever medal winner in short track speed skating he claimed a bronze in the men's fifteen hundred meters now you may be thinking the victor on isn't a particularly russian sounding name when he used to compete for his native south korea but he fell out with his school. the governing body picked up russian

citizenship in two thousand and eleven elsewhere in the biathlon twelve and a half cape pursuit there was disappointment for norway's ole ajnabee on dahlan who missed out on the opportunity to become the single most decorated winter olympian of all time he simply needed a third place finish to achieve that on the however he came forth a little over a second off the pace meanwhile russia's on top in came faith in that event there were five gold medals to be decided throughout the course of monday let's take a look at the latest medals table then and you can see that it's canada that currently lead the way norway on the netherlands now not far behind well elsewhere on monday russia's female started their campaign with a seven four victory over denmark and they are skippered by honesty daughter of a who some are saying could become the poster girl for the sochi winter olympics she turned onto the sports after a career in more playing but says she has absolutely no regrets about the career

change. when i was very young i had a choice i was not sure if i wanted to be an athlete or a model i got into a modeling academy for teenagers but after a few classes i realized i liked sport better since then i have never thought about modeling and i wanted to exercise and practice and when i enjoy an active lifestyle i enjoy travelling to competitions actually come to think of it the modeling business has a lot of competition as well but back then i just made a choice based on how i felt in my heart as. well curling is one of the more unusual when just fourteen is relatively new to russia this is the first time the russia of entered a men's team in the competition incidentally they lost their first much seven four to great britain earlier but it seems that calling is a craze that is sweeping the nation here in russia we will see some amateur footage now of people all over the country turning to the sport in for. by using using

whatever they can as a replacement for the professional equipment even and cowbells so it seems that despite the fact it's a new sport in the country curling could be hay to stay for some time i won't spoil the does have a heritage in russia is of course. and a number of the world's best have arrived in sochi with the n.h.l. stars touching down early on monday it's one of the most eagerly anticipated events and russia do have high hopes of a gold medal on the home of. legendary goaltender vladislav tretiak who of course helped light the olympic gold in the opening ceremony on friday says this is going to be one of the most open competitions for years as. there are many strong teams that these games canada the u.s. finland sweden in fact all of them are very strong it's hard to predict who's going to win the hockey stephanie going to be very interesting i think we're about to witness one of the best told him and recent years. well

the excitement is building ahead about men's competition which starts in around three days' time russia's first match is against slovenia or at all to great stuff thanks very much indeed for that. well for a slightly different take on the ice hockey tournament let's cross now to our two years arts and culture correspondent martin andrews he's in sochi for us let's talk about the special jerseys the players will be wearing for their battles on ice or a hello to you marty rory here at moscow olympic fashion could have possibly be true is just as competitive as the events themselves and certainly it seems to be the case. that's right we're here in prince of the beautiful olympic park as you can see with the flame behind us but not everyone's talking about the sports the medals the people of one people talking about the fashion and the jerseys especially those outfits that they wore on the opening ceremony for the guys the curling team in scandinavia well i'm glad i don't have to wear that outfit today.

the hockey jerseys that they'll be wearing the russian hockey team men's and women's it's interesting to note that nike don't only look after russia they also look after designer outfits from various countries including canada america finland as well as ten others let's take a look at the outfits of america interesting and very nice they are too we all like to wear them don't we support our teams or whether it's for leisure activities in the colors red white and blue of course represent the u.s. flag there are various stars involved on the design again. to look at the flag inside the actual jersey they have various medals that to look back on the previous championship when is they had in the olympics and also there are quotations from the national anthem of the u.s. let's go to canada now. i might actually prefer this design it's rather simple with of course the national anthem of the maple leaf that's for canada for home and away really quite some of those inverted. and inside you have more medals and that's

because they're showing the ladies when it's before previous olympics of course wearing jerseys that we all like to wear them and many people say that they're actually a sign of the winter olympics of course many people today were looking at the russian designs that were. also interesting to know what they're made of the actually mostly made of plastic mostly made of polyester seventy three percent over the last few years since two thousand and ten like you have used over two point two billion bottles to create such outfits also looking at the color so they we've got red for home and white for away the red design of the russian team rather a traditional featuring the crest we also have four stars talking about glimpses from the past if you look at the white outfit the kits that's used for a way not used here in sochi but it's a far different approach somewhat contemporary and if you actually lined the

players up together gives a very interesting image perspective so let's look forward to going the fashion here in sochi our team met up with ken black who's the creative director of the company. what we because it is the home team because they are in russia with the crowd around them it was great to share the symbolism with everyone exactly let's not hide it so. here. reflecting their gold medals and then four gold stars on each shoulder on the home kit. rory even though everybody's talking about the fantastic sporting events in these brand new amazing passivity is here in sochi lots of people are also excited about what they actually look like and indeed the fashion that they're wearing back to you. live in sochi thanks very much for that indeed. we are following all of russia's olympians on twitter among them the star. alex ovechkin he's been tweeting

to rave about the olympic village to show off his skates which have painted of course in the colors of the national flag and many inspirational stories in sochi the jamaican bobsled team again finding itself right at the center of one of them they were forced to raise funds via twitter to be able to compete at the games and then they lost their luggage at the arrivals caught up with one of the fearless trio out of the team coach i love the people here they're really love. makes us feel like we're stars but you know stars is something that shines really bright which is the to me get to be all of the you know across all the obstacles and i hope so but homeowners see what we're doing throughout the world and how the world loves us i know a lot of young kids in jamaica want to to be a part of jamaican bobsled team we're going to say thanks to the world support we've had and another thing i'd like to see is thanks to mr putin for putting this

on in the russian people for volunteering to do this this is one of the best games that i've seen and it's a great great opportunity for the jamaican team to be here and represent jamaica who are here coming out of the underdog saw just watch us. well aside from the high spirits and praise for the olympics in sochi and there has also been an awful lot of negative coverage in the western media everything from criticism about the state of a hotels to straight up claims that the games are being held in a war zone and face an imminent threat of terrorism russia's president dismissed all of it as a simple echo of the past. sure but in a whole during the cold war era there was the so-called containment policy that's what it was called it was the policy and practice of containing the soviet union's development unfortunately as we see now occasionally there are through backs to these policies every so often so when russia demonstrates a positive development it's clear that the appearance of new powerful players and

competitors in genders some. in areas such as the economy politics and security i see attempts to contain russia emerge here or there including with the olympics. i know we've got our sports special coming up in just over an hour here on our team international i don't miss that with all the updates from the olympics with kate partridge. the team twenty four team promises an exhilarating winter and. still. make seven zero and the rest of our lives take years for sochi twenty four take. on . it's good to have you with us for the program switzerland may have jeopardize its access to the e.u. market for the sake of curbing the number of immigrants coming into the country the new law which will install quotas for foreign workers goes against long held agreements with brussels now some believe that further collaboration with the e.u.

could now be in question president of the european parliament martin shultz he said switzerland cannot expect to pick and choose which agreements it keeps with the e.u. and is now warned that it can expect all of its treaties with the european union will now be reviewed. reports. voted to shut the door to european union workers setting up a showdown with brussels as well as a potential exit from the single european market now the so-called stop mass immigration initiative was the brainchild of the right wing swiss people's party which wants strict quotas on foreigners for switzerland to essentially abandon its free movement of people treaty with the e.u. and supporters the we've talked to say that they're worried immigration is driving up rents that it's undercutting local workers and that is burdening public services no opponents had argued that immigration caps would in fact cripple economic growth and experts do say that the swiss in column e.

is. not despite foreign labor especially when it comes to folks who have skills to work in fields like health care and where there's a big need for skilled workers but despite the very real economic concerns despite the fact that on the one we care is just three percent many voters were ultimately swayed by the argument that switzerland simply cannot take in any more people now in order to understand why you really do have to look at the numbers about a quarter of the country's eight million residents aren't swiss there's been a huge uptick in immigration in fact about eighty thousand new immigrants came to switzerland last year alone the vote will likely mean severe repercussions with brussels you have to remember that switzerland isn't a member of the e.u. but it has signed on to a lot of the blocks policies in order to gain access to the european markets for switzerland sells more than half of everything that it produces and with five hundred million customers there's a lot of money at stake here historic vote that is likely to have a significant impact on the swiss economy as well as on relations with the

country's european neighbors reporting in burn for r t. and. its attempts to deal with the growing discontent skeptics of the british immigration minister has resigned following a revelation that his clean didn't have permission to work in the u k. the scandal only deepened the nationwide debate on the inflow of foreign workers just weeks after britain lifted restrictions on ball gary and romanians glyn ford a former m.e.p. says in the wider context the outcome of the swiss referendum well it didn't come as a big surprise. the swiss are perfectly entitled to to pass this legislation. there's absolutely no problem with that as far as the european union's concerned but of course there's no such thing as a free lunch why have they done it and i think it's partly if you if you want a reaction to it if you want the media and the fact it was whipped up in switzerland by

a party on the extreme right we're seeing that across the european union it's like in the you appear lections in france and in holland and in the united kingdom least that the far right parties will be either first or second in the european elections so this is a phase we're going through this is a consequence of the financial crisis it's all the international still to come for you in the program crime and punishment in comfort. and there. it's my clothes it's like the freedom of things believe it or not this is actually a prison we report from inside an experimental facility and no way i convicts feel very much at home. the european union likes to think of itself as one of the brighter and fairer parts of the world a european commission report on corruption the first of its kind betrays

a very different picture in every single member country there is corruption in some cases on a massive scale so what can the e.u. teach the world a corruption. it's

a busy monday for news here on out international thank you for joining us nearly a year after a pipeline rupture caused a massive oil spill in the u.s. state of aachen saw the locals are still suffering dizziness headaches and nausea and the cleanup began almost immediately but that didn't stop many people moving out to safer areas. and went to visit the site. almost a year after two hundred thousand gallons of heavy crude spilled onto their streets residents of mayflower in arkansas are striving to leave the town here in mayflower for sale signs are everywhere almost every house on the street is on sale before the spill this was a place where people wanted to move in to enjoy the beautiful nature around many

didn't even know there was a pipeline running on their houses and now they just want out many have already left and jerrel one of them i tried to stay here i tried to just be away you know as much as i could but if it rained i could not stay here because it would all see through the. all again you know the where the ground was dry it would kind of i guess in case it in when it rained all those vapors would come in she says like many other residents of mayflower she started having constant headaches and coughing after the spill i have friends that live just behind me that are still here that don't have a place to go they have just small children you don't have to look at the kids in in twenty years when they get to find out something's wrong and they say well why didn't we leave mom what everybody healthfully well some people just aren't able to pick up and leave like that exxon wrote back to us saying that a unified command comprised of exxon representatives as well as officials from the state and federal environmental services has deemed all areas affected by the

mayflower spill now safe to live in but many of the residents don't buy it and their homes are not selling so i would say that the number of homes sold in mayflower has dropped at least fifty sixty percent but arkansas spill is only a fraction of a new oil pipeline leaks it's estimated that between two thousand and eight and two thousand and twelve u.s. pipeline spilled an average of more than three point one million gallons of hazardous liquids per year plans for the keystone x.l. pipeline a massive project that would. stretch from canada soil since two refineries in texas have cost many to worry that they may become collateral damage in the way of big oil like the residents of mayflower arkansas there's a lot of us that have been forgotten we're just collateral damage in mayflower i'm going to check on our team. twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow with the deadline for the pullout of american troops from afghanistan fast approaching

washington paves its retreat with the money pumping some three hundred million dollars into what they're calling the war economy a full story of the details for you right now why you've had this story as well for you which comes under the scrutiny of police in finland who say the online encyclopedia could be illegally collecting money from its donors a more that story just took away. but now they're here on the program but with no death penalty and a maximum prison sentence of twenty one years norway's penitentiary system is among the most humane in the world and other countries going even a step further with an experimental jail giving access to pretty much everything well except their freedom. and there. is my cold it's like the freedom of things. has been living here for nearly four years getting an

education working as a car mechanic and serving his fifteen and a half year long sentence in jail with up in the morning talk show taking a birth as we go to drop old school. to school you have. relaxed like normal life just we are back ward this is holden one of the most humane prisons in the world bills in two thousand and ten it's an example of norway's new experimental approach to penitentiary facilities. i hear the roughly two hundred fifty prisoners it houses cook for themselves and for staff members with beef sound and deer steaks among the items on the menu take walks in the park pray and make art do outdoor and indoor sports we can howl like you see here the betterment we can make a place for for maybe one or both of this is going to be a good place to call just to relax. get out from their cells you know hold on has

a library and a school for those who want to either to continue the education they were getting before going to jail or getting a new one all together yeah you have some of them to question her literature history math chemistry physics you name it all are taught to the inmates . in the room and that they are going to thank for the next thing to continue to see you. inmates also have access to the photo shop cameras grocery store workshop and a mechanic's shop and even. my personal favorite sound studio look at the didn't have a system in this life it was loose when the screw moved in and the working life

never thing didn't have nothing to do and they come in there and learned so far the prison hasn't seen one riot or an attempt to break out and when we were inside i couldn't really see why anyone would ever want to frankly i'm stunned it's going to take time for me to process what we've seen here today but what's clear is that even though this is one of the most humane prisons in the wall it still is a place to punish criminals with strict rules security and limitations and since it's been operating only for a few years right now it's too early to see how effective this new penitentiary format is you've got us going off r t reporting from norway now the european commission recently unveiled its first anti corruption report which pointed to massive violations all throughout the e.u. or brussels estimates of the losses caused by shady deals amount to billions of euros and later this hour on r.t. in just a few minutes from now actually europe's corruption issues it's all up for debate

in cross talk with people of el. i mean the european union itself is a corrupt institution from beginning to end but they haven't added to their books for some nineteen years about every failed politician in any european country when he's finished making a mess of its own country then she was who often get a job with the european union the fact that we now have a number as part of the sales strategy of the european commission to motivate people like us to sit in studios and to reflect how we can deal with an urgent problem of corruption that certainly exist but it's not out of the nature of the european union it has been existed for centuries the report is done by the year e.u. commission but the figure one hundred twenty is what they did try to suppress into countries in india no they think it is to corruption in do you countries while they suppress their that's normal direction and deliberate do you notice that corruption in europe itself that's misdirection like anybody any good magician you don't watch

that he's presenting to you you should be watching the other hand you don't see and that's what you're trying to do at the moment they're trying to give a certain amount of dismissed erection so you don't see the corruption at the heart of europe itself. crosstalk is moments away here on r.t. but let's get to the r.t. world update now a bit of a global snapshot for you a suicide bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into a nato convoy killing two american contractors in the afghan capital at least seven others were wounded in the attack which was claimed by an islamic militant group which once all foreign forces driven from the country the taliban is stepping up its campaign as anti terror operations wound down and u.s. afghan security deal remains in limbo. and the neighboring pakistan or a suicide bomber ran into the house of a pro-government tribal elder and blooms of police say the explosion also killed four women and wounded five others in

a separate incident militants in the style. west blew up three gas pipelines cutting gas supplies to put in job of the nation's most popular sport in this. the syrian government and the opposition have begun a new round of talks by trading accusations of escalating violence and disrupted aid deliveries for the first face to face meeting was adjourned ten days ago having achieved little beyond getting the conflicting sides in the same room an agreement which resulted in six hundred people being evacuated from the procedure syrian city of homs was ruined of the drugs carrying supplies came under fire. and police have made the first arrest of a senior antigovernment protests leader violating the country's emergency law arrest warrants have also been issued for nineteen others it came just hours after six street cleaners were injured by a small explosion at one of the protest sites in thailand's had three months of social unrest with people demanding their government step down on grounds of

corruption. and local media saying up to twenty eight people have drowned off through a boat carrying more than one hundred passengers sank near a dam in india's eastern state of. the holiday makers had hired the vessel for a trip but it capsized on its way but due to over overcrowding a rescue crews managed to save dozens of people using underwater flashlights to find victims trapped inside the. and hundreds came out on the streets of bosnia yet again this time calling for the release of over forty people detained during riots on friday and saturday officials have denied claims of police brutality and i did that all but ten of those arrested have been released more than three hundred injured last week during clashes fueled by high unemployment corruption and living conditions. for it as promised one aussie international it's time for the whole corruption inside the e.u. to come on well full assessment the center of debate in today's crossed over into.

the alleged phone call between the assistant secretary of state and the u.s. ambassador to ukraine has created quite a controversy in the call like smug british colonisers casually sipping tea in africa that basically say that that native books of phil he's not fit for the government of the of the need to baldwin become prime minister they also mention needing the help of the un to get this thing glued whatever that means although the authenticity of this phone call has not been confirmed but certainly hasn't been denied this reminds me a lot of the snowden leaks independent journalist for years had been writing about government spying but it took snowden to shove it into people's faces and confirm

that it was really going on we've heard from people like ron paul jesse ventura and many journalists that the u.s. state department uses a horde of international grant receivers and local political organizations try to consciously and directly control sovereign nations and overthrow regimes they don't like and this phone call is legit this is the same level of undeniable evidence that snowden brought to the table to be fair during the cold war i could kind of see the justification to meddle in other countries so the soviets would create world communism but now who is the enemy that justifies a korean regime change there is no such anime but that's just my opinion. i marinate join me on in-depth impartial and financial reporting commentary

contributes and much much. only on the bus and. you know. basically. it is a.