striving for gold canada surges to the top of the olympic table while russia celebrates some bronze breakthroughs are two standing by in our softly headquarters right in the heart of the winter games. aid workers in syria struggle to evacuate people from the rebel held city of almonds as the brief cease fire is extended that's why the turmoil in the country some shock waves to neighboring lebanon helping al qaeda gain strength. and you really think you. are. we. talking revelations as our t.v. is it's a radical stronghold where jihadist fighters are trained to battle the assad government in syria. and property shopping in british town puts its

houses on sale with a starting price of just one pound we find out what's the catch. you're watching our team international live from moscow islands in france thanks for joining me. athletes and sofie are busy bagging medals as the winter games enter day four with canada now leading the race let's cross live now to artist headquarters in the center of the olympics and he said now is there and he said there's been some breakthroughs for russia in all of this now hasn't there. well the competition is gathering pace and every day is bringing new reasons for celebration here in sochi russia has scored itself of first picking up a bronze in the short track speed skating and this victory is courtesy of former south korean athlete victor i had high hopes for him and he didn't let his adoptive

country down while there's plenty more ahead today day for the biathlon figure skating lose and snowboarding and two former picked out highlights we should be watching. there's plenty going on in fact action has already started in the women's curling of the russians taking on the americans after beating the danger yesterday the matches are coming thick and fast and that's because teams have to play a staggering nine matches in a bit just to reach the semifinals it is a taxing show jewel is also physically very demanding school far more than you might think is the russian skate told us. that it may look very easy but actually there was a study which showed that girls sweep two three kilometers in one game and we can have three or sometimes even four games in one day she is forty five metres long and the energy you expend sweeping this distance equals the energy runners use in one hundred meter dash and of course sweeping is the most difficult job it involves

all your muscles if you don't believe me take a regular more or a broom and try sweeping hard for forty five meters it's very tough but also today will get another glimpse of the figure skating stars maksim trying cough and. they've already won gold in the team event but they are the favorites in the pairs which begins today it's also worth saying they are already world and european champions despite. only being together for three years and despite maxine's famous bad temper so how did they manage to achieve all this success in such a huge space of time just maybe it's written in the stars i was familiar with some of what seems to treat. my zodiac sign is gemini and lexeme is a libra so we get along just fine we're used to when we first started skating together i told her to know that more than half of what people say about my personality is probably true and she told me she could get along with pretty much

anyone fine whatever people say about my or someone else's personality figure skating is a sport and what matters is the result doesn't matter what my personality is like some would say about a coach for example he's insufferable the most important thing is my training and my performance and the medals i win who cares if i'm a difficult person a couple of other names to look out for today nikita crew called the defending olympic champion in the cross-country skiing and also. who's going for her second medal in the women's. ice hockey is also expected to steal the show at the sochi olympics and it's promising to be one of the most exciting tournament in years we caught up with russian hockey legend legend. who's a two time olympic gold medalist to find out what his hopes are for the russian team. i think to get annoyed she had no other choice. and i mean for gold for the ocean and i got all kind of all kind of qualities to those who got the best for you

and i'm going to gold thing and i got the good course and stuff to get the experience. to be a career big competitions and really able support so the fans. can get lots of pressure. to be in my eyes but. they know how to handle the pressure there now to be under pressure. again they'll be a similar good luck and i expect it will be medal from just. this arson team. the winter olympics in sochi have been making headlines around the globe but not necessarily about the competition many news outlets have set the alarms ringing over the alleged terror threat that's despite russell's unprecedented security operation that's also not forget the never ending tales about the saudi hotels and bad organization while very few missed the opportunity to deliver horror stories

about the rounding up of the stray dogs while pledging airports and has dismissed such coverage as an echo of the cold war a vote in the 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 throwbacks 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 engender some fear in areas such as the economy politics and security i see attempts to contain russia emerge here or there including with the olympic project. the men's snowboarding have quite final is one of the most anticipated medal events of the day crews are racing to the course after complaints by some athletes the slopes of sochi make currently but made currently

be the olympic battleground right now but they promise to become a popular tourist destination after the games we send our team are now andrews to sochi mountain cluster to test the price what goes up must come down there's no better way to see the beautiful caucasus mountains consuming down the slopes take in the breathtaking scenery and marvel in the vast resorts and facilities they now have here as you know the famous phrase when in rome so it's on with the boots and off to the slopes that cross and i pollyana a totally transformed area head of this month's opening this is just beautiful it's been fun we came up skiing the other day a couple days of between work and sochi and adler and corky all came together nicely when we got here is a little and then end up in a couple days or hammer it out it's really cool since no boardings inception as an established winter sport it's developed various styles each with its own

specialized equipment and technique snowboarding but he became a winter sport in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight ranging from the stunts of freestyle to the fast pace racing of slope style used for both recreation and professional snowboarding it's my first time and it's not as easy as it looks but it's a little bit confusing as i've been told that i'm left footed even though i'm right handed i suddenly say three position was pushed forward and the first foot that i fell on was the direction i should go if you wish me luck. there are around one hundred thousand risk of fractures worldwide among snowboarders each year i'm not going to be a statistic to me and my instructor says he can teach someone to be a recreational snowboarder. in one or two days with the ability to use all lifts perform controlled link turns control speed and direction and stop confidently something i'm having trouble with the slopes of this you know with locals and

visitors from all over the world but what's the future of the region after the olympics i think it's best to resort to russia for skiing through the summer times because all of a limbic subjects. connected in the one large resort people of all ages come here to the slopes fifty kilometers from the black sea coast the perfect way to exercise and to stay youthful. slopes in solitude and great i'm enjoying them but i'm trying not to go too far so i don't get knocked down it's my age but she's not known for its alpine skiing or snowboarding and might not be very good at it but it's an activity that's on the rise and as a professional snowboarders with their various of them pick medals on this very mountain it seems that some of us were not born for such winter i have to say he's not done very. salty.

but i'm looking forward to watching the men's halfpipe snowboarding final will keep you up to date on everything happening at the sochi winter games reporting from the heart of the olympics for now back to you in moscow all right have fun check it out out there thank you very much and use an hour keeping us abreast of the olympics in our soccer studio now don't forget to check out our twitter feed as well where we've rolled out a special lineup for you of the games and the list section we've got everything organized for you all of the events sorted in order with all the latest tweets and pictures from the athletes themselves in fact russia's women's hockey team took some time in the elevator to point out that the men's hockey team hopefully won't be too angry at them because their photo is hanging up in the elevators a lot fun and games for you for the latest action from sa to follow r t on twitter and of course right here on r.t. we will of course be bringing new all of the news pictures and comments on the sporting victories from sochi.

the g. twenty fourteen promises a week ultimately an exhilarating winter far enough. to join us in our how to make heaven now and the rest of our life existing for sochi twenty four take. on. it's not only the deadly violence but also a radical ideology that's spilling over the border from the syrian civil war lebanon is one of the country's worst affected artist maria for national travel to a camp there where future islamist fighters are being recruited and discover the shocking realities of war. was the syrian conflict rages on neighboring lebanon faces a dramatic increase in sectarian violence in january alone for cobhams killed dozens in beirut and the town of head amelle next to the syrian border the targets were a shia areas controlled by hizbullah lebanon's most influential force which also

supports syrian president bashar al assad we traveled to the northern city of tripoli as sunni stronghold vehemently opposed in his by law visible. corns. its part by. his well as military involvement in syria is believed to have given damascus the upper hand in the battle of god and has deeply angered assad's enemies do you think we're going to see more explosions like this water. anything i can do for sonny brothers anything i can do for syrian brothers i will do anything i can do for these people suffering from injustice i will do. and they say. the unkind affiliated a new survey front claimed responsibility for these recent deadly bombings just days before a man calling himself and al qaida commander announced via you tube that the group

had put down roots in lebanon people we've met on the ground deny belonging to either of these groups but don't hide the fact that they share their views. no there is no al qaeda as an organization anymore but al qaeda as an idiology and it doesn't need money to spread it spreads by itself everywhere in the world not only in lebanon but in america britain serbia here radical ideas of bread from a young age fighters here as bin laden a teacher and their fight jihad. when twenty three year old returned from syria where he joined the free syrian army he continued his jihad here in lebanon and. target the district where she'll leave tripoli is divided into sunni and shia parts ironically by the street called syria two years ago we filmed on that street

by street in the city of tripoli separates the white and sunni neighborhoods in this part of north running like a merger between those who support the syrian president and his regime and those who want him out today we can't get was hashi's intention was. who do you fight against who is your enemy i merge it would be my fight against the infidels those who don't carry that for go far lebanon is probably the war spillover of the syrian conflict and while the world is hoping for peace to come back to that middle east country war seems to only spread further on. people here seem to be used to seeing fighters carry sniper rifles through busy markets they tell us everybody here has a weapon and is ready to fight. come to these camps outside she would see every day to raise a look at first told us that it doesn't take well you know for someone who is zero

experience become a real fighter. a week's training and you are in for a life time of obedience growth are your rules for those who want to become one day deen you have to forget about money and be ready to die or to be arrested and to accept that no one will take care of you or your family let jihadi flags on the walls weapons on the floor this is the life of a true fighter. it's tough and the rules are strict. who introduced himself as a tripoli sunni leader says many yous are willing to join to live in it from now until i grow up i'm ready to defend myself i'm ready to kill a whites and syrian army and here is a queue for the river that. we use and while the syrian conflict expands a legion of fighters on to these deadly weapons and an even deadly ideology is on

the rise. from lebanon in syria itself humanitarian agencies are evacuating people from the b. siege city of bones as a ceasefire between the government and opposition is extended for another three days the sides resumed peace talks in geneva this week on the ground in syria al qaeda fighters have captured the central town of mon human rights activists say at least forty civilians were killed in the attack four than half of the dad were said to be women and children the publisher of trans journal gerald celente says careen radical ideology is more difficult than ending fighting on the ground. so who is this out qaeda is al-qaeda the guy that prime minister tony blair and president bush said that saddam hussein had toews to or is it the al qaeda that we're in that dangerous or die hard al qaeda

or or dangerous islamised so we don't really know who these people are but from what i see and from what i know from what i read and for what i learn these are just disparate gangs of murderers and criminals it's a moral issue not a military issue and that's the only way it's going to be solved. coming up on r.t. we remember the legacy of internet freedom fighter and the young man of life just over a year ago after facing an intense legal battle against the government congress still deaf to calls to reform its measures of prosecution. sigrid laboratory. was to build a needs most sophisticated robot which i don't think he'd leave doesn't give

a darn about anything mission to teach creation why it should care about humans. this is why you should care what you only. speak your language as i mean some of the will or not of the. news programs and documentaries and spanish matters to you. it will turn it into angles stories. here. the spanish find out more visit actuality.

welcome back you're watching our to international live from moscow charged with espionage and facing death threats back home whistleblower edward snowden escaped the u.s. to continue his battle against the system but for one young man the fight for information transparency came to a tragic and facing a standoff with a government internet activist aaron swartz took his own life just over a year ago now art has gotten a teacher conry ports on why some say the young man was driven to the edge. aaron swartz could have been a millionaire living now in silicon valley when he was just fourteen aaron helped launch the first artist says feeds which deliver web content aaron by the time he turned nineteen his company had merged with nicole reddit which would become one of the most popular websites in the world but money was not his ultimate goal aaron went on to champion a free internet it's common sense and it's the foundation of our constitution the

government is constrained by having someone else check off to make sure they're not abusing their power aaron became a political activist calling for others to join this isn't something playing out on stage somewhere where giants fight each other and you get to sit much popcorn this is a fight you can join in right so if you're going to demand progress dot org and sign up we have actions every week there are bills that are coming up that could crack down on internet freedom there are companies trying to abuse their power and it's up to all of us to stop them aaron swartz drew the f.b.i.'s attention in two thousand and eight when he downloaded and released about three million federal court documents from a restricted service the government did not press charges because the documents were in fact public he was arrested in two thousand and eleven for downloading academic articles from a subscription based research website at his university with the intention to make them available to the public. although none of what he downloaded was classified prosecutors wanted to put him in jail for thirty five years when he saw all of his

wealth gone and he recognized his parents were going to have to mortgage their house so he could afford a lawyer to fight a government who treated him as if he were nine eleven terrorists as if it as if what he was doing was threatening the infrastructure of the united states when he saw that he recognized how how incredibly difficult that fight was going to be of course he was depressed at the age of twenty six aaron swartz took his own life. this was somebody who was pushed to. by what i think of as a kind of bullied by our government it was several months after. edward snowden blew the whistle on the government's widespread snooping showing that while the government wants everyone to be open and transparent. to someone who fully embrace the idea of transparency and accessibility of information like aaron swartz. in washington i'm going to. colleagues of aaron swartz have never

forgotten their mission to blow the whistle and annually from edward snowden finds the u.s. was blindly relying on n.s.a. data during its drone strikes simply hoping the person on the other end of the missile was a bad guy check out the full story on our to dot com. and burn after reading or destroy after seeing a newly released e-mail shows right after the two thousand and eleven raid that killed osama bin laden top u.s. commanders order of the destruction of all photos of his corpse check out why the rush for secrecy on our to dot com. is it possible to pick up a house for less than a price of a cup of tea while amazingly in the u.k. that's become a reality but artie's probably boyko reports now on what's behind the pound land fairy tale. one pound sterling doesn't buy you much nowadays but in stoke on trent lucky locals have managed to grab the ultimate bargain

a house it's part of a sell off of rundown properties in a deprived part of the city at this sort of apply just sort of to the blue really because i was saving up for a mortgage and things anyway which when you run time is probably hard. but yes i use quite shortly you know i actually did go out which actually great for us because we did a house for problems in. the snag many of the properties have stood abandoned for a year is after the closure of the city ceramic factories the area started to decline the roof sleeping every negative thing that you keep in mind just came to properties all of my commute for those behaviors the would because of the park trees which is only walking distance who are all living here and then what happened was as the poultry spoke to started closing down people had to move forward so the communities start to disperse say this area is deprived it's riddled with antisocial behavior like drug abuse crime and squatting but the local councils say

that the one pound scheme and the new owners moving in should help to create a sense of community and turn the area around. applicants have to be locals first time buyers and earning less than forty thousand pounds per year to avoid entrepreneurial property developers from taking advantage of the author homeowners have to commit to staying in the houses for at least ten years this is what one pound will buy you on century street in stoke on trent now on top of that one pound owners have to commit to boring thirty thousand pounds from the local council for the renovations and work has already started on transforming these abundant shells and turning them into brand new properties and through hey can see what they're going. look like before the scheme came along like many britons gavin couldn't afford a deposit for a house and was paying more in rent then he will be in loan repayments to the

council in ten years' time i'll be more tree with how. many people can get up to ten years with the housing crisis leaving millions struggling to get on to the ladder many will now be crossing their fingers hoping they'll get a similar chance in their parts of town. stoke on trent and now a brief glance at some other global news making headlines in iraq a suicide bombing instructor accidentally blew himself up in his own car bomb killing twenty one of his students after hearing the explosion security forces rushed to the area and arrested more than a dozen suspected militants seven car bombs as well as explosive belts were found on the site militant supposedly belong to an extremist sunni group which recently cut its ties with al qaida. in pakistan a suicide bomber ran into the home of a pro-government tribal leader and blew himself up killing four women police say

the blast injured five others in a separate incident militant in the country's southwest attacked and destroyed three i'm sorry destroyed three kathy lifelines cutting supplies to the nation's most populous province. up next r.t. takes you on a cruise to the bone chilling arctic frontier part of one of russia's nuclear icebreakers we're watching our to international. the alleged phone call between the assistant secretary of state and the u.s. ambassador to ukraine has created quite a controversy in the cold like smug british colonisers casually and africa the basically say that that need of books to fill he's not fit for the government of

the of the needs of the baldwin become prime minister they also mention getting 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 journalists 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 to try to consciously and directly control sovereign nations and overthrow regimes they don't like if this phone call is legit that 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 great enemy that justifies a korean regime change there is no such anime a fascist opinion. in

early september the arctic northern sea is a busy maritime highway. all of russia's nuclear powered icebreakers are at sea clearing a path for shipping. the crews here have a saying when you're in the arctic you have the whole world your feet. the really follows russia's northern boundaries offering the shortest passage

between europe and asia passing through seven northern cities. well then three hundred by horns. the nuclear time you leave. judge will. spend four months patrolling the northern sea route despite posing through ten times the crew will never adjust the ship's clock it's quite likely they'll never pull into a port either the will the crew tell. morning

good morning yes it llano you're beautiful well done and don't forget your hat. sukhamoy has ruined my hair now. and the captain and the first officer said here they don't like holes in their bread i have to put more bread out because the navigators sit here and they eat a lot. of the possibly the most unlike the tables to be laid properly he likes everything to be good and he likes beautiful women actually he just loves old women. just like all men now like. cabbage but. i should know what i now. the floors icy cold and my.