transit routes. your best way to the heart of moscow. olympic please sweep softly as russia clenches gold and silver and figure skating pairs while the home team takes to the ice for the much anticipated men's hockey plus the media outlets here have tried so hard to make the olympics in russia first smell like cold war recycled symbols a thirty year old rhetoric to look at why some in the media are on a crusade against the winter games. also leave the u.k. leave sterling london says it won't share currency with scotland if it votes yes to independence. and the radical movements in greece declares war on the german capitalist machine blame in berlin for their country's surge and poverty and

unemployment it's. live from the russian capital this is artsy international with me. welcome to the program. now the so she games are now and so there are six they and r.t. is there bringing you all the triumph defeats enthrallment of the twenty second once or olympics. spirits and song share as high as they've ever been after a spectacular show and by russia's figure skaters last night they nets of both gold and silver and in fact the city will squire literally lets up by the fireworks we showered the skies there while jubilant fans paraded through the streets meanwhile as ortiz and farmer reports there's another matter oh that many russians yearn for

even more. well i have to say it was a fantastic because he was in it for trying cough and polish but if there is one gold medal that russia wants to win more than any other it is in the men's ice hockey they haven't done that since the fall of the soviet union and today they open their account against the vignette and that is a game on paper you would think they would win because they have something like sixteen and h l stars compared to you see the news one they also have home with vantage although some are arguing that could bring extra pressure will they russia's main man alexandra veteran says all the players have the experience they need to cause i'm pretty sure we have experience and we all do our guys to have another pressure. and i'm pretty sure it's going to be flying as we're going to step on the ice we're going to. think about the game and i think about hard to win the game not about. the pressure and stuff and the place do seem to be relaxed

maybe take a look at the. twitter feed at the moment you will see supposed to be pictures of his famous pieces but it is time walking around in and around the park and meeting fans but it's a game they can't take lightly that is the message from soviet legend like this that threat yeah he's a man he should know he's won three gold medals. we're expecting a good game what is really important now is the work of the coaches they need to have the team motivated there are various other factors at play the biggest is the word home it's a major responsibility players are experiencing great pressure and on top of that we haven't been champions for a long time i think it's going to be one of the most exciting tournament's of recent times. well just to give you a taste of what this means to russia we managed to catch up with the thief and. we're definitely supporting the russian ice hockey team and we hope to make it to the match like to wish our guys luck in victory in every match we hope that will

take first place at our home olympics. that is the best and will destroy everybody our team will definitely win a little gold i was born in russia so who else would i root for while also in the usa they play here today and then the big one is the usa against russia on saturday definitely one to look forward to. seeing russia's marchant dissipated first talk a match in the twenty fourteen olympics kicks off in a matter of minutes but as artie's martin andrews explains when he said no way it's not the only thing going on and the coastal cluster we've got behind is the olympic flame you can see but it's not just the flame that's on fire the whole olympic park is on fire it's like being in the carnival in rio it was just incredible even i was surprised in the volunteers they're doing limbo when the big flags they're all screaming shouting. everybody all the volunteers speak english we've got back in the stands we've got russian dancing we've got stages with. all singing traditional

russian songs of course this is from various countries around the world you know cherishing and loving listening to traditional worship music and dancing and it's all brightly colored brilliant so if you can if you don't have tickets to a specific event but you go into the park there's plenty to do. but you need tickets for an event you can go into the park just as a spectator and so what are some of the things that you've seen here. like i said you got bounced around with traditional singing is it's not just traditional southern side you've got you've got d.j.'s powers in the mountains lots of light snow there with quite like the d.j. was a big. it's modern and of course you've got to realize that snowboarding which is a relatively new it's been actually for the last two or fifteen sixteen year olds winning gold something that's right and if you've got to realize that it's the olympics for the new generations and with that so you've really got to cater for the you know the musical side of it so you do have like d.j. is playing in the pro d.j.'s in from all around the world i think it's phenomenal

let's talk a little bit more about the serious side of the olympics security it's a big thing has russia managed to have it be secure but not has been anybody said the security has been. the people at the spectators are there waiting in line. and sometimes every single train you go to every single cable car every single event you have to go through security it's just like going through ports of j.f.k. or heathrow but it's quicker there's no queues i think i waited more than thirty seconds of each one and that's really cater for the fact that you've got you've got lots of people here the crowd control is and every single person i've spoken to from america u.k. germany whatever have said that the security issues are ten out of ten three people feel safe here and the main thing is that even though it's obviously a parent it's very relaxed so in that course i've been to around the world. specially it's off the top of my head you feel uncomfortable you feel violated

almost but really here in sochi they're doing a superb job. the lovely atmosphere and saw she has been gradually thawing the hearts of the doubters still there are some who prefer to only notice the downside and ignore the high points r.c. is going to try she can look south where the media criticism of the olympics is coming from. you know some media outlets here have tried so hard to make the olympics in russia smell like cold war in their coverage some didn't even bother to come up with new tools new graphics same old bear this cover is from one thousand nine hundred eighty when the us boycotted the summer games in the soviet union of course there were calls to boycott the sochi olympics as well similar images this is the handcuffs and all barbed wire not new as you can see andrew craig who wrote several books about news coverage in america is here with me to chat about all this sea of negativity thank you so much for coming critique you know russia has come a long way since one thousand eight hundred and it's

a very different country now but it seems some of these outlets won their readers want their audience to see russia as if it's still the one nine hundred eighty. well these are very familiar themes both to the public but also to the owners and many of the old time reporters so people fall into a comfortable pattern that actually extends back many decades and is quite apparent if you look for it as you've. it's quite clear that people took the old magazine covers and said let's just updated for this olympics stereotypes are strong. exactly and you know they call it the news industry but in many ways people like the old industry but the old. but call it news but sometimes you know in the middle of this sea of negativity you sometimes

see reports like the one i saw in the new republic the officer went to a popular gay bar in sochi and writes about how desperate for him journalists are trying to find traces of gay persecution there and they can't those they talk to. say no one is bothering them except germany's part of the issue is when people self censor or they believe they know what the story is before they go to the scene and what you're describing sounds like a classic case that happens all over the place where reporters think they know what the story is and all are trying to do is find someone to attach a name and a face to the story that's almost written in the reporter or editors have. used to create thank you thank you you know even russians who are critical of the government found this old school smear campaign upsetting but for most it's like in

the old russian saying that dogs bark but the caravan moves on so let them bark enjoy the game so i'm going to check on in washington our team. this is why it's all the efforts of some media outlets social networks trent suggests the negativity towards tsotsi and down earlier i discussed this with r.t. news that it's there and social media commentator i have. this is an image from trends map of the conversation that's taking place around sochi twenty fourteen in the saatchi hashtags to give you an idea of the hot spots are obviously in the states and northwestern europe it's really nice to see that there's a hotspot over such itself right now which means people people are taking part of the conversation if we can bring up the sochi problems because give you an idea of how people got involved where people are talking about sochi problems here we go now you can see that there's basically less there's less talk going on around social problems than there is around sochi twenty fourteen now again the hot spot

areas are classically the united kingdom and north america canada and the united states almost exclusively now we've run a few numbers and we wrote a few samples for you which we can take a look at here. we run a set through trends map of ten million tweets now if we can hold out for one second i just want to give you a quick idea what this is this is around the converse conversation this is around the opening of the olympics so there's a peak around there and then the conversation dies down and now we can run through some graphics and give you an idea of how the percentage of tweets that are taking place or the the percentage of what people are saying about sochi. is more about the games than it is about social problems here's the cities where are most intense to be tweeting about sochi delighted to see moscow and st petersburg up there with the global twitter big shots and if you want to take a look at the hash tags that sochi twenty fourteen is figuring about twenty four percent of the conversation you had another ten percent on the site you live is

about thirty five percent a straight up olympics so you problems globally trying to get about three percent of conversations on tsotsi there but that's not to say that if someone's using the sochi problems tweet that it's all about the controversy that's taking place and so if you were over there if you had tried to be. because of the games themselves let's take a look at what people are tweeting here i think we all empathize with this we can look at some of the social problems that are actually happening on other media this is a medals table where a.b.c. unfortunately mixed up the u.s. canada in the netherlands the dutch flags in their medals table you can understand it's you know it's a high pressure it's a sports newsroom right now is going to be over for cypress trees and we can move it on the go guys thanks very much. this was of course a problem i'm really not quite sure how it's such a problem but it was such a totally random from the intensity when newsroom to a guy with a desk and some screws. that's the problem screws alone is just now this is probably the most interesting one an austrian journalist working out of yet to post

a picture of building in a pretty poor state of disrepair he says things aren't as they should be in the sochi media center we can roll up there and have a look and see he's immediately contacted by c.n.n. because they want to permanently use the photo in all of their platforms and affiliates the problem is that the photograph was taken in vienna not so much will it continue our special coverage of the games bringing you all the latest from the olympic capital next hour. twenty four promises the ultimate in exhilarating winter. storm and it's now a make every now and the last of these teams for sochi twenty four take. on. so are the news now of the upcoming an independence referendum will be a very high stakes gamble for scotland as london has announced a gas to solvency without so mats a clean and notes

a shared currency george osborne the chancellor of the exchequer says edinburgh would have to leave the pound if it leaves the u.k. our c.s.r. smith is here with us with all the latest details hi there laura so how did london justify this what has it said. well basically what charles the georgia has been is saying is if scotland walks away from the u.k. it also walks away from the pound he's very clear about that he said that there are four things that are necessary to have a currency union so for scotland to share the pound and then proceeded to demolish the possibility of those conditions being met let's just go through those four things so we can look at what they are the first thing he talked about was a banking union scotland of course has a huge financial sector it's worth about twelve times its g.d.p. alone there's no way that scotland would be able to bail out its own balance you've only got to look at the huge world bank of scotland so that the u.k. has only just managed to extricate itself from an obligation to bail out european

banks for one earth would it put itself back into an obligation to bail out scottish banks essentially because scotland will be. as a dependent a foreign country and there's nothing in that for the rest of the u.k. so one totally demolished the corporation that talked about a shared agreement on taxation and spending again though not a very attractive option for the rest of the u.k. because it would take the rest of the u.k. and scotland seedings over and t. in terms of how much it taxed its citizens of what it spent that money on why should the u.k. do that he says why should it have to consult with a foreign country on taxation then he talked about a monetary union also would be necessary to have a shared currency and an agreed exchange rate policy and as part of the u.k. he said scotland is insulated from any kind of fall in oil prices but if it went on

its own a fall in all prices would lead to big job losses in scotland it was have to then respond by cutting spending and raising taxes which would result in pressure for scotland to give up the pound and then the fourth. he talked about was the permanence of the currency union it must be permanent he said in order to encourage confidence from the markets but this goes this national policy has already said that it's not committed to a pub and currency union it said that's in its white paper in november that if it did share the pound that would be a temporary arrangement which would be very damaging for the pound so essentially the message that we're walking away from from this speech with is that an independent scotland sharing the pound is according to george osborne just not going to happen he did make some valid points but where does this leave scotland then. this is a tricky one i mean it is huge political pressure now which amounts according to

the s.n.p. to bully and basically this is part of a carrot and stick tactic david cameron spoke last week of essential effectiveness course to stay don't go he said we really need you now we have george osborne this week saying hey you know. this is how bad things will be if you do so this is sort of two sides of the same color and there's also this united front from all three political parties in the u.k. . from labor and alexander from the liberal democrats will come out and agree with this in the coming days and the new pound thing this is just the latest tactic basically they've previously said that scotland won't be able to go after have automatic membership of nato or of the e.u. they've talked about the u.k. not helping scotland to protect its businesses so salmon whisky things like that the military implications no sharing of intelligence the diplomatic network would be open to scotland any more so it's it's it's

a scaremongering basically and it's it doesn't want to go in and of course it may play into the hands of the yes campaign you know yes there it is and will resent being bullied by westminster in this way so that that may shift things dramatically towards a yes vote yes and let's see if this actually affects the voters who perhaps were thinking of voting yes perhaps swayed to vote no now sees laura smith thank you very much for all the details. well more news in just a few moments so do stay with us. see any sort of counter-revolution preserving. even a charcoal gender roles the islamic religion is one very powerful

force awards maintaining traditional marriages and values just as they become more powerful western liberalism becomes powerful and we have to the sort of. civilization will be on a collision course. welcome

back to r.t. international the right thing may be on the wall for germany in greece as a radical group there has published the money fast though the pens all the blame for athens is economic trouble on birdland the answer capitalist movement claimed responsibility for firing shots at the german ambassador's residence and the sumber threats and then more attacks artie's money has the details police and security forces are on high alert here in the great capital with riot police patrolling the streets in groups of five or six officers and that's often the evidence was discovered of the dangerous activity over medicare extremist group known here in greece as the popular father group or jews or they claimed responsibility for december attack on german ambassador as residence here in the great capital when a group of unknown gunmen fired at least fifty bullets at the building no one was

heard to many isn't happy and another attack this time at the tap and in january. they had school tours of reset us back in the outskirts of athens as well the group sent a twenty page manifesto to a weekly leftwing satirical magazine titled the mouse in greek explain that that was their reaction their response to greece's protracted financial crisis for which they believe germany is to blame and declared it's part of a campaign against the german capitalist machine calling on all greeks to join their fight so why germany being blamed the country is the largest donor for greece's bailouts the country has been relying on since two thousand and ten and we each have forced greece to enter. views harsh austerity measures that eventually increased dramatically unemployment here in the country risa high that many greece

could get behind this and his group calling on the residents of this country to join their fight our team has been covering financial crisis since the beginning and we heard many tragic stories and even this time we were able to speak to some residents of athens and i can say that's tied news and despair are among the most common feelings here in the city and people say they're tired they no longer have power to even take to the streets to protest and moreover they no longer believe that could change anything that would how. old the situation but to restrain very high of provocations and this is why we'll apparently see some extra security measures here in the city and in other cities for for some time. the digital currency bitcoin has lost some of its glitter of

lates some of its main exchange sites have been brought to a whole supply massive and sustained online attacks but also to caffeine are found out in bitcoin spiritual home in users of the currency are they going in for the long haul. they've come to speak to mingle and to promote their vision of an alternative financial system and investors businessmen and curious citizens all gathered here in berlin for our conference on what they call a bit point of revolution it's the first digital currency that's not owned or operated by any sort of bank it's guaranteed payment without a middleman you can buy it with the real currency and online exchanges and that's meant to option for those who think that today's financial system is in fact mean of an overhaul as people see how big coin is used online and they see the advantages the instant transfer of funds the security not having to use your

personal data to make these transactions i think a lot of people see these advantages they tell their friends they tell their coworkers they want and they tell the merchants that they do business with and they expand the sphere of decline and that's a view that seems to be growing more popular nowhere is that more evident than right here in berlin in fact this neighborhood boast the highest concentration of businesses assuption the currency in the world its growing list of bitcoin establishment includes a record shop appliance store a boutique and this bar. and here getting your hands on some bitcoins while the digitally speaking is easier than ever instead of buying them from an online exchange you can use this big coin a.t.m. to trade your uro's into bitcoins and use that to buy your happy hour drink with their four of course bitcoin isn't without risk and the past few weeks haven't been too kind to the cryptocurrency apple remove the last native bitcoin wallet application from its apps door and the currency saw its third mega crash in the

past few months when the largest bitcoin exchange stopped customer withdrawals because of a glitch in the software of course that led the currency to lose value by a stunning twenty percent just for a day but it's a sign that bitcoin may have a long way to go before it's a safe bet reporting in berlin for r.t. and lucy catherine of. more news for you in about thirty five minutes from now up next though it's worlds apart with host unemployed.

a transit route to vnukovo report your best way to the heart of mosco. a satanic group wants to erect a statue to the lord of darkness in oklahoma city which is the logical name capital of oklahoma the satanists want to build the monument of a goat headed devil in or despite a monument to the ten commandments that was put up in two thousand and twelve yet they maybe should have put up of honor into the ten commandments on public property but does that mean that satanists nazis the other wackos have the right to put up their own twisted monuments well that is it depends on how you look at things technically it was to liberalism everyone's beliefs by law are equal even if ninety nine people are christian and they cannot impose on that one poor satanist which sounds nice but in reality that means that those ninety nine christians have to

tolerate a monument to the infernal master and defiler of the innocent on their way to work every morning part of having a culture means having a group of people of common beliefs and values if you just include anything into the culture then you longer have a culture all that remains are scattered individuals all i'm trying to say is that it's ok to abuse the devil guys but that shows my opinion. i marinate join me. in parker and find out what terry interviewed and much much. only on the best and only.

son of welcome to worlds apart valentine's day has long attracted controversy both because of its commercial nature and it's really just origins but more recently it has also been placed at the center of the ongoing janda revolution how has our concept of changed over the past few decades and will it survive at all well to discuss that i'm now joined by glenn wilson visiting professor of psychology at gresham college professor wilson thank you very much for your time now back in the seventies people used to talk about the battle of the sexes but now it seems the concept of john doerr is far more prominent and frankly far more confusing why do you think that is certainly the relationship between the sexes is train treating towards greater equality of sex roles and political rights

interesting over the last hundred thousand years or so the fossil record suggests that men and women becoming more alert to the risk conversions. so it's quite possible that process will continue it's interesting i remember that. henry kissinger once famously sad that no one will ever win the battle of the sexes because there is too much for it's amazing that the enemy but i wonder if that's what applied to the genders as well because with the advancement of women social rights it seems like women are really winning across the board at least in western societies certainly women have going to great deal in terms of equalization of salary that process is not complete complete there used to be a feminist argument that men and women were virtually identical under the skin and that any differences between them were

a result of the way they were brought up or the social pressures that were laid upon them i think we can pretty much dispense with that theory at the moment because science has proved beyond all doubt that there are very fundamental and important biological differences between men and women now you said earlier that. their records are archaeological records that show that the roles of man and women are becoming more equal over the last few decades probably even centuries but there is also an argument that could be made that this process of. social advancement of women is not really so much through equalizing their social roles but rather piling i dish and now social expectations on to women because if you look at even the most progressive western countries women are still carrying most of the burden into.