a star studded team russia cruised through a solid win over slovenia and the home team's four sides talking game at the winter olympics and the tournaments as robson gather the sport's biggest names. some media outlets here have tried so hard to make lympics in russia smell like cold war recycled symbols and 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 both the independents. and the radical movements in greece declares war on the german capitalist machine and blame in berlin for their country's surge and poverty and unemployment.

you're watching r t international with me marina called welcome to the program. now the salty games are now and so there are six day an artsy is there bringing you all the triumph the feats and drama of the twenty second winter olympics. in their first game russia's men's eyes talk it seem has triumphed over slovenia with a five points to two victory but there was little surprise as the home school is filled with some of the sport's best known players warrantees paul scholes was at the match and we can cross live to him right now there he is a high paul so you were in the stands was there a victory ever in doubt. marino well perhaps the five.

and was seem to have a lost connection with paul scott who was at the match but will try and get connection back with him as soon as we can so that he can tell us what he saw first and if of course she rushes victory was ever in question but for now while a team rushes for a whole can match and that's when divorce in winter olympics drew a lot of attention it wasn't the only thing worth seeing and the coastal cluster artie's more snow andrew spoke about this. we've got behind this 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 the volunteers they're doing limbo under the flags they're all screaming shouting saying everybody all the volunteers speak english we've got back in the stands we've got russian dancing we've got stages with. it all singing traditional russian songs of course this is from the various countries around the world you

know cherishing and loving listening to traditional worship music and dancing and it's all brightly colored brilliant and 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 well like i said you got bounced around with traditional singing is it's not just traditional songs are you've got you've got d.j.'s the mountains lots of light snow here with us that quite like the d.j. was a big part of the right ceremony is that really this modern and of course you got to realize that snowboarding which is a relatively new it's been actually for the last two or fifteen sixteen year olds winning golds up there i mean you've got to realise 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 faultless but what about the people at the spectators are there waiting in lines there they are on every single train you go through 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 each one i met read a case of the for the fact that you've got you've got lots of people here the crowd control is. every single person i've spoken to from america u.k. germany whatever has said the security issues are had to tell three people feel safe here and the main thing is that even though it's obviously apparent it's very relaxed so in that course i've been to around the world. specially. you feel uncomfortable you feel violated almost but really here in such a superb job. all right let's try this again paul scott is here to discuss with

their match. of course team russia try and hi there paul you were there. so i want you to tell us what was the atmosphere there like was this a surprise really. well perhaps in many ways much was a lot tougher than the five to school line suggests it has just concluded the bolshoi in which you can probably just make out behind me now many people were predicting that russia would simply sweep their opponents aside it's the first time this levine you have been competing in the men's ice hockey competition since they gained independence and although it was five two they did make russia work russia stormed into a two nil lead the roof was raised the atmosphere was electric but slovenia managed to pull it back to three two going into the final period but it was in those final twenty minutes when russia through on the red machine secured victory and just to give you an idea of how much pressure is on on this russian taint of course there's

the expectancy of gold amongst the home fans we made the journey from the bolshoi. we walked through the olympic park it was amazing to see how much quieter the olympic park was in comparison with two hours earlier we had to leave during that final period and everyone was huddled around the t.v. watching what they could because one of the russian ice hockey team it really is a must see moment so there's a lot of pressure on this team legendary goaltender vladislav tretiak explains. but where were his fingers that matter we are to. it's a big responsibility players are experiencing grief pressure on top of that. for a long time every player would be to win a gold medal. that was hard to tell who's going to become the i think it's going to be one of the most exciting toulouse of recent times. what an intriguing match up next russia's next match on the ice is against the united states of america in group a the usa started that campaign with

a seven one victory over slovakia. paul i want to know what all the events will be attendance they just so that we all know what else there is to look forward to what else is there aside from the ice hockey that you've already mentioned. plenty of interest in the russian metal interest as well starting in the speedskating in the arena because russia. is going for her second medal of these games she's already secured silver in the five hundred meters she's going to be looking to add to that in the one thousand meters not event is underway although she's yet to take to the ice and then later on the save all eyes are going to be on the ice skating. is going to be looking for his second gold medal of course he's already got a gold he was part of the team that won the figure skating team event for russia and russia are pretty much the team to catch in the figure skating after winning gold and silver in the pads event last night you. in the men's men's individual

event he starts with the short program the saving concludes tomorrow with the free program of course is a great story of this time last year the thought of him competing at the olympics it was it was unthinkable really he went under the surgeon's knife he had one of his distro placed in his back he's going to surgery a number of times in recent years because he's fighting fit and he's gunning for gold. of course throughout the night for all of the latest updates a pulse from. the lively atmosphere there has been gradually growing in the hearts of the bouncers still there are some who prefer to only notice the downside than ignore the high points artie's going that's where the media criticism of the olympics is coming from. you know some media outlets here have tried so hard to make the olympic sing 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 u.s. boycotted the summer games in the soviet union of course there were calls to boycott the sochi olympics as well similar images as he has been all barbwire not new as you can see. 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 pleasure it's great you know russia has come a long way since one. very different country now but it seems some of these outlets won their readers want their audience to see that russia as if it's still 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 done and. 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 themes 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 injury and they start trying to find traces of gay persecution there and they can't those they talk to say no one is bothering them except journalists part of the issue is when people self sensor 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 and the reporter or editors have. to correct thank you thank you you know even russians who are critical of the government found this old school smear campaign up. reading but for most it's like in the old russian saying that dogs bark but the caravan moves on to let them bark enjoy the game so i'm going to check on in washington our team. this finds all of the efforts of some media outlets social network trends suggest the negativity towards dying down well earlier i discussed this with artsy news that it's there and social media commentator i have across. this is an image from trends map of the conversation that's taking place around 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 united kingdom and north america canada and the united states almost exclusively now we've run a few numbers and we've really 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 the conversation this is around the opening of the olympics so there's a peek 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 percentage of what people are saying about sochi. is more about the games then it's 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 hashtag is there such a twenty four is figuring about twenty four percent of the conversation you had another. ten percent of the site you live is about thirty five percent a straight up lympics social 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 social problems tweet that it's all about controversy that's taking place it's what you want over there if you try to be critical 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 sports news right now it's got to be pressures and we can move it on the guys thanks very much. the 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 intent to even use room 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 vienna posts a picture of a building in a pretty poor state of disrepair and 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. they say 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. and we'll continue our special coverage of the games bringing you all the latest from the olympic capital in the next hour.

twenty four promising alternate exhilarating winter and. it's now a make heaven i am the last of these teams for sochi twenty four take. on. moving on to other news now the upcoming independence referendum will be a very high stakes gamble for scotland as london has announced a gas to sovereignty would automatically mean a no to a shared currency well george osborne the chancellor of the edge of. edinburgh would have to leave the pound if it leaves the u.k. artie's or smith has the details of what chancellor george osborne 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 really and so for scotland to shed the pounds and then proceeded to demolish the possibility of those conditions being met 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 bailout its own bags you've only got to look at the huge royal bank of scotland so that the u.k. has only just managed to extricate itself from an obligation to bail out european banks so one earth would put itself back into an obligation to bail out scottish banks fiscal cooperation then osborne talked about a shared agreement on taxation and spending it would assess it take the rest of the u.k. and scotland seedings over and see 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. the fourth thing that 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 the scottish national party has already said that it's not committed to a permanent currency union it said that 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 has huge political pressure now which amounts according particularly to the s.n.p. to bullying basically this is the stick part of a carrot and stick tactic david cameron spoke last week of essentially begging the schools 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 this is sort of two sides the same coin of course it may play into the hands of the yes campaign yes there it is in scotland will resent being bullied by westminster in this way so that that may shift things dramatically towards a yes. more news for you after a short break to stay with us. mum. sabera a problem very hard to take the plunge again long

a plug that has sex with the perfect there's no legs let's. listen let's. listen legs. please. submit. a. welcome back to our as he entered national now the right saying maybe on the wall

for germany in greece signs a radical group there has published the money fast though been in all of greece's economic trouble on berlin the capitalist movement claimed responsibility for firing shots at the german ambassador's residence in the same birthrights and then more attacks artie's money ethanol sure 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 groups known here in greece as the popular father group ordered to say they claimed responsibility for december attack on german ambassador as residence here in the great capital when a group of unknown gotten men fired least fifty bullets at the building no one was heard but many isn't happy and another attack this time at the tap and in

january. they had school tours of reset as bands 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 called in an old greeks to join their fight why east germany been 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 introduce harsh austerity mad. is 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 has been covering great financial crisis since the beginning and we heard many tragic stories and even these time we were able to speak to some residents of athens and i can say that it's tied newness and despair the most common feeling 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 could how. the situation but to restrain very high of provocations and this is why we will apparently see some extra security measures here in the city and in other cities for for some time. russia looks to distribute huge amounts of energy to china that's after the cyclone trees agree on the twenty four billion dollar plan to

build the world's largest thermal power plant that's on the r.t. websites. and that sounded like a lot of money than think again the u.s. has lifted that ceiling of once more what it will be able to borrow more than seventeen trillion dollars you can find all the details of artsy dot com. but there's little currency bitcoin has lost some of its glitter of flights at least three of its main exchange science have been brought to a halt by massive and sustained online it's tax bots as lucy caffein all found out in berlin users of the currency are digging in for the long haul. they've come to speak chiming the land 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 the 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 an extract of option for those who think that today's financial system is in fact mean of an overhaul it's people see how big coin is used online and they see the advantages the instant transfer of funds the security not having to see 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 are getting your hands on some good points 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 euro's into bitcoins and use that to buy your happy hour drink and i have 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 app store 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. now for some other news making global headlines in venezuela a pro-government protests are interested in activist one you can see right here have been killed following massive protests in the capital caracas unidentified man

on motorcycles reportedly carried out the killings eighty people were arrested this thousands marched through the city calling for the government to resign over high levels of crime and corruption. bombs have gone off at the same time in a marketplace in the iraqi capital baghdad killing five people the attacks also wounded more than a dozen people and this comes as fierce fighting continues between government forces and al qaeda militants who have taken control of large parts of the country since december. and our coming up right in the sights with abby martin to stay with us.

transit route to vnukovo report your best way to the heart of moscow. ten a group wants to erect a statue to the lord of darkness in oklahoma city which is the logical name capital of oklahoma the cygnus 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. yes they maybe should have put up of on to the ten commandments on public property but does that mean that satan has not ceased 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 than you no longer have a culture all that remains are scattered individuals all i'm trying to say is that it's ok to rebuke the devil guys but that's just my opinion. the t twenty four promise is the ultimate in the exhilarating winter for. you to use in our way and make have an eye on the rest of our lives take us to the sochi twenty fourth take. on.

though barred on everyone i might be martin and this is breaking the set so turns out that even in the wake of the snowden leaks proving that the n.s.a. is spying on all the earth citizens the military industrial complex thinks the surveillance state should be taken one step further according to vice by the end of two thousand and fourteen two enormous military surveillance planes will be hovering ten thousand feet in the air with the ability to see it three hundred forty miles in any direction on the east coast the booms are called j. lens and they're being purchased from raytheon by the u.s. army for two point seven billion dollars each blimp will be tethered to the ground and will have an insanely powerful cameras radar and built in sensors and you know what that makes sense because just knowing that everything you do online is being categorized isn't showing enough dissent apparently we need to have a man is seen orwellian symbol of the surveillance state in all of our faces but

according to raytheon that's just silly talk because these books have nothing to do a spy on americans their stated purpose is to spot incoming threats since when do we need to put up humongous big brother blimps in order to spot threats look we already have to worry about cameras on top of every building about drones in the sky do we really need giant balloons obstructing our skies implicitly telling the citizens living underneath their ominous shadows to obey so if you want to keep just a shred of privacy in this country then join me and let's break the set. the piece is a pity because it was a terrible mistake and very hard to take the stance against that so long as the club has never had sex with governor rick perry listens to. the large.