best way to the heart of. on the slopes it's valentine's day and the m.p.'s and spectators alike to admire the darlings of the twenty fourteen winter games with an interesting selection topping the charts. three years on syria gas front songs and torture fail to hold or for a new program form activists as they stand defiance artsy looks on what the future could hold for the country. and migration concerns afflict in several countries north pole norway's door with vast numbers of foreigners lured so its high living standards the country is increasingly worried about how to control the influx without infuriates and brussels.

live from the heart of the russian capital this is r t international with me marina costa of our welcome to the program it's a seven now of the twenty second winter olympics and we start off with our special coverage of the games. the sun is out over song the weather is great and it's valentine's day it's a boots but all the focus is on the sports six gold medals are up for grabs today and russia is a strong concern there for at least two of them well let's cross now to our tease paul scott's on the day's progress there he has hi there paul so i see no balloons no hearts around you it's all about the sports what are you looking forward to today so that we know what we can look forward to today aside from the valentine's day. thank you very much marina well i can tell you that russian alexander

is the man in the men's skeleton event a truck run. called in the first round round two is just getting underway as we speak the event concludes on saturday when r.t. caught up with him before the games and he had mitch that being on home ice is a huge advantage. that we've been practicing and tsotsi for more than a year and i've gone to know it like the back of my hand we spent so much time there that it already feels like home i like that truck very much and i find it very comforting i know that everybody likes it including foreign athletes sochi has hosted a trial run world cup and everybody was happy with the track is considered one of the best in the world is design is very smart and convenient spacious has a warm up area large changing rooms and very good infrastructure. well elsewhere russia's female colleagues have given their chances of qualification for the next round he pushed with a six three victory over switzerland that was fair to say that the team skippered

by former model honestly do over have grabbed the attention of an adoring russian public it is of course valentine's day my colleague andre fama has been out on the streets of sorts and he discovered that love is in the air. the sexiest athlete these olympics. gold. russian move for the ration of cookie. joyce just right so joe what's his name sean weiss retainer yes the american athletes i asked snowboarder yes i think his very good looking he was the most attractive athlete at these olympics. i was. beyond i smile really hard i think we know you know i know nancy ok russians good. early on that yes killing of costco. version of the in germany

courage. it's a fast he's very good looking isn't it a little note here why the rate in this so i see them volunteering one hundred people to go on facebook. sites like everybody happy valentine's party only says yeah that's nice isn't it nobody doing anything like this so we all will do it on site say to your wife name to search a site smarty you could likely sell vino back in the u.k. happy valentine's for tomorrow. from sochi we still believe in valentine's as well i know the games i want to live or can or can do. so there you are romancing me and i'm going to say happy valentine's to my fiance must go to. well paul it seems that you andy there i haven't a great time maybe you want to wear someone happy. valentine's day feel free to do that but i want to say about the weather behind extraordinarily good so you're a lucky man so they aren't. breed or feel more like the look the last guy that we

saw there who says work and work and work so i'll just leave it at that you say talk about the weather the party atmosphere in and around sochi no doubt being aided by the fantastic weather yet again the temperature into double figures well into double figures here around the coast and despite some reports of some empty seats and of course the snow melting up in the mountains the international olympic committee have moved today to praise the venue's on the organization of these games to date with one eye see official even saying that some critics simply looking to find fault with the sochi winter olympics welty has been speaking to a number of athletes to gauge how they feel the games are going as we approach the halfway stage. me was perfect i love this slushy snow when it's stopped outside so i'm nothing to complain about the thing to do you know your job so i'm happy to ski instead she says knowing the sun being heavy just server away

the bus is a spin also so your son signed up on the mountain balance with a pretty good accommodation it's not many plates on the new zealand team so he said . one of the buildings but not so comfortable with buses up around them was a new zealand makes us feel like. all right paul well as he said six gold medals are up for grabs they say will be talking to you throughout the evening thank you very much. now meanwhile saudis welcomed its new us then by far its most fierce looking denizen sites and the robots and we've been out so meet him. the twenty fourth one drew a look thanks i don't want to. hide his main appearance titans really you know it's interested in global domination in fact he's more into new second streets entertainment the clever contraption spends its time on the streets of salt telling jokes dancing and making friends with the locals but

not everyone's going to trust him. and the club. will be keeping a tight turn as the games progress but of course he's just one of the entertainments around the city who have been speaking to the lead an athlete about her experiences in sultry and helped found feel a bit. now artsy also managed to speak with the true facts are and all of the olympic games are men's ogle and he has won medals in the loo shot six consecutive ones her and the games and he gave us his take on song . against the olympics it's open so it's very nice very good for me. hoping so take the flag for their italian

guy and the same thing for the valley and team in the world it's probably a good sign for the athletes it's really nice fully because. now a safe landing is the last thing on the minds of these two guys are about to see on this skyscraper here although what they're doing is luckily not the inflicts sports it fully complies with the slogan faster and higher stronger specially the higher parts these russian there they have also managed to climb the shanghai tower almost six hundred and fifty meters tall with no safety gear or permission that's howard still on the construction provides a grand vsto nonetheless unless you're scared of heights that is their you tube video has almost seven million hits though watching it can make you feel a little bit busy.

and we've got that story and for on our website it's artsy dot com not going back to salt lympics we are hoping to hear from more star performers today and throughout the games and also from you because the best part is that you get to ask them your questions by heading to our facebook page the address is facebook dot com slash artsy news. twenty four teen promise is the ultimate in the exhilarating winter and. you see no way to make seven zero in the first of all of these teams for sochi twenty four take. on. moving on to other news now protests that erupted in the outskirts of bahrain is capital on friday have been quashed by police using tear gas at least twenty nine people have been arrested the acts of us the manana were marking three years of pro-reform the sense that has reportedly

seen scores killed in the police crackdown are season reports on the long running standoff. it's three years since the arab spring gripped the gulf state of bahrain violence still shakes the streets of its capital mamma as protesters against the sunni led government fire molotov cocktails the police respond with tear gas and flash bang grenades and thing is that the government is using it as a while and a lot are being tortured house raids just now of living in cities it said i lived in but. you can hear helicopters armored baikal shooting at people. throwing it here yes here and there making people thought the key why not even practice outside the street at least eighty nine people have reportedly been killed in the sheol position strive for reforms hundreds of

thousands have been injured some lost limbs and eyesight protests have been held on almost daily basis and i witnessed some of those i went to bahrain a little more than a year ago we met with different government officials who told me that despite seeing the protesters as the radicals and hardliners they were still looking for some sort of compromise but the most sensational statement came from the country's information minister so i mean that our job i think the bahraini opposition is a main ally of the west the terrorist members of the opposition and their leader has close ties to foreign embassies in bahrain wiki leaks a veiled many documents proving it i talk to the americans and clearly ask them to speak to their friends in the opposition who should understand that bahrain cannot be ruled by an ethnic sectarian party or bahrain's opposition say the allegations are laughable if that was true they say then why is there no action from the western states the u.s. navy's fifth fleet stationed in bahrain and washington's close ties with saudi arabia may be among the reasons what is happening through in terms of human rights

abuses is happening. in russia the whole was all come up with the whole media world. because everything in that region. close to saudi arabia they keep quiet about it. i haven't seen. one single time that has condemned over your eyes well these were the scenes of the second anniversary of bahrain's uprising with thousands protesting peacefully in the streets this time it is already a lot noisier with the opposition planning a three day long protest and the authorities beefing up security. and. we reiterate our main demand secure all unlawful rights without any hesitation we are ready to make new sacrifices for this in the name of our homeland we will demand just retribution for all those who killed our sons and those who ordered the

killings last month bahrain's crown prince selman called for another round of negotiations to end the violence but with two failed attempts already and the world family refusing to budge and protesters demands hardly anyone in this gulf state believes there may be any breakthrough soon alexy russia ski r.t. human rights groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm over the brutal tactics used by cranes police against protesters julie le alex salmond's spent several months behind bars after helping organize protest here's her experience of minutes in basra and security forces face to face. present it was it was really very bad and it stood up today it's very interesting people everywhere present it's not just a woman women and men and children everyone who. will be through the torture process that. everyone everyone will be everyone will be sexually harassed everyone

we. signed confessions we don't go in with what is inside we don't have any access to the. outside world that's the situation it is really very bad for anyone to be detained and since two thousand and four nothing just for speaking up understanding for the rights of people. for the last three years artsy has been closely following the uprising in bahrain and you can find the big picture of what's going on there on our website artsy dot com now the british government says casting about for ways to stop its citizens gone to syria to fight stay with us for the story on how a forty one year old man left his family behind so fights and die in a foreign war and more just ahead.

there's a story here when you're in the arctic you have the entire world at your feet. she looks like a fairly simple. handful of people have access to the nuclear icebreakers the real king here is that the polar bear and ice breakers come second not a single complex expedition to the arctic can be conducted with the russian nuclear powered fleet of ice breakers we undertake. operation. northern sea with russia's arctic ice breakers.

i welcome back to r.t. answer national the free movement of people may be one of the pillars of a common markets but the issue is driving a wedge between e.u. member states calls for tougher regulations are spread and why they are drawing the condemnation of brussels now switzerland has just voted in favor of curbs on the e.u. migrants and almost half of germans want to follow and it's footsteps in france seventy percent of the population believe that there are too many foreigners in the country when it comes to britain the vast majority support that idea and want to see immigration reduced as well in norway record number of illegal immigrants for the ports of last year and as are going off reports calls for stricter measures are

growing louder. this used to be a quiet suburban town in the outskirts of oslo where money is spent fourteen years of his life until he says along with most of his norwegian friends they had to move out because of constant attacks by teenage immigrant gangs. in the ambulance five times or something so it came to the point where i didn't have the time to be robbed all the time i go to the hospital today three out of four students at the local school are foreign descent vast energy exports brought norway's some of the highest living standards in europe and made it very attractive for immigrants over the last thirty years their population has grown tenfold but high living standards mean high cost which not all newcomers are contributing towards many immigrants who are coming from asia and africa they are low skilled and know they don't have a labor market for them to often jobs for them so many and. to be

depended on social benefits benefits include free housing a two year old integration course and an allowance also paid by the state during this time with n.g.o.s warning the spending may be too much even for the norwegian budget to swallow talks about cutting down the numbers have now reached parliament we want to improve the. immigration system in europe and not get rid of it by closing the borders we have wanted to discuss now how to sort of get a more work a good working immigration system how to respect the system but solving one problem may create new ones which one has just held a nationwide referendum in which over half of its citizens decided to limit the amount of immigrants living and working there causing outrage from brussels and threatening trade ties with the e.u. it's going to of r.t. . and there are always more stories lined up for you on our websites including

relief for so. debate others belgian becomes the first ever country to allow euthanasia for terminally ill children the ruling immediately uniting christians and muslims and jews in a wave of condemnation. and gender euphoria american facebook users don't have to be just boys or girls anymore as the social network introduces about fifty gender identity options that story and more at r.t. dot com. authours cs in the u.k. are scrambling to come up with a solution to prevent young britons from becoming radicalized and taking up arms in syria paula boyko looks now at the troubling story of one man who reportedly blew himself up in the war and torn city of aleppo. facts is sometimes stranger than fiction this is the street abdul wahid the first suspected british suicide bomber

in syria is alleged to have lived it's called. the forty one year old man that lived to spectate of carrying out a suicide bombing in a truck in the city of aleppo last week after joining the al qaida linked to al nusra front the father of three is said to have quit is day job six months ago and joined a convoy running aid into syria he was reportedly in contact with his wife and children up until last week if his identity is confirmed it will be the first known attack by a briton in syria according to the center for the study of radicalization in king's college in london hundreds of u.k. citizens have traveled to syria to fight with jihadi groups recent posts on social media suggest that some of the brits fighting that have been involved in b.c. and execution of fellow rebels while residents of mosses adding you come to terms

with the reported neighbor suicide attack security services in the u.k. are becoming increasingly concerned about the potential threats fighting in syria could return and stage attacks on u.k. soil. west sussex and the staunchest brits are citizens who have been heading to syria to take up arms recent studies suggest that hundreds of e.u. citizens from belgium france and germany have taken up arms and join their jihad this now governments are also now concerned about the threat that these radicalized wires i have one they actually return home with the threat that they pose the call to war is being heavily publicized by one group of british nationals fighting in syria there are spreading propaganda like this across social networks and media platforms threaten and terrorist attacks in britain and the us in public trance. boards and business censors the captions on these images urged people to join the

holy war and become martyrs for the cause or it's a spoke so rosemary davis who is a u.k. government spokeswoman in the middle east and she says the authorities are under no illusion about how dangerous these fighters are we are very concerned and. digests who are going from britain to syria to fight in the war. we are concerned also obviously if in fact. we do all the event and go into syria and we are constantly studying and we use in which we can prevent them discreetly from go in and we're also looking in what we can do but those that do decide to travel. russia other u.s. and other members of the u.n. security council are such a thrash out their differences on the draft's hacks to halt the violence and syria but even mediator lakhdar brahimi has warned that's hawks are close to collapse

russia's foreign minister says the west's one sided approach to the conflict is hold them back the peace efforts. should. we get the impression that when those who brought the opposition into the talks everyone to focus in fulfilling the geneva communiqué what they were really after was regime change the only thing that the syrian opposition want to talk about is establishing a transitional government only after that will they be willing to discuss the problem of terrorism as things stand most of those fighting against the government stream mist and terrorist groups. some more global headlines now hundreds of people have again protosevich against the rise in the price of public transport in rio de janeiro blocking the city center demonstrators say the nine percent hike in bus fares was unfair at a time when the cost of living is going up a brazilian camera man who was ahead by a flare while filming another process in the city

a week ago the start of his injuries. two people have died and more than seventy thousand have been forced to flee after a volcano on the indonesian island of java erupted the victims were at home when their roof collapsed under the weight of ash a thick layer also covered the nearest major cities. one hundred thirty kilometers away three major airports have been forced to close. in thailand and sea government protesters have clashed with police as they cleared camps of demonstrators from the streets of bangkok authorities managed to open some major roads that had been closed for three months protests are still occupy several areas of the capital as they call for the government to be replaced by an unelected people's council. now in a couple of minutes it's over to our t's washington studio for our financial show

looking up the controversial u.s. banking tactics they're about to be adopted in europe stay with us. transit route to vnukovo report your best way to the heart of moscow.

is the tan a group wants to erect a statue to the lord of darkness in oklahoma city which is the logical name capital of the whole of the sickness 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 on to the ten commandments on public property but does that mean that satanists and 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 in western 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 the new no 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 my opinion. is that so we. can see. that no one is asking with the guess that you deserve answers from. and there i'm aaron a this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up european banks are playing it fast and loose when

it comes to dodgy new capital requirements here in the u.s. i'll tell you all about it coming right up then we have political economist yanis varoufakis to live on today's show at least we hope so we're still working that out as what he thinks is next for the euro zone and in today's big deal ed harrison i take a look at what's going on in europe in a western country part of all that is you won't want to miss it and it all starts right now. for years now european banks have run operations on much capital requirements then there are american counterparts and with new u.s. financial regulatory rules set to kick in as early as next year european banks are now looking for ways to skirt the new laws banks including barclays in the u.k.

deutsche bank of germany and u.b.s. of switzerland are all allegedly considering tactics to shore up u.s. subsidiaries by buying the subsidiaries debt other banks are considering selling assets or moving firms into legal structures outside the purview of the us a k offshore now according to the wall street journal u.s. bank entities would quote issued their parent companies the type of bond that converts into equity if the u.s. business capital falls below a certain level some european regulators have allowed this type of convertible bond to count as capital although it is regarded as less helpful for absorbing losses than simple equity. and the european european parent companies would finance the purchases of these subsidiaries debt by issuing bonds to investors i mean why use your own principle when you're trying to skirt capital laws in the first place no why not just raise more debt save right anyway one thing is for sure those european

bankers they are afraid of some debt and they sure aren't afraid of some regulations for that matter either. now want to show we're discussing europe and our next guest and mike in the shed loft writes a widely read blog called misha is a global economic trends analysis in which she looks at all the important global macro issues facing society today including europe of course now i spoke to him earlier about europe and i noted that data coming out of europe seemed to indicate a recovery so i asked him is europe in a recovery here's what he had to say. in europe being a recovery you know just look at fred so it's the it's prince's the weak link you're by a long shot.