coming up on our t.v. four days ukraine has been caught in the grip of chaos lives have been lost while protesters and authorities clash now if peace deal has been reached between the government and opposition leaders but will it calm the storm of violence the latest on ukraine just ahead and in the u.s. some state politicians are pushing for a law to allow business owners to discriminate against the l g b t community even though such a bill from kansas was pulled out after an uproar arizona has now passed one of its own it more on that coming up. and the sochi olympic games are nearing the end of the competition team usa took on canada and men's hockey for a chance to play for gold glove an update from sochi later in the show.

it's friday february twenty first five pm in washington d.c. i'm back in lopez and you are watching r t america well let's begin this afternoon in ukraine it's a country that has commanded the attention from the mainstream media this week with images that look like scenes from world war two or the end of times but. these are the sights and sounds that have been broadcast around the world from ukraine for months protesters have occupied independence square and various government buildings to try to force president his hand but only in the past week has the world actually begun to pay attention people can't help but look because this is a first world country with deep rooted cultural culture and it appears to be collapsing in on it so. elf viewers around the world care at least temporarily anyway because

the images are absolutely captivating and they will continue to care until the next great crisis comes along anyway now that end of this crisis could be in the making as we speak a peace deal has been reached between the ukrainian government and opposition leaders that is expected to end the bloodshed it is a ray of hope after days upon days of darkness earlier i spoke with our to correspondent alexei euro chefs who was on the ground in ukraine and i first asked him to outline the terms of this new deal. well essentially this is the biggest concessions that the ruling party could have ever made to the opposition and not only because they agreed to hold the early election although the date has not yet been set. and even though they even agreed to return to the constitution of ukraine of two thousand and four which essentially gives more power to the parliament rather than the president something that's going to call which changed in twenty

ten when he was his second year in office he basically gave powers to himself now it's going back again to the parliamentarian republic here in ukraine but the probably the biggest concession and this is unimaginable to be completely honest with you i was shocked when i heard the news that the parliament ratified the lord decriminalizing the criminal of the articles of the criminal code of ukraine which landed. the former prime minister the lady the whole world knows pretty well in prison for seven years she's already spent two years in prison and she is definitely seen as the main ally as the main as the main enemy for unocal which politically has been so reluctant to let her go from prison and that he actually sec rafah is the trade agreement with the european union because the e.u. was demanding to lead some are saying could go only then they would sign the deal so this is a very big news for ukraine and in fact there is the word on the ground right now that ukraine may have released its future president from prison here let is

definitely the biggest concessions we've seen to date the last time let's talk about that a little bit more deal detail now yulia tymoshenko of course is the opposition leader she is a former prime minister can you tell us a little bit more about the decriminalization of the law and also what's the likelihood of president finally signing that deal into into actual law while that deal as far as we know has already been signed by both the opposition and the president and the opposition have in fact. managed to push through several laws inside the parliament which have could not have happened in any other circumstances rather than this violent people in the capital of ukraine talking about you because certainly she is the biggest political rival of vienna called which. instigated as many believe this case against her she got a seven year prison term for abuse of power when he said when she signed gas deals

with russia in two thousand and nine and she spent only two years in prison off a seven prison a seven year prison term now she may actually walk free and chances of winning the presidential election in two months and go walks free from prison and becomes the contender becomes the running candidate for the presidential election are very slim so essentially this is this looks like young digging his own hole i mean. already we have information that many deputies from the ruling party have defected to the opposition this this may make things even worse for you on a call which with tymoshenko called the joint of arc over orange revolution she used to be the prime minister she nearly won the presidential election against unocal which in two thousand and nine in two thousand and ten excuse me but definitely right now with all the anger with all the frustration of maybe it's against their power against the president to push and call me back maybe back with

far more power far more support than she used to have in twenty ten and alexei i can't help but notice that you are outside forces yesterday when you were in the hotel kind of bunker down a little bit more what you say bad things are finally starting to calm down as a result of this new deal between the ukrainian government and the opposition leaders how are they responding to it you know what would all very like to think that this is the story may be dying down the streets of kiev may return to peaceful life again but this is not the case it's hard. we may allege because literally just minutes ago one of the leaders of the right wing sect of the so-called right wing section which is the core of the protests the guys who are literally instigating all of fighting and all the front line have a king and he spoke from the stage over here at the right behind me and he said that he cared little about any laws about any concessions made by the government he

made only one straight to monitor that unocal which must resign by ten o'clock in the morning on saturday otherwise the right wing sect will attack with weapons they will try to storm governmental buildings and they will again be back to full attack mode so this as as this statement is creating some serious concerns i mean there's a sort of a panic spreading around many journalists in this hotel right now the same hotel which was fired at and we ourselves were fired at by sniper bullets at our live position journal many journalists here right now told me that they are actually considering to evacuate from here if things are starting to get really nasty and nobody can rule that out because we've been to that point before on wednesday night the opposition the president agree on a truce on a cease fire to work out of some kind of agreement on thursday morning the right wing sector shows that they care little about any kind of agreements they go into full attack mode almost a hundred people died as

a result of that attack so you can see for yourself it's still unstable it's still far from being a truce and we're still far from saying this is all over and we can go home now i understand that ukrainian lawmakers within the halls of parliament were also fighting and kind of duking it out so obviously they are fighting with among some selves and there is contention even within the parliament itself can you talk to that yes we seen some scuffles in the parliament during the day when they were discussing the laws i cannot tell you for sure what caused these scuffles but certainly tensions were running high but essentially on. these scuffles after the break which the parliament announced after that this information started flowing in that some of the deputies on the ruling party defected to the opposition maybe as a result of that's got to leave as a result of the violence and they didn't no longer want to see the violence in their country but essentially and at the end of the day they had a constitutional majority in parliament and more than three hundred votes in most

of the cases and most of the laws were given in an order in favor of these laws something unprecedented for. rather turbulent political life in ukraine inside the walls of ukrainian parliament but definite tensions were high both outside and inside the cranium parliament for the last several days so with this new deal box the beginning of the end in terms of these crazy and kind of scenes that we've see play out with line ammunition being used on both sides thank you so much for your reporting and please stay safe r.t. correspondent alexei euro cesky on the ground in ukraine now in the midst of all of this fighting and all this political disagreement for political interests are also at play in ukraine congressman dana rohrbacher slammed his colleagues this week for taking sides in that tour moyle he says no one knows for sure who started the violence in ukraine and he accused protesters of using quote brute force representative waronker is the chairman of the house foreign affairs panel on

europe and he joined me earlier to explain why the peaceful protesters are being portrayed as just that. well they are they are represent a large segment to me of the ukrainian population but we have to remember ukraine is a very divided country you have about half the country really wants closer relations with russia and the other half of the country wants closer relations the world the european tilt to their country these are two diametrically opposed the use these people feel very strongly about well these type of issues should be settled at the ballot box and i'm just wondering first of all what is this idea about having foreign countries have to sign off to an agreement between ukrainians themselves that that's kind of odd that this government that government signed off on the on the agreement this should be left up to the people and it should be settled out of

the streets but in the ballot by ballot even if they didn't like what their government was doing they should kick him out of the next election i'm just wondering that no matter who wins the next election whether this president remains now if you feel really strongly about it you're willing to really get out in the streets and risk losing your lives you could force any position onto the ukrainian government that would mean there'd be a lot of turmoil in the future and as you say we are seeing these diametrically opposing opinions playing out in the streets with this crazy violence that's going on now senators john mccain and chris murphy traveled to key of in december senator murphy said quote ukraine's future stands with europe and the u.s. stands with ukraine while senator mccain proclaimed quote america stands with you do you think that this kind of speech as appropriate. no i don't and i think that it's up to the ukrainian people to decide what is in their best interest and yes

the russians by the way were true what it is is those were the there's a lot of people in the republican party who are still treating russia as if it was the soviet union the cold war is over. decided that he would like to have and of course there's no reason why he shouldn't be representing the interests of russia he is the president of russia he offered the ukrainians a deal and if they wouldn't go towards the european direction well ok they have a right to accept or reject that their government as a writer accept or reject it without having us trying to say well if you accept any closer ties with russia that must mean you're a puppet and you're corrupt and your gangster well the united states that's really interfering locally with what ukrainians should be deciding for themselves and i understand that president obama actually called president vladimir putin today do you think that that call even should have taken place. well i don't know what he

was talking about. it would be nice of. mr putin and the united states were both dedicated to getting back to the democratic process and allowing elections to happen and allowing people who are elected to make the decisions for their country in this case i don't see a dichotomy i don't see mr putin opposing that and that should be our position as a as americans. that we believe in the democratic process so i just say you know mr putin is demonized by a lot of people here and there when he's overwatch you know for russia's interest we're acting as if this is the old cold war days and it was a communist overture to do something to dominate the world well putin has a right to watch out for the interests of the people there just as the way we do in the united states and just as the ukrainian government should be doing what you know for the interests of the people of ukraine so it all boils down to business essentially what you're saying now let's talk about this peace deal you say that if

ukraine wants to have peace then they should go to the ballot boxes and do it there now with this new deal they're saying they're calling for early elections for of in for presidential elections by december does this peace deal undermine the democratically elected government since a centrally it reverses the constitution and forces are early elections i mean what kind of a message doesn't send to protestors does it say that if they go to the streets and riot that they will get what they want. well they went to the streets they don't necessarily we don't know whether they went to the streets and rioted or not there's a lot of evidence to indicate that people were being shot that the authorities once they were in the streets started brutalizing them there is that evidence but also there's evidence that there are hotheads among the people who are demonstrating and they all weren't as peaceful as is the pro trade and victims as

they are being betrayed the most important thing now ever is the rule of law and yes human rights have to be protected people have a right to demonstrate and express their opposition to government policy but also we have the rule of law to think about that would want to government is elected it should be the that is the group of people who were elected to make decisions are the ones who should set the policy now what we've learned of ukraine now it looks like it you can have you really disagree with what the elected government is doing you should go to the streets and just raise holy hell until those policies are reversed or until there's some change made in the procedure well certainly that's not going to lead that's i could lead to peace in the ukraine in the future so certainly does lie on both sides and we don't really know right now who is insinuated this kind of chaos that we're seeing play out in the streets and we don't have too much time left but we've seen the last few years massive

demonstrations happen throughout the arab world recently in turkey and the crane we've seen the play on the european union with austerity riots we've even seen them here in the u.s. with the occupy movement what's the appropriate response from governments to movements that happen like this and are taken out to the streets. well the important thing is that all people in these countries whether it's the united states or or elsewhere these people have a right to demonstrate they don't have a right to blockade straight sort of occupied territory but they have a right to protest and and express themselves and their opposition to government policies as as aggressively as they can without stepping on the rights of others and. you know in the united states if you have an occupy movement there with a wrong with that as they were occupying territory and sitting down and saying oh we control is now well as long as people arm are just in parks and and having

protests meetings of things like that without actually taking possession of a given part of town people's those rights need to be protected but at the same time elected government. that that principle that the elected people see you can be a very small minority and get hundreds of thousands of people out so the food the right of the majority to elect its government set policies shouldn't be stepped on either congressman dana rohrabacher from california thank you so much for joining me i hope you come back again. to sochi now or at least are entering the final weekend of competition before the closing ceremony on sunday let's take a look at the leaderboard the u.s. leaves the medal count with twenty seven russia is just one behind with twenty six medals followed by canada norway the netherlands and germany now the talk of the town today is all about the semifinals for men's i talkie the u.s. took on canada hoping to have a better outcome than the u.s. women's hockey team i was trying to earlier by our team is that richard on port

played on the ground in sochi he felt dissent on the latest with the u.s. canada men's hockey match. for sure was a double disappointment really for the united states against canada or over the last two days canada losing a bitter rivals from north america ones or nothing in the men's semifinal that came hot on the heels of losing. and with it losing to canada's women free to two in overtime second time obviously. the united states has lost a candidate in the women's section after losing of course in vancouver in two thousand and the same for the men as well very of course lost in vancouver as well to sidney crosby goalie in overtime giving the katie famous victory four years ago another forty for the americans we had a much vaunted all friends coming into this time with the canadians twenty goals in four games but unfortunately just couldn't solve the canadian mind carey price of

a material canadians stop thirty one shots for a shot. the america's just weren't able to generate the orphans and they have managed to in the previous four matches and one goal was good enough for canada in the end scored by jamie benn of the dallas stars as he deflated the shot past quick to give canada the all important victories of united states i'll play off against finland for runs medal while canada move to a fine oh well they'll play sweden who want gold. two thousand and six and is there another better loss for the u.s. i now live just being a hockey fan myself but what other events here were handed out today and what which medals are were actually given out or as a great success for united states within slalom. shifrin one gold second goal for america now point skiing so far but shifrin only eighteen years of all age should have a field in

a way to really claim gold medal for the united states also the us claimed a silver in the men's five thousand meter short track relay losing out to eventual winners russia and it was really was a great. day for the russians in the short trying speedskating led by a big surround the south korean who turned to compete for russia two years ago. going on to win the five hundred meters to claim yet another gold medal for his adopted country and in just a little about half hour later russia hold off the united states to claim gold in five thousand meters relay and also for ukraine well obviously the country's been. in the midst of a political crisis which has really affected some of the athletes have decided to turn home but once it did stay they managed to claim their first gold all of these sorts here lympics in the women's biathlon four by six relay now we saw our really

impressive opening ceremony any hints about what the closing ceremony will look like. obviously closing ceremonies being come down kept under wraps very secretive nothing's been given away about what i actually might happen but i do have one piece of information julie chu the women's ice hockey player. who's just completed four for lympics she will be carrying the flag for the united states the closing ceremony while she has a degree from harvard and so. it was a very well educated. but a voice as she was unable to go gold medals impressive career which will end with three silver medals braun's r.t. as richard von porte fleet then sochi russia thank you so much well this week the arizona state legislature passed a bill that would allow people to assert their religious beliefs in the community and to refuse service to the gay community now arizona is just one of several

states that are pushing for such a legislation which opponents say it legalizes discrimination the firestorm over anti-gay laws erupted after the kansas house of representatives passed such a bill last week artie's ramon galindo reports from topeka kansas. angelic music echoes inside the spectacular dome and elegant chambers of the kansas state capitol beyond the serene appearances this is also home to appears to bait between supporters of same sex marriage and their opponents religious liberty is alive and well in kansas and we believe that religion should be used to discriminate in kansas same sex marriages banned the national spotlight shining bright on the state after the kansas house of representatives approved a bill that would have allowed anyone to refuse to do business with same sex couples by citing religious beliefs it's unfortunate because the language of the bill is so loose that it really is a license to discriminate large crowds protested the religious freedom bill and

topeka in lawmakers eventually said they would let the legislation die in the senate i contacted several supporters of the religious freedom act but they chose not to speak to us on camera those who i was able to speak to over the phone so that the controversy was likely stirred up by a misinterpretation of their measure while it may have died for the time being here in kansas. activists fear that it could once again pop up here in another state houses conservative advocates feel that religious freedom protections are needed for people of faith who are trying to make a living by their just trying to believe that cultural changes are hurting christians in the us and putting them at legal risk the message is clear if you're a christian and you're a person maintains what has been maintained by every religion in the history of mankind that same sex all erotic activity is not good for a given person and it's bad you can't work in america this is the message of the gay lobby we need to protect these people and for that reason states like kansas

are writing bills like this and i hope a lot more will be written father just may have his wish within the last few weeks at least nine other states have introduced legislation that is similar to the kansas bill the measures have stalled in several legislatures with. the arizona legislature passed its own religious freedom act now it's up to the governor to decide if it will become law the constitution that protects people's religion but there's no such truth documentary anything for sexual orientation so they're trying to protect the most protected class in our country as conservative activists push back against the legalization of gay marriage the fight will continue over who's freedoms the government will ultimately protect. kids is in the party all right well if you are around the dinner table right now we're chatting down on a late afternoon snack fair warning you should probably put down the food that you're eating for a few minutes to get ready for this next story remember a few months back when kentucky farmers killed off a bunch of baby pigs because they were sick with the poor thing epidemic diarrhea

virus well a recent undercover exposé by the human humane society shows that farmers are taking a disturbing approach to thwarting the disease that liz wahl brings us this gut wrenching story. pigs crammed into cages that barely fit their bodies great spilled with dead piglets that mothers and other adults want. sound cites from an undercover investigation conducted by the humane society and what they did is they ground up those pigs. to the breeding cells the graphic video captures what happened that iron maiden hog farm in omens borough kentucky the humane society found more than nine hundred piglets died in two days these factory farms are interviewers for disease experts say the feeding of baby pigs and their feces to mothers is for the animal's own good lives wag strum is the chief

veterinarian for the national pork producers council the process of controlled exposure making sure that all of the pigs in the barn the the mother pigs get exposed at the same time is a way we use to protect the unborn piglets in the new piglets who come along the poor sign epidemic diarrhea virus has infected thousands of pigs in several states throughout the u.s. health experts say it's not harmful to humans but deadly to baby pigs a piglet smoothie sounds a grizzly but wagner says it's the only way it's not an appetizing picture it's very safe and it's what we have to do to protect the baby piglets because there is no other way to immunize or vaccinate that's in response to allegations of abuse after the video release the kentucky livestock coalition says quote our animals are our livelihood and the health and well being of livestock is priority number one

for farmers we won't stand for defaming a producer trying to save his herd during a crisis but animal rights advocates say industrial farms are a breeding ground for disease and criticize the widespread practice of use. gestation crates the cages barely larger than the animal's body sometimes the sides of the able to coming out the side of the cage and they're in the stage for three years so they're immobilized for their entire life i mean to be like you know we were jammed it will cause a could never get out a stark contrast to smaller and more traditional farms like this one we visited in the michigan heartland when they're outside like this they're in their environment you see the tails growing back and forth businesses like whole foods pride themselves in avoiding meat products brave on industrial pig farms now dozens of other companies say they plan on doing the same and stop selling pork products

raised in these controversial gestation period and the last twenty months we've been sixty major american food retailers from mcdonald's to costco to cracker barrel that have said hey we have a problem with this we want you to give us poor that doesn't come from operations that can find themselves in this way but with an estimated ninety five percent of pork coming from industrial pig operations it's unclear if or when free range pig farms will be the norm in washington liz wall r t. well if you've ever been to california before it can tend to feel like a world of its own even within the states you can feel how different a city like san francisco is from say los angeles well one venture capitalist wants to make those differences more pronounced by splitting up the golden state and to not two but six individual states tim draper works in silicon valley and he says california is so big and so inefficient that it is practically ungovernable his new

ballot initiative recommends dividing california regionally to fix that this is what the new california would look like as you can see there would be a state called silicon valley los angeles would become part of west california and san diego would be in south california now there are quite obviously a number of issues with this proposal like federal representation for instance or combat in poverty in the poor regions of california and what would become of the california state water project well there's another problem where in the heck are we going to put extra stars on the american flag and since we would be adding five new stars anyway while we're at it why not tack on a few more let's so on some more for puerto rico while american samoa and the district of columbia needless to say it could be a slippery slope if california decides to divide along more than its fault lines

and that's going to do it for now from one of the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america. chaos on the streets of kiev after a short truce rioters are again wrecking towns in the so-called opposition appears to have no interest in a legally elected government force is being met with force where ukraine goes from here is anyone's guess. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here.