transit routes. you'll best way to the heart of mosco. ukraine's president condemning what he calls a coup in defies calls to step down he's now in the east of the country where local authorities say they are taking control of their regions. in kiev the opposition now dominated parliament rules that former prime minister to go must be freed from jail as police reportedly joined the uprising. european mediators that helped broker a crisis deal for ukraine say the opposition has failed to comply with its terms and russia is urging the e.u. to rein in the radical. seven pm in moscow i match reza bring you today's breaking news coverage here on

r.t. international ukraine's president says there's been a coup in his country opposition activists in full control of the ukrainian capital kiev now and the new interior minister says police are now on their side the presidential residence stands virtually abandoned after the head of state himself fled the city or he's alexei or a chef skiis live for us in kiev with all the latest alexei. yes indeed despite that what seems to be a true political may have the mayhem in the streets of the riots changed the political situation right now with obviously old the governmental buildings in kiev now ok applied by the opposition including the administration of the president the parliament the government all that most of the ministries including the ministry of defense the ministry of the syria the country's president is still defiant he's playing hardball he just published his interview where he described the situation as a coup he described the people running. the unrest in the country as terrorists and

bandits and he said he will not step down from his post he also went on to say that his car was shot at on friday night before he was heading to the east of the country he will now conduct something over tour across the southeastern parts of the country where he says it is still safe for him and he will talk to his electorate now this comes amid the news that the ukrainian parliament has ratified a law which would set the former prime minister yulia timoshenko the rival. from prison although we do still know that she is kept in the heart of the city. unfortunately we've lost our signal with alexei ski there giving us that update from kiev the president on a covert you now reportedly in the eastern ukrainian city of harkov where local officials loyal to him have gathered they have now declared that they are taking control of their respective regions bypassing rulings from the capital or he's mary

if an ocean has more. resolution that the representatives of the your sources over the eastern and southeastern ukraine adopted here today after their emergency meeting here in the city of halakhah says that since today they no longer obey the central source is that they think are paralyzed local sources will be in charge of all political decisions here this resolution also says that the raw huge doubts that all a recent decisions and laws approved by the country's parliament are constitutional and deliberate this resolution in fact means a huge split of power here in the country and of course that this will add to the division that we already see not only in ukraine but even here in the eastern part of the country we are in hardcover now and it's known as the capital of the eastern ukraine that traditionally supports the president viktor you know called richard we

see that today population here is divided from one hand they are afraid that opposition including right wing didn't do all those radical elements so it can come here from kiev it's from another hand both politicians and ordinary people here on the ground are not totally happy with what victor new college is doing as a president and particularly the early paul deal the victor in a quote which signed with the opposition the rather those who support the local authorities and even the president but also the wrath of those who call themselves opposition and they say that they don't want to live in the country ruled by unocal of h. and his people. all right we've reestablished our link with alexei now so alexei tell us again what you were referring to about yulia timoshenko and her potential freedom from a prison hospital and. yes we do know that the ukrainian parliament

ratified a law which would set the outcry of all of president of the former prime minister from prison but we do know that she's still in a prison hospital in the city of haifa which is now under the control of the police but that's also a contradiction here because the climate has officially appointed a new interior minister recount of the country one of the figureheads of the protest movement here at the my done and he already stated that the police is now on the side of the opposition and of the people the army the armed forces of ukraine are still pretty much suggesting that they are neutral they're not on anybody's side they have the console the commander in chief said that he has the control over these servicemen everywhere across the country so they're not joining any part of this conflict at the moment meanwhile in the streets of kiev it's certainly a very unclear where this is all going because there is simply no control in the capital city all the government buildings are now under control of the protesters

some bizarre pictures coming in from the residence of victory on the couch where people are literally playing golf all these grounds throwing these documents into the water and taking pictures into their instagram so definitely it's hard to say where the situation is going but for now the president is defined he will not be resigning whether this will if you are the people here to my down even more will of course we'll have to wait and see all right thank you very much for that update artie's like sarah shahi life for us in kiev ukraine so areas that are now saying they'll govern themselves are key to ukraine's economy southern and eastern ukraine comprising ten regions it's home to just over half the country's populous twenty three out of forty five million the territory including large areas of fertile land with enormous agriculture cultural potential and also the country's industrial heartland with most of the mines and factories and there's also ukraine's port situated there in odessa and ukraine and crimea. france germany and poland meanwhile have admitted that ukrainian opposition has failed to comply with

the deal they helped broker with the government and russian foreign minister sergei lavrov says the president's opponents have been used as puppets by extremists to pose a direct threat to ukraine's sovereignty he called on the e.u. to force the opposition which has been supporting up till now to take control over the radicals on the streets marks lota senior lecturer in international relations at moscow state university thinks the crowd is playing by its own rules. agreement that was agreed to on friday between the. so cozy leaders of the opposition who actually have no control over what my don mobs are doing at this point who is actually in control on the ground there has been the deal agreed to has been broken and the congress in hard calls has declared that any decisions taken by this parliament now have been

taken without the purchase of patient of the majority of the courty of regions and communist delegates and that any of its decisions are invalid because they have been made under threats of violence and deaths by the mobs that were literally sieging the parliament and are now in physical control of it but it will analyst new green specialist bruno jet ski says ukraine is veering toward a power vacuum. i think that do you call which companies zoom more and more divided and i think that. made quite a lot of errors so it's not sure he will be. still the leader of the let's say and t. and t. my down the come there are too many leaders in the opposition and timoshenko will be one no one more so i don't really. see how do you position can be still united especially god we observe very strong differences between the you know the my didn't. and people and do leaders of the opposition so i think that

in the next two weeks we will see maybe strong differences between insight you. are following the situation in ukraine on air and online we have crews in kiev and in harkov in eastern your memory you can check out their updates on our twitter feed for the latest. turning to some of the day's other top news the mood significantly brighter on the soaps of slow cheap the slopes of sochi were a snowboarder vic wild has handed russia a second gold medal giving an unforgettable performance for the fans archy's paul scott has more from the olympic city. little while he's become the first snowboarder to win two gold medals in

a single olympic games he narrowly claimed russia's tenth gold here in sochi in the parallel slalom adding to the gold he'd already won in the giants' parallel slalom while these u.s. born became a russian citizen in two thousand and eleven after marrying his russian girlfriend who incidentally has a bronze medal to her name here in sochi let's see how all of that affects the very latest medals table and you can see that russia are now up to second place just behind norway they have ten gold medals to their name that total of twenty seven medals in all is a record in the country's modern history it's kind of the in the usa to complete the top for another person to be granted russian citizenship victor and he's now won three gold medals in short track speed skating here in sochi on friday he won the five hundred meters before helping russia to gold in the relay and the atmosphere in the iceberg skating palace which you can probably just make out behind me was electric an unofficial olympic record was set with the home fans reaching well over one hundred decibels but they weren't the only ones who may have

had something to shout about you can explains comedian jimmy kimmel knew that the u.s. media would take the bait when he conspired with keith henson from the u.s. lose team and posted a video of a wolf supposedly wandering the hallways of her dorm in sochi but even the comedian could not imagine the scale of the media. followed the seventeen second clip shows a large canine as we walked past a room wolf in the hallway and i'm not talking blitzer to shooting out from the door outside the olympic village i'm glad you're not in this hallway since got it out of there there's a stray dog problem maybe they also have a stray wolf problem you've heard of the wolf of wall street how about the wall of the olympic village and well. that's not the way from wall street to the movie thing you know not just. here it's is unbelievable. because it chills people that's a wolf well it was a wolf except not in sochi but in a b.b.c.

studio in los angeles in a specially constructed for the replica of the athletes' dorm hallway in sochi turns out there is no wealth of sochi we were all duped but that's not the point this fit with the whole the whole paradigm they have created about oh russia is so scary it's so crazy it's pandemonium people running around their heads on fire and so this fit in there and so they loved it they gave it up and it shows how there is a very small thought paradigm that's allowed on most of our media and the things that paradigm or perfect you know and thank you rugby you did a great job ok i'd love to do this again would you consider bringing a live bear to the closing ceremonies. yeah let me see what i can find this kind of a lot of force going on here but it might have as well be known bare the media would still bite jimmy kimmel's prank like nothing else has called out the us media on their obsession with finding faults with the sochi olympics.

in washington i'm going to shut down. in just over twenty four hours the closing ceremony will take place in the fish stadium that you can see behind me more than forty thousand friends will be inside the twenty second the room for them. and martin hundred has visited a number of farms houses here in sochi to see how they're gearing up for the final week. fan houses play an important role in the olympics they get the fans to get of especial meeting points and a social venue is there a taste of home away from home for many it's also an opportunity to buy merchandise celebrate and meet their sporting heroes outside the park the alpine themed austrian house is located at the mounting cluster of crossfire pollyana the wooden structure is partly open to all visitors for a small fee closer to the black sea coast holland heineken house is open for all

that is at ten euros a ticket it has always been one of the top party spots at the olympic games with fans athletes and sponsors getting together for raucous celebrations night after night as one of the best known hospitality venues outside the park this will be its twelfth year of operation having made its debut in barcelona in one thousand nine hundred two where the olympics were wrong and then we really don't know that the emotions of the olympics is so huge and that's one in sydney for the first hour we open it up for fans as well since it's a tradition located next to the iceberg stadium this is swiss house hub of excitement and activity it is one of the few national guest sentence that is free and open to the public for the very first time switzerland has designed they constructed the building from scratch highlighting typical elements of the country and fancy visits field they all members of the swiss and unpick team. they've got

it they've got beer and they've got something shockingly any good it's perfect yeah absolutely right even. at the chic and stylish area for the usa only invited guests and u.s. passport holders can enter meet fellow minded sports lovers and come face to face with in the pic champions fancy and olympic themes jacket for team usa store is the only place you can buy their official branded products in sochi a shot at the moment the space will be used for different purposes in coming years very nice now the usa house is a temporary structure that will be taken down and used for different events customized to different groups and sizes i came to sochi from austria after the games is finished to be used as a hospitality space in russia and various european skiing about.

hockey can be a seem to go well together kind of the house unfortunately it's also only for canadian nationals fancy a beer can try your passport access cold beverages from the fridge grab a drink raise a glass to the champions and feel part of a winning team when it comes to socializing and partying in the various plan houses of the winter olympics gold medals or martin andrews artie saatchi. thirteen twenty fourteen plus the. exhilarating winter ninety eight here join me in it's an hour and make the rest of our local news team for sochi twenty four take. on r.t. . back to our top story now more on the situation in ukraine with security analyst charles sure bridge who spent time in the country watching the political developments there thank you for joining us here on so the person we just heard

speaking we heard earlier from an activist an organization let's listen to this short sound bite from one of those radical leaders. as long as i live and fights against combs and russians come now that is an activist from the right sector an organization that will be incorporated with the police according to one of the opposition leaders as a former police officer do you think that someone you'd want joining the ranks of law enforcement. i think your question is rhetorical because it's really clear that these kind of people who are advocating if you like the street violence even yesterday. deep inside one b.b.c. broadcast was an activist being interviewed he said that they didn't want for example in the coverage to be tried or anything like this they just wanted him killed and this seemed to come of some shock to a media which really it's notable to point out that for weeks and media in the west

certainly you can the u.s. is back to and reservedly these protests that have been taking place and it's really only the in the last twenty four hours or so that as the situation in ukraine has predictably started to unravel that the media here and even government figures have started to question the makeup of at least some of these protesters including the fact that as we've seen on our own television screens unavoidably over the last forty eight hours and longer that many of them are heavily armed it's also clear that that i think we can see from the rapid scale of what might be called defections amongst police the neutrality shall we say of the armed services . or at least the reluctance of the armed services to intervene in what is after all a public order security situation within ukraine can be seen if you like almost as a mutiny and it may well be that there has been activism perhaps from the far right because it's notable let's have a border of the far right party that is quite well represented on the street so

also was a party to disagreements of the twenty first of february to chart a political way forward for ukraine so at least nominally civil but it has signed up to disagreement and yet it's also clear that. there may have been some form of negotiations some sort of activism going on behind the scenes with links with various political groups to the armed forces and perhaps even within the police itself certainly in the west of ukraine that wouldn't be a surprise why do you think that opposition leaders mainstream opposition leaders haven't been able to rein in the more extremist factions that are out on the streets. simply because they are not aligned politically and never have been i think it's fair to say that at certain points the majority of the demonstrators certainly an early stage. representing a very wide spectrum of society and one must remember what the protests were about these protests were not as they have been built in the west about democracy these

protests were initially about russia rather about the ukraine deciding not at least in the immediate future travel trying to satiate in with the e.u. they were then protests about corruption and now of course issues of corruption within ukraine as now in many countries and then there were there was upset about the degree to which the two thousand and four constitution has been subverted all of these were issues and are issues that are widely shared amongst many ukrainians protecting those western shall we say more pro european and legions but really also at the same time there has been a very hard core of these protesters and these have been visible on our television screens despite what the commentary has been saying people who actually. for right or wrong reject in many ways the democratic agenda in any case and also of course it should be remembered that much of the right wing is quite quite well represented within ukraine even within a democratic process and so it's not clear at all that the people of valve that

have rejected after all the four main political parties democratically elected within ukraine in the last parliamentary elections all of these four parties were represented in the agreement of yesterday charting a political roadmap forward for ukraine including a kind of a kind of image but that has now been rejected by those on the streets and of course those on the street are now largely being supported by the army and the police and of course that brings into question the terminology that should be applied to is this a coup is this a revolution certainly doesn't appear democratic at this stage right charles shubert thank you for your time. well more news coming up after this short break stay with us are. you know there's a new game in town it's called the hunger games housing games

plus. equals gains. user on my website name perry calling the phrase it was david cameron who invented the brutal game in which there are no housing games with hunger games. we speak your language. news programs and documentaries in spanish matters to you. a little too much of angles keep these stories. in the spanish. visit.

u.k. trade unions coming up hard against the government as they organize new strikes in the state claim for workers' rights in tough financial times or his tests are silly reports from london. below the surface there's a burning anger out of frustration that fury has led to a storm of government criticism take the recent flooding for instance unions say downing street scott smith lower budgets for flood maintenance and staff unions haven't been able to do much and have a good job axe was wielded but once in a while they score a point where two workers go on strike london grinds to a halt quite literally for two days in february that's exactly what happened at trade unions with the talk of the town for them it was a fight for hundreds of jobs but business leaders said the strike cost london

economy two hundred million pounds prime minister david cameron branded the walkout as shameful what's shameful is these vicious attacks on ordinary people the poorest in society they want to beat wages so their friends can make bigger profits trade union members have gathered here in what they say is a show over systems to governments continued a steady or unions have seen their numbers grow for the first time in a decade reaching six point five million dollars in two thousand and twelve in the one nine hundred eighty s. margaret thatcher's government went head to head with unions introducing legislation that is such a lee made it more difficult to carry out strike action and not much has changed since then the one of the first actions they took when they came to office back in two thousand was to change the rules on eligibility to trade. previously you had to be working for your current employer for just twelve months

for a change that two years the company is keen to undermine workers' rights this is beg to differ story clearly very few news it pretty much held the british governments around simple things like increasing the minimum wage and introduce him a living wage to actually increase unemployment or make it more difficult for employers to take on new people the second plan to block out of the month was called off at the last minute after concessions were made and talks resume of god. the score for the unions in this time recorded as more cuts new work was planned and that next round could be just right around the corner. dozen or so you are monday. boom bust coming up on our team or national or going underground next if you watch from the u.k. stay with us.

recently swiss voters nearly passed a referendum to put a strict quota back on immigration switzerland is a relatively small country and some estimate that almost a quarter of the population is made up of immigrants from e.u. countries that is a lot of people and the swiss are worried that the increased foreigners will also mean increased crime rent prices burd the state and erode traditional local culture as modern immigration almost always does the swiss population's democratic choice to restrict immigration is next with being blasted by the e.u. brass what threats to cancel bilateral agreements how dare you have a different version of democracy than we in the have switzerland how dare you i don't think this event will have much effect on the e.u. bureaucratic machine nothing could make them change their hyper liberal minds but i think the swiss immigration referendum will have a huge effect on local populations of countries like germany and the u.k. which are seeing horrible effects of open borders and growing anti e.u. sentiment as i speak i don't like to make predictions by i think a lot of disenfranchised people across the e.u. are going to become quite jealous of the swiss move and demand the same type of

changes at home but that's just my opinion. on the money with the business of russia. over there i'm aaron a this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. happy friday first and foremost now first up we will look at money laundering and the age of crypto currencies and how the laws have clearly not yet caught up with the alleged crimes. then we have absalom work president and

c.e.o. of merck investments on today's show he's talking all things master economics you won't want to miss my interview with him finally in today's big deal i'm joined by i don't want the only of ms abigail martin the breaking the set her sit down with want to discuss the disturbing trend is actually pretty sad in banker suicides as we get serious there for a second it's rocking the financial world and we're taking a closer look at it you won't want to miss a moment and it all starts right now. with . our lead story today money laundering more specifically money laundering in the age of bitcoin now many would argue that hiding or failing to report where money comes

from is in and of itself a victimless crime yes yes yes yes h.s.b.c. helped to fund tens of thousands of murders and launder money for al qaeda and hezbollah which is unanimously considered a bad thing no one is debating that especially not me however when the hong kong shanghai banking corporation was found guilty in two thousand and twelve over the long billions not millions billions for these terrorist organizations no one spent time in jail in fact no arrests were of were even made what ended up happening. was that h.s.b.c. was paid in fines that's all they had to do to pay a fine of one point nine billion dollars and the bank managed to still turn a profit of thirteen point five billion that year alone so they've turned out ok yet charlie shrem c.e.o. of big instant was arrested by federal authorities last week for allegedly laundering more than one million dollars worth of bitcoin and today he's sitting in jail story so why the vast discrepancies when it comes to those accused of money

laundering to put it simply money now the d.o.j. pretty much said listen it's just b.c. it's just too big to jail and during the h.s.b.c. settlement announcement attorney assistant attorney general rather lanny breuer he said this now quote how the us authorities decided to press criminal charges h.s.b.c. would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the us and the entire banking system would have been destabilized however destabilizing the fastest growing unregulated crypto currency in the world now that sounded like a good plan for the justice department they were all game for that now kathy reason wittes recently published an article on this very subject in which she wrote quote money laundering is simply the process of concealing sources of money while the standard image of money laundering involves murders mexican narco gangs and al-qaeda in reality very many reasons that normal people would want to keep their transactions anonymous if your mom.