the day's top news and a roundup of the week's headlines here on r.t. it's a big day for the big games twenty fourteen braces for the closing ceremony there's still plenty of drama left at the top of the medal table we'll be bringing you all the highlights in just a minute. torch then transformed the deadly battles in kiev leads to the worst political crisis ukraine has seen with the opposition taking control of parliament and moves the president calls and who also fingerprints all over the current chaos. is stifling. and so russian rhetoric takes center stage in the western conference of events in ukraine despite the fact that the e.u. and the you once politicians who were the most frequent visitors to kiev during the

protests. and r.t. investigates the reasons behind the number of suicides among senior bankers to find out what could have pushed them to the edge. here watch an artsy international with me call survivor welcome to the program well it's sunday and the final day of the software winter olympics and russia the home team have excelled now topping the leader table while there is still room for an op said the medals are still up for grabs so with that all to play for between russia and norway let's go to andrew farmer who's in the mountain cluster and saw two for us hi there andrew well we're open source tablets connection will be with us in just a second andrew. if you can hear me from the moscow studio it's

a big day for. you i can just he ok well we're just talking how it's the final there is little battles out russia yeah to use his best performance at the winter olympics in twenty years that means it goes into the final day on top of the medals type of the big question is can they stay there and the answer is yes they can if their men come when this morning's cross-country skiing however is norway wins it day with. table but russia would have one more chance and that would be in the form. xander zuckoff and his team currently lead with just she runs to go and nobody would ever imagine it would end with such excitement not even the russians. now andrew winning is not everything of course it would be nice for russia to come out on top but it's all about the africa right. well i'm going to say they would be delighted with how things have gone would be an understatement

because you have to remember just four years ago russia produced his first ever performance winter olympics in vancouver then it came away with a poultry three gold medals this time around they've more than tripled it and they managed to achieve it through a massive shake up that was a purge of sporting personnel new coaches were brought in and huge amounts of money spent on new sporting facilities and they really have reaped the benefits but whatever happens today these games i have been record breaking from start to finish . the longest. igniting the most expensive the most compact and one of the most watched winter olympics in . the game stunning backdrops gripping stories of heartbreak and joy on a daily basis russia's red machine taking seconds to light up a nation's. but then deflating it days later with

a quarter final exit. rushing to take a skate is left the world dizzy with a veteran and a youngster helping them grab the seventeen goals but hopes of move glory buckled under a bad back in media hype heaped on tiny shoulders only for another star to sparkle and shine and take her country in fans to new a limp a car it's the ups and downs came thick and fast. and so did new russians and american he married a siberian sped to snowboarding gold for the hosts while a science korean slipped to glory in short track repaying the faith this new adoptive country. these just some of the amazing hollywood like stories sochi is pretty sticky millions change in world wide and should be remembered long after the limbic flame finally goes out over the black sea.

country fama. sochi. and the water journey at has been and we've of course been covering that from day one and all call minutes tonight an artsy will be there of course while the winter games have been a full of unexpected victories and surprising disappointments and you get a chance to tell us what were the most memorable for you you can go to our team's facebook page suppose your ideas and remember fails and stuff like moments all parts of history as well and as i said you can share your opinion on twitter as well all you have to do is find the hash tag my salty moments and the best will be right out there in our special coverage of the closing day of the gangs. the g. twenty four team promises the ultimate in the exhilarating winter. journey and you see now i'm a criminal and on the bus about look east to the sochi twenty four take. on.

we'll move on to other news now it's been the most turbulent week ukraine has seen in its modern history in less than seven days the capital of this eastern european country has gone through fire smoke and deadly clashes and scenes resembling a medieval battlefield then the police with a group here fell into the hands of riots or as in the opposition practically took over power an artsy crew has been right at the epicenter throughout including i would say at a show of ski who recap said all for us now. hold here with breaking news in kiev on tuesday or trickle of rumors but seem really reached all of the sort of the great spirit of the response to the worst violence of its sort for almost two hundred. one of europe's finest cities looking like a war zone and snipers shooting from the rooftops including our group what we have now is that we have a radical elements that we have ready. there which

is somehow here and that driven by especially as we see using snipers and so on and which is not controlled neither by the opposition either by the west directly so everything went out of control just two days later it was a totally different scene to the president make the biggest concessions yet by offering an early election to an opposition led government and a return to parliamentary republic there were i think or of the protests did not buy it. if the president does not resign by turning. i swear. by ten o'clock on saturday they were is nothing left to storm all the police were gone and the ruling party had completely lost control over the capital so this is the presidential administration building which used to be the probably the most protected governmental building in the whole of here of the biggest fight in the first stages of the protest happened here now as you can see

we are taking on an excursion that is no longer controlled by the police or the government the protesters have occupied this building as well this means that will never be back here as opposed to the president made a hasty retreat to the east of ukraine and was stoutly defiant even after receiving news that parliament had ceased to recognize him as leader by an overwhelming majority and announced an early election. all that is happening now is the most part is vandalism and crimes this is my strong belief that i will do everything takes to prevent my country from splitting up to stop the bloodshed it went from bad to worse we have a court which with parliament leading historic or i will unity machine go from prison sparking jubilation on independence square. yeah we know she dreamt of seeing you use of force to change everything you're hearing here is the best of this country while protesters are in high spirits gear the sound of the country are

simply different it's leaders of the governments and constitutional power elites all over the world and break up in the country. before people in ukraine and exactly where the south east of ukraine stands in the face of what's already been dubbed a coup artie's maria for notion that has been gauging the move there. a nation turning to russia for music starting today local authorities are in charge of all political decisions on the ground in these regions we have to protect our land should the sewers use of ukraine's eastern and southern regions gathers and how to go for an emergency session and decided that they no longer take orders from kiev while in the capital column and declare that these people must be brought to justice as separatists we think that the central authorities are paranoid and that their decisions cannot be considered constitutional what happened in kiev left

a local population base divided and dissolution and many fear that radicals from the capital could bring violence in their wake but others condemned the president's agreement with the opposition colonnade surrender. i'm shocked and disgusted by the actions of the president i never thought he'd ever betray the ukrainian people i thought that he'd hold on to the end of the opposition views which are in the minority here some surprisingly similar but we are fed up with our government we no longer consider young ecovillage to be our president the party of regions are a bunch of thieves after deadly clashes in the key of things are heating up here too the man is quickly surrounded by those who don't share his opinion or basis back that he came here from the capitals might have done rallies and wants to bring violence with him if a man tries to assure everyone that hillary's one hundred. size or stinging for their opinion today is really in the center of heart of brought together both

supporters of those forces and the opposition and was quite place hole but here which recently became a symbol of chaos for many ukrainians and a source of great fear is less than five hundred kilometers away and no one can guarantee that its mood of an icky will not spread here written off not seen from heiko in eastern ukraine. well let's take a these held look at which parts of ukraine is opposing a change of leadership in the capital now we have a sounder and eastern ukraine as you're about to see here they're made up of ten regions it's home to just over half the country's population over its once a three million out of forty five million the territory includes a huge areas of fertile land with enormous agricultural potential it's also the country's industrial heartland with most of its mines and factories located there and of course all of the country seaports are situated there too in the odessa

region and then you have the crimea region here now the ukrainian opposition pushing the country's leadership into serious concessions and practically grabbing power does not mean an end to the turmoil that's the view of a modern history expert mark almond who told us earlier in the week about infighting within the protestors ranks is a likely scenario if out of the picture. growing it's a new free will they can ride this tiger to power certainly i hope think they've tried to use it to some sort of western backers have to every time the article which is made concessions far from calming the situation that is probably due to a revival of violence and i think what we're seeing is not have been trying to force a change of regime the problem is that it's taken longer than perhaps the opposition hoped for and at the same time this is imposed and imposed by the radical right wing paramilitary groups and so we have to offer ourselves whether even if president in a coup which was to step down this rush would lead to

a peaceful solution would we not then see infighting amongst the opposition we saw this after all in similar circumstances in georgia twenty years ago when there was a kind of push like this took place and it took for five years for the political situation settle for the eight years later to some other similar so-called people probably rather five or top people. many experts have been the highlights in the roles the e.u. and they'd u.s. have played in ukraine but for most western media it's been the russian president's hand that's been there all along blaming russia for all the bad things happen in ukraine has become the main theme of mainstream coverage that's despite the fact that the prize than distance himself from the situation from the onset our season to see a trick in the explains. the blame game the western means to media play and repeat as if hell bent finger prints all over the current chaos and the. deadly appetite government clashes in kiev have turned into yet another reason to obsess

over who else russia or coverage of ukraine fits a larger picture of the american media having cold war attitudes about russia he doesn't represent anything except a sort of authoritarian state this a drumbeat they have marched to for decades to blame for everything that the american media from the threat of terrorism the world to global warming. the media are determined to criticize one man as if possessed the united states is looking to propagandize the population as much as possible in making russia and specifically putin into the enemy never mind the fact that putin is essentially on the outside looking in especially considering the fact that they have tremendous financial investment on the line in ukraine actual facts have left the building context and in-depth analysis are brushed aside it appears that putin is stifling ukraine not reported putin's why do they have to choose why can't we russia. in

its time of economic need and europe that was rejected by the west instead it's headlines like these that are taking center stage then again superficial attention grabbing and hate driven media coverage is familiar especially when it involves events so far from the u.s. and so close to russia most americans who are in the media don't know anything about the ukraine they don't know much of anything about former countries that were part of the soviet union i don't think the american press including me has it accurately reported the latter mehr putin highly questionable as a battle of words aimed at one target trumps accuracy in the western media just as . r t new york. earlier we spoke to and civil war activists prime backer who explained why he thinks russia is not the mastermind but the most likely targets of the head and the behind the ukrainian crisis the united states and nato and the

together using their combined forces to signal these demonstrators that we are with you and of course that emboldens them and john kerry and the e.u. in the nato leadership and the obama administration are neck deep in now a plan to carry out regime change in this extremely important part of europe trying to integrate a former soviet republic into the e.u. and of course into nato ultimately i think the united states government is playing a dirty game another dirty game they're trying to do what they've been doing for the last twenty years which is to incorporate all of the former socialist countries in the eastern and social and central european bloc those that were aligned with the soviet union into an american western nato sphere of influence and you can see that it's going systematically and ukraine is a big prize it's a big country with a very big military and it's right on russia's border it's part of a new cold war against russia as well and we'll be keeping you updated on the

turbulent situation in ukraine throughout the day on air and online at our website arts dot com and you can also check out our it's what's here from. i. well the african consonance increasingly in the sights of the u.s. hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped and its military presence there now as you're about to see on this map american military bases already spread across the continent with the main outposts in the north of somalia drones and thousands of soldiers up important to africa with the pencil gone site saying it's fights against rising extremist groups but as artie's policy or reports that may be some other agenda behind the military boost. hundreds of millions of american dollars are flowing into africa as the pentagon upset spending on the continent

there's plenty of war materials here nigeria a case in point the west african nation is america's fourth largest supplier of crude oil accounting for eleven percent of all u.s. oil imports we have american has a lot of investment in that they have invested so much in the oil sector and they need to protect that and that believes rafsanjani is the real reason for u.s. troop expansion in africa not to bring democracy not to help the local populations but to protect american interests and justify the reasons for being here the governess in syria. to you know the collapse of. you know accountability. and of course you know dubai is the. definitive kind of makeup artist crisis in the country provided you know it is to meet in terms of american part of policy reasons to actually come into nigeria africa's

dotted with u.s. bases and a growing constellation of small american drone outposts camp limb or near north of somalia has been america's main facility on the continent for nearly a decade it houses about four thousand military and civilian personnel but at the end of last year it was forced to stop flying drones in the area after a string of crashes and growing anger from locals problem is u.s. forces are getting stretched very thin they're being tasked with missions will be on their numerical logistics capability right now and then danger will have to go like all forward and. new conflicts expand and all of the next thing you know the troops and money this is. miche u.s. secretary of state john kerry says it's happening in africa so exciting overall and

we are really deeply engaged. the president has instructed to really try to. widen our fire under our efforts throughout the crowd but what's not so exciting is the growth of jihadists and groups across the continent thousands of american soldiers are gearing up for missions as part of the pentagon's new strategy to train and advise african militaries to deal with the three eight it's not impressing those who live here. the americans have failed to combat terrorism in afghanistan or anywhere else and the same will happen here in west africa it's likely that their presence even bring the terrorists to senegal but the president does his calculation saying well this will allow me to be a good friend of the united states maybe attract some investment or strengthen my security forces but from the point of view of the senegalese people we risk losing are not for what is

a number of african leaders have expressed concern about the potential militarization of the continent fearful that america's expanding presence will bode badly for africa and her people. r.t. . we spoke to a journalist lawrence freeman who has written extensively on african affairs and he told us that he believes the influx of u.s. troops to the continent is actually the stabilizing the situation on the ground and spring and see american sense of it. we spent over a billion dollars supposedly in counterterrorism security in the hell west africa north africa and we've seen the mali was toppled the year ago we've seen the rise of boko rum we committed the absolute criminal stupidity of overthrowing president khadafi so how is this security helping look at the central african republic it's being destroyed it doesn't almost it almost doesn't exist anymore look at nigeria

look at south sudan look at mali they're still fighting terrorism in northern mali with french troops so all this money that is being spent could much better be spent building roads building energy power plants building water development projects and actually uplift the population around we refused to do that we have a military only policy right now and africa could feed itself and could provide food for the rest of the world if we developed it but the western powers he has actually been a genocidal policy that is to allow people to die from famine from war and from the disease rather than developing these countries. well do stay with us as we have more news coming your way this hour including pressure from the top. look at their actual life they can be fired in five minutes this is a deeply dysfunctional system the financial world is shaken by a series of suicides over recent weeks r t looks at why some are struggling to deal

with a high stakes competition. was low blow or charleston manning formerly known as bradley has been on the road for revealing u.s. war crimes he was a war the sam adams award for in the an intelligence it is given annually by a group of former intelligence officers to those who have stood up for the truth edward snowden was the winner of it last year we spoke to an english who was at the ceremony and oxford. room was full and there are many people from u.s. and u.k. intelligence agencies and we're just very proud and very honored to be able to to to give this award to chelsea and to show that she is not alone she is not forgotten and that we value what she tried to do in fact she was exposing the crimes of the spies so what we see now is the technological capabilities outpace the laws and the accountability that are supposed to govern these spies and also of

course since nine eleven the sort of brutal response and interventions with illegal wars in the middle east with invasions across north africa and covert actions and drone killing strikes that there is a great need for people principle to stand up and say this is being done allegedly on our name but actually it is illegal under international law. and let's take a look at some other news around the world starting in turkey worth thousands of protesters have clashed with police in the center of istanbul several people have been arrested the demonstrators were rallying against legislation which is meant to tighten government control of the internet many fear the move will undermine freedom of speech similar lack of rallies were also held in ankara earlier this year. the number of deaths from the ongoing and see governments on rise to one as well has risen to eleven fresh rallies have been held in the country's capital caracas throughout saturday and later resulted in scuffles with security forces

police resorted to tear gas after having been pelted with stones for two weeks tens of thousands across the country have been rallying against the country's ailing economy. six police officers and four protesters have been injured during the rally that's when violence in the french city of nantes some twenty five thousand people bones of their anger over the construction of a nearby airport demonstrators fired to construction vehicles and threw stones at police. on that with syria gas and water cannon. a string of suicides has shaken the financial world five senior bank in executives have killed themselves all within one week our correspondents are silly and thus the gates what may lie behind there that. there are untimely deaths grabbed headlines three of which happened within a week be it the big investment banks they worked for the senior positions they

held the public nature of their deaths or all three once again it raised questions . about an industry largely blamed for bringing the global economy to its knees into two thousand and eight financial crisis michael taylor a former goldman sachs bond salesman who calls himself a recovering banker knew this world well it's so extraordinarily competitive and so focused profit above all the trees actually every moment like pressure turns carbon into diamonds you know extreme pressure can both accelerate human achievement and some cases break people the pressure and calling the shots the form of banking we've got at the moment has no interest in the people it affects. because in a sense. responsible to invest and stockholders you make a moral decisions without thinking about the impact that it has on the people job

losses people losing their home and so on and so forth pressure to rake in profits or the pressure to put in more hours than your peers after the spate of recent deaths big firms did try to ease tension by telling their junior staff to take more time off or at least to try not to work on weekends it's kind of a disconnect between what they have the weekend off will also make us a ton of money and ultimately making a ton of money is what's going to keep you around so now you strike me as a real solution to your sly and spent a year demystifying bankers interviewing dozens of fine us workers on the condition of anonymity the degree to which bankers are trapped. it has been really really important that we keep on projecting this idea of masters of the universe you have everything we want but if you look at their actual life they can be fired in five minutes this is a deeply dysfunctional ought to be abusive system so there's this real. like the

army to own up to one soldier but it. does or so you're r t london now let's take a look up what we've lined up for you online fallen ill in space not be a problem in the future as nasa scientists are working on a so-called the row boat dock capable of performing even complicated surgery on cosmic travelers find the full story on artsy dot com. we have homemade draw it will tell you why america has been forced to purchase its flags from china but now says the time has come to produce the stars and stripes on the home ground . and coming up we have a report on the grim revelations of how big pharmaceutical companies boost their profits to stay with us.

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