it's. coming up on our t.v. that's a wrap the sochi winter olympic games have come to an end and impressive closing ceremony capped off the two week of bents we'll give you a look at the final medal count and bring you some of the sights and sounds from the twenty second winter olympic games in new mexico there's worry over a radiation leak at a nuclear waste disposal facility this while reports come in of a newly at the fukushima daiichi power plant in japan the latest on these nuclear concerns coming up and after days of clashes between protesters and authorities major changes are underway in ukraine the country's president has been removed from office by parliament and a new us homes are being made to create an interim government the latest on the

events from ukraine later in the show. it's monday february twenty fourth four pm in washington d.c. i'm mega lopez and you are watching r.t. america well after two weeks the fierce competition triumphs defeat and record breaking races the twenty fourteen olympic games in sochi russia wrapped up with a beautiful closing ceremony on sunday here's a look at the final medal count from the troops of competition russia came out on top of the medals for winning thirty three overall including an alum pick high of thirteen goals tim usa came in second with twenty eight medals including nine golds the u.s. was followed by norway with twenty six ten of our twenty five and the netherlands was twenty four i was joined earlier by artie's martin andrews who gave us a wrap up of the final medal count as well as the big winner. from the such of

winter olympics. well first of all what a weekend what a party it was last night and yes that's right russia top of the list with thirty three medals thirteen gold if you compare that to the results in vancouver just four years ago where they came away with only three gold and fifteen medals you can see the comparison they've done such a brilliant job here and the closing ceremony last night was equally just fantastic we had an ode to the russian literary history we had a look at ballet we had a look at this case and it really was a great finish to what has been a spectacular and very successful event here in russia so what was the mood like in sochi during the last weekend of competition and leading into those closing ceremonies the mood here was very tense because obviously we had the medal comparison between the u.s. and russia with the level is not far behind them or less especially the fact that they were eliminated from the hockey with that victory for finland which obviously

depending on what side you support there were cheers or he is but obviously everybody was even there with the with the sad situation that the hockey was eliminated people really rooting for the fact that she was doing so well also to go back to the clothes and say we lost it's important to note the little ring situation at the closing ceremony they had the fact the better job themselves in the fact that russians do have a sense of humor with they had the fifth ring that didn't open for the second where they had dozens and hundreds of dances in a throwback to the ring that didn't open at the beginning but the atmosphere was just incredible of course we got more to look forward to with the paralympics opening on march the seventh it was fine to see the olympic are kind of organizers hope final ten thousand and their technical work has happened they have been in every olympics but who are some of the athletes that we should keep our eyes on in the future i think the main athlete that. i personally just adore is that the sky

of course is the fifty year old figure skater from it has a rebirth. many people are quite disappointed the fact that she didn't score any medals in the free scarf skating's she actually came fifth in total but she did however help russia win the gold medal in the in the team results and if you look back at her career she is so young and she's exploded on social media with millions of people watching her around the world she really does stand out than any other skater i've seen in my entire life and of course at the age of fifteen her future is certainly want to look forward to and she certainly has one way to go and just because she is only fifteen and because there are so many other things that she can continue to do and continue to compete but what is your highlight for you personally covering these games. i think that the highlight for me is artie's culture expert here in russia is how much russia sort she has changed i was here seven years ago reporting on a travel show away fareed if r.t. in the early years and really it was just

a small soviet holiday resorts the black sea coast where people came in the soviet times and this entire region has transformed to what you can never even imagine you can really see where the billions of dollars has been spent the coastal cluster of crescent pollyanna with literally just mountain valleys but now we have the beautiful resorts like rosa khutor it's also important to shed some realistic balance journalistic light on this entire situation surrounding such as we have lots of controversy with the l.g. l g b t rights and gay issues with security which has been flawless and we had lots of anti western propaganda negative one sided press from many countries around the world but it's been good for me to actually report on the balance good and bad you know reality of. today well now that the olympics are over what's being done in such a to prepare for the paralympics because you talked about that a little. bit trite we've got about a week to go we've got

a breathing point now where everybody can get their hair cut do the washing sweep the streets get sort of you know some pace back to the monetary of the region we've got the paralympics the opening ceremony is taking place on the seventh of march of course we have the tens of thousands of people who are working on the on the main games they'll be returning to their countries but we've got an influx of new that is arriving over the next week so as the excitement finished really last night for many. with the closing of the first olympic games it's really just starting all over again in a few days time and i understand it certainly certainly has an army closing doors or anything like that any time soon what's next for sochi after the paralympics. yes that's right we've got lots to look forward to so the olympics it's not the end of the flame for saatchi we've got the g. eight summit we've taken place in the summer we've got the formula one fan but we've got the world cup in twenty eighteen we've got various of the rents and also i was actually filming last week and we've got the largest swing that's opening up

in one of the valleys to also the infrastructure of tsotsi is completely changed we've got hotels bulgy to open this summer we've got such a park which is the amazing amusement park theme park which is located next to the olympic park here in such as i'll be opening this summer and actually. for the moment has about four million businesses every year but now that sort she is on the international map that number i'm sure will increase and mari what about the security issue did you feel safe overall coming in from the olympics having experienced the games and now being toward the end of the first winter olympic games that's right i mean many people were quite concerned my mother in liverpool you know she was message to me saying please be careful we've got all this press about the security but really it was for and faultless it really was like the most well run airport in the world if it wasn't only just like ports around the world

and it was obvious it was tight but it wasn't overwhelming or scary it was just the perfect balance of what is needed and it was really money well spent but of course it's not the end of security as we do have the olympics over the next few weeks but certainly it's a job well done when it comes to security here in sochi r.t. correspondent martin andrews thank you so much for joining us from the olympic games in such a russia. well in the days and weeks that were leading up to these winter olympic games almost all of the talk was focused on anything but the sporting events heroes of terrorist attacks and criticism of the readiness of the olympic venue dominated the airwaves but all that rhetoric calmed down once the games that finally got underway r.t. correspondent on a saucy a turk and i takes a look back at the olympic games as they really played out. the such elim pics have officially ended but before they began the mainstream media made all sorts of predictions which panned out the prediction i got right is our

media was a pile of crap it was it was it's just a. full lot of liberia coming out of their faces and it's it's you know it's. it's a combination of just nonsense and nonevents from obsessing over toilets to make it better to falling for pranks involving alleged wolves roaming around alleged sochi hotels wolf in the hallway and i'm not talking blitzer sitting out from the door outside the room with a little village i'm glad you're not in this hallway all the animals are leaving loose in the olympic village you know it's. very fearful people maybe put investigation back in investigative journalism is that in jeopardy i didn't know it was in a real wall of a walking down real hallway but i'm also not a journalist it's not hard to argue that the american media's attention could have been better focused concentrates on certain weeks who they believe can become superstars and spokespeople corporate spokespeople that's the name of the game in

the united states corporate money and sponsorships the u.s. only took the top spot in the number of bronze medals essentially becoming the best a taking third place fourth in gold and silver and second in the total medal tally getting nine medals less than at the previous winter olympics in vancouver and we're just not getting the results that you might expect from such an incredibly wealthy and. arge nation. the country accused of being unprepared for the games russia concentrated elsewhere and is at the top in gold and silver as well as the total tally becoming the first host nation since the nine hundred fifty two winter games to snatch a both medal counts after all the fear mongering finger pointing and attempts to undermine the saatchi efforts russia has become the key winner in these games in more ways than one reminder that when it comes to the olympic games it's the actual results that speak for themselves and party. well in southern new mexico

federal officials have confirmed that a local nuclear plant is leaking waste and releasing radiation into the surrounding area the waste isolation pilot plant was leaking for days before state environmental secretary ryan flynn found out about it health officials insist the pant plant hose is no danger to the public he says quote the new mexico health new mexico environment department has seen no data to suggest any health threats to people have occurred as a result of these february fourteenth incident that led to a release of radiation outside the waste isolation pilot plant however it could take weeks for crews to get underground to get to the dump safely and try to figure out what actually happened there this plant is the nation's first underground nuclear repository in the u.s. for more on this alarming story and a look at some of the other nuclear stories that are playing out around the world i'm joined now by paul gunter director of the reactor oversight project at the our nuclear thank you very thank you so much for joining me first of all let's talk

about how widespread this new mexico story is is that really what the what the officials say well solution pilot project is a deep geological repos tory it's our only deep geological repository the united states is. nuclear waste primarily plutonium from the nuclear weapons program and it's licensed for ten thousand years but this. facility now after fifteen years of operation well we've already is seeing now what originally was reported as a fire underground but now the university system state university saying that they have detected put a tony in contamination half a mile away from the site so we have a nuclear accident that has occurred deep underground but has now contamination surfaced into the atmosphere so the environmental department. says that all

a safe ship people take them at their word no amount of plutonium if you ingest it if you have particular if you inhale it is a safe amount so the fact. that plutonium contamination is now being picked up in surface monitors you know it represents a public health and safety concern now something that you mentioned is that this is obviously one of the only places the only place really that starts this underground do you think that it makes it more or less dangerous because it is being stored underground well you know this is the only long term management strategy that we have for nuclear waste but clearly what we know see is a communication between an underground accident probably through the ventilation systems that is now brought radioactivity escaped into the atmosphere and is being picked up by monitors you know the idea of trying to isolate nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years is really daunting and you know it's not

really good science it's really about you take these things on faith. will remain contained but we've lost containment know so what we have been better off if this was above ground could we have contained that's a little bit better i don't think that there's any reliable method for long term management of high level nuclear waste or plutonium which represents a biological threat for two hundred forty thousand years clearly this is a manmade hazard that will force a hazard on future generations without any any benefit to all liability so let's talk about the announcement it took a few days before they finally announced that there was radiation that was found outside of that building what took so long is that the standard process well part of the problem was that the department of energy denied access to the new mexico state university independent monitoring group and so. so it's been you know

a game of catch up where the independent monitoring is you know. didn't have early access into the site so that's part of the problem that information has been withheld essentially by the government for days now but it's going to be days weeks months even longer to understand the full scope of this accident what was the reason for withholding. i'm not sure why the department of energy denied access to the independent monitoring group very interesting now meanwhile the obama administration sources say that the president finalized a six point five billion dollar loan deal to build the country's first nuclear reactors in more than thirty years so it's been decades why are they considering building new nuclear reactors now well this is part of an ongoing. the nuclear industry has been looking to revive itself they called it

a renaissance in fact it's a relapse to the same economic failure that stopped this industry dead in its tracks thirty years ago clearly what this department of energy federal loan demonstrates is that it takes the federal taxpayer to be the guarantor on. these these nuclear projects with him particularly in the case with the vogel plant in georgia the rate payer has to finance the loan so the nuclear industry has absolutely no skin in this game it's taxpayer and ratepayer risk for a project that has probably more than a fifty percent chance of failure now when the new. daiichi power plant had all of those problems i remember articles coming out criticizing the current state of american nuclear power plants what is the current state of power plants should that money be better served. updating ones that are currently in use well you know there

is a concern the older nuclear power plants like the fukushima style reactors. there these g.e. reactors. are no more than forty years old and the operators like exelon. are looking to put less money less maintenance and power up the reactors the same time so you know we're seeing the crease in the maiden aunts and oversight of these aging reactors so that the utility can protect its profit margins and these are these plants are very fragile economically as well they don't compete anymore and so you know profit margins financial margins are being put against public health and safety margins and that's an increasingly dangerous venture and finally let's talk about what's going on in japan three years

after that plant had this catastrophic shutdown right now they are starting to let thirty thousand residents kind of go back and they're going to go back after a two year process but at the same time there's reports of new leaks the latest one was three thousand one hundred seventy five gallons of highly contaminated water spilt what you call back if you are one of the residents that was living there these are essentially permanent isolation zones will represent a biological hazard. clearly japan is a very small island and they have space problems and so the government is the sensually lifting restrictions when in fact the radioactivity that is got out of the plant continues to escape containment represents a threat that should be widening the evacuation zones p.

. will simply are trapped close into the reactor sites and they're not being provided with economic incentives you know job transfers housing relocations you know they're they're basically being held economic captive to an even wider contamination zone so there's this tug of war that's going on between the you know what's what's really safe no one really knows what are the what's the economic reality there in japan is becoming ever more a concern it really is and you know we've heard critics obviously say that it's just coming down to cost the reason why japan is left but as you say it could also be a matter of space paul gunter he's the director of the reactor oversight project at beyond nuclear thank you so much for weighing in on this thank you. well let's turn to ukraine now were in arrest warrant is out for president victoriana call rich he fled from kiev and protesters have stormed his residence ukraine's parliament is

now quickly working to create an interim government after voting to oust president . all of this comes after the deadliest week of clashes to grip the country in decades artie's alexei brings us the latest this situation here in kiev as referred to by many now as a witch hunt because now former officials are being searched for words masked men having been seen stopping cars and checking the drivers in the passengers and sides with deputies and other authors are also there looking for the party of regions which just a few days ago was the political force in the country is now under the threat of being banned while ousted president. wanted list with a new of accusing him of being behind the desk of civilians referring to the violent clashes and street fights between the rioters and see the police in kiev for the whereabouts of. known but he is believed to be somewhere in the east

of the country where there's a completely different picture the eastern ukraine is the country's industrial powerhouse also heavily populated by the russians and in general they've been quite critical of what's been happening here in kiev for instance tens of thousands of people took to the streets of. protesting political changes in the kind she said i still believe is ukraine second largest seaport and also for them to have both the russians and the ukraine's black sea naval fleet to sit meanwhile here in kiev the new. taken to the next stage in the fight against their political rivals around five hundred officers will be now ex ruling party has been burnt down those with a different political stance or physically attacked inside the parliament but don't push the issue right now it's more about emotions rather than implicitly rivalry and those. important things right now is to prevent don't charge for money in town to completely understand the situation as told you think. the president has fled

the capital saying a coup has been carried out while the parliament passes new laws as fast as a printing press. taking down officials and appointing their old political rivals including putting a right wing party liners even government which is i think what you see from the nationalists well the party taking charge of the prosecutor general's office the first of the systems for the new regime is taking shape really quickly and with the use of strong measures it has nothing to do with the marker see because those coming to power will go on with pursuing tough policies and they will conduct massive expansion of the eastern territories. among the first laws adopted the banning of russian as the second official state language despite nearly fifty percent of those living in the east of ukraine being ethnic russians the public is told from now on the right wing is going to be heavily present in ukraine's all knowing for spent at the moment the situation in kiev is basically controlled by

radical kinkel with with us who are pursuing a very very militant agenda which is a political calls i think he is an utterly discredited man he cut deals with opposition who were quite obviously at a since the nineteenth of january no longer in control of the crowds and here there are reports that foreign journalists have been promoting different values from the rebels have now been put onto a wanted list as well as trying to temporarily ban a russian t.v. channels many are now raising the question if this is the type of democracy so many koreans put their lives on the line for. key of. well american lawmakers are keeping a close eye on what is happening in ukraine officials with the obama administration are urging the country to remain unified they also cautioned against foreign military action in the country but dr ron paul's newest article on his website says

this is exactly the opposite of what the u.s. should be doing he wrote quote the usual interventionists in the us have long meddled in the internal affairs of ukraine in two thousand and four it was the us government money that helped finance the orange revolution as u.s. funded n.g.o.s favoring one political group over the other were able to change the regime these same people have not given up on ukraine they keep pushing for their own agenda for ukraine behind the scenes even as they ridicule anyone who claims u.s. involvement he went on to say why are u.s. government officials so eager to tell you craniums what they should do has anyone bothered to ask you. what if it might help alleviate the ongoing violence and bloodshed if the ukrainians decided to remake the country as a looser confederation of regions rather than one tightly controlled by a central governments perhaps a few crain engaged in peaceful trade with countries both to the west and the east it would been if it all sides but outside powers seem to be fighting

a proxy war with ukraine suffering the most because of it while since his days in congress dr paul has been a longtime critic of u.s. interventions of broad here to the letter by saying that it is time for us to keep its hands off ukraine and let the country figure out where to go from here. well some people run away from the law after committing a crime but twenty four year old amanda jo stephen says that she was just working out when police officers in austin texas nabbed her from behind austin police chief art asa vettel said his officers trying to get the attention of a jogger after she walked across the street near the university of texas but she says she had her headphones on and couldn't hear the officers commands so a video shot by a passer by it went viral showing amanda stephen a pleading with officers and insisting that she did nothing wrong she was put in the back of a police car and taken to a station where she was charged with failure to obey a pedestrian control device and failure to identify the video was shot by

christopher quintero he spurted in that video spurred so much outrage in social media that alston's police chief held a press conference to discuss the arrest where things got even more bizarre. it's kind of interesting for a conference in austin texas lord there's a controversy in austin texas that we actually have. to talk somebody by the arm and tell him all my goodness most police are trying to get your attention or another should use capture actually committing sexual assault on duty. this is what passes for a controversial actions so as you can imagine chief asa vettel took a lot of heat for bringing up police sexual assault cases as a comparison to this case a time when it's pettiness he quickly issued an apology saying in hindsight i believe the comparison was a poor analogy and for the us i apologize so it looks like the police chief also

vettel smelters doing all the running this time around anyway well boom bust is up next on our team aaron a joins me now with a quick preview erin what have you got for us thank you meghan coming up on boom bust today we have drug casey of the casey institute i sat down with him earlier today to discuss all things that global economics and economic policy then ed harrison he's back in studio today live in today's big deal where we'll discuss our bono next it's all coming up so stay tuned all right thanks erin for that quick preview and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r t america and for the some of the stories that we just didn't have time to get to today check out our web site r.t. dot com forward slash usa and offer to follow me on twitter to find out what i'm doing when i'm not bring you today's top stories behind this news desk follow me on twitter at meghan underscore stays tune to boom bust is up next.

well. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. live.

top rules in effect got into can jump in anytime you want. well if you're going to the market like. policies i dislike you. pleasure to have you with us here on our t.v. today i roll researcher. please.

hello there i marinated this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up we look into the matter and magnitude of a deal reached between netflix and comcast over the weekend netflix has decided to pony up to the cable provider but who really ends up paying in the long run we'll let you know then we had best sign off their international investor entrepreneur and chairman of p.c. research doug casey on today's show i sat down with mr casey to talk economic volatility and the global marketplace you won't want to miss our interview and finally a sun kissed edward harrison is back and he joins me to discuss avenel next in today's big deal and the risk it might have of stalling out it's all coming up so let's get to it.