coming up on r t that's a wrap of the sochi winter olympics have come to an end an impressive closing ceremony capped off the two week events we'll give you a look at the final little count and bring you some of the sights and sounds from a twenty second winter olympic day in new mexico there's worry over of radiation leak at a nuclear waste disposal facility this while reports have come in of our newly at the fukushima daiichi power plant in japan more on these nuclear concerns coming up after days of clashes between protesters and authorities and major changes in ukraine the country's president has been ousted from office and now the parliament is trying to create an interim government the latest on ukraine up later in the show.

it's monday february twenty fourth five pm in washington d.c. i'm my good lopez and you are watching r t america well after two weeks of fierce competition triumph defeat and record breaking out race is 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 two weeks of competition russia came out on top of the medals board when the thirty three overall including going to limp a kind of thirteen gold medals team usa came in second with twenty eight medals including nine golds the u.s. was followed by norway with twenty six canada with twenty five and the netherlands with twenty four i was joined earlier by r t s martin andrews who gave us a wrap up of the final medal count as well as some of the big winners from sochi winter games. wow 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 and 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 have the medal comparison between the u.s. and russia with that 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 to fight the better job themselves in the fact that russians do have a sense of humor with they have 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 you can open at the beginning but the atmosphere was just incredible of course we've got more to look forward to with the paralympics opening on march seventh it was fine to see the olympic kind of organizers poke fun at ten thousand and their technical glitches happen to have an 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 lipnitskaya of course he's the fifty year old. figure skater from

a country back. quite disappointing the fact that she didn't score any medals in the three scar skating 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 a long way to go and just because she's 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 across a pollyanna will 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 a we had 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 watch the reports 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 prepare for the paralympics has you talked about that a little bit the track we've got about a week to go we've got you know breathing point. now everybody can get their hair

cut do the washing sweep the streets get sort of you know some pace back to the you have 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 that such as certainly as an enemy 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 that we've taken place in the summer we've got the formula one 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 saatchi park which is the amazing amusement park theme park which is located next to the olympic park here in sochi that would be opening this summer and actually. for the moment has about four million businesses every year but now that sortie is on the international map that number i'm sure will increase and more what about the security issue did you feel safe overall coming into 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 close and faultless it really was like the most well run airport in the world if it wasn't only just like the ports around the world. 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 and r.t. correspondent martin andrews thank you so much for joining us from the olympic games and such a russia well this winter olympics was certainly one for the history books there were job dropping photo finish as heartbreaking defeats and come from behind when surprised even the athletes that were competing for a wrap up of the most exciting events from the twenty second annual winter olympics here is are to use a perrier. borring. eighty five countries all round the world sent over six thousand athletes and team members to sochi russia for seventeen days of competition at the winter olympic games the cost of all this a record fifty one billion dollars the cost of televising the games was also historically high in b.c.

it purchased the exclusive broadcasting rights to the olympics from twenty eleven to twenty twenty for four point three eight billion dollars one might think the winter games would be the center of the media's attention however it seems the mainstream media didn't cover the events as much as some expected so here are the seven winter olympic highlights that you might have missed number seven norwegian by at believes it will spend began celebrating his gold medal victory almost too early during his hands just before crossing the finish line france's martin for card was closely behind and nearly passed him it was so close that the winner have to be determined using a photo finish and other athlete you might not have gotten the full story on was you want to say snowboarder shaun white after taking home the gold medal in the two thousand and ten and two thousand and six went to olympics on the house pipe many expected him to bring home another from sochi overheating at the gold or the silver

or even the bronze he ended up coming in fourth place and was quoted saying i'm disappointed. moving on to women's figure skating you probably fall russia's fifteen year old. who made headlines with her new spins and plato flexibility but did you get the scoop on. the cover for yulia fell not once but twice blame was the skater who took home the gold in the women's individual competition to russia for the first time ever. and of an estimate didn't make too many headlines either possibly because she's a better violinist than skier most known for her techno infuse classical music she was born in singapore raised the british but represented thailand at the olympics using her father's surname after coming in last place in the women's downhill she

quickly applied some lipstick to or face before telling the media it was really cool. and our number three who deserves more media attention is justin ritter the alpine snowboarder from team usa they didn't win gold but he should have won most dedicated although he's one of the best out pine snowboarders in america he was unable to get adequate support from the u.s. and snowboard association to go to sochi so he lived out of his truck during his olympic training after coming in twenty fourth place he cried tears of joy for accomplishing his life's dream of becoming an olympian and we didn't hear from many family members of the olympians either often the parents and siblings of the athletes who are unable to travel to the games were given tell all interview to the media and said stories surfaced of family members who decided to stay stateside after terrorism's came about. and the number one the media miss was the medal

count so here it is russia took the lead with thirty three medals u.s. came in second with twenty eight followed by norway and canada so as the olympic coverage wraps up and bring those medals home hopefully the media will give our world class athletes a warm welcome back in washington d.c. or to. 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 that the plant poses no danger to the public a statement to our to read quote the new mexico environment department has seen no data to suggest any health threats to people have have confirmed curd as a result of the feb 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 the dump to try to figure out how what happened in the first place this plant is the nation's first underground nuclear repository in the u.s. for more on this alarming story and for a look at some of the other nuclear stories that are taking place around the world i was joined earlier by paul gunter he's the director of the reactor oversight project at beyond nuclear and i first asked him how widespread the problem in new mexico really is. well the waste isolation pilot project is a deep geological or pas torrie it's our only deep geological repository the united states that was is. new clear 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 had thing now what originally was reported as

a fire underground but now the university system mexico state university is saying that they have detected to tony in contamination a half a mile away from the site so we have a nuclear accident that has occurred deep down underground but has now contamination surfaced into the atmosphere so the environmental department says that all estates should 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 the 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 at the 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 now 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. we'll remain contained but we've lost containment no 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. 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 it's been you know a game of catch up where the independent monitoring is. didn't have early access into the site so that's part of the problem that the 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. 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. it 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 nuclear projects with him particularly in the case with a vocal plan 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 that the older nuclear power plants like the fukushima style reactors. there these g.e. reactors at the 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 maidan and send 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. as it has 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 spilled would you go back if you were 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 centrally lifting restrictions would infer act the radioactivity that is got out of the plant and continues to escape containment represents a threat that should be widening the evacuation zone that was paul gunter director of the reactor oversight project at beyond nuclear well let's turn to ukraine now we're in a restaurant is out for president victoria on a cold he fled from kiev after protesters i am protesters have now stormed his residence ukraine's parliament now quickly working to create an interim government after voting to oust president bush and all of this comes after the deadliest week of clashes to grip the country in decades igor piskun off brings us the latest this situation here in kiev as referred to by mean you know as a witch hunt because now officials are being searched for wood masked men have been

seen stopping cars and checking the drivers and the passengers inside. looking for. this was just a few days ago was the political force in the country is now under the threat of being. president. of the list. accusing him of being behind the desk civilians referring to the violent clashes and street fights between. the rioters and so the police in kiev for the of whereabouts of a lot of h.r. are known for what he's believed to be somewhere in the east of the country where there's a completely different picture the eastern ukraine is of the country's industrial powerhouse some of it 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

country so i stopped really as you point second largest seaport and also form to both the russians and the ukraine's black sea neighbors need to sit meanwhile here in kiev they knew of taken to the next stage in the fight against their political rivals around five hundred offices of the now ex ruling party have been burned down those with a different political stance or physically attacked inside the parliament most don't push the issue but right now it's more about emotions rather than political rivalry the most important thing right now is to prevent are going to be found completely this standoff situation only to see if. 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 holds such as i think what you see from the national level the party taking charge of the prosecutor general's office

because it's just going to be a new regime is taking shape really quickly and with the use of strong measures it has nothing to do with democracy 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 in four spent at the moment the situation in kiev is basically controlled by radical people with with arms who are pursuing a very very militant agenda mysie only coaches and 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 who've 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 ukrainians put their lives on the line for forty 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 involvement 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 u.s. 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 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 me of craniums what they should do has anyone bothered to ask the ukrainians 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 government perhaps of ukraine engaged in peaceful trade with countries both to the west and the east it would benefit all sides but outside powers seem to be fighting a proxy war with ukraine suffering the most because of it well senses days in congress dr paul has been a longtime critic of us involve us involvement in other countries he ended the letter by saying that it's time for the u.s. to keep its hands off of ukraine and let the country figure out where to go from here itself. well it wasn't until he died that seventeen year old jordan davis is

name became etched in the minds of americans his face has been plastered over news stations over the past few weeks as the stand your ground trial of his shooter michael dunn played out in court now his face is popping up again in a different way on a promotional posters and t. shirts none of which were authorized by jordan's parents ron davis and lucy of back jordan's parents received word about a video shoot taking place just days before it was set to happen the family lawyer john phillips contacted the event promoter and said the family would not condone it they say the group does not represent the values that jordan stood for now despite the family's wishes the shoot went on as was originally planned the press release announcing the event promised that the davis family would attend something that they never consented to and the flyer said the jordan davis t. shirts would be souls lawyers also contacted the short sellers who said they

weren't going to sell the shirts but collect donations only the jordan davis foundation had no knowledge of any donations that would be coming in from the sales zero they the shirts were in fact sold at that event but not a penny of that money has gone to the foundation as of yet and the family lawyer says florida state law is clear it says quote no person shall publish print display or otherwise publicly use for purposes of trade or for any other commercial or advertising purpose the name of portrait photograph or other whiteness of any natural person without the express written or oral consent john philips put out a statement on behalf of ron and lucy us saying quote we want people to think fondly of jordan memorialize jordan and more but we cannot tolerate victimization of victims by false representations unauthorized use of his likeliness. using jordan for publicity and profit and outright deception now it's true that this

event could have been innocently promoting information about the current state of stand your ground laws in florida and that they really are planning to donate the revenue earned from those t. shirt sales but something that is equally true is that the fact that there has been over the past few years case after case where people are using the names of deceased family members from newtown school shooting as for instance or from the boston marathon bombing to set up fraudulent websites to make money for themselves so when events or websites pop up with the faces of victims on them without the family's permission it's no wonder why they say they feel victimized for a second time. all right before we go don't forget to tune in at nine pm to larry king now tonight's guest is meatloaf one of america's legends in the world of rock here's a look at what's to come tell me your endorsement of mitt romney you've never entered politics much openly before we're led to though not openly not openly true

independent i want to streets from a concert. in seventy two and past and put flyers in all the new york apartments and then i did the same thing for carter then when reagan came around i wasn't very . sure about reagan but in the second term i've known vernon and i voted for bush then i voted for clinton both times played the clinton number well you are an independent i mean they're not many people who voted mcgovern and bush i mean i've heard of independent but that's kind of yeah we're mcgovern and birds you know we'll. you know it's just like well mcgovern that was amusing and i don't like nixon and all i mean you know and i was proved really right on that one. i would say really right on that one so you know i just listened to them to them

talk. so tune in at nine pm tonight right here on our c america to catch that full interview and that does it for now i'm meghan lopez. going to extremes all across europe right wing parties and groups are gaining strength and in some cases respectability what accounts for this hard economic times are the growing alienation and frustration with the euro project could it be said the new right is really the old right but wearing a nice suit. we welcome erin eight and abby martin two of the kosher on the our team network. it's going to give you a different perspective give you one stock never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about breaking the word the revolution of the mind it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness infrastructure.