coming up on our t.v. talk about a photo worthy finish the sochi winter olympic games come to an end with an impressive closing ceremony to cap off the two week of vent 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 fall reports have come in of a new leak at the fukushima daiichi power plant more on these nuclear concerns coming up after days of clashes between protesters and authorities that major changes are underway 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 later in the show.

it's monday february twenty fourth five eight pm in washington d.c. i'm back in lopez and you are watching r.t. america. well after two weeks of fierce competition triumph defeat and record breaking races the twenty fourteen olympic games in sochi russia wrapped up as a beautiful closing ceremony on sunday here's a look at the final medal count from the two weeks of strong petition russia came out on top of the medals board winning thirty three overall including an olympic high thirteen golds 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 our team is martin andrews who gave us a wrap up of the final medal count as well some of the big winners from the sochi

winter olympic games. well first of all was a week ago and what a. party 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 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 finland which obviously

depending on what side you support there were cheers or altie is but obviously everybody was even there with the 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 close 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 is now 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 they haven't every olympics but here are some of the athletes that we should keep our eyes on in the future i think the main athlete but i personally just adore is that this guy of course he's the

fifty year old figure skater from a cat's rebirth. point to the fact that she didn't score any medals in the freescale 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 thirteen 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 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 crossing pollyanna with literally just mountain valleys but now we have the beautiful resorts like rosa khutor it's also important to shed some realistic balanced journalistic light on this entire situation surrounding such that 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 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 where everybody can get their hair cut do their washing sweep the streets get. you know some pace back to the 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 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 into games it's really just starting all over again in a few days time and i understand it 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 the olympics it's not the end of the flame for saatchi we've got the g. eight summit will be taking 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 such i'll 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 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 son please be careful we've got all this press about the security but really it was for flawless and faultless it really was like the most well run at port 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 leading up to these winter olympics almost all of the talk was focused on anything but sporting events fears of terrorist attacks and criticism of the readiness of the olympic venue dominated airwaves but all of that rhetoric calmed down at once the games finally got under way our to correspondent on a saucy a charkha takes a look at the olympic games as they really played out. i. the such elim pics have officially ended but before they began the mainstream media made all sorts of predictions but 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 give it to falling for pranks involving alleged wolves roaming around alleged sochi hotels along the hallway and i'm not talking blitzer t.c.b. out from the door outside her availability i'm glad you're not in this hallway all the animals are being loose in the olympic village you know it will very fearful people may be put investigation back in investigative journalism is that insanity 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 in sponsorships the u.s. only took the top spot in the number of bronze medals essentially becoming the best 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 large 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. one reminder that when it comes to the olympic games it's the actual results speak for themselves and you're going to do. well in southern new mexico federal officials house confirms that

a local nuclear power 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 plant poses no danger to public health stephen to arterials quote the new mexico environment department has seen no data to suggest any health threats to people have occurred 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 what exactly happened this plant is the nation's first underground nuclear repository for more on this alarming story and a look at some of the other nuclear stories that are playing out 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 the problem in new mexico really is. well the waste isolation pilot project is

a deep geological repository it's our only deep theological repository the united states that house 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 in the mexico state university is saying that they have detected put a 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 shipped 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 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 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 that. 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 you know.

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. 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 nuclear projects with particularly in the case with a vocal 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. 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 start dating ones that are currently in use well you know there is a concern the older nuclear power plants like the fukushima style reactors.

they are these g.e. reactors. 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. 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 zone. that was paul gunter director of the reactor oversight project at beyond nuclear well let's turn to ukraine now where an arrest warrant is out for president victoriana call which he friday 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 igor piskun off brings us the latest this situation here in kiev as referred to by mania now as a witch hunt because now former officials are being searched for woods masked men having been seen stopping cars and checking the i.d.'s of drivers and the passengers inside with the lists off of dead bodies and other officials they're 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. the president. of the list with. accusing him of being behind the desk of civilians referring to the violent clashes and street fights between the rioters and so the police in kiev for the whereabouts of. what

he's released 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 so 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 current she said i still believe is ukraine second largest seaport and also for them to go to russia and ukraine stop black sea maybe this need to sit meanwhile here in kiev the new. taken to the next stage in the fight against their political rivals around one hundred officers will be now ex ruling party have been burned down those with a different political stance or physically attacked in. side the parliament most of those discussions should be right now it's more about emotions rather than political rivalry and the most important thing right now is to prevent are going to

be found completely understand the situation as told to just say. 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 partners even government holds such as i think what you see from the next bubble the party taking charge of the prosecutor general's office because for this just for the 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 stalled from now on the right

wing is going to be heavily present in ukraine's although enforcement at the moment the situation in kiev is basically controlled by radical clean coal with with us who are pursuing a very very militant agenda mysie on the 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 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. 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 but dr ron paul's newest article on his website says that 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 in geos 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 the ukrainians 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 the regions are rather than one tightly controlled by a central government perhaps if ukraine engaged in peaceful trade with countries to

both the west and 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 since his days in congress dr paul has been a longtime critic in u.s. interventions of broad he ended the letter by saying that it's time for the u.s. to keep its hands off ukraine and to let the country figure out where to go from here. well as a force of the law plenty of comps likely think that they are always on the right side when it comes to what's criminal but such a mindset doesn't always work out well tonight's resident takes a look at an example of what cops happen to think is right when the cop was actually in the wrong.

i know the law better than you do that's what a cop in florida recently said to a woman right before he dragged her out of the car and arrested her but as it turns out he only thing he knows is that now he's in big trouble here's the story brandy burning was in her car alone driving in each of elaine in florida which he shouldn't do because it's against the law and also very annoying so deputy o'brien pulled her over so he's doing his cop thing at the side of her car and she says to him i have to tell you i was recording our conversation his response ok well i have to tell you that you just committed a felony yes give me your phone and then he proceeds to get in her car and tries to take her phone away while repeatedly saying you're committing a felony hand me the phone i know the law better than you believe me but she didn't

believe him which is good because he was just flat out lying it's not a felony to record a cop while they're on duty in florida it's not even a misdemeanor courts have upheld the public's right to record cops on the job there so long as the phone isn't interfering with the cop's job so then deputy o'brien tells him is burning that she's going to end. i am her phone and she says ok i'll go to court but i'm not giving you my phone it was all captured on audio by the way and then all hell breaks loose the cop climbs into the passenger seat of her car grabs her by the arm she's totally screaming get off of me get off of me and then she drags out of her car thrown on top of the cop car and hauled off to jail for the night she was charged with traffic violations and resisting arrest and spent the entire night in jail but then magically all charges were dropped and after all

that felony talks she was never even charged with making an unlawful recording proving that the cop knew he was just making up that felony grabbed she was left with bruises on her face a sprained wrist all rock lodged in her leg a scar on her leg and the other hand because she's now suing the sheriff's department with six weeks to respond they've refused comment to a local news station but they did send the station a legal bulletin confirming that yep that is and can legally record the cops on the job that was turns out ms burning knew the law a lot better than the disk race full deputy o'brien figured she would something we dog the wife to do tonight but suck about that by following me on twitter at the residence. all right level four we go tonight don't forget to tune in at nine pm for larry

king now tonight's guest is meatloaf one of america's music legends in the world of rock hell talk about his career and his own independent political leanings here's a look at what's to come. totally your endorsement of mitt romney you never entered politics much openly before well lead to no not openly not openly i am a true independent i walked the streets from a government. in seventy two and passed and put flyers in all the new york apartments and then i did the same thing for carter then when reagan came around i was very and i wasn't sure about reagan but in the second term i'm on vernon and i voted for bush then i voted for clinton both times played the clinton number well you are an independent i mean that not many people voted mcgovern and bush i mean i've heard of independent but that's kind of us yeah we have mcgovern and

bush shell well you know it's just like well mcgovern that was it means you 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 larry thing now coming up at the top of the hour right here on r t america and i'm going to do it for me for tonight before the stories we covered go to you tube dot com slash r t america check out our website r c dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez from all of us here at r.t. america have a great night. i think. i'm.

well with. science technology innovation all the least i'm elements from around russia we've done the future are covered. i would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question lol.