our breaking news story this hour russia is banned from the two thousand and eighteen winter games but the international olympic committee will allow individual athletes to compete under a neutral flak. there is a dismay among team in russia as athletes watched the announcement being delivered at the i.o.c. headquarters in switzerland. broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our national john thomas certainly good to have you with us get right to our top story this hour russia has been banned from the two thousand and eighteen winter olympic games however individual athletes will be allowed to compete under a neutral flag they will participate under the name olympic athlete from russia

with the country's anthem and symbols banned from the games this means the abbreviation o.a.r. will be written on russian athletes' uniforms and an olympic flag will be next to their name also when a medal is awarded to them the olympic anthem will be played rather than russia's the i.o.c. has explained its decision by saying that some russian athletes doping test samples were manipulated during the sochi games in two thousand and fourteen these in writing desailly will participate between individual or team competitions under the name olympic else lead from russia. they will compete with a uniform bearing these. and under the olympics like. the olympic anslem will be played in the several. russian figure skating coach tatyana. broken down in tears when she learned of the decision. slovenia which still because

they see it there are no words you know i don't want to cry i want to scream it's sad that we won't be at the games as a team but the russian flags will be flying it's devastating that there will be no tears of joy as you hear your national anthem but nobody is prohibited from singing the anthem i think that if there are victories and if there are athletes who want to participate and when i think we'll hear them singing. that was just by. our correspondent honest a situation it is now in the us and she has briefed us on the decisions made concerning the russian olympic team. it's been a very difficult day here obviously with so many eyes from around russia watching the announcement that would come from this room here in la sound where the international olympic committee executive board made a final decision on the future of russia when it comes to these next winter olympic

games coming up in just two months from now now obviously it was a huge disappointment for all of those sports fans and athletes who have been preparing for so long to be able to compete in these olympics under their own flag and their anthem when they when certainly these are very important things for any athlete of course not just russian and of course it's been a huge blow to those who have been looking forward to that taking place now as you said obviously the latest is that russia has been we will not be seeing team russia perform at these olympics and this is actually the first time one using it. for doping reasons so this is certainly something that's seen as a very major step that's being considered as an anti russian one by the athletes who have been watching closely what the decision would bring now this is not the only sanction that was imposed here effective immediately by the i.o.c. they've also said that russia has to pay a very hefty fine of fifteen million u.s.

dollars for these inquiries that were carried out on the alleged doping scandal that russia now has to pay for also we do know that it's been announced that russian officials from the sports ministry will not be credentialed for these upcoming games also the minister of sports at the time of the olympics in two thousand and fourteen as well as his deputy will be excluded from any participation in all future olympic games the president of the russian olympic committee is going to be suspended as an i.o.c. member and all of these factors taken into account it has also been said that the i.o.c. may partially or fully lift this is spent of the russian olympic committee from. the commencement of the closing ceremony of these upcoming games provided these decisions decisions are fully respected and implemented by russia now of course we have to be clear that throughout this whole time russia has denied these

allegations being made against it and has been quite vocal about this seeing this decision as something that would be inadmissible in the days leading up to this announcement but let's hear what the president of the russian olympic committee had to say. but russian athletes will participate in the olympics under a neutral flag and without the national anthem but this restriction is valid only until the last day of the games but we still believe that all restrictions on russia will be cancelled on the final day so that our athletes can march under a russian flag together with other teams from the rest of the world so still this decision will be discussed further and the final decision will take place later with. the main point of my speech was that my rivals during the olympic games would have a chance to compete two times is a d.v.d. also and in a team. isn't allowed to take part in team competition every sportsman will have just one chance to win the medal i think it is not. well given that these winter

olympic games are just two months from now we'll see how the events will unravel moving forward but it's safe to say that this announcement here knows and has been a huge blow for athletes and sports fans in russia but we'll see what happens next with still two months to go those russian athletes who received a life ban from the olympics in the past few weeks shared their emotions with. us all saying that their dreams had been shattered. that's what's been the. most will do it up. for the new board. is the good news mostly so. because the scope of the thing.

instead of leaving the station yeah i mean that's the yeah it's a good question but it's still. just the files but it is the i think the polls. ok. and it's just cable. that'll just work up to that since. the forms of political. events that. cynthia it is is that it is at the core at school it's honest a lot more than a. little bit of the middle class the less the service you know for those that are led. by the feel that they had in a civil war a wrong choice for you the i.o.c. report though say that in hind possible efforts they say there is no evidence that

the russian government is responsible for the independent and impartial evidence do not allow the i.o.c. d.c. to establish with certitude either who initiated or who headed this scheme on many occasions reference was made on the level but no indication independent or impartial evidence appeared to cooperate any involvement or knowledge at a higher level of the state. earlier we spoke to alan moore and russia based a sports specialist and columnist he thinks demonizing russia is a profitable strategy for the i.o.c. it's sport and a simple simply is there is no fair play in sport i mean at this level the simple truth is that in order to compete at the highest level you have to do something to stay there and when you have a very well paying job at the level of mr packer and mr reedy and travers target and so on they need to do to kind of stay on top of just living and you know she is very useful to keep it's very very unfair in russia under doing this there is of

course a political drive behind us to want to take a question that i have my mind is ok so russia's bond and so on is it was completely beyond what next who else will go after like my my money would go on nobody because they want to keep beating or beating the drums say bush is bad russia is bad because it is the only bad one and all do the right these are clean and then this my athletes from are and are clean your athletes new character. so we can sleep well at night thinking oh we're ok the russians are the bad guys in the case you know enough of the case that there's a lot of bad guys everywhere. you know it's just it won't change and now with this it will change even further. now just to remind you the international olympic committee says russian athletes can only compete under a neutral flag they will participate under the title olympic athlete from russia with the country's flag symbols banned from the games now next tuesday russian sports officials are expected to hold a meeting on how to react to that decision but earlier president putin said that

the neutrals option would be humiliating for the country. there are two options either forcing russia to compete under a neutral flag or not letting it go to the olympics a tool either is a humiliation for the country on the individual athletes but you may like it or not it will also be influenced by of the ruling that was announced by the c. executive board on tuesday but the i.o.c. probes as you know have already resulted in the lifetime bans of more than two dozen russian winter olympic athletes and we understand that more could be coming up and questions have been raised here in russia along the lines of why do athletes from other countries when they are tested positive they get bans for a few years and then they are allowed to compete again whereas when it comes to the russian olympians they are supposed to be kept away from winter olympics for good

so you bring up these lifetime bans has the i.o.c. given any reason for these specific lifespans while the russians are being disqualified because of these scratches on the doping test bottles and also the excessive amounts of salt in the clean doping test samples which according to the i.o.c. a human body simply cannot produce these are the two key elements of the evidence part of tampering is this enough to impose lifetime bans on washington olympians of during the winter olympics the the reaction from some of the european alum pick officials and see has taken this decision it is an important step in for tax and then sport and gives come for it. now they're competing on a level playing fields. it's a good day for international sport a good day for german sport all right so have we been shown any visual proof of the

i.o.c. conclusions about the scratches and a ways to open sample bottles that is the question and also one russian journalist asked as he executive board press conference and the answer from mr smith was you will be able to read about it in the forensic reports. figures fluctuate because the analysis examinations and the investigations are still ongoing and the forensic reports and examinations i certainly do not wish to go into details here and now i do not wish to divulge too many of these details however the fact remains that we can is certain that there has been there were many belief in tampering this brings us to concerns here in russia over the transparency and also allowing the russian side access to these experiments and it has been said many times that the athletes in the first place but also the officials and the fans that are sympathetic they are also going through a lot of stress these people are eager to see some visual materials perhaps the

investigators could have organized a press conference where they could show something that i guess sums up the concerns here in russia you were in south korea recently what do the people there make of the russian doping scandal and were they expecting to see. a rush of i went to seoul which isn't the capital of the winter olympics twenty eight saying but it is the capital of south korea and many people from there will go to chang and i heard that they're against doping and they want the rules to be enforced but fairly and people told me that they will miss team russia especially when there are sports like ice hockey or figure skating where competition especially during the olympics simply cannot be imagined without team wash us. so let's take a look at how i spoke to locals in the streets of seoul south korea first bid to

become the home of winter olympics almost sixteen years ago in two thousand and eight young chang lost to russia's sot sheet but south korea hung in there and eventually did manage to make their dream come true. but at the had over ceremony and saw it she who would have thought that russia a winter sports powerhouse could end up missing out on the games in four years. in korea and two months with the locals miss them. have you heard about the russian doping scandal no i haven't heard. i don't know about is this a repeat yeah yeah i've never heard this i don't the lack of any stuff but i. heard he used some medicine. and her face i don't know that it's true needs to be seen. what do you think the

winter olympics would be like without russia. to bring a little bit more i says to stronger country. but i. feel people everybody is like a. national soccer game spain the england it's not really a game when the biggest player is not there and we don't even see right there so i think it's unfair on the. dates as well this is going to be productive the winter olympics but you know russia is not a whole country that's so few political stuff. and the south korean capital which is looking forward to the country's first ever winter olympics that will happen without team russia. i will continue discussing the future of russian olympics after a short break you are watching r t international. here's

what people have been saying about redacted in the decision to pull on. the only show i go out of my way to find you know a lot of the really packed a punch. is the john oliver of marquee americans do the same we are apparently better than the blue. sea people you've never heard of. jack tonight president of the world bank hey. seriously send us an e-mail. a plate for many clubs over the years so i know the game and so i got. the ball isn't only about what happens on the pitch for the final school it's about the passion from the families it's the age of the super money. spend spend to get to twenty million. it's an experience like nothing else only because i want to

share what i think what i know about the beautiful game great so well with. the base. a welcome back this is our national life from moscow so back to our continuing coverage of the international olympic committee's decision to ban russia's team and many individual russian athletes from taking part in the two thousand and eighteen winter games in south korea many athletes were handed a lifetime of the evidence that was presented against them they insist they are innocent and accuse officials of violating their presumption of innocence artie's good partners looks at how russia has been treated as guilty from the very start. four years ago there was skepticism that russia's first winter olympics would go without a hitch due mungo's predicted not enough flights not enough hotels and not enough

snow concerns about socially squaller in sochi double toilets and missing door handles the water came out of the challenge problem with the door of the house skaters went so well even critics had to admit they were hit rethink minimizing it's running like clockwork and everything's just going really really well as i'm been really impressed and everything that she's done so far too much to care about . so far well organized people are really friendly here and having a good time pretty sweet like you are accommodation for almost four years later and russians who triumphed in sochi and now being stripped of their medals and given life a live picture why twenty sixteen the mitchell report explosively claimed russia used an elaborate system of state sponsored doping athletes officials and the ministers were implicated like the plots of a cold war novel the attitude to russia

a return to skepticism then retribution as its track and field team and entire power to dictate what damage from the rio gave which left the clean athletes wondering why. about how the russians completing it so they got the right policy but sure they are a clean nation never mind cleaned out they are to be a clean nation. the i.o.c. and i p.c. have now definitively fact up mclaren supporting the claims of former lab boss cricketing don't think of who is under criminal investigation in russia and saying that infamous sample swapping system has finally been replicated but questions remain the i.o.c. standard of proof is not beyond any reasonable doubt but rather the balance of probability the presumption of guilt is enough it was lodging called who was the

original and only source of so-called proof against russian fleets this evidence has been grossly overvalued we can see we are seeing the result of a proper legal process it's a question of faith to believe broaching course or not it looks more like a religious inquisition. less than full bottles had no visible scratches they were presumed tampered with as the russians must have affected their technique and left no marks and no argument basis for an on mass ban to clean condemned without any guilt no presumption of innocence for team russia what we see here is actually a violation of the olympic charter which is. which stands against political national racial discrimination so it appears that in the name of protecting clean athletes they are actually taking away the rights of russian clean athletes and in my opinion the mclaren accusations are unfounded and they are very politically biased. surely any athlete should be denied

a medal and banned from competition if he or she cheats it undermines others' lifetime's work as does abound slapped on the innocent who are simply presumed guilty. now after the world anti-doping agency laid out a road map for russia in two thousand and sixteen the country acted swiftly with a number of strong measures it reformed of the structure of russia's own anti-drug agency and allowed international experts to take control of its tests and also made to doping a criminal offense punishable with a jail sentence a law only currently imposed by a handful of european countries met eighteen out of twenty criteria saying it couldn't meet the final two as it denies any government run doping program ever existed but last month was still found the russian agency non-compliant the head of water denied the decision was political but did say sports cannot exist without politics it's

a sort of. impossible dream isn't it because. it's real estate. and sport shouldn't. be. such comments may be at odds with perhaps the most important document in sports the olympic charter currently state that there can be no political work commercial abuse of sports and athletes thomas bach the president of the international olympic committee gave us his assurance that the decision was not politically motivated. so you see politically absolutely neutral we would not allow her to be influenced by any kind of political considerations in. such a sporting matters just listening to the press conference and they did exactly that question and they said this isn't a political decision but of course the world knows that it's exactly that this has

been a controversy that has been clouded in political judgment and it's impossible to separate this particular decision from what's going on in the rest of the world regarding fake news and the allegedly intervention of russia into britain's bragg's it vote and even the american presidential election so there is a lot of this kind of stuff swirling around the world at the moment a lot of it is beyond belief frankly about people are accepting some of it so i don't think you can disentangle the two things before the i.o.c. decision youngsters from hockey clubs across russia show their support for the nation's athletes by organizing a flash mob online chanting we want to go to the olympics. i.

and that does it for me this hour i'll be back in thirty five minutes with a look at your news you are watching are to international stay with us. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then. the wealth concentration the bureaucratic concentration is sapping the economic vitality from this entrepreneurial nation called america and the machinations and

the costs associated there way of keeping the prison population in place are dreaming money away from all aspects of society and you've got the problems that you would normally associate with the ghetto like people nodding out in the middle of the day in the middle of the street. and is getting international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos and dismissed it. like you know. these you might complicity is going off to saudi home maybe. you know john. kerry should the only palestinians who gets the most hope from his jerusalem counterparts i don't think this is among those who. wish to know who could do this. and that is all of us not just you have to this lady of the muslim i know if you continue muslims you do more commitments last time put this on.

one when they. are probably sitting. in the mood to call. this a row reserved. for when the momentum make a friend with her foot on from the cliff in for a moment up on the your sense of whom are looking. no and it wasn't even in committee of. of us. i thought that the.

credit is one of the basic instruments to drive an economy but it can also lead to tragedy i did i took the how to start game bigger and made that the death star game bigger and it was spiraling out of control. many lives have been broken by excessive debt the banks got into a war zone or we big bankers got big. government the banks but i just didn't think of the the ordinary men who lost money through the back under don't buy creditors people see no future bad face from happening you know you become ill you do to job your relationship breaks down you become a casualty is dead a nice long trip or is there a way out of those actually in front of it and covering old reichl to ditch a bill for some more fiscally somewhat.

they call me a useful idiot i mean you called me a useful idiot a useful idiot useful idiots go expressing my opinions on t.v. there are thousands of us doing it behind his record is the same strategy we attack instead of talking about what's next why stop me from getting this close to the white house i'm with a group code pink why not ban the color pink one outstretch me all the right i should be sent to the town because i'm going to try to break me on the we'll put up with a long time of this sort of nonsense you don't scare me and i'll continue to voice my opinion i'll continue to speak out i'm in good company i'm in good company you going with me you want to do this because we're free thinkers.

slow and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle if you trust the mainstream media well then you're in the minority sadly a great deal of media today is not designed to inform but rather confirms political bias this approach of the news is not only polarizing but it's also lowering journalistic standards is this why readers and viewers seek their news elsewhere.