militants in syria. district continue to shell the capital damascus this. cease fire there are. twenty eighteen winter olympics in sight with a spectacular losing streak the drama continued right to the very end of the games on the final day. ice hockey team defeated germany four three in a nail biting final when they gave a limb pick after from russia a total of seventeen medal. of the stories that shaped the week germany's leading tabloid publishers want to go it was only deniable evidence of russian meddling in the country's politics only to realize it was on them by simple .

stories from the past seven days on right up to the moment developments as well this is the weekly on r.t. welcome to the program our top story militants in the eastern district of syria are indiscriminantly shelling the capital damascus according to russia's defense ministry that's despite the united nations voting on saturday to implement a cease fire or war correspondent the of join me in the studio earlier with the details russian conciliation center monitoring center in syria says that over the last twenty four rebels in the east launched no less than thirty one shells into damascus and i know what that looks like every time we stayed in that mass because every time we've been in damascus we hope. shells landing all over the

capitals all over the masks because in the last rebel stronghold in the vicinity of the capital the last stranglehold you know loulou the residue revolutions because all other on claves around the capital have been. retaken by the syrian government nevertheless these these incidents of shelling they're very random they shelled blindly you know shell might land in a market might land in a military base in a hospital or the government building and usually there's a lot of casualties of the last twenty four hours a dozen casualties syrian authorities but. the rebels in east ghouta generation islam the army of islam which holds which is the most powerful rebel group and says that it is abiding by the cease fire it says that it is being shelled and bombed by the syrian government and that is indeed happening there are strikes from what we've gathered from the various reports there are airstrikes on

going against do it against racial islam the army of islam but the syrians are saying that you know the rebels are shooting at us and the rebels are saying the syrians are shooting the other so there's no cease fire to speak of quite yet. well the russian defense ministry also said that according to its sources armed groups in eastern groups are preparing to use chemical weapons to provoke sign forces into attacking the syrian government political science professor my good buttress believes terrorism no intention of respect ing the cease fire it's naive to say we have to stop the violence overnight and cease fire overnight simply because all the parties involved have interests to continue on with this violence that is groups have instructions to is can lead to violence. terrorist groups in this

day of this that they are so disparate that's why i can believe that the can use chemical weapons as the last chord on the tape but meanwhile turkey say's it is not going to halt its military offensive in northern syria in spite of the cease fire i'm grasping currying operation against kurdish militia fighters which it views as terrorists on thursday the turkish army shelled a wine convoy entering the city of a green and chris ses it was transporting fighters and weapons but the kurdish forces insist the trucks were only carrying civilians food and medicine and that one person was killed in the attack. took. place just. a little but. earlier in the week proof syrian government forces arrived in the free to help

repel the turkish offensive now that came after the kurds appealed for support the developments in the region of the u.s. in a difficult position. explains two of america's main partners in the region are now at each other's throats what it is. and as the u.s. tries to avoid taking sides in the conflict they seem to be losing on all fronts turkey a longtime ally looks to be getting increasingly impatient with washington's inaction america has only dared to call for a reduction in civilian casualties in the fight prompting a vicious response from the turkish president. what disappoints us most in this process is the hypocrisy and even the levity of some countries which we consider

allies and have deep political and military relations with turkey has had enough of life's promises and delaying tactics and on the other side we have the kurds who have been essential to the u.s. led coalition's fight against eisel and the absence of support from their american partners against the onslaught of turkish forces the kurds have been forced to look elsewhere and that has pushed them into accepting help from pro-government forces this week militias loyal to the syrian government flooded afrin to bolster the kurds. which are out we have come to a kaddish brothers to fight together to protect africa. we are the popular force we came so that we could help our kurdish brothers because we are one people. now that surely ruffled feathers in washington when the syrian president comes only after i saw on their list of enemies the us has tried to shift focus to an issue that puts them back in the

driver's seat battling eisel calling the situation in africa a distraction what is going on in of rain is taking away from the fight against isis it is a distraction as secretary mabus had called it is certainly not helpful to have people take their eye off the ball of isis we've talked about that. numerous times before but in reality many in the region have already recognized that arsenal is all but defeated despite that the u.s. led intervention which is in its third year has no end in sight but they may be left there with no one to call a friend as they continue to alienate their allies. the twenty eighteen winter olympics inside korea came to a dramatic close on sunday a stunning fireworks display rounded off the night as well as the traditional over to the next winter olympic host city which will be beijing in twenty twenty two wrapping up the final day and you're still a patrol go. time really does fly and i can't believe that it's already the and of

twenty eight thing we've seen the closing ceremony and the nation's parade at it and i'll tell you what it was much warmer than the opening on february ninth quite literally and the fans didn't have to freeze themselves that much to see the spectacle something that hasn't changed though is the fate of the russian athletes who weren't able to march with their national colors there had been a glimmer of hope that they'd be allowed to do that but earlier on sunday the i.o.c. decided not to lift the suspension of russia's national olympic committee after two of the all way our athletes tested positive for doping although the i.o.c. president has said that these two cases appear to be isolated these are cases off of negligence and there is no indication. of so

ever for a systemic or systematic. doping affair here the astley's who failed the test though claim it could have been a result of sabotage or some sort of mistake they say that they have never taken banned drugs on purpose to improve their performance back to the final day of peeling chang twenty eight ng i guess if you asked the russian fans would they rather see their national flags at the closing ceremony or would they rather have their men's ice hockey team win gold for the first time in twenty six years most of them would still choose the second option and that is exactly what happened inside the gardening ice hockey arena on sunday the red machine b. germany for three and a gripping final and then at the prize giving ceremony the olympic and them was. played instead of the russian anthem obviously but guess what the winners and the

stadium sang then the national anthem of course and that was quite a scene to watch this was the second gold at these olympics the first one was won by a fifteen year old alina's it gets in the figure skating and i'll tell you what these winter olympics were really games of hope for russia with many more experienced star athletes having to sit out young twenty home the o.e.r. still won a total of seventeen medals that is of course by far not the best performance but still and these circumstances it deserve a huge round of applause as for the whole medal table norway came first with fourteen gold fourteen silver and eleven bronze and that's of course a spectacular result yeah as mentioned sunday saw a thrilling win for the russian men's ice hockey team they secured gold with

a four three victory over germany and a gripping overtime final it was the first time in twenty years that russia had reached the decider and you have to go back to albertville fronts in nineteen ninety two for their last goal than men's ice hockey that was also on the neutral banner the team didn't have its own flag at the time following the break up of the soviet union and here you can see the elated on the exhausted hockey stars taking their bus back to the olympic village we spoke to one of the key men in the russian team. game was very tough germany didn't get to the final for no reason it's great that we won but we levelled the score and then the final point in overtime i think this goal brought joy to millions of russian fans everyone is celebrating today well after what had been a less than smooth buildup to the games the light of the travelling russian fans getting to celebrate their country's second gold of the tournament was clear. the

my me a willingness lost it but anyway things turned out ok it was a super match and a super victory russia is the champion and we did it. the germans were playing very well it was a beautiful game many thanks to the german team and the russian team for such a wonderful final we're so thrilled good to see the russian something close getting out so the winter olympics haven't wrapped up for another four years but it appears that the spirit of good will is continuing there north korea has said that it is ready for talks with the united states that was a nonstarter the country's officials met with side korean diplomats at the games finale in china but not everyone was happy to see the north korean delegation there were protests on a side korean border town against the visit scuffles also broke guy between some protesters on the police independent china specialist under long told us about the controversies that could overshadow any north korea washington talks as far as the

sentients are concerned of course the united states want to try and up the sanctions and use military coercion is what would i mean you're solving international issues it depends on what kind of a deal the united states. struck with last career with the united states obviously a wall that north korea is to abandon all its nuclear arsenal abandon all its capabilities to develop nuclear weapons and long distance the liberal system and that's something which i don't think a lot less. except that. then we're back to square one and back to confrontation. but all the other hand it's quite possible that. we. reach. a major german newspaper. publishing a fake story about russian bots we get into that story and more.

when you don't. know. if you speak french. join me every. time i'm sure and i'll be speaking to the world of politics. i'm show business.

a quarter of an hour into the program you're very welcome back germany's best selling newspaper was tricked this week into publishing a fake bombshell story on russian meddling in the country's politics the report in-built detailed how a mysterious russian agent down bought muster called yuri and supposedly offer it is served to the head of the social democratic party's youth wing kevin hart hoping to sabotage a coalition deal between his party and i'm glimmer of course conservatives here's a snippet of the purchase supposedly exchange did kill him i'm yuri i'd like to

talk to you about supporting your new group campaign thanks for your mail jay already told me to expect a mile from you but just to be sure could you name favorite beverage as you can certainly understand this is a delicate matter me oh me oh martin ginger oh dear yuri perfect that's a relief so what can you offer me basically we can offer you everything an opinion campaign with but schultz social bots on twitter and facebook or even a targeted facebook advertising campaign. but there's one problem with the whole conversation was fabricated by the german satirical magazine titanic the editors behind the hoax posted this triumph and photo online it shows one of the magazine's employees posing with the transcript of the fake e-mails on the tabloid subsequent article the editor of tectonic told me the hoax was all too easy to concoct less than an afternoon's work in fact. we are at

a tannic of the typical magazine we work with the same. methods as the build so we knew how to think like and build editor there were no rumors about russian meddling and we thought this cannot be we have to make an alliance with the built tabloids and push a story about russian meddling a story that was tacky and like in the spine movie and we had a good feeling that this would work when there's a story like that for four built they don't care about the details it's only interesting if the story is good and it was a good story indeed it was yeah it was like a good movie i hope it will be made into a movie sometime well build has no retracted the story what's more the head of the s. p.d.'s youth wing insists that how he really been made such an offer he would have turned the tide of i mean it's dishonest but i don't know but this group but of course we would refuse any of these offers don't work with social bots i don't have

information that will even received any office in this area. living on the portuguese island of turkey syria in the atlantic is in desperate need of decontamination decades of us or a force activity have left it polluted with heavy metals and islanders say they are worried about the prevalence of cancer and other serious illnesses. leave them free of the cabinet stance run away from here as we already have stayed

too long. we have is a series of locations with extremely high levels of pollution caused by heavy metals the hydrocarbons there are very high levels of lead in some sense sterility cancer arrhythmia and neverending amounts of problems associated with an excess of these substances. all my family lived in that area both of my parents died of cancer when i was thirty three i was diagnosed with breast cancer.