militants in syria's eastern buthe district continue to shell the capital damascus despite a un backed cease fire. the two thousand and eighteen winter olympics wrapped up in south korea with a spectacular closing ceremony but the drama continued right to the very end of the games on the final day n.p.n. chang russia's ice hockey team softer me for three and then nail biting final that win gives a limpid athletes from russia a total of seventeen medals in south korea. and in the stories that shaped the week germany's leading tabloid publishes what it thought was undeniable evidence of russian meddling in the country's politics only to realize it was an embarrassing hoax.

with the top stories from the past seven days and the right up to the moment developments as well this is the weekly on r.t. welcome to the program militants in the eastern go to district of syria are indiscriminately shelling the capital damascus according to russia's defense ministry that's despite the united nations voting on saturday to implement a cease fire our war correspondent where augustus was here in the studio earlier with the details. russian reconsideration center monitoring center in syria says that over the last twenty four hours rebels in the east launched no less than thirty one shells into damascus and i know what that looks like every time we've stayed in the mosques every time we've been in damascus we have shells landing all over the capital all over the masks because it's the last rebel stronghold in the vicinity of the capital the last stranglehold you know the residue revolutions

because all of the on claves around the capital have been. retaken by the syrian government nevertheless these these incidents of shelling there very random they shelled blindly you know shell might land in a market right live in a military base and a hospital is a government building and usually there's a lot of casualties of the last twenty four hours a dozen casualties the syrian authorities but. the rebels in east ghouta generation islam the army of islam which holds which is the most powerful rebel group in east ghouta 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 strikes on going against against al 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 the russian defense ministry also said that according to its sources armed groups in eastern good are preparing to use chemical weapons to provoke outside forces into attacking the syrian government political science professor mike boettcher us believes terrorists have no intention of respecting 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 interest to continue on with this violence terrorist groups have instructions to is clearly violence. terrorist groups in this state of disparate they are so disparate that's why i can believe that the they can use chemical weapons as the last chord on the table. the two thousand and

eighteen winter olympics in south korea came to a dramatic close on sunday a stunning fireworks display rounded off tonight as well as the traditional handover to the next winter olympic host city which will be beijing and twenty twenty two wrapping up the final day in p. and chang here's india for trying. time really does fly and i can't believe that it's already and of twenty eight thing we've seen the closing ceremony and the nations parade out 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 o.a.r. 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 salva tas 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 the gates of a 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 yung chang 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 in these circumstances it deserves

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 as they are 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 final it was the first time in twenty years that russia had reached the final and you'd have to go back to albertville france in one thousand nine hundred ninety two for their last gold in men's ice hockey that was also under neutral banner as the team didn't have its own flag at the time following the break up of the soviet union now here you can see the elated and exhausted hockey stars taking their bus back to the olympic village we had a chance to speak to one of the key men and the russian team in the culture. marginals little game was very tough germany didn't get to the final for no reason it's great that we won but we leveled the school and then the final point in

overtime i think this goal brought joy to millions of russians funds and everyone is celebrating today. after a less than smooth build up to the games the delight of the traveling russian fans getting to celebrate their country's second gold of the turn them it was clear ok we can win you know we almost 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 more let's see if the germans were playing very well it was a beautiful game many thanks to the german team and their russian team for situ wonderful final we're so thrilled so the winter olympics have wrapped up for another four years but it appears that the spirit of goodwill is continuing their north korea has said that it's ready for talks with the united states that was announced after the country's officials met with south korean diplomats at the games finale n.p.n. chang but not everyone was happy to see the north korean delegation there were protests of a south korean border town against the visit independent china specialist and

a long told us about the controversies that could overshadow any north korea washington talks. far as the sentients a concern of course the united states want to trump up the sanctions and use military coercion as is what i mean solving international issues it depends on what kind of a deal the united states. struck with last korea with the united states obviously want that north koreans to abandon all its nuclear arsenal at bandon all its capabilities to develop nuclear weapons and long distance deliberate systems that's something which i don't think a lot of korea would necessarily accept that cannot be struck then we're back to square one and back to confrontation as collation but all the other hand it's quite possible that some agreement may be reached. germany is best selling newspaper was tricked this week and the publishing a fake bombshell story on russian meddling in the country's politics the report in

bill detailed how a mysterious russian agent and bought master called yuri had supposedly offered his services to the head of the social democratic party's youth wing kevin cornered hoping to sabotage a coalition deal between his party and angela merkel's conservatives here's a snippet of the pair's suppose that exchange. did care for him i'm yuri i'd like to talk to you about supporting your no group code campaign thanks for your mail jay already told me to expect a mail from you but just to be sure could you name me g.'s favorite beverage as you can certainly understand this is a delicate matter me oh me oh marty ginger out there yuri perfect that's a relief so what can you offer me basically we can offer you everything an opinion campaign with bazza gates schultz social bots on twitter and facebook or even a targeted facebook advertising campaign but there's only one problem the whole

conversation was fabricated by the german satirical magazine titanic the other there is behind the hoax post of this triumphant photo online it shows one of the magazine's employees posing with the transcript of the fake e-mails and the tabloid subsequent article that occurred editor of the titanic says the hoax was all too easy to concoct less than an afternoon's work in fact. we turn it over to record magazine we worked with to say. methods some built so we knew how to think like an boot 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 techie like in the spy 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. like

a good movie i hope it will be made into a movie sometime at this point bill has retracted this story and what's more the head of the s.p.d. is you throwing insists that had he really been made such an offer he would have turned it down. but i don't know but this group but of course we would refuse any of these offers to do work with social bots i don't have the information even received and you off was in this. coming up in the program catalans have been protesting against a visit by the king of spain that started more still to come. welcome

back to the program the king of spain paid

a visit to barcelona on sunday and he got less than a warm reception on the streets. thank you. thank you thank you. thank you you thank. it was police say the sixth first visit to catalonia since the region's referendum on independence hundreds of people gathered in the city center as the monarch arrived carrying catalan flags and were met with riot police continued into the night with people chanting support for the jailed catalan leaders they want to present after the last october which was deemed illegal by the spanish government now to discuss this further we are joined by live by thomas harrington professor of language and culture studies at trinity college now many people were unhappy about the king's arrival to put it mildly and the mayor of barcelona even boycotted

a dinner that he was attending is it surprising that he would want to visit catalonia given the hostility towards him yes or no depends on how you look at what you do since he sees himself as the king of all spaniards don't you gauge what many kind of feel is a partition and taking sides in the issue of their independence he came out with a very strong speech on october third director of research for the right after the referendum basically castigating the kind of us for having tried to do with that he did and so he's seen what the accountability is someone who is not impartial to their cause he's not acting in the role of the head of state who shouldn't many cases be above political disputes. now earlier this month the spanish government said it was considering using direct rule to bring the spanish language back into schools and catalonia how do you think that could affect the crisis. i think it's

going to be an aggravating factor right now as you know under article one fifty five go on yes and it is affecting receivership to the spanish stage to say the autonomous government is under spanish control i think many people in the spanish government are saying this is the opportunity to do what they want to do for a long time which was to get rid of the immersion of cattle on the account of an emergent language programs alone and in effect to reimpose castilian as the lingua franca of the region of course it is widely spoken but the schooling system has strongly favor kind of a line over the last thirty years and many catalans feel very strongly about this being the one of the key issues of the preservation of their culture at this point three jailed catalan independence leaders have large an appeal against madrid to the u.n. working group on arbitrary detention they think they have a good case i think they have an excellent case the question as we always know with

large multinational organizations is how much. how much attention they're going to pay to human rights issues and to what extent the human rights. concerns of these institutions are highly selective we've seen this in other parts of the world there are certain human rights concerns that seem to be very popular with the u.n. and others that do not given the challenges within the u.n. which is one of the favorite children if you will of the international order and the e.u. has not supported their claims for human rights i don't see the u.n. commission perhaps being much of a bunch of strong advocate for the. now according to a recent poll almost forty one percent of catalans want to break from spain which is actually a four year low what you think is behind the shift in public opinion. i think what we're seeing here is the the results of the spanish government's tactic of divide

and rule and the fact that on june january thirtieth the two main parties of the catalan independence movement were unable to come to an agreement as to the swearing in of the exiled catalan president and a lot of people felt quite deflated by the inability of the leadership of the movement to get together at this crucial time. and so i think a lot of people are feeling worn out and i think today's protest someone was show us that even though the political class maybe not listening to the call for unity the catalan nationalists themselves are quite spirited and want to go on with the process a couple days ago the president of the catalan parliament openly spoke of the violations of the judicial process before the lawyers guild of catalonia and many of the representatives there happily state oriented group walked out on him it was an extraordinary act of of lack of good taste on their part and my view

and i think that has provoked a lot more ire so i think we're in a position or a time where the movement is feeling a bit deflated because of the failure of the leadership to get together and yet they're speaking out in the streets and perhaps a more organic fashion. come apparent and professor of language and culture study that trinity college in hartford thank you so much for to finding time to join us on the program tonight thank you very much. the portuguese island of terror syria in the atlantico is in desperate need of decontamination decades of u.s. air force activity have left it polluted with heavy metals and islanders are say they're worried about the prevalence of cancer and other serious illnesses.

and it's time to run away from here as well ready to stay too long. we have is a series of locations with extremely high levels of pollution caused by heavy metals a hydrocarbons there are very high levels of lead in some say sterility and cancer everything me 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.

the dire environmental situation on the island was first acknowledged in a classified report written in two thousand and three which has since been leaked it describes seventy major fuel spills in one fifteen thousand gallons of jet fuel were released when a pump was unintentionally activated. that was in one thousand nine hundred four and there has been no clean up sense that the report stresses that the island's inhabitants are at risk from contaminants in the soil air and water here's what local experts have been telling us well. we found in the data that was published referring to the two thousand and seven two thousand and eleven period a higher number of certain cancers in the prior divots or area than the rest of the source especially regarding the rarer cancers for example i can see with thirty three percent of those or cases being in prior differ torah while the area has only

eight point five two percent of the population. this is the repeat itself on various islands occupied by the americans this is almost a scorched earth policy where the problems accumulate and the local government doesn't react the population has no capacity to take a stance maybe as a result of scientific illiteracy or lack of knowledge on the cause effect relations we contacted both the us and portuguese governments but i've received no response to the specific questions we asked the us government did however forward us a press release from last december it states that the two countries are aware of the situation and are seeking expert advice on how to best proceed now that's a review of the week's biggest stories along with today's top headlines but i'll be back at the top the hour so do stay with that.

stein is getting international recognition with the help of israel at least in the world of zoos remember wolf it was dismissive to do it like a movie this isn't my cup but he is going to have the study hall maybe you know john i just hope that they should be the only palestinians who gets the most help from its jerusalem counterparts i don't think this is about those who endure under the oak vision that not only could do this. and know it is unfair advantage to have this lady of the muscle that you have i'm going to continue muslims you to do more commitments also don't put this off.

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ha welcome to the party rather than providing clarity and closure at the indictment of thirteen russian nationals on charges of conspiracy has further entrenched both sides of the russia gate narrative those who believe that kremlin tried. democracy deepened that conviction as did those who insist that the whole story wasn't fanchon of sore losers whatever it was was and russia's role in the two thousand and sixteen presidential campaign perception is reality how should moscow navigate it well to discuss that i'm now joined by further look iana one of russia's top geopolitical analyst and editor in chief of russian global affairs magazine mr look and if it's good to talk to you thank you for coming over now first let me ask you about the so-called same petersburg troll factory in western media it's presented as this huge ominous operation but if you look at the sheer number of people involved and the size of the budget it's not even a factor it's

a tiny little swatch of three employ more people at archie's cafeteria band actually indicted why do you think it's gotten this larger than life notoriety here . more well i think people cafeteria know english pretty much as well as the people who are running that fact. disclosure because i believed. u.s. media and western media are all before they're. everywhere that our specialists including thralls are really comprehensive and overwhelming if it is only for doing this kind of business and i have no doubt that this business does exist because that's part of p.r. and most communication and strategic communication activities anywhere and i think

. in the u.s. . some people who seriously are. basically what they did is part of. many commercial commercial media company as they called it but you know that the problem with the americans is that. they believe that the person who is behind it is vladimir putin himself the president russia and i know that most foreigners believe that russia is this very tightly controlled society and politically that may be the case sometimes but i wonder if you allow for a possibility of guinea pig ocean who conceived and funded this operation who is sometimes referred to. was actually doing that on his own as an experiment with social media rather than following or trying to execute direct orders from the kremlin. i have no idea both relationship between mr pretty goes on mr putin

but based on my more this knowledge about how russian society and russians ministration work in general i don't because the specificity of current russian system unlike the soviet system where everything was really centralized and very much well organized. now we have the opposite situation yes the state. obviously uses some how to call it nontraditional means sometimes to compensate for all those weaknesses of russian russian system because it's no secret that. many components of influence power or economy capacity russia is much weaker than the united states but it can be compensated by by some. what i'm asking you

about is the propensity of the russia to produce these ad hoc actions what you're saying is that yes the russian state sometimes outsourcing is that but i think also what many foreigners don't understand is this call which the russian system allows for personal and sometimes even eleven and malevolent initiative yeah absolutely that's what i wanted to say and sometimes it is the case that. the state is using it but in many other cases this is a strange mixture of private initiative commercial initiative sometimes there are people with some political use. they they do it the maybe believe. russian state but it's not. development competency that the russian state the kremlin may cheer upon without actually the kremlin for asking the kremlin first absolutely and to believe that mr putin. with.

it is much much much worse organized and i think. competency when it comes to social media is rather questionable it is well known that he's not using smartphones so he's knowledge of. tool of communication is. in charge so maybe he is the one who should be indicted after all now if you look at some of the output of the troll sweatshop it uses magical language what we would call rather than american english i think shows very poor knowledge of the american domestic politics very brash style to it all you know it looks very amateur at the level of a high school newspaper at bath and yet a lot of very well placed and very well educated people in the united states take it as nothing. either a declaration.