militants in syria's eastern gooda district continued to shell the capital damascus despite a un backed cease fire according to the russian defense ministry. the two thousand and eighteen winter olympics wrapped up in south korea with the spectacular closing ceremony for the drama continued right to the very end of the games on the final day n.p.r. unchaining russia's ice hockey team soft germany for three and a nail biting final that one gives a limping athletes from russia a total of seventeen medals in south korea. and in the stories that shapes 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 embarrassing hoax .

welcome to the weekly here on r t where we wrap up the top stories from the past week we'll bring you the latest developments as well thanks for tuning in. militants in the eastern go to district of syria are indiscriminately shelling the capital damascus that's according to russia's defense ministry that's despite the united nations voting on saturday to implement a cease fire our war correspondent more i've got stan was here the studio earlier with the details russian conciliation 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 damascus every time we've been in damascus we have shells landing all over the capital all over the masks because east ghouta is 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 have been retaken by the syrian government nevertheless these these incidents of shelling the very random they shelled blindly you know shell might live in a market right now 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 air strikes on going against 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. the russian defense ministry also said that according to its sources armed groups in eastern are preparing to use chemical weapons to provoke outside forces into attacking the syrian government political science professor mark tidd voters believe 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 there is groups have instructions to escape the 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 the night as well as the traditional handover to the next winter olympic host city which will be beijing in twenty twenty two wrapping up the final day in chiang here's. 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 nations 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 thing 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 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 gunning 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 fifteen year old alina as it gets 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 india mentioned sunday saw a thrilling win for the russia's men's ice hockey team they secured gold with a four three victory over germany in a gripping final is the first time in twenty years that russia had reached the final and you have to go back to albertville france and nine hundred ninety two for their last gold in men's ice hockey that was also under a neutral banner as the team didn't have its own flag at the time following the breakup of the soviet union now here you can see the elated and exhausted hockey stars taking their bus back to the olympic village we spoke to one of the key men in the russian team india have all choke when marginals league 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 russian fans 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 tournament was very clear. 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. the germans were playing very well it was a beautiful game many thanks to the german team and the russian team for situ wonderful final we're so thrilled meanwhile 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 olympics in pm chang but not everyone was happy to see the north korean delegation there were protests at 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 as far as the sentients are concerned of course the united states

want to trumpet the sanctions and use military coercion as is home i mean solving international issues it depends on what kind of a deal united states. struck with last career with the united states obviously want that north koreans to abandon all its nuclear arsenal abandon all its capabilities to develop nuclear weapons and long distance the liberty 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's 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 democrat democratic party's youth wing kevin cornered hoping to sabotage a coalition deal between his party and anglo merkel's conservatives here's a snippet of the pair's suppose an exchange did catch him on your 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 me jay's favorite beverage as you can certainly understand this is a delicate matter me oh me oh ginger oh dear ury perfect that's a relief so what can you offer me basically we can offer you everything an opinion campaign with but schultz social bought on twitter and facebook or even a targeted facebook advertising campaign there's only one problem with all that the whole conversation was fabricated by the german satirical magazine titanic the

editors behind the hoax posted this triumphant photo online it shows one of the magazine's employees posing with a transcript of the fake e-mails and the tabloid subsequent article the 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 work with the same. methods as built so we knew how to think like a 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 push a story about russian meddling a story that was techie like in the spine movie and we had a good feeling that this would work when there's a story like this for four built they don't care about 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 build has retracted the story and what's more the

head of the s.p.d. is youth wing insists that how do you really been made such an offer he would have turned it down. but i don't know but this group would refuse any of these offers to do work with social bots i don't have the information even received and yours was in this area. a forced sterilization program which ran for decades was recently uncovered in japan more than twenty five thousand people were targeted according to newly released government documents one of the victims shared her story with r.t. . has a hard time getting through the middle school. one of the teachers took me to see casting and his house that i was constantly being used by his wife i never got some. good paint i never had the chance to see

the official to back my diagnosis either she hated me. my teacher took me for a magical check and then i was taken to hospital he didn't explain anything. when i woke up i was thirsty but they told me not to drink water at school but i remember. at some time my parents told me that i was operated on and now i cannot have babies my father didn't agree to a british spruce to sign documents by my teacher and while federal science. japan's eugenics protection law was in effect from world war two until the mid ninety's people with disabilities and hereditary diseases were sterilized supposedly to maintain the quote purity of the japanese race but missed agnosis was common and in many cases the victims turned out to be entirely healthy and more

than sixteen thousand cases the procedure was carried out without the people's consent and some victims were as young as nine years old with the first lawsuit filed in january of this year questions are being raised as to who exactly should be held legally responsible. when i got married my mother in law told me that my sister has been sterilized after i made an information disclosure request i found out she was only fifteen when the pure ation took place this genetic mental disease was the only listed reason for her sterilization however it is not true so when she was a one year old she became mentally handicapped because of the anesthesia doctors gave her so she didn't have a genetic condition very good show the question is who's responsible for all of this to me it's the government's fault thanks a key to the program as well as the national legislature which a doctor the law needs to take responsibility make apologies a soonest possible the doctors will also responsible but in

a way that we use by the government. the king of spain paid a visit to barcelona on sunday and he got a less than warm reception on the streets. was. i was i was i was there was for me pay the six first visit to catalonia since the region's referendum on independence hundreds of people gathered in the city center as the monarch arrived concow one flags that were and they were met by riot police but i continued into the night with people chanting for the jail having leaders they were imprisoned after the vote last october which was deemed illegal by the spanish government thomas harrington an expert on catalonia the spanish government is exploiting divisions within the independence movement what we're

seeing here is the the results of the spanish government's tactic of degrading the rule and the fact that january thirtieth the two main parties of the catalytic. defendants of them 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. so i think a lot of people are feeling worn out so i think we're at a position or a church and where the movement is feeling a bit deflated because of the failure of the leadership to get together and yet they are sitting out in the streets in perhaps a more organic fashion. the portuguese island of tests they are in the atlantic is in desperate need of decontamination decades of u.s. air force activity have left it polluted with heavy metals and islanders say they are worried about the prevalence of cancer and other serious illnesses.

see them through here they can and it's time to run away from here as we already have states the long. almost what 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 zones sterility and cancer arrhythmia and neverending amounts of problems associated with an excess of these substances. in my

family they've been 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 just since been leaked it describes seventeen major fuel spills and 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 the 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 thirty three percent of the cases being in prior divots order while the area has only eight point five two percent of the population. so we. know this is the repeats 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've contacted both the us and portuguese governments but i've received no response to the specific questions we asked the us government did however for 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 best to proceed. a dutch shipping group is facing accusations of selling a number of vessels with harmful waste to scrap yards in turkey and india exacerbating the environmental health problems there and potentially violating laws . such. as the took you. should.

cut q. . the touch. the soul. the case is playing out in dutch courts and the prosecution alleges the ships which were sold to be broken apart in india and turkey contain a number of toxic substances that should have been removed and recycled in a safe manner and also cites the alleged impact of the chemicals on recycling

workers and the environment in those countries prosecutors are seeking fines of seven hundred fifty thousand euros over the alleged breach of each you waste laws if convicted three shipping bosses could face up to six months in jail the company rejects any wrongdoing however see trade groups defense team argues the ships only qualify as waste once they reach their final destination and don't fall under environmental rules as turkey and india are beyond its jurisdiction a lack of proper regulation in the industry is one of the problems highlighted by the environmental activist and organizations the trade is a dutch company and certainly in two thousand and twelve the conditions that the in south asia were well known to any european company so the choice c trade made was for the highest price and. higher prices because they do not pay for the proper waste management the proper infrastructure and they use migrant workers that are

not trained indeed unfortunately is a very common practice more than eighty percent of the world tonnage is currently broken on three title beaches in the world one in india one in bangladesh and one in pakistan this activity causes pollution to the sea. the groundwater and is also very dangerous for the work is they fall from heights there are explosions they will be crushed by steel plates so it's basically an industry which is very poorly regulated that's a review of the week's biggest stories along with today's top headlines of course i'll be back at the top the hour with more so do stay with us.

united states is going to look they're in deep domestic crisis shelling still a miracle supremest see the north from the outside noise from russia not from china but from inside all sides what you see now all around russia and is hyper will lizzie's no russian opportunity psychos are going to understand the full of times to find somebody outside the united states will use. while the real problem is aside. fifty years ago pregnant women to come together as a sleeping pill and thus this is what i mean because. the scientific sweat terrible but not on the road is shown in dutch one trouble in the world here not the warm

welcome of across europe. legal battles demanding at least some compensation. in two ways first will the physical damage itself as well that the constant mind that the people who actually perpetrated this crime has never been the justice has been. applied for many clubs over the years so i know the gang even 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 fans it's the age of the super money. and spending to the twenty million flight. it's an experience like nothing else on earth because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful day great so we'll all chance with. the geeks this morning.

to. fill in the tale of the dinner table bottle mosaddeq in china six oir here in the. area. an estimated eighteen federal since under-age refugees are now living in greece. you know still more to go. to get a home in there you go food shopping. and many sell their bodies just to make ends meet it's. only them second or them and the second on again and all the sins in there that is helping them says in their lifetimes but it. also has turned to dealing drugs to make a living. well that's just a little gem of blood loves a little. a month and then going. to

move the. carpet. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself and taken your last turn. caught up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath . but then my feelings started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our arc and i

secretly promised to never be like him it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters my mind it's consumed with the death of this one different person i speak to you now because there were no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. previously on the american gold pushing the organization reversed most of that this is what you're sure about our operation delta talk why can't we go forward should. i put this survey on the porch of ticket wrote in the middle of boston harbor is that crazy what. everybody i'm stephen baldwin gosh i want to ask hollywood guy usual suspects but every movie proud american first of all i'm dressed as george washington sure and r.v. i'm through so much to uncle steve to millions of goods enjoy the big boy was this

is my buddy max famous financial guru and we'll she's a little bit different i want to stay here abraham lincoln or another there were no windows up last but not least my larger than life. being i am a spiraling star rio with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the road to have fun. every day americans who know. what's america. i was naked. start to bridge the gap this is the great american pill which. time and money are winding down the pilgrimage heroes have pulled off to an

undisclosed parking lot to meet a representative from death to see if he can help further sponsor great ideas. like normally on a. plane. and with the show's budget nearly run dry max is anxiety has caused him to start smoking. up alive. how are you going to see. him rather than fast me at their. door oh well. you can make it. there oh say next the link. here. this is the man.