Welcome to the weekly here on r t where we wrap up the top stories from the past week bringing you the latest developments as well thanks for tuning in. Militants in the eastern good district of syria are indiscriminately shelling the capital damascus according to Russias Defense Ministry thats despite the United Nations voting on saturday to implement a cease fire or war correspondent ron goes to have was here in the studio earlier with the details russian reconsider the 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 knew what that looks like every time weve stayed in damascus every time weve been in damascus we shows. All over the capital damascus because it is the last rebel stronghold in the vicinity of the capital. Stranglehold you know lulu the resident revolutions because all other on plates around the capitol have been. Retaken by the Syrian Government nevertheless these these incidents of shelling theyre very random they shelled blindly you know a shell might land in a market might land in a military base and a hospital is a government building and usually theres 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 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 air strikes from what weve gathered from the various reports there are air strikes on going against east do it 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 theres no cease fire to speak of quite yet. The russian Defense Ministry also said that according to its sources armed groups in eastern gooda are preparing to use chemical weapons to provoke outside forces into attacking the Syrian GovernmentPolitical Science professor minded motorist believes terrorists have no intention of respecting the cease fire its 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 is can lead to violence. Terrorist groups in this day of this story they are so desperate thats 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 and twenty twenty two wrapping up the final day n. P. N. Chang here is in there for trying. Time really does fly and i cant believe that its already the and of twenty eight thing weve seen the closing ceremony and the nations parade at it and ill tell you what it was much warmer than the opening on february ninth quite literally and the fans didnt have to freeze themselves that much to see the spectacle something that hasnt changed though is the fate of the russian athletes who werent able to march with their National Colors there had been a glimmer of hope that theyd be allowed to do that but earlier on sunday the i. O. C. Decided not to lift the suspension of russias National Olympic committee after two of the o. A. R. Athletes tested positive for doping although the r. U. 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 astleys who failed the test though claim it could have been a result of salva taz 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 mens 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 gandhi ice hockey arena on sunday the red machine beat 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 alinas the gates of a in the figure skating and ill 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 thats of course a spectacular result as a dimension sunday saw a thrilling win for the russian mens Ice Hockey Team they secured gold with a four three victory over germany in a gripping final it was the first time in twenty years that russia had reached the final and you have to go back to albertville france and one thousand nine hundred two for their last gold and mens ice hockey that was also under a neutral banner the team didnt 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 had a chance to speak to one of the key men in the russian team india couple check the marginals the game was very tough germany didnt get to the final for no reason its 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 countrys 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 with 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 were so thrilled were all north korea has said that its ready for talks with the United States that was announced after the countrys 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 of the south korean border town against the visit independent china loves china specialist and long told us about the controversies that could overshadow in north Korea Washington talks as far as the sentients are concerned of course the United States want to trouble the sanctions and use military coercion is what i mean youre solving International Issues it depends on what kind of a deal the United States has with a lot korea with the United States obviously want that North Koreans to abandon its Nuclear Arsenal abandon all its capabilities to develop Nuclear Weapons and Long Distance the leverage system and thats something which i dont think a lot of korea would necessarily accept that cannot be struck then were back to square one and back to confrontation as collation but all the other hand its quite possible that some agreement may be reached. Germanys best selling newspaper was tricked this week and a publishing a fake a bombshell story on russian meddling in the countrys 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 partys youth wing. Cornered hoping to sabotage a Coalition Deal between his party and angle of merkels conservatives heres a snippet of the pair suppose that exchange did care for him im yuri id like to talk to you about supporting your new group who Campaign Thanks for your mail j. 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 martin ginger oh dear ury perfect thats 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 theres only one problem with all of that the whole conversation was fabricated by the german satirical magazine titanic the editors behind the hoax posted this triumphant photo online it shows all of the magazines employees posing with the transcript of the fake emails and the tabloid subsequent article the editor of the titanic says the hoax was all to easy to concoct less than an afternoons work in fact. We turn it over to rick and magazine we work with the same. Methods as built so we knew how to think like an editor there were no rumors about russian meddling and we thought this cannot be we have to make an alliance with the built tabloid 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 theres a story like this for four built they dont care about details its 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 build has now retracted the story and whats more at 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 both of them have to see in this book i dont know but this group but of course you would refuse any of these offers dont work with social bots i dont have the information that even received and your 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 cassie king 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. And. My teacher took me for a magical chacon then i was taken to hospital he didnt explain anything. When i woke up i was this deep when they told me not to drink the 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 didnt agree to bring us to sign documents by my teacher and welfare reform since. Japans eugenics protection law went into effect after World War Two and left of into the mid ninetys people with disabilities and heredity her of the terri diseases were sterilized supposedly to maintain the quote purity of the japanese race but missed gnosis 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 consent and some victims were as young as nine years old with the first lawsuit filed in january one of 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 when she was a one year old she became mentally handicapped because of the anesthesia and selfinterest gave her so she didnt have a genetic condition very good show the question maids whos responsible for all of this to me its the governments fault they executed the program as well as the National Legislature which a doctor the law needs to take responsibility make apologies assume its possible the doctors also responsible but in a way that we use by the government. The king of spain paid a visit to barcelona on sunday where he received a less than warm welcome on the streets. I. Was i was. I was it was the pay the six first visit to the colony since the womens referendum on independence hundreds of people gathered in the city center as the monarch arrived carrying catalan flags and they were met by riot police and really continued into the night with people chanting support from jail probably on leaders they were imprisoned after the vote last october which was deemed illegal by the Spanish GovernmentThomas Harrington and expert on catalonia says the Spanish Government is exporting divisions within the Independence Movement what were seeing here is the the results of the Spanish Governments tactic of degrading the rule and the fact that january thirtieth the two main parties. 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. So i think a lot of people are feeling worn out so i think were in a position or a time where the world is feeling a bit deflated because of the failure of the leadership to get together and yet they are speaking out in the streets and 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 theyre worried about the prevalence of cancer and other serious illnesses. Leave them free of the and its time to run away from here as we already have stayed too long. The most what 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 zones sterility and 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. 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 were released when a pump was unintentionally activated that was in one nine hundred eighty four and there has been no clean up since then the report stresses that the islands inhabitants are at risk from contaminants in the soil air and the water heres what local experts have been telling us. 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 say with thirty three percent of the cases being in prior divots or while the area has only eight point five two percent of the population. And we. Know this is how 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 doesnt 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 have contacted both the us and portuguese governments but i received no response as to the specific questions we asked the Us Government did however forward 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. 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 and Health Problems there and potentially violating the laws. Of the so that. The such. Utter lack of thing should. Cut. Cut q. Cut cut. Cut. Cut cut cut. Cut cut cut cut. The case is playing out in dutch courts and the prosecution alleges the ships which were still to be broken apart in india and turkey contain a number of toxic substances that should have been removed and recycled in a safe way it 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 or the alleged breach of 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 dont 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 environmental activists and organizations. Is a Dutch Company and certainly in two thousand and twelve the con