they still hope that this area will reveal at least some of its secrets if not on this trip there's always next time.

just hours to go before voting begins in kurdistan first have a parliamentary elections with security forces on high alert to ensure peaceful polling of political type even send into ethnic violence this year. all candidates and now in the running because they must get amongst the names of all the surprise. plus why entrepreneurs are claiming that president saakashvili regime is forcing them to give up their business and.

hello and welcome to our twenty four hour news life from. main story polling stations across kyrgyzstan and g. to open within four hours for voting which will create central asia is first parliamentary democracy securities being stepped up across the country which has seen bloody ethnic clashes and political turmoil there this year but as. of now reports fears of violence remain. this is truly a crucial vote because it's meant to end months of instability and political chaos in the country for the past half or year or so. has been plagued by violence and the southern part of the country where we are now are among the most affected and there are fears that this violence could flare up once again during the election the former soviet republic has been struggling to achieve normality since former president. was overthrown from power in their least street protest across the

entire country especially in the capital bishkek violent riots dozens of people dead and put the entire country in a state of chaos people who are protesting. policies which led to people living in poverty and failed to increase the quality of life in kyrgyzstan for years the interim government held in wide referendum which voted to build a parliamentary republic which is a milestone not only for a cure good start but for the entire central asian region since this election will be held successfully it will change the way. it's planned that the president's powers will be curbed well the prime minister will have more power than the formal head of state this is significant for central asia since traditionally countries in this region are ruled by authoritarian leaders and this way. poured from such a political model for the first time in central asia twenty nine political parties

are taking part in this election which is an all time record for kyrgyzstan however there are genders or relatively similar to one another there is skepticism on the ordinary people here in kyrgyzstan who say that this election won't improve their lives because simply not ready for such a transition and while it won't be as effective apart from political unrest kyrgyzstan has also been suffering from ethnic violence in june there were deadly ethnic clashes here in the city of osh where we are now which is populated both curious and nationals as a result hundreds of people were killed thousands were injured and thousands more had to flee their homes and at the moment peace is really fragile here in the south of the country and in fact at the moment meaning people fear even going to the polling stations on sunday there have already been reports of threats sent out to the local population of mess for many people at the moment the main priority is to

rebuild their homes and businesses after june as violence rather than to vote for any politician but despite this the authorities are still calling for the people to go to the polling stations. to take poured in this election promising that it will provide the long awaited stability of stories are all across the entire country both police and volunteers or monitoring the streets of the city's international observers have already arrived to the region and all three see that everything is ready for the vote on sunday the selection of moscow's next mayor has entered the final stages the united russia party has given its short list of contenders to president dmitry medvedev who has ten days to decide who's to take charge at city hall in the russian capital sara fathi is covering the story for us. the short list . for names that have been submitted by the united russia party to president. on

that list includes the deputy prime minister. now he's considered a strong from and a full of the position by many commentators so no surprise that he's being included in the list he's also considered a very close ally of prime minister putin having worked with him extensively during his presidency and now in his role as prime minister so he's certainly a very strong hand but also on the list we have russia's transport and communications minister igor levitin and the governor of michigan of course of valery he actually spent ten hours the former mellish deputy up until two thousand and five and to ninety ninety six when i was running for that position and . was running for the position of vice he was wounded in an assassination attempt against him after an explosion near his home which he survived the sudden you know interesting bit of background will not come to the only female of the group that

mila. and now she is the current at the moment and her goal actually includes a lot of the social issues such as unemployment and health care and she is considered one of the most experienced candidates having worked in the government since ninety ninety four and also in her position at the moment perhaps one of the best place to deal with some of the issues the president the fate of his already highlighted as will be some of the main challenges facing whoever will become the new. i think all four candidates are perfectly capable of becoming mayor of moscow the city's leader who would be responsible for quality of life. issues carrying on the policies in effect and dealing with future challenges the capital demands a series of new solutions which we will discuss with the new mayor. one of the main challenged. is it going to be these social reforms now muscovites going to be taping at the some of the social programs initiated and to this cause will be made

things such as free travel on the most of the pension is a benefit to teachers but there are certainly many issues that the new mayor will still be attempting to solve issues such as pollution and of course the colds and headache muscovites which is the traffic problems that's an ongoing problem so that would be some of the issues facing now another major key role that the new base will be to gain the public's trust the specially ahead of the parliamentary elections that will be happening with the end of two thousand and eleven knows this lack of trust of the cited as one of the main reasons for the pull the dismissal the new mayor will now have around a good to make an impact on that must get by all the controversy surrounding this because he was always very good at bringing out a united russia vote from the muscovite party going to be hoping that whoever select this will have the same sources sway with the public ahead of the elections

next. year we don't see and so coming up later this hour on the race to claim the arctic. find out what russia has in store to support the country's territorial claims in the resource rich region. out of the south a lot of the self-proclaimed super hero is squeezing on a little bugs and keeping his eye on the country's. moving towards a european style democracy as a state has a name for the georgian president whose proposed new constitution is supposed to said the country on the schools however many businessmen say the whole cycle his version of people's rule is that holds with experience. has not entrepreneurs who claim correct. and callbacks are the real forces of the country. the so-called patchwork baths and central police see is the perfect place to relax and have your

photo taken on the way out the historical building is now owned by a private company but a few years ago it was taken from its previous owner by the government getting gold he's an issue really still fears for his life he says in two thousand and seven he was approached by government agents who claimed he used illegal schemes to purchase the baths allegedly through the use of threats the officials forced the man to give up his business going to court says get a goal was not an option. they said that they know where my son's school is and they could say tomorrow and bust him for drug possession but he said that they will make me sell everything and still it won't be enough to pay them off and they'll be begging for mercy i couldn't have done anything but they need my business to this day. immediately after seizing the property of the government sold it off since then great goal has been trying hard to get his business back if you go to my roots

six complaints asking them why they made me give up my business but the authorities are silent so we have not received a single response here why is it going to finance. a human rights activist says this case is not unique according to the salient have been numerous cases recently where the georgian government has illegally seized buildings wound and other property from private individuals large and small companies. when neil thirty's openly use police in the prosecutor's office to take away people's property there's no other way to cooling it tara it's a kind of official racketeering aggressive and legal and purely criminal in its nature we can say directly to make a our second team is responsible for terrorizing the business sector. some georgian entrepreneur displaying the greed and political ambitions of the country's leaders

these businessmen say that in order to work safely and police see you have to make generous donations to the ruling party or a large so powerful intrapreneur as in georgia make voluntary donations by paying off the government june the elections all of them pay no less than fifty five thousand u.s. dollars these are official sums we can only guess how much they have to pay on official. golf feels betrayed by the government is still hoping to find justice for this man and many others who have seen for themselves so often president saakashvili his words differ from his deeds change can't come soon enough well georgian officials claim that they have created to corruption free to me to do also lost their businesses due to pressure from the state it's nothing but spin and even though only a few want to speak out it looks like the movement against such rickety hearing in tbilisi is getting stronger does. russia norway denmark the

u.s. and canada have five hours in a race to claim the ice caps vast untapped resources russia's scientists are literally going to the end of the earth on a mission to support their nation's claims getting a retro or join them on the ice. there is a perception that it's hard to find a living soul in the arctic but not today this is how members of russia's north pole expedition dock with their colleagues on board the academic furder of break up the fir drip is the flagship of the northern fleet of your chill floating lab or a tree around a hundred scientists have spent seventy days in the arctic gathering evidence to support the claim that the man also bridge is part of russia's continental shelf the head of the expedition looks more than pleased with the results almost too but . today we are fully confirm the geological outline or relief at the bottom of the

loss of ridge we have recovered quality material that corresponds to international standards. russia's biggest evidence gathering weapon is a multi beam eco sound known as spec it's hard to see and impossible to touch but it's talking to scientists from the bottom of the coldest ocean in the world. they can go as deep as twelve kilometers so it practically covers the whole spectrum of the oceans depth there are no depths it cannot measure. the principles our competitors are using the similar equipment the american icebreaker healy for example works with the same. it is convenient to analyze and compare collected by the same standards. russia is in a hurry to collect evidence for its appeal occasion to the un sheffield for twenty thirteen the same year another applicant canada comes up with its claims the

russian. president's envoy to both poles says he's people are ready to work around the clock to fulfill the mission. where you did some say what are the russians doing in the arctic on apollo night we're not going to ask anybody water when we should do the arctic belongs to russia and working in accordance with all international treaties and who will work day and night if necessary. and other deepwater eco sound will do its part of the job within the north pole expedition it will be installed on a movie flow and gas information on the breach nonstop for the next year the arctic maybe of ostend embassy in popular image a nation but it is theirs to major that it contains a quarter of the world's untapped falso fuels flotsam gold diamonds and other precious metals around sixty percent of total arctic gas lies in the russian exclusive economic zone so even without the models of reach being divided it seems

that russia has already won becoming arctic race its in the pressure of r t from the island of visa in the arctic. and to some other international news stories now the hunger and village of little tom has been evacuated due to the threat of a second deluge of toxic sludge it's feared the weakened wall of a nearby reservoir may collapse hungry declared a state of emergency after thousands of tons of waste flooded several villages this week killing seven however despite the sludge reaching the river danube officials say there is little side it has been significantly polluted. pakistan says it will reopen a key supply route for nato forces in afghanistan it was closed over a week ago in protest at a nato helicopter attack which killed two pakistani soldiers they've located caused tension with washington supply convoys stranded on their way to the border vulnerable to attacks in the latest incident suspected taliban militants armed with

rockets set fire to twenty nine nato oil time it is. two thirty three chilean miners trapped underground for over two months have been of reached by a drill digging a rescue tunnel chilean government engineers must now decide. to been lined up with steel to avoid the risk the collapse before the operation to bring the mine up one by one commences the country's mining minister says the rescue crosas should begin with three to eight days it had been thought the men might not be reached until christmas. more than two hundred passengers have been rescued from a burning lithuanian ferry off the coast of germany twenty six people were injured with some taken to hospital by helicopter the fire was caused by an explosion on the upper deck of the ship on bridge from germany to the twenty m. several firefighting ships have been spraying the stricken vessel with water to keep it from breaking up and from spilling the one hundred seventy tons of fuel on board. north korean t.v.

has shown footage of the country's leader kim jong il with his son. it's widely speculated that the western educated recently appointed john all. in his twenty's will succeed his father as head of the reclusive calling in this nation the joint televised appearance is a rare event and is being viewed as a further sign of official confirmation of the succession south korea's defense chief says that his country and the united states should be prepared for a quiet as in the region when it came you know leaves power. one man is holding responsibility for keeping his country's forests clean and he's keeping his identity i'm no targeting those who seek to turn the great outdoors into a pigsty with litter and exact his revenge and out his tongue battle when to meet the twenty first century superhero who's taking no porkies from there to bugs.

a legend on the trot this is the pig snuffling for some rather unpleasant truffles he's the latvian state forest some search one of its greatest problems rubbish well just look at this mess scoundrels how could be a little like this this this now to snuffling super swine spends his days charging around latvia trying to clean up the woods and make the culprits squeal for mercy there's even a legend to accompany him if you will turn the forest you will turn into a pig and he's not just harming it up this isn't. the border once a forest warden called us and said he'd found the remains of a car by the serial number to find the owner and find him two hundred lack there of the lot at all and it wasn't long before we found some potential literacy of our own. but they were keen to show

they were on pig mom's side it's an awful problem. i love it all the way it's done this man and your campaign pass it i can't see any more. when he started his work six years ago latvia's forests had become a pig sty with fly tipping and littering rife since then pig man who like all superheroes refuses to reveal his true identity to save their bacon he works with police educate school children lobbies parliament and keeps on the hoof rooting out literacy and raising public awareness in fact he's become quite a lot being a celebrity. here where the world has four superheroes superman batman spider-man and the lot the insert big man you can see how this forest is terribly littered who asked me can clean it so i will do this i will clear up the latvian forest i promise you meaning that if

you're planning to listen you might reply more than you sound big man could appear anywhere at any time so if i behave like a swine and do this ha ha i'm soon going to have to clean up my act tom barton artie latvia. and you can get the latest on everything we're covering hail and i'll say that's how website i'm sorry and here's a quick look at what a lie right now. modernize say is rocket has blasted off into space on its way to the international space station find out about its mission website. and also now side the fact that find out why a russian prima ballerina is asking photos should prove to much for the ellis for.

well the third of exported our going to drugs the equivalent of five billion here in doses ended up in russia every year that ends up every year here in russia that's according to the head of russia's anti in our cortex agency and he spoke to ask about the war on drugs and why under current circumstances it can be one that's coming up in just a moment. today

we're talking to the head of russia's dog control service and mr pena thank you very much for joining us today first off let's talk about afghanistan afghanistan is the number one producer all opiates in the world when we talk about the transfer of the drugs to russia what kind of amounts of drugs are we talking about. afghanistan produced about seven thousand tons of opium last year which is equivalent to seven hundred tons of heroin we believe that about thirty six of these tons end up in russia that's a lot about five billion doses and it's about thirty five percent of all drugs exported from afghanistan because in fact afghanistan exports less than half of the

drugs it produces as drug addicts throughout the world are unable to consume everything that comes out of afghanistan so afghanistan stores a huge amount of drugs russia and other countries estimate it's about thirteen to fifteen thousand tons of opium so even if drug production stops in afghanistan the country will still be able to supply the international market with heroin for another twenty or even thirty years. what about the main mode of transportation of the drugs could you talk about the roads or the countries to which the drug trade flows into russia. out of i.c.u. there is the northern route which is sometimes called the northern silk route after the seventeenth century trade route the reason the silk route is popular is because after the collapse of the soviet union munitions are merged and while their borders exist on paper in reality they're not even probably guarded so essentially there are no effective borders between afghanistan and russia with such poor as a borders it's very easy for traffickers to transport drugs the biggest part of

drugs flows through you can stand and kazakstan and onward to russia another part goes through iran across the caspian sea and the caucasus ridge and ends up. north caucasus or deeper in russia's territory by the way this provides a source of financing for terrorists and extremists in russia's caucasus because. of the americans that have guessed and say that they cannot eradicate most of the poppy fields because a lot of afghanis depend on their livelihood on these fields by producing the opiates what can be done about this is their solution to the problem. when the us says you cannot deprive farmers of their livelihood it actually sends a message to the afghan leadership as well saying they shouldn't do it because first this will destroy people's livelihood and second you push farmers into the hands of the taliban i think this is merely an excuse furthermore since u.s.

special representative for central asia richard holbrooke first suggested this idea that instead of eradicating drug crops the u.s. should target drug labs and traffickers which was almost a year ago the number of labs producing drugs for russia has tripled a year ago we knew about one hundred seventy labs in afghanistan today we know of more than four hundred laps of producing drugs for russia does this not seem to be a paradox that when afghanistan was under the control of the taliban the production was significantly lower than it is now and it has risen dramatically after the u.s. invasion nine years ago what what is the problem how is this fitting into the picture and the statements that nato is trying to fight the drug trade in afghanistan in your opinion. with your right i had a meeting with my pakistani colleagues here in islamabad and they too were amazed at this phenomenon there's only one way to explain it when the taliban sort of

official recognition for its kabul regime they took on president of measures to eradicate oppy and poppy crops they consistently took serious steps in one nine hundred ninety eight nine hundred ninety nine and two thousand when they introduced capital punishment for poppy. cultivation as a result they succeeded in eradicating drug crop on ninety percent of afghanistan's territory all the provinces they controlled the only place they couldn't do it was a northern afghanistan which was controlled by the so-called northern alliance but then operation enduring freedom began and the situation changed drastically only a competent government that has the support of the people can really control the country and take serious steps to destroy drug production how can we talk about the military solution to the problem when most of the poppy fields in afghanistan are located near in areas of the most intense fighting or where foreign military personnel are stationed where where is this listen to that. the nine years of the military operation in afghanistan have demonstrated that the more

fighting there is in the country the smaller the chances are of destroying drug production there growing alternative crops is a risky proposition the risks are immense you can lose your crop at any stage opium on the other hand does not require any effort poppy grows all by itself and buyers come straight to the field and purchase the crop so it's obvious that you can destroy drug production this way the russian federation has developed a plan which is called rainbow two because it consists of seven points we presented this plan to the european commission the european parliament nato our partners in the us in afghanistan and here in pakistan the plan calls for a comprehensive approach first of all this huge problem should be officially recognized as a threat to international peace and security in other words this is a separate problem that kills more than one hundred thousand people each year hundreds of millions of people suffer from this problem which everyone has been talking.