i am from hong kong all off. the so. long to.

do. it. all.

just hours to go before voting begins in kurdistan the first of a parliamentary elections with security forces and. peaceful only after political tell human side and into ethnic violence this year. all candidates and now in the running because any american most get amongst the names of a few surprises. while claiming the. regime it was saying them to give out that it's.

international news life for this is all see with me thanks for joining us polling stations across kurdistan a-g. to open with three hours for voting which will create some asia's fast parliamentary democracy security is being stepped up across the country which has seen bloody ethnic clashes and political turmoil and it this year but as also. reports fee is a violence still remain. this is truly a crucial vote because it's meant to end instability and political chaos in the country for the past half a year or so kyrgyzstan has been plagued by violence and parts of the country where we are now are among the most affected areas 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 deadly street protests across the entire country especially in the capital

bishkek violent riots left dozens of people dead and put the entire country in a state of chaos people were protesting by policies which led to many people living in poverty and failed to increase the quality of life in kyrgyzstan for years the interim government held a nationwide referendum which voted to build a parliamentary republic which is a milestone not only for kyrgyzstan 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. 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 the new parliament 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 course where we are now which is populated both way and was back in nationals and 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 self of the country and in fact at the moment many 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 well it's rather then to vote for any politician despite this the authorities are still calling for the people to go to the polling stations to take part in this election promising that it will provide the long awaited stability of stories are on high alert across the entire country both police and volunteers are monitoring the streets of the city's international observers have already arrived at the region and authorities say that everything is ready for the vote on sunday. the selection of moscow's next president is the final stages the united russia party has given its short list of contenders to president dmitri medvedev who now has ten days to decide who's to take charge at city hall in the rational town to tell his covering the story. 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 manifold a position by many commentators so no surprise that he's been 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 candidate but also on the list we have russia's transport and communications minister igor levitin and the governor of new girl valerie have now he actually spent ten hours the former mellish called deputy up until two thousand and five and to ninety ninety six when the pope was running for that position and. was running for the position of vice and he was wounded in an assassination attempt against him after an explosion near his home which he survived the suddenly 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 poll actually includes a lot of the social issues such as unemployment and health care and she is considered one of the most experienced candidate 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 the forty 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 would be responsible for upholding the quality of life. issues carrying on the policies in effect and to 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 to this cause will be made

things such as free travel on the most the pension is a benefit to teachers but there are certainly many issues that the new i will still be attempting to resolve issues such as police in the cool the cool to the headache muscovites which is the traffic problems that's an ongoing that will 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 head of the parliamentary elections that will be happening with the end of two thousand and eleven knows the lack of trust of the cited as one of the main reasons for the pull the. missile belt the new mayor will now have around a good to make an impact on that must buy up all the controversy surrounding gov he was always very good at bringing out united russia votes from the muscovite party going to be hoping that whoever it's the elected will have the same sources sway

with the public ahead of the elections next year. this is all see the program the race for the office it is heating up rocket scientists say they have evidence to support the country's territorial claims in the resource retreat. of the future of the us dollar as a merging world economy seeks to separate from the greenback something to be heading for an all out of. moving towards a european style democracy. for the georgian president and his proposed new constitution is supposed to serve the country on the schools however many business men same hell saakashvili his version of people's rule is it holds with a experience to his fellow. who claim corruption and big banks are the real forces of the country. the so-called patchwork beth's 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 has 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 drugs possession he said that they will make me sell everything and still it won't be enough to pay the mafia 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 a blanket that. 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 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 you can make a our second team is responsible for terrorizing the business sector. some georgian entrepreneur explained the greed and political ambitions of the country's leaders

these businessmen say that in order to work safely and believe see you have to make generous donations to the ruling party or large to powerful intrapreneur those in georgia make voluntary donations by paying off the government june the elections all of them pay no less than fifty five thousand us dollars these are official sums we can only guess how much they have to pay on official. recall 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 a 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. we had of the international monetary

fund these urging nations not to use the occurrences as economic weapons of self defense dominique strauss kahn says the global financial crisis is not over with the likes of the u.i. struggling to avoid the double dip recession lauren lyster reports some countries are already riding the wave of the dollar's downfall. financial leaders are getting together from all over the world this week to figure out how to boost the global economy at the annual i.m.f. and world bank meetings but many are talking about a break up the world is. the united states as the consumer of last resort in the financial world that's not called divorce but decoupling and everyone from a flurry of wall street analysts to nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz are using the word now to describe this shift in power the baton is passed from countries like the united states on to countries like china brazil russia. india

and beyond and you know growth in the global call will be much more dependent upon those countries than on the developed economies it explains how while the u.s. economy continues to look more bleak with analysts such as goldman sachs forecasting fairly to very bad scenarios of meager one to two percent growth or an all out double dip recession i would almost consider a double dip a base the so-called bric countries are still on the ascent brazil's economy is estimated to grow seven point five percent this year with optimism to spare this mission may be even. more than seven point five percent. and rounding out the r i c and that acronym russia india and china are estimated to post four point two five nine point seven and ten point five percent gains respectively china's growth as an economic power on r.g.p.

and children is to be made in china isn't lost on american politicians looking for someone to blame the great calls for help foreign companies group chinese jobs making with males would skyrocketing unemployment nor is it lost on the obama administration we believe it's very important to see more progress by the major emerging economies to more flexible. market oriented exchange rate systems geitner has increased complaints about china under valuing its currency ahead of the i.m.f. meeting you have to a reason why things are going. can't be because of you so it has to be because of. but while politicians try to hold things together citizens are decoupling from the us economy to people who once left their countries to come to the us for opportunities are heading back home the opportunities are going to be much better than what they are here they're setting up shop in countries poised to grow even as

the u.s. teeters on the edge of decline while nothing appears different from the outside of the annual world bank and i.m.f. meeting here in washington nothing sounds different about the u.s. pressing for its agenda of more fiscal stimulus and currency regulation inside changes afoot as these global governing institutions figure out how to incorporate the power of the new emerging economies showing that their economies grow far from us soil so too does their role behind these doors or lester r. t. washington d.c. . to some other international news and brief the hunger and been a long time has been evacuated due to the threat of a second deluge of toxic sludge is feared the weakened wall of the nearby reservoir may collapse hungary declared a state of emergency to thousands of tons of ways to flood the several villages this week. however despite the sludge reaching the river danube officials say there is little sign it has been significantly plute. pakistan says it will reopen

a key supply route for nato forces in afghanistan those close of a week ago for such a nato helicopter time which killed two pakistani soldiers the blockade caused tension with washington supply convoys stranded on their way to the border vulnerable tonks and the latest incidents suspected taliban militants with rockets so it's. on to twenty nine days so all time is. the first three chilean miners trapped underground for over two months have been reached by a drill digging a rescue tunnel chilean government engineers must now decide if the shelters to belie the scale total of the risk of collapse before the operation to bring the mine up one by one for months as the country's mining minister says the rescue process should begin with three to eight days of the thoughts of the man might not be reached until christmas. more than two hundred passengers have been rescued from a burning with twenty and ferry also cars to germany twenty six people were injured

with some taken to hospital by helicopter the fire was caused by an explosion on an opposite of that ship under it from germany to lithuania several firefighting ships have been spraying these tradin 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. how shown footage of the country's leader kim jong il with his son during the one of his speculated that it's widely speculated that the western educated recently appointed general in his twenty's will succeed his father as head of the reclusive communist nation but joining televised appearance as a way out of vent under is being viewed as a further sign of official confirmation of the succession south korea's defense chain which says that his country and the united states should be prepared for courses in the region when it communally leaves power. russia norway denmark the u.s. and canada they followed oxic powers in

a race to claim the ice caps vost on top of resources russian scientists literally go into the end of the us on a mission to support that nation's claims all he could see them join them on that icy and. 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 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 sure but your d.v.d.'s today we are fully confirm the geological outline are a leaf at the bottom of the loss of bridge we have recovered quality material that corresponds to international standards. russia's biggest evidence gathering

weapon is a multi billion eco sound known as. it's hard to see and impossible to touch but it's talking to scientists from the border of the coldest ocean in the world. they can go as deep as twelve kilometers so it practically covers the whole spectrum of the ocean's depth there are no depths if you cannot measure. the principal competitors are using similar equipment the american icebreaker healy for example works with the same sound it is convenient to analyze and compare collected by the same standards. russia is in a hurry to collect evidence for its implication to the un sheffield for twenty thirteen the same year another applicant canada comes up with the claims the russian president in war to both poles says he's people are ready to work around

the clock to fulfill the mission. where you dismissed me some say the russians doing in the arctic on apollo night we're not going to ask anybody water when we should do it the arctic belongs to russia and working in accordance with all international treaties and who will work day and night if necessary. in other deep water eco sound will do its part of the job within the north pole expedition it will be installed on a movie. and gas information on the breach nonstop for the next year the arctic may be 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 grace it's in the pressure of our team from

the island of view in the arctic. well on the third of exported the equivalent of five. and russia every year that's according to the head of russia's. that's the one that's coming up.

today we're talking to the head of russia's drug control service. mr pena thank you very much for joining us today first let's talk about afghanistan afghanistan is the number one producer all of 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. 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 so what about the main mode of transportation of the drugs could you talk about the roads or the countries through which the drug trade flows into russia was organized 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 stand and kazakstan and onward to russia another part goes through iran across the caspian sea and the caucasus ridge and ends up in the 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 that's the hope of the americans that have got this and say that they cannot eradicate most of the poppy fields because a lot of danny's 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 u.s. 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. just 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 opiate production was significantly lower than it is now and it has risen dramatically after the us 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. you're 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 sought 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 the 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. the effort poppy grows all by itself and buyers come straight to the field and purchase the crop with 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 about for almost a decade second as i just said we need to eradicate opium poppy and the international security assistance force which is an afghan is.