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slams the u.s. and e.u. for attempting to influence the trial of michael hart across the former oil tycoon away said this after being found guilty of a peasant with billions of dollars. for more on one of the most controversial trials in the washer join me to go to school for right from outside the courthouse in moscow in just a few minutes. and your frustration grows out moscow's ice covered airports struggling to cope with the flow of holiday travelers. may be back on it want to moscow's gaze this top spot thousands of passengers are still stranded in the catch up in just a couple of minutes from where people out packing to clear the backlog. two years after israel launched a large scale assault on gaza killing more than

a thousand palestinians those who survived say they are still living in a cage. five pm in moscow treasurer good to be with you here on our t.v. our top story. this isn't from the west over the handling of a cow how to cause queues trial has been met with anger by russia moscow says he international community should stay out of what's a domestic matter the former tycoon is waiting to hear what saddens he'll have to serve after being found guilty of embezzling billions of dollars let's get the latest from art he said our piskun all of these outside the court in the russian capital jaeger what has the international reaction been so critical of russia. well that's right there has been a strong critical reaction from the international community and especially from the worst washington has said that such a verdict will will hourman russia's image when it comes to human rights germany

has said that it will put russia one step back in terms of modernization bunch of the russian foreign ministry has called this interference and unacceptable attempts to. to influence and to apply pressure on this trial was here to watch the russian foreign ministry had to see this issue rests with the competence of the judicial system of the russian federation. any it them exert pressure upon the front or on the deputy. in his recent interview with the head still believe the russian t.v. channel the russian president has underscored that nobody has the right to fear with the followers of the poor. the foreign ministry has also felt lines that some of the crimes that me. only to have already been found guilty

off are considered to be serious offenses in in many countries in the west and especially in the united states where people found guilty of committing these crimes could even get life sentences meanwhile the defense does not agree with the verdict they say that they're planning to appeal in russia if they don't succeed here they're even ready to take this case to the european court and they're also planning to make a public appeal to the president after the final sentence is announced according to the judge the prosecution has provided more than enough evidence and. the trial so far is going by the books. he's now awaiting sentence when you expect that will be announced. it's wanted to say at the moment because at the moment the verdict is being announced and this me take several days. was already involved in

another case and back then it took two weeks just to announce the verdict but now the defense seems to mystic that we may actually hear the final sentence in the near future. go through the judges reading out what the court considers to be the evidence against because. from the information we've got we understand that the court plans to finish reading the verdict this year it will go to with the. former associate only with different already been found guilty of stealing oil from. so-called daughter companies and also embezzling billions of dollars just to remind you you used to be one of the world's biggest private companies back then headed by me at the time russia's richest man and that's why this case is truly one of the. most controversial trials in russia at the moment are for war less here's this

report what i call it valuable score. once russia's richest men he's now russia's most prominent prisoner coming to the end of it a.t.'s sentence for the biggest tax food in the country's history he and his partner platon lebedev were charged with stealing two hundred and eighteen million tons of oil worth twenty seven billion u.s. dollars from a subsidiary company you can see the verdict has been announced guilty cut out of his supporters say he didn't break any laws khodorkovsky was not to blame because he had a whole team of very experienced lawyers who used to tell him got. everything he did was within the law it was the blame of the laws that had the those loopholes and them the former tycoon rose to great wealth thanks to one of the world's largest non-state oil companies ucas the company grew from a state selloff in the one nine hundred ninety s. when government assets were being hived off in often chidi circumstances it soon

became russia's fastest growing oil producer but the path to success headed outside two of his associates were later found guilty of a number of murders. the thieves place is imprisoned khodorkovsky is accused of stealing tax evasion and fraud with a new charges he faces it's about stealing hundreds of billions his company security chief is in prison for murder. and that of course he has always insisted he's innocent of the fraud charges which put him behind bars and the since his arrest in two thousand and three ignoring his past many in the west believe that he was singled out for prosecution among the billionaire businessmen because of his political ambitions the russian authorities say you can is purely a victim to the economic crimes of its management i think there's a strong upper edge on the part of many in the media in the russian liberal media

and definitely in the west to to politicize it as much as possible there is no question that. our cause and the rest of the crowd who participated initiated and was very active in the criminal privatisation of the ninety's are guilty of the crimes or accused so in that sense i think very few people would fatha carter is persecuted for nothing yes there is a very strong case i thing against him public opinion is divided i think that most of the russian probably smell a recollected with your all those people i call that of course and that's why i don't think that i'm on russian broad public unlike liberals for whom he really is an icon he can find compassion for the prosecutors had asked of her that of course he was forty seven served at least six years on top of his current sentence however

the reading of the thirty is expected to last several days and the sentencing has yet to come down marty must go. thousands of passengers stranded in moscow's main airports are growing increasingly frustrated by weather over the weekend temporarily shut down domodedovo airport and the delay of some flights and cancellation of others has left many struggling to get on their planes some travelers unable to complete their journeys have been reportedly staging protests even picking fights with airport personnel or he's a catarina graduate has more from dead of a. this is how i want to be easiest tops looks like power is back on and flies are getting back on should you like the idea that the airport which was worst hit by bad weather conditions over the weekend when a snow storm disrupted pala lines in the area as a result of that some one hundred fifty flights were delayed and over eight thousand passengers were forced to sleep on the applets premises well now we can

see that information is getting back on the screens of the app or before people had been complaining that they were receiving no updates on the flights whatsoever and even muscovites had to spend hours and hours here inside the airport having no information on whether to leave home on keep waiting for their flights well let's go home long they've been waiting for their flights inside whole long have you been waiting for a flight. i was due to leave for television from the twenty seventh promised a flight will depart today but i don't know yet there is no information on the screens with cooley office and television and they said the plane at two o'clock today. has all the passengers have spent more than two days inside the airport complained they were not given hotel butts and there was not enough food and drinks so the press service of the apple says they regularly hand out lunch boxes and also provide stranded passengers with drinking water was the situation adama denver

airport is gradually improving we've called in extra staff to help resolve the problems were handing out water as well as hot and cold meals we hope the situation will be completely resolved by tomorrow some of the passengers even kalash with the representatives of companies and complain that the airport is full of passengers but no representative so for airline companies are inside and largely people complain on the lack of information on their flights for the hardest of all that he spoke karen's traveling with their kids many of them have been at the airport for holmes and long hours close to use me. how long have you been waiting for your flight where are you going to we're recommitted says the twenty six boxing day and we're going to northern ireland to belfast to buy a heathrow so we have so we were at the airport when their electricity went off. the console we were booked onto a flight yesterday which was console we were on

a flight this morning which was console them are we being put onto the ten o'clock flight which is obviously being delayed so honestly what do you think about how the airport has been dealing with the problem. actually not very well but i don't think i mean your port deals are very well with these problems as we're seeing across europe and other opals goes b.z.'s top stream it's about an airport which didn't have any electricity blackouts also bases had to delay suppose some seven thousand passengers many of them have been kalash with the representatives up and companies and with police they try to still impossible to control zones they blow up a lot of beach areas and try to stage protests and system to meet the hot of the apples people mostly complain that they were denied hotel baths and they ended up sleeping on the floors of so far whitetail were taken rushes to lodge just add ports. stay with us here on our team still ahead our close up team uncovers the mysterious path of russia's on screen there. if i was his three hundred years

ago i may have dissipated my local laws i may have visits from the army for a variety of other crimes the result was the same. prisoners around me go to long and very cold heads into exile in siberia. more about this treacherous journey as well as a look at what else the only region has to offer in our close up report coming up a little later. first though palestinians are marking two years since israel started devastating offensive into gaza with protests across the strip israel launched massive air and ground strikes on hamas targets in two thousand and eight killing more than a thousand people that came in response to rocket attacks launched by the palestinians the conflict through worldwide attention and condemnation because of the huge number of civilian casualties israel blockaded the strip after it came under the control of hamas in two thousand and seven a mosque is a group that israel regards as a terrorist organization since then aid has been rigorously restricted and most

rarely reaches its destination as artie's policy or found out. israelis insist their economic siege on gaza is easing but they can't deny the border and international condemnation is heating up and asian aid convoy with politicians and activists from eighteen countries is on its way to gaza m border one hundred eighty people food and medical supplies and a determined core to reach gaza on the second anniversary of the last israel gaza war the convoy dubbed asia to gaza solidarity caravan sits sail from new delhi at the beginning of december it's trying to do what an aid for telephone call to do in may break the israeli blockade on the coastal strip that earlier attempt left nine activists did since then israel insists things have gotten better there is a humanitarian analysis that we are making on a daily basis which allow us to see a broad picture about the humanitarian conditions and the situation in the gaza strip on each moment but gazans complain life is still unbearable that israel has

limited the number of trucks clothes and shoes coming into gaza and this causes problems with coordination in gaza. last month twenty two international organizations issued a report claiming the easing of the blockade has helped bring in materials only for the u.n. and international building projects ordinary goods they say are still not getting in our goods have already been detained in israel for three years but the fines that we've paid already equal the costs of the goods so even if we receive the goods back now we can sell them their spoils and those goods that are getting in there too expensive for most people here. the goods that we receive are not of a high quality but we have to buy them because we don't have an alternative. cars have also become a luxury two thousand dollars for an engine well just two hundred dollars for a rather simplistic alternative what can we do there's no fuel for vehicles spare

parts inevitably you resort to this kind of transportation to donkeys this is one of the largest cattle markets in gaza and as the economy here plummets it too is struggling to survive. we have no animals and no barley today and even when we have barley people are always here to buy it's been four years since israel imposed siege on gaza to try and break the massive support and with no sign that life will get better any time soon most gazans have the eyes on the sea and their hope on the next. policy r.t. israel. telling me of court has said stand israeli activists to three months in prison for a nonviolent anti-war protest jonathan pollard copartner bicycle ride demonstration against the gaza blockade three years ago human rights activists are calling the sentence unusually harsh joseph data from the popular travel coordination committee says the case highlights the poor state of democracy in israel. israel's engaged in

a very serious military and diplomatic repression of any aspect of nonviolence mr pollock's sentencing is the latest attack on this in which israel is targeting its own citizens and i think it's quite a commentary on israeli society that the only israeli that has been jailed in relation to the gaza war is one that decided to nonviolently ride his bike through the streets of tel aviv for the treatment of palestinians is significantly worse mr pollack addressed this in his sentencing argument in which he said that because he's an israeli jew he's going to jail only for three months while nonviolent palestinian leaders go to jail for years and there are sometimes placed in administrative detention without being charged with a single crime and so we see that the quality of israeli democracy now for its own citizens is is any serious decline and one might say in a crisis and this is just a logical extension to the type of violence and repression that we see against

nonviolent activists in the palestinian territories commentary from joseph dana with the popular struggle coordination committee. time now to explore another lesser known part of the world's biggest country. this time the russia close up team is in the almost created in south western siberia it might be located more than two thousand kilometers away from moscow but it shares more with the capital the new think arties tom barton uncovers its checkered past in the region. two things in particular it is famous for those are the fate of exiles sent here by the czarist regime along a difficult and dangerous road to get here and prison and forced labor once they arrived the other is a rich military to dish and the city has a military academy established here two hundred years ago has provided very famous

officers and generals for the russian and the red armies and it's those themes of examining. on the march under guard these men and women are walking one of the longest and probably the loneliest road in the world they reenacting the march into exile made by thousands and czarist russia. it succumbs years to go there is some ways winces in say yes a lot of people died on the way this group in the western siberian region of omsk discovered they're living on the only surviving stretch of the original nine thousand kilometers of the siberian exiles track that's had no modern changes made to it. when you come to the track you can vividly picture the convicts on their walk and hear the clinking of their chains you can smell russian history here. you have guinea discovered that he's descended from some of these exiles and decided to build a museum telling a story he and his re-enact has now received as it has from all over the world to

show them what it was like when these bodies it's scary to put the shackles on of course but it's interesting if we don't remember history we will have no future. it's a monument to one of our restructures cruelest chapters. one of the more noble traditions in all spheres military professionalism practiced here at the city's cadets college for nearly two hundred years of. what was an officer school now gives by. as a general education but with the military emphasis this here they created siberia's first cadet corps to prepare officers to protect the territory before that was a course like military college that's why i think with the successes of those old times. young hopefuls have to pass tough exams to get in here for those that do

it's a very different school to the others in arms. giving a book and it's strange to be away from home unusual but when you get used to it who feels like home. military personalities are dotted throughout history the city served as the capital of anticommunist white russian leader admiral kolchak in the civil war from one thousand nine hundred to nine hundred nineteen lost and residents who lived here though the study of the man like the maintenance of this building has remained a taboo right up until the present day or we still receive hate mail saying that he hanged a lot of people and was famous for severe punishment it's all true but it was at a time of civil war both sides were monstrously cruel. it is sadly the theme of cruelty which links so much of our history to the rest of russia's particularly of exile where they were an apple or a criminal. if i was here three hundred years ago i may have disappeared my local

lord i may have deserted from the army or a variety of other crimes the result was the same what my fellow prisoners around me i've got a long and very cold walk ahead into exile in siberia tom watson r.t. on screen and. stay with us here on our. backs with a business update. hello and welcome to all to business update it's great to have you with that russian these extraordinary measures to improve the country's investment climate that's according to president richard bet it was says it's recovering slower than expected at around three percent they call them a has grown by both of us yet i think that's the most analysts regard as a positive post-crisis trend that employment rate has declined by around six percent but still remains high but one of the remaining challenges is accelerating inflation the government fails to meet the threats target what inflation exceeding

eight point five percent and one of the case challenges for the government next chase to attract more money. limitless the new investment climate in russia is bad that's what the government should work on next year yes we've managed to overcome the consequences of the crisis but the investment climate is still very difficult in our country there are several reasons for that we've done and are doing a lot but apparently we need extraordinary measures. and to discuss what it will take to improve the investment climate when i joined live by chief economist from deutsche bank you must laugh because of all of us lot thank you very much indeed for your time so what has changed in the russian investment climate here and how anything changed well i think there were certain improvements certainly there were more efforts to deal with the most difficult of all issues in russia's investment

climate and that was first and foremost red tape i think certainly the level of debate the intensity of the date on this issue and some of the measures that have been undertaken are unprecedented but of course as president with very different already outlined there is far more that needs to be done on this front. there was some progress on w t o accession there was some progress on. moving ahead with privatization so these are some of the signs of improvement in the near term you know and actually you are right much more needs to be done and the president also says that he called for extraordinary measures to improve the investment climate in the country so what what sort of measures he's talking about well i think again the main problem is red tape excess of bureaucracy you know at various levels of living in the regional level that will take even more

measures even more than the we've seen so far in the course of the year two thousand and ten and then i think some of the issues that russia tried to address for a very long period of time like w t o obsession i think we haven't had such progress for for several years now in terms of the pace of the talks in terms of russia finally being very close to clinching this. session which in turn would be a very important step in improving russia's investment plan absolutely. and also talking about the inflation in the country so the government says inflation next year would be around six point five percent but on this obviously say that it could be even higher so his wife. my sense is that inflation is certainly a risk and really six point five strikes me as a very low figure given the upward inflationary momentum that we're seeing now i think it's very likely that we'll see inflation around eight percent in the course

of two thousand and eleven possibly even with some upside to that outlook but again a lot depends on the central bank and so far some of the policies pursued by the central bank give some reasons to expect the inflation will not be perhaps as high as in two thousand and ten and also president medvedev says that this has been a difficult but successful yeah so what's your view on russia's economic development what the yeah yeah what my sense is overall i would say we can say there are words that were made and again i would cite administrative reform w.-t. accession privatisation i think a bit more needs to be done in terms of structural adjustment in terms of sexual reforms interims of forming natural monopolies that is something that probably will

take a bit more time that is more of a medium term issue for the government but in the very near term there are some things that we should be looking forward to and in particular again i think the highlights of two thousand and eleven may well be russia's w.-t. accession all right thank you very much indeed garth that for us if that list of only comes tory chief economist from deutsche bank thank you very much. a check on the markets now european stocks are likely higher as markets attempted to bounce back from the. losses in the private session with gains led by banks and all stocks the german dax is trading flat to positive call make it is still the top losers we're going to run down two point eight and zero point eight percent respectively the ritzy remains closed for public holiday in russia the stock markets are trading higher the sound with the aussie had a stop about through its tenets percent and then not six gaining more than a minute of that russian stock to make it off to the comas among the top again is

open on the my sixth of about one percent russia second because. of the t.v. broadband onst it's all constable corporate stock tickers were up to twenty five cents next year but that information had little influence investors exterior to this they buying shares are almost flat on the r.t.s. and that might say. it will rally which saw prices hit a two year high on monday is being weighed down by china's second interest rate hike since october fears rose that the manufacturing powerhouse on the world's second biggest consumer could see that its economic growth and the country tries to rein in inflation even so prices at the pumps are taking a course of their own floating new year round record levels. and most analysts agree that the oil price will remain between eighty and ninety dollars per barrel next year and while this would have a remarkably positive effect on the russian budget in a pre-election gadd.