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the land of opportunity. faces tough questioning by new york immigration. in an exclusive interview from the.

get together to celebrate christmas day family. with news from russia and around the world this is here in moscow good to have you with us this hour for the millions of immigrants that dream of a better life in america the green card symbolizes entrance to a land of opportunity but winning the lottery for the right to work is not always on it seems that's why qualified doctors and teachers often end up driving cabs or cleaning floors if they're lucky to report. in the united states and here in new york every year countless people play the lottery. entering for a chance to win for a mega million dollar fantasy believing a few dollars and a dream could buy them so for the life of

a ticket that could change their lives every year more than ten million people also play a different kind of lottery and fifty thousand when meet one of them. and her husband teenage son and seven year old daughter you see here. are immigrants from nepal they entered and won the united states diversity visa lottery this lottery is a congressional mandate it's supposed to be an opportunity for people to come to america from countries with historically low rates of immigration the jackpot with permanent residency the prize is not cash but green cards and this startling experience was we had to start from scratch from zero once we got here two years of struggling with joblessness after finding their education in nepal doesn't count in the u.s. setbacks they never expected. we didn't know people used to say you're educated it will be easy america's a big country with

a lot of facilities life will be better but in reality it was eating the food in. us too hard so i don't buy experts who work on immigration issues a lottery winners really are given no resources from the government that invited them here and the struggles of jimena and her family are not unique for most people we have encountered it's been very difficult they reflect a group of immigrants who come to the u.s. not because of a job lined up or a family sponsoring them the for many because of the vision of what they can achieve they really have that american dream of coming to the u.s. they know that they've invested in their education and they. i think that the united states is the place to put that skills and that ambition to work with the greatest possible return. to the ninety five is not something though you have an ethnic neighborhood like this one that has southeast asian music restaurants and fashion many struggle with is finding economic opportunities that are any better

than what they had in their home country or even finding jobs that allow them to survive here we're seeing a lot of the downward mobility of immigrants and often very highly qualified and. finding foreign degrees an experience don't count for many u.s. employers these immigrants end up taking anything it means engineers and business managers and up his cab drivers and cashiers according to a study two out of five ford educated immigrants are either in a situation or unemployed all together it's an american dream they want to wake up from if you got if we had known this we wouldn't have come life was much easier in my country people who see their plight firsthand argue the government should help more i do think it's the state department's responsibility and i think that the united states is going to lose out relative to other countries taking that step possibly losing out to countries such as canada and germany unless they make sure winning the lottery actually pays off lauren lyster our new york. staying in new

york where the wife of alleged russian to boot says she and her children were detained for questions on a rival to the u.s. to travel to the city where he's being held in custody while he awaits trial pretrial hearings have been postponed until the end of the month and the start of the makes no. the family of victor boot arrived to new york for the first time since his extradition from thailand took place two months ago and we did speak exclusively with his wife all aboot outside the airport after they were held inside the airport for over two and a half hours and she did really seem quite traumatized by the experience she was telling us how her self her teenage daughter and victor boots mother who is over seventy years old were held by u.s. officials and alibi was questioned they were scooped up by officials as soon as they stepped off the airplane and really asked calculus questions a take

a listen to how she described this situation to us and we had to spend two hours in some strange room turned our luggage upside down and took her small things from my bag they told me to switch off my cell phone and didn't allow me to get in touch with the russian consul until the interrogation or questioning was over one person introduced himself as a special on to terry age and he said he wanted to talk to me about the purpose of my visit an immigration officer i think also asked me whether i knew my husband was a terrorist and why he had been arrested i said i didn't know why my husband was being kept in new york because no one has proven he was a terrorist or linked to terrorism the russian vice consul was present at the airport to greet all aboot and her family members and try to reach her on her cell phone several times but she did not pick up the phone she later told us that she was told by u.s. officials at the airport that she was not allowed to speak to the russian vice consul even though this of course did raise questions since a russian citizen should be entitled to have the members of the consulate present

especially when they're working with this particular family specifically on this case was extradited to the united states two months ago and was initially arrested upon the request of the united states and thailand back in two thousand and eight and for those two years the united states was demanding that he be extradited tight courts did refuse twice to do this however the extradition. it eventually take place in november and this extradition has been raising a lot of questions in terms of how exactly was conducted among them is the fact that case continues to remain in a thai court of appeals which technically means that he's still his case is still being considered in thailand and he should be there for that but he's here in the u.s. a picture but himself has always denied all of these allegations that are being made against him and his wife all are told us last night that she believes that what is her family's dealing with is a propaganda war and doesn't count on the trial here in new york to be fair. we

came here to fight for victor's freedom and to win i hope common sense will prevail in court because it's very hard with all the propaganda against victor in the american media but i do them for proceedings and professionalism in court because it's difficult to fight with the kind of image of victory that has been created here and i doubt the court will be unbiased also told us that she intends to remain in new york in the united states until she gets to meet with her husband to something which is out of the question for now since he is in solitary confinement and the only contact he has with the outside world is with members of his defense team as well as members of the russian consulate. well still ahead for you this hour here on r t on the scrapheap the fall of the plight of the poorest iraqis stuck at the bottom of the pile and. end of last christmas paper that they believe that the memory of brady will be telling you what. the day the rest of the great.

story still to come but first one of the three vessels stuck in ice off russia's far eastern coast is not free but the two others are still awaiting rescue the icebreaker. is returning to the second ship to tow it to safe waters and a more powerful icebreaker is on its way to help rescue the third vessel which needs a bigger path through the ice to get out there more than three hundred people on board the ships that are still stranded but officials say they're not in danger and have enough supplies rescuers be hampered by extreme weather conditions alexander somebody from the federal fishing agency says the mission is far from plain sailing . the weather has gotten worse as. storm has settled in with winds of up to twenty meters per second the temperatures well below minus twenty degrees celsius visibility is low it's difficult to see how long the admirable car of will take to get back to the remaining two ships in the path forged by the ice breaker through the ice closers backyard and this makes the risky operation even more

difficult. in iraq millions and even below the poverty line despite america's billion dollar rebuilding program that they often have to turn to the garbage dump as a means to survive zante sebastian miner reports for some of those driven from their homes by sectarian violence life is literally rubbish. at seven am every morning fatima crouch is outside her house and along with her sister and cousins begins to sort through gardening displaced from southern iraq that miss family is too poor to send her to school and so she works eight hours a day sorting through baghdad's landfill collecting plastic and metal that will be shipped abroad for recycling it's a reward for carting forty pounds of trash around two dollars and fifty cents behind me six acres of back that's trash to many this is just waste but for the families here this is not only their livelihood but also their homes over two

thousand people live on baghdad's landfill. making their homes out of the garbage that the rest of the city throws away there's no running water or electricity and certainly no access to medical treatment if someone gets sick they have to be taken to hospital the same way they get drinking water by donkey cart who can you believe it's an iraqi would live in a shack commute from garbage people who threw the family and change so we could see if it's iraq is still a wonderful place least by god if you will treat she was gone and we have a new government but look at her situation much reliving and shocks america spending fifty three billion dollars on the reconstruction effort in iraq but the residents of our jet haven't seen a dime of it but they have seen no use the sectarian violence to drove them from their home five years ago. we used to live in abu ghraib you know then america came the war increased in iraq people started killing each other and so we fled because we were afraid in two thousand and five names family moved to the land and has been

living there ever since too afraid and too poor to return home and not only are we going to be patient turned iraq into a battlefield as well as showing the seeds of political corruption how can americans stand back and watch without intervening in the situation everybody knows about the failure of the iraq economy this is having a terrible impact on the ground. socially and economically what experts worry about the children who grow up too poor to give school without an education they're easily preyed on by criminal gangs or terrorist organizations who lure them with money and promises of a brighter future surely hope although how do you know fulfill a dream when they leave in fear i can't accomplish anything nothing good security for everyone to go back to. there's no work we only need security that's it erect remains a very dangerous place where kidnappings and murders are part of daily right for the shia families living out of trash is still better than living with sunni

neighbors back. but until that is possible until american reconstruction dollars reached a quarter of a wrecked population and lives in poverty children like that will continue to collect trash in order to survive sebastian mire r t in baghdad by the way there's plenty more news views and analysis on our website it's dot com here's some of what you find online right now twenty five years after the world's worst nuclear disaster could food grown near the radioactive site really end up on european dinner tables and also a line. down but a lot else who may have suffered his first defeat but when the russian fighter dubbed the last emperor will step back in the ring. now some other world news in brief for you this hour in our world update. contaminated animal feed in germany show levels of the toxic chemical dioxin at

seventy seven times above the legal limit five thousand farms have already been closed off to the chemicals found in eggs produced in the northwest of the country none of them are now able to make deliveries of the produce some infected eggs have reportedly been exported to britain involved in evidence. a suicide bombers killed at least seventeen people and injured more than twenty. insolvent afghanistan blast happened in a crowded public golf house where people were getting ready for prayers officials say the attacker was targeting a police commander who was inside the building the taliban has claimed responsibility. thousands of southern sudanese living in the north are heading home to vote in sunday's referendum on whether the self should become independent international envoys including a former south african president and a former un secretary general are in the region to monitor the situation for in them as part of a deal six years ago that ended two decades of north south civil. pakistan's

government looks through avoided collapse after a major party agreed to rejoin the ruling coalition in the one party looked out on sunday in protest of a fuel price increase and other reforms in cuba and leaders said he now wants to show solidarity in the face of growing extremism a country still trying to recover from the devastating floods in the summer was hit by this estimation of a regional government three days ago. orthodox christians are celebrating christmas in russia the holy day is marked with lavish church ceremonies and family feasts across the country and also sarah ferguson in central moscow to see how people that celebrating. well it's happy christmas for the last ten russia thirteen days after it celebrated in the west and it's january the seventh the christmas day is marked now in the center of moscow a out of christmas and you can see the lovely colored stones that people have been coming to visit we've also had an ice flight the children have been able to play

all day they've been having a lot of fun we got the kids a full ice sculpture so you can see there is such a traditional who went to celebrate shouldn't the really beautiful why actually they would say this is my favorite one head the absolutely lovely everything having a good time we've also had a concert going on in the background where lots of people have turned out so they've been enjoying up but of course christmas in russia is much more of a tradition a religious celebration say last night they have the midnight mass at christ the savior cathedral where he's number of people and today they'll be lots of people attending the church and getting together with the family for the big traditional christmas mail it does vary greatly from the way that the west celebrate christmas and my colleague catching a good traver went to take a closer look at the history of christmas in russia. the.

thirteen days really the difference in dates is because russian christmas is on the seventh of january. julian calendar but it wasn't always this way to his parents celebrated christmas in much the same way as the rest of the world on december the twenty feet but the bilchik revolution changed they moved the christmas tree on to new year's they moved the gifts on to new year's they moved south across to new years and they banned the christmas suki's a child of this. which union which slapped a ban not only on freedom of speech and freedom of fleet too it's only after its collapse in one thousand nine hundred ninety one that christmas was again so liberated publicly i do you really know what we could learn the shows on christmas eve go to church and never decorate a for a tree for new year it took a while to explain to our child that

a christmas tree is decorated on christmas only for god and not for santa. their family has traveled a lot they lived in canada and in brazil but no where they say screw isthmus recognized so solemnly as it is back home definitely less capitalistic because christmas in the west today i believe is essentially buying gifts having a good time while in russia. and it's becoming more and more its perch or thing russians believe you can start your quest to do it to the full star appears in the night spot marking the birth of christ the strict diet cruelty days and it will produce preparing yourself physically for the special people. on christmas night vigils are held in thousands of churches across russia but the main

service takes place here at christ the savior cathedral which is symbolic because just like christmas itself it saw a rebirth only after the collapse of the soviet union religion is the opium of the people the communist leaders declared and leveled to the ground the country's main cathedral for many years there was a swimming pool on the side thousands of other churches felt a similar fleet today this child of emigrants is happy to be back in a country which has returned to its roots in the west churches are causing down. they don't know. what to do with their buildings they cannot grade them they cannot maintain them they are selling them their ten or thirty two apartments this could tax here it's the other way around it is integration of the soviet union almost twenty thousand churches have opened up. this around three churches and seen the

way the country's new scene in this leading. question for edition now. exceeded ritual aren't. russian christmas. and. holiday. the holiday runs. through january the time people have already and the holiday and enjoying this occasion mocking christmas with the festivities. sort of reporting there from the heart of moscow when the christmas holidays here moscow also means its sales time and a little later we go bargain hunting in the best boutiques the russian capital has to offer. hello and welcome to the show that was millions around the world are recovering

after the recent festivities most russians are celebrating the orthodox christmas this weekend but soon it's back to work for everyone and the colder weather is on its way to moscow but it's not all doom and gloom as january is the best time to go shopping. with the in ten minutes from now but first let's check out the business news with sharon. well welcome to our business program armstrong qian the stockmen gas field is home to one of the world's largest natural gas deposits in the world and was discovered twenty years ago but production has yet to start despite numerous attempts by various companies there are signs however that things could change for the better

in two thousand and eleven r.t. correspondent tim a say it has more. one of the biggest discovered natural gas fields in the world the stockmen fields hidden deep in the bering sea lion estimated three point nine trillion cubic meters of natural gas despite being discovered two decades ago the gas still remains untouched these combine these two factors that it is number one it is arctic and number two just offshore makes this. globally unique i don't think there is. there is such a tough weather such a tough environment conditions stop one but it does have its advantages the field is located significantly closer to its main consumer europe russia's gas giant gazprom partnered with french to tao and norwegian stat oil in two thousand and eight to have a go at developing the fields various attempts have been made since the ninety's by both russian and foreign companies but no significant progress was made however

analysts say this time gastro has what it takes for has. enough power to. propose and to push with the development plan that gas from considers to be the right one but it's more about actual demand and. the returns on this project the stock in project is heavily tied to the global oil prices low prices in two thousand and ten were one of the reasons that the project was virtually put on hold due to low profitability however by the end of the year all prices went back up the ass from the start now to consider stalk one as its next priority project as the next priority for small project again. but at the same time on our hand just a month ago gas from has caught up its program by more than one hundred billion

rubles for two thousand and eleven another major issue. logistics there's an ongoing dispute between the partners about how to transport the gas and what type of pipeline to use but in the midst of all these control over seas ahead of stockmen development bubbles of confidence. by two thousand and sixteen we plan to start producing gas there are no problems with the schedule which has been determined by the shareholders. analysts say those hopes are inflated and most expect only a modest pick up in demand over the next five years and little reason to accelerate the pace of development timothy across the business are mosco. and seventy percent of the first line of the north stream gas pipeline which will connect russia and germany across the baltic sea bed has been laid that's according to gaylord no walk north stream major project manager for germany eight hundred fifty kilometers of pipes have already been laid out of

a total length of twelve hundred kilometers the plan for the offshore pipeline is to build two parallel legs each was a capacity of twenty seven and a half billion cubic metres per year with the first gas delivery scheduled for late two thousand and eleven when finished it will be the longest subsidy pipeline in the world. and global car production has generally seen a rebound from the recent economic downturn this excel writing growth however should see some historical changes on the global as well as russian auto market within a culture that has the story. just ten years ago the production in the developing countries accounted for just twenty percent of global output twenty eleven is expected to reach parity russia is one of the principal drivers in that trend is projected to supply six percent of the global market in the coming twelve months and other factors for the growth in the domestic sector was due to the government's

cash for clunkers program that led the way for increased consumer spending however for the thousandth time the majority of vehicles produced will not be as domestic brands as involved has instead russians will be making renos full time gangs and ford's stock that the growth of the economy as a whole drives the market the further development of bank loan programs and the recent car utilization campaign run by the state have been the factors for increased consumer spending. world khari sales have accelerated an impressive nineteen percent in two thousand and ten rebounding strongly from the financial crisis the growth was driven mainly by the bric countries brazil russia india and china analysts believe china will take over the global center of car production and the next five years we're predicting ridiculous amounts of growth in china. going to take over the center of co-production in the world but also india brazil and

russia will also play the part of growth with predicting that during the next five years over the next five years the whole of the growth in production from from the bric countries and six percent coming from russia manufacturers continue to view russia as a particularly attractive market car ownership is still relatively low compared to the developed markets in the west but the market has quickly been playing catch up and is now the second largest in europe and with its population advantage is slated to capture the top spot from germany within a few years my question our business. and that's your business update for this hour where you can always find more business stories on our web site that's r t dot com slash business stay with us.