dot com. breaking news that north korea's longstanding leader kim jong il dies a part there at the age of sixty nine his death sending shock waves across the reclusive country youngest son has reportedly been named as successor. forty nine people are still missing in the freezing waters off russia's far east coast more than twenty four hours after an oil rig capsized and went down. an explosive mood in kazakhstan as fifteen people are confirmed dead and dozens more injured in a series of rallies by striking oil workers. you're

watching r.t. with around the clock news live from moscow where north korea's veteran leader kim jong il has died at the age of sixty nine state media announced he passed away on saturday after suffering a heart attack kim jong il's youngest son has reportedly been named his successor meanwhile as the news broke longstanding enemy south korea has put its armed forces on high alert for the government has declared the situation an emergency the news has shocked the people of north korea and takes a look back at the life of a man who became a symbol of the reclusive state. a mystery to the world what now three north korea with its leader kim jong il dong this massive military raid was held in two thousand and eight to mark north korea's sixtieth anniversary to kim jong il wasn't there to greet the crowd that suggested. he suffered

a stroke in two thousand and three reports claimed kim jong il died of diabetes and had been replaced in public by stand ins hired previously as a security measure he never spoke to the media had a profound fear of flying and ate with special chopsticks which could detect poison rumors have surrounded the so-called supreme leader throughout his life beginning with birth according to one source he was born in the soviet union in one thousand nine hundred forty one during his father's exile all kim jong il's official biography claims his birth was heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow. our people take pride in the fact that they are blessed with great leaders from generation to generation. the leader of the democratic people's republic of korea since one thousand nine hundred ninety four he succeeded his father kim il sung keeping korea close to the world kim jong il was also named supreme commander of the people's army one of the largest in the world with one

million active troops and over four million reservist it's believed enormous funds allocated to its military might ate up north korea's resources needed to fight famine and other social problems but kim jong il and his regime tried to put on a different show when allowing the globe a glimpse inside former or you know in our father the general kim jong il thank you so much years. after the korean war the demilitarized zone was drawn up sending north and south korea into very different directions decades on the north remains a closed communist state the south a modern democracy an innovative success story i say. jokes aside north korea has caused global outrage in recent years testing patience by carrying out underground nuclear test i'm sure. range missile launches leading

to us in un financial and military sanctions it is now not a matter of the united states and north korea it is really a matter of the region saying to north korea that it has to change its behavior russia has tried to be a mediator for peace on the peninsula by pushing for negotiations or a process in the asia pacific region is serious potential for conflict and there's no alternative but to set up dialogue to improve understanding between the soils in twenty ten new pas blew up around the north with talk of the possible next leader that's when kim john on became a four star general and first moved into line to take over for his father oversaw tensions reached its highest point in decades after the north launched an artillery strike that left four dead south korea continue to hold large scale war games with the u.s. and japan and want to conflict would break out if another attack was launched now came john on

a young and inexperienced leader is not the helm who either open the door or continue to keep it shot this railway station was built in two thousand and two with hopes of connecting seoul and killing yang but the north korean regime backed out at the last minute making this the last stop train heading back into the south now with kim jong il that new power that perhaps soon we could see a train heading in. that it might have the most secretive end of. the world and he's now artsy korea. the search continues for forty nine people still missing after a russian oil rig capsized in freezing waters off russia's far east fourteen people have been rescued but four people are confirmed dead so far more than twenty four hours since the tragedy happened well for more let's cross last thought is jacob graves who's in the city of new orleans close to the site of the march exhausted a shakeup. what's the latest we know about the rescue efforts were just

a couple of hours ago hopes were raised up on the icebergs involved in the search and rescue operation spotted a lifeboat in the distance but as they got closer they realize that no one was in fact on board but something occurred yesterday as well we've teams in the field finding two lifeboats again both of them empty this be very concerning wiring for those search and rescue teams because those who were on the all rigs you may have forums the warsaw been there for over twenty four hours now and really being in a lifeboat would be their main chance if i were talking about freezing conditions there freezing water below freezing in air temperatures about minus twenty degrees celsius here in sakhalin at present there is one lifeboat still potentially of a want unaccounted for by search and rescue teams and placing a lot of hope that people imagine make it up for there to find further survivors we

have spoken to a spokesperson for the emergencies ministry explain the very latest to us. some of us if it's repeated in a rescue aircraft continues in recognizance mission in the area of disaster aboard the helicopter is all the necessary equipment to pick up any survivors three ships continue working in the region where the reach sank. jacob what's the condition of those rescued from the freezing waters any more information on then we're sure we know that fourteen or so far being plucked from the war some of those four were deemed serious enough to have to be airlifted out for further medical attention here in sakhalin ever see that now doctors have said that they're actually in a stable and fit state and they are no longer concern for medical staff here the other ten or they're already deemed to be in a stable enough state to actually stay on the boats and which they are caught out

from the sea and they will return to sakhalin within about two days and what do we know about why this oil rig sank was a number of theories floating around at place at present one of them being the fact that this already took on a lot of water before it capsized owing to the stormy conditions some of the windows broke so can't warter capsize and that left so by some estimates it's sinking within about twenty minutes can people have very little time to dawn lifejackets enter lifeboats and resulting in the situation we have right now now if it's a very and has already been launched present event ever as urge for a full and thorough investigation of the same criminal proceedings already opened up and one area they're looking into is why exactly was this oil rig being towed into port if such severe weather conditions as it was ok for now take

a breeze reporting from the sun and then region thank you. and of course i will be closely monitoring the rescue operation in russia's foreign east to bring you the latest on that instant updates are available on our twitter feed on us to our team dot com to keep on top of this breaking news story. also plenty more head for you this hour including can protecting copyrights be a pretext for internet censorship web pundits are sounding a dumb and ending stop online piracy act they say jeopardizes the fundamental principles of freedom of speech on the internet. fifteen people have been confirmed dead and about one hundred others injured after a weekend of mass violence in western kazakhstan the situation in the central asian republics remains volatile after deadly clashes between striking oil workers and police sparked more unrest across the region let's get the latest from our typical

piskun off in the country's capital us tonight. you go to spain a very bloody few days in the west of the country has can return for now. a very bloody few days unfortunately indeed but it seems that the authorities. who are in these parts of the country were all this while and see erupted. we've heard reports from the town of walked out on sunday in the west of the country were for over four hundred protesters gathered for a rally in front of the local building of the administration but fortunately that went on peacefully but the other rallies didn't go in the same fashion unfortunately for example on saturday a group of protesters blocked a real way station and about into a train with over three hundred people on board and also in the west of the country and when police came in to disperse the crowd they see that around fifty people or

hooligans as they're called now by the go to. he showed fierce resistance and they set a locomotive on fire they were throwing around malls of cocktails both at trains and at the police some of them moved to a nearby village setting things on fire there as well breaking shop windows and car windows and authorities say and some point the sort of posing a threat to the safety of the locals and of the police so they had to react and as a result twelve people were hospitalized hospitalized in that incident one of them . now these dramatic events have been spot by protests in the city of zen has a situation there stabilized doing. the violence erupted in the city all hours and also in the west of the country where on friday approach just rally combined with celebrations of twenty years of independence turned

into a very ugly picture brought just setting buildings on fire including state facilities authorities say that forty six buildings have been down to the ground and we're actually getting now more details from the authorities into how they reacted first they started firing warning shots into the air that didn't help to calm the crowd down and as a result thirteen people are killed and confirmed killed and over eighty others were injured and now they have deployed a state of emergency in this town i was in i was in and when all that over sixty people have been detained after that including three russian journalists who've now been then released but we were also heard reports on sunday that the authorities have managed to prevent an attempt to storm the courthouse and

tax also on the police but judging by the latest information coming out of there border has been restored in. so we will be of course monitoring the situation as it continues here in gaza. indeed i do keep us updated yet on corpus can offer thank you. well coming up later in the program a battle of billionaires and money dispute between two russian tycoon enters the bottle straight from more from london a big case is being heard. in the u.s. the uproar surrounding the controversial stop online piracy act is gathering pace with the judiciary committee vote sheffield's for they to this week it is a reading that the door aimed at fighting copyright infringement but ultimately lead to censorship and the stifling of freedom of speech what he's going to cheat you can explain. as the obama team travels around the globe preaching virtues of

internet freedom but i'm a big believer in technology and i'm a big believer in openness it is vitally important to every nation represented and every nation in the world namely internet freedom u.s. lawmakers may soon pass legislation that would make taking down a website as easy as a walk in the park the government would be able to shut down any site suspected of hosting copyright material no court warrant needed the government doesn't just take down the infringing material it takes on the site entirely and it does it without even a trial to find out whether it's illegal or not and as you know copyright laws are extremely complicated there are lots of things that look like copyright infringement the turn out to be licensed in one way or another even a site like you tube which has a mix of different kinds of content under this building entire site could get shut down companies like google yahoo or facebook are furious over the pending stop

online piracy act google co-founder sergey brin compared the bill to censorship in china and iran imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from the mother but the united states legendary computer scientist vin serve widely hailed as one of the founders of the internet itself said the legislation has the potential of bringing about unprecedented censorship of the web by using copyright as a wedge issue suddenly we're able to put this power in the hands of the government and then once they have it it can be expanded and expanded to deal with a whole range of other things program aaron swartz was under investigation for sharing united states federal court documents on the web in july he was arrested for downloading roughly four million academic articles from a protected computer he says the laws would make it very easy to silence internet whistleblowers any time a news organization or activist group or critics. tries to put up some internal

documents that were leaked or things like that all those documents are copyrighted for example we found e-mails from the people who made voting machines and a group at swarthmore college put them up on their website showing that the people who made these voting machines knew they were flawed and people could hack into the voting machines those emails were all copyrighted and that company alleged it was covering infringement to share those emails under this bill they could shut the entire site down prevent anyone from reading these e-mails of incredible public importance but not only could it affect freedom of speech but also businesses by potentially giving companies easy tools to drive competitors out of business they would have every opportunity to take action to disappear competitors and made he did debates congress postpone the vote the websites of the congressmen themselves could potentially be shut down under the proposed legislation because all of them post content that was borrowed from somewhere else like t.v. news clips what's even more ironic is that as the u.s.

preaches freedom of iran and to the wall that home it might soon pass legislation that gives the government sweeping powers to stifle web sources i'm going to check our reporting from washington our team. well rage also continues to be felt on the streets of the u.s. as the occupy movement marks the three month anniversary of its fight against economic justice and online to. read about dozens of protesters who've been detained in manhattan to set up camp. and. it took them from their location also. a financial focus on the debt crisis is explored by adrian some. time based political analyst to read his article.

one of the biggest civil trials in british legal history is entering its final stages with two russian tycoons in the spotlight. his former business partner. claiming more than six billion dollars in damages on monday i don't know which his lawyer will start giving his final statement. bennett says following the case and not. russia has a history of epic tales and the one playing out in here is up there with the best of them with no shortage of intrigue mystery and menace to former friends now foes slugging it out over the small matter of six and a half billion dollars around every move it. used to be close just how close is what this case rides on to the various claims they were business partners equals and what became an enormous empire built on oil. and ill gotten gains he wants

a bigger slice than the one point two million dollars he received back in two thousand and two is to add remove it she admits cash payments were made to his former mentor but says this was just protection money a necessary business expense at the time to benefit from mr berezovsky as political capital in trying to prove their stories both men have disclosed damaging details of their own as a way of trying to humiliate their rival even more mr and remove it even passed off one payment to bures or ski as an artificial transaction freely admitting he was a way round the money laundering regulations as for barry he claims his stake in sydney their company was twenty five percent but he's been forced to come clean on how for several years he took much more than that sometimes even more than the company's own profits is this sense of lawlessness the riches lawyer will emphasize in the closing statement of his defense he's already like a ninety's russia to medieval england and that's the get out clause both are using for their previous misdeeds the difference is every moment is using it also to show

that legitimate business simply didn't exist at that time and prime minister vladimir putin has recently acknowledged that fact even in his recent televised q. and a where he said this trial should be held in russia because that's where the money was stolen and that's where it should be divided. scenes of brutality continued over the weekend in cairo as egyptian troops clashed with protesters and demonstrators have been demanding that watching hand over power to civilian station soldiers were seen beating protesters betances them on the ground ten people have been killed and more than four hundred injured latest round of violence better in the middle east expert tara county says the army's provoking anger want to blame the protesting hormones. it's an old tradition in their country to deny it all we are all watching it the whole of egypt is watching it there was one young woman in particular who blows being dragged off you could see her. in

a browser being dragged by police when there are other images coming out of egypt of soldiers you're relating from the rooftop of the parliament building on to demonstrators below and this really takes one back to the colonial period in arab history and the history of that region when they were occupied by the british empire that is what they were told to do and the fact that the military is now turning on its own people. under the your wonders obviously of the week and the gyptian ruling elite is a sign that things are in a very serious. it's a serious situation developing in egypt and those whom the sooner by were is transferred to a civilian government an elected government the better whatever that government may be and these disgusting things that are being done to demonstrators in terry square

and all its ranges up by our own to create a great deal of anger people are now asking in egypt so what's changed i think the army is deliberately provoking this anger in order to create the impression that the violence is coming not from them they're being defensive and that egypt really has to be run by the military indefinitely and if that is their e-mail it's not going to work. well chatter on the internet is raging at the cruel beatings of protesters in tahrir well i want to r.t. dot com for more reaction and background to be unrest elsewhere around the world the rescue operation is now underway in the southern philippines after floods killed more than six hundred people and left nearly a thousand more missing the typhoon that hit the night calls in a month's worth of rain to fall in just twelve hours tens of thousands have been forced from their homes by the deluge rescues currently being hampered by widespread power outages and flooded roads the philippines suffers about twenty

typhoons and storms each year. the landmark israeli hunter s. prisoner swap has been completed with reigning five hundred fifty palestinians released under the egyptian brokered deal israel agreed to exchange more than one thousand dollars to prisoners for israeli sergeant gilad shalit who was captured five years ago first days of the swap took place in october when charlotte returned home and israel freed four hundred prisoners. iran's state t.v. has released a video of the man it claimed was a cia spy like he tried to gain access to the country secret service intelligence ministry identified and their. background their field in afghanistan agents kept track of him as he entered the country newcrest and arrested him when he tried to carry out his mission.

and some news just in nine bodies of dead sailors have been found in a sea on the site where an oil rig sank we will bring you more as we get it of course here on r.t. . be back to recap our top stories in just a few minutes time of the business bulletin with kareena. thank you carrie hello and welcome to our business this hour it's been called the deal of the year by russian business magazine company the country's two stock exchanges complete their merger today the r.t.s. and my six will continue to trade as a separate index for the trading platforms clearing systems and data centers will be integrated change is expected to go for a public listing in two thousand and thirteen aiming to raise at least three hundred million dollars the merger is an essential part of the government's plan to promote moscow and international financial center. that brings us to the market for

those low for a fourth straight day with the pressure coming from a stronger dollar and concerns about the european debt crisis wheat is trading at almost ninety three dollars per barrel four dollars per hour. and brant is that just on the one hundred and four dollars. markets in asia lower on monday with technology and retail firms we told you of concerns again provided the backdrop to an expected widely for trading technology shares trade lower in tokyo weighed partly by the us dollar weakening to around seventy seven. yen level of over the weekend memories losing over three percent and. the russian market closed in the red on friday to have lost over one. point seven percent lower. now with little sign of christmas eve a christmas rally trading volumes are beginning to drop towards the end of the year

he. believes that the coming week is unlikely to deliver an early tide get. the global picture again is very uncertain and many already two positions still the euro so i don't expect much activity but i still think that there is some hope for the rally if we don't see any serious bad news from europe and i think the credit to you to greece will be released and that will be will be taken very possibly by where you are puny global investors and years i don't think they'll give any negative surprises so the environment will be good as for russia we remain very cheap but the only thing we need to the international investors and unfortunately we haven't seen them for a whole year i don't expect them to come in these two weeks time but again i repeat we are very cheap so the change in sentiment global sentiment will bring these investors work the latest turmoil in the markets has put the russian economy under pressure capital outflow reached around ten billion dollars last month the

country's budget has also suffered from election costs and increase social spending however they long term prospects for russia's finances looks promising. all of this will be in very big from here two thousand and twenty because according to all. the. billion people in these people. this population. will need more food will need more gas all of what. is producing. the components is vital. so reliable sources. from here. to me but.

that's all we have.