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 john young's 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 lisa now a 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 for north korea with its leader kim jong il dong this massive military parade was held in two thousand and eight to mark north korea's sixtieth anniversary general can ill

wasn't there to greet the crowd reports 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 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 foreigner you know in our thought or the general kim jong il thank you so much you know 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 this is a modern democracy and innovative success story i know who. already jokes aside north korea has caused global outrage in recent years testing

patience by carrying out underground nuclear test and short range missile launches leading to u.s. and 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 in the asia pacific region this serious potential for conflict and there's no alternative but to set up dialogue and improve understanding between the soils in twenty ten new bugs who operate in 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 november saw tensions reach its highest point in decades after the north launched an artillery strike that left four dead south korea continues to hold large scale war games with the u.s.

and japan and wants a conflict would break out if another attack was launched now kim john on a young and inexperienced leader is at the helm and will either open the door or continue to keep it shut this were a way station was built in two thousand and two with hopes of connecting seoul and palin yang but the north korean regime backed out at the last minute making this the last stop trains heading back into the south now with kim jong il that there is new hope that perhaps soon we would see a train heading in that. setting light on the most secretive and reply. in the world and he's now our team 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 live to artie's jake

agreed seems in the city of new orleans close to the site of the maritime disaster jacob what's the latest we know about the rescue efforts or just a couple of hours ago hopes were raised up on the icebergs involved in this search and rescue operation spotted a lifeboat in the distance but as they got closer they realized 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 of the warsaw been there for over twenty four hours now and really being in a lifeboat would be their main chance of fire we're talking about three sink conditions they're freezing water below freezing in the air temperature is about minus twenty degree celsius here in sakhalin at present there is one lifeboat still

potentially of a want unaccounted for by search and rescue teams placing a lot of hope that people have managed to make it up for their effort 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 for sure we know that fourteen or so far being plucked from the war of those four were deemed serious enough to have to be airlifted out for further medical attention here in sakhalin they receive that now doctors have said that they're actually in a stable and fit state and they're no longer concern for medical staff here the

other ten well 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 the 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 and 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 mortar capsize and that left so by some estimates it sinking within about twenty minutes can people have very little time to dawn lifejackets enter lifeboats and resulting in this situation we have right now now a fifth of education 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 and stuff so we're weather conditions as it was ok for now take a breeze reporting from the subtle in region thank you. and of course i will be closely monitoring the rescue operation in russia's foreign is to bring you the latest on that instant updates are available on our twitter feed. r.t. 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 of the moment pending 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 of violence in western cuz it started 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 artie's of our piskun off in the country's capital astana. 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 worries all this while and see erupted. we've heard reports from the town of work now on sunday in the west of the country were for over four hundred fraud a series 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 holding of threats to the safety of the locals and of the police so they had to react and as a result twelve people were hostile i are hospitalized in that incident one of them and. now these dramatic events have been sparked my protests in the city of zen has a situation there stabilized doing. the violence erupted in the city or version i

was in also in the west of the country where on friday protests 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 at 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 now they have deployed a state of emergency in this town i was in i was in and we know that over sixty people have been detained after that including three russian journalists who've 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 general and 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 money dispute between two russian tycoons enters the final straight people more than from london have a 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 of granting that the door aimed at fighting copyright infringement but ultimately the

to censorship and the stifling of freedom of speech or you can explain. just as the obama team travels around the globe preaching virtues of internet freedom but i am a big believer in technology and i'm a big believer in openness and 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 the 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 bill the entire site to 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 being 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 loss would make it very easy to silence internet

whistleblowers any time a news organization or activist group or critic. 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 copper 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 heated debates congress postponed the vote the websites of the congressmen themselves could potentially be shut down under the proposed legislation because

all of them host 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 internet 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 party dot com to read about dozens of protesters who've been detained in manhattan trying to set up camp church on property and after phone says it took them from their location also. financial focus on the debt crisis has exploded in debt by age or in some. time based political analyst to read his article on thomas.

one of the biggest civil trials in british legal history is entering its final stages with two russian tycoons in the spotlight. suing his former business partner a man claiming more than six billion dollars in damages on monday adam of which is a lawyer will start giving his final statement artie's are bennett is 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 as long as 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 is 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 meets 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 is 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 around the money laundering regulations as for berries or ski he claims his stake in sydney for their company was twenty five percent but has 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 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 the demonstrators had 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 the latest round of violence better in the middle east expert eric county says the army's provoking anger want to blame the demonstrators hormones. it's an old tradition in their country to deny it

all we are all watching it the whole of egypt just watching it there was one young woman in particular being dragged off you could see her. in a prize being dragged by police when there are other images coming out of egypt of soldiers urine eating from the rooftop of the parliament building onto demonstrators below and this really takes one back to the colonial period in 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 egyptian ruling elite is a sign that things are in a very serious. 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 just gusting things that are being done to demonstrators in terry square in all its ranges by 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 remit it's not going to work. well chatter on the internet is raging at the cruel beatings of protesters in cairo we're going to r.t. dot com for more reaction and background to be unrest well swear around the world a 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 hit it's causing a month's worth of rain to fall in just twelve hours tens of thousands have been

forced from their homes by the village 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 meaning five hundred fifty palestinians released under the egyptian brokered deal israel agreed to exchange more than one thousand palestinian prisoners for israeli sergeant gilad shalit who was captured five years ago first phase 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 spike tried to gain access to the country's secret service iran's intelligence ministry identified and their. background their field in afghanistan agents kept track of him as he entered the country longest and arrested him when he

tried to carry out his mission. at. 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 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 but the trading platform 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 an 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 thank you 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 we saw you have concerns again provided the backdrop for next week trading technology shares trading lower in tokyo weighed partly by the u.s. dollar weakening to around seventy seven. yen level of the over the weekend memories. and russian market closed in the red on friday the r.t.s. lost over one. point seven percent lower.

now little sign of christmas of 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 took positions till the year and 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 that will be will be taken very positively by our european and global investors and yes i don't think they will 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 don't expect them to come in beast two weeks time but again i repeat we're 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 more promising our metals guess. all of this will be in very big demand from here to two thousand and twenty because according to all for. the. middle class will grow by three billion people in these people. this population will need more cars will need more food we'll need more gears all of what russia is producing or is part of like the components metal is vital for for the automobile construction for example so the reliable

sources. for from here to two thousand and twenty rather and up to and for the russian economy but they could be bumps on the road. well that's all we have for you at this hour but joining me and that less than fifteen minutes from now with more here on business art.

you're watching r.t. broadcasting live from moscow and breaking news this hour north korea's a longstanding leader kim jong il dies apart at the age of sixty nine his death sending shock waves across the country and the region he's youngest son kim jong un has reportedly been named as his successor. nine more dead bodies have been found in the freezing waters off russia's far east coast going to oil rig capsized and went down planes but that's it.