breaking news that north korea's longstanding leader kim jong il dies of heart failure at the age of sixty nine his death sending shock waves across the reclusive country his youngest son has been named as successor. forty nine people are still missing in the freezing waters of russia's far east coast more than twenty four hours after an oil rig capsized and went down. explosive mood in kazakhstan as fifteen people are confirmed dead and dozens more injured in a series of violent rallies sparked by striking oil workers. and business the country's to stock exchanges complete their merger on monday it is an essential part of the government's plan to promote moscow as an international financial

center that and more coming up in our business report that. you're watching r.t. broadcasting live from moscow welcome to the program north korea's veteran the 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 kim jong un has reportedly been named his successor meanwhile as the news broke longstanding any south korea put its armed forces on high alert for the government has declared the situation an emergency kim jong il's body is lying in state the most name in the capital for funeral service on december twenty eighth until then a period of mourning has been declared in the country and he's on our way 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 gone 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 thousand nine hundred ninety four he succeeded his father kim il sung keeping korea close to the world. 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 one of the 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 i'm under democracy and innovative success story i. already. ari jokes aside north korea has caused global outrage in recent years as to patience by carrying out underground nuclear test and short 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 in the asia pacific region is serious potential for conflict and there's no alternative but to set up dialogue and improve understanding between the sides 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 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 apa helm and will either open the door or continue to keep it shot this roadway 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 train heading back into the south now with kim jong il ted there is new hope that perhaps soon we could see a train heading in that. setting my father most secretive and our place in the world and he's now a r.t. korea. nine more. bodies have been found in the freezing waters of russians far

east coast where an oil rig capsized it brings the death toll to thirteen with forty still missing more than a day since the tragedy happened fourteen people have been rescued so far with more let's cross live to artie's jeff agreed says in the city of new orleans close to the site of the maritime disaster jacob grim news out there what's the latest we know so far we are just here your course here with stressing that they may have found nine war bodies the. people at the scene may have called nine more bodies from the water men found to be true that would take the total on the sea so far to thirteen so that's the latest in terms of reports where they also think that they've found two more life boats as well in the area checking them as we speak see if there's any survivors of board this all comes after just a couple of hours ago hopes were raised as they saw

a large boat in the distance but upon inspection that found no one again was on board as a passenger but it could just yesterday as well were found two large boats with no survivors their missile comes on the back of when this all week capsized it is so very quickly some estimates in about twenty minutes this stormy weather condition that swept away a lot of these lifeboats for people had chances to all them so this is expressing a lot of the concern of warre from those in search and rescue teams because the elements down here are quite harshness of the talk about minus twenty degrees celsius in sakhalin where i am right now air temperature and the water temperatures just above freezing and as you mentioned they've been in those wars as if they are still bare food over twenty four hours now so a lot of their hope for survival being pinned on them being one of the remaining lifeboats. jacob do we know anything about the condition of those rescued alive

from the freezing waters. well of those fourteen survivor we see no four were deemed in a serious enough condition to be airlifted to further treatment and hospital here in sakhalin now doctors here are stressing that they're actually in a stable and good condition and so far no worry about those four as for the other tens of i was they were deemed in a stable and fit enough condition to actually remain on the boats that pluck them out of the water and they should returning as those boats in the next couple of days supported sakhalin and what do we know about why this oil rig sank in the first place there are a number of reasons so far being speculated upon belief is just speculation at present one being that the oil rig itself was flooded rewards are going to the stormy conditions and as such it capsize and that's what some people think led to

it sinking just so quick in about an estimated twenty minutes president of it have as called for a full and thorough investigation into this and there has already been criminal proceedings opened into this account and one area they're looking into a present is why was this. being towed at the time and sippin given the stormy weather conditions they say wasn't right for the all rick to be towed in such conditions. ok jake and graves reporting from the southern region thank you for now. so of course we'll be closely monitoring the rescue operation in russia's far east to bring you all the latest when we get it here and . instant updates are available on our twitter feed follow a set r.t. don't call people talking this breaking news story also plenty more ahead for you this hour including can protecting copyrights be a pretext for internet censorship hyundai sounding off of america's pending stop

online piracy act which they say jeopardizes the fundamental principles of freedom of speech on the internet. fifteen people have been confirmed dead in the ballots one hundred others injured following a weekend of massive violence in western kazakhstan the situation in the central asian republic remains volatile after deadly clashes between striking oil workers and police sparked more unrest across the region of his going off is in kazakhstan . it seems that the authorities resort to order in these parts of the country were these were this while unsee 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 forging new that one 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 a bass 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 say that around fifty people who are against as they're called now by the authorities showed fierce resistance and they set a locomotive on fire they were throwing around malt of cocktails both at trains and at the police some of them moved to a nearby village setting things on fire there as well the violence erupted in the city on thursday and i was and also in the west of the country where on friday protests rally combined with the celebrations of twenty years of independence turned into a very ugly picture where the broad just setting buildings on fire including state facilities authorities say that forty six buildings have been down there east first

they started firing warning shots into the air that didn't help to calm the crowd down 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 now been then released we will be of course monitoring the situation as it continues here in gaza. well coming up later in the program a battle of billionaire ends a mega money dispute between the russian tycoon stands as the pond straight. from london but the case is being heard. in the u.s. the opera or surrounding the controversial stop online piracy act is gathering pace with the judiciary committee vote for they to this week fears are growing that the all aimed at fighting copyright infringement will ultimately lead to censorship and

the stifling of freedom of speech he's going to chicken explains. 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 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 eighty sites 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 to 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 on of this bill the entire site could get shut

down companies like google yahoo or facebook or 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 vince 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 programa 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 copyright infringement to share those e-mails under this spill they could shut the entire site down and 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 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 internet to the wall that a 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 injustice i don't live on t. dot com to read about dozens of protesters who've been detained in manhattan trying to set up camp in a church and property along the front as if it took them from those who call the park notation also. financial popal in the euro crisis explode in debt. crisis on the debt drama love on toddlers.

one of the biggest civil trials in british legal history is entering its final stages two russian tycoons in the spotlight or a spears or skis suing his former business partner man of a move which claiming more than six billion dollars in damages on monday of him over to his lawyer will start giving his final statement once he's out of bennett fighting the case in london. 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 mr adam overachieve 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 bures or ski's 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 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 that his 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 demonstrators having him on getting richer and they were power to a civilian administration soldiers were seen beating to test his baton since then ground ten people have been killed and more than four hundred injured latest round of violence well veteran middle east expert terry county says that means provoking anger want to blame demonstrators harm. and 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 whose blouse had been dragged off you could see her. in a prize 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. 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 only it's rangers 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 to be violence that's 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 cairo we're going to r.t. dot com for more reaction background to the unrest elsewhere around the world a rescue operation is now underway in the southern philippines after floods killed more than six hundred people and left many a thousand more missing the typhoon hit on friday nights months worth of rain to fall in just. tens of thousands have been forced from their homes by the deluge rescues from being hampered by widespread power outages and flooded words the

philippines suffers about twenty typhoons and storms each year. landmark israeli hamas prisoner swap has been completed meaning five hundred fifty palestinians released under the egyptian brokered deal really agree to exchange more than one thousand palestinian prisoners or israeli somewhat and charlotte was captured by years ago the first phase of the swap took place in october and it returned home and israel freed four hundred prisoners. iran's state t.v. has released a video of them that it claimed was a cia spy try to gain access to the country secret service iran's intelligence ministry identified their resign marty graham airfield in afghanistan agents kept track of the night he entered the country and arrested him and try to carry out his mission. rescuers battled high

waves on sunday as they search for two hundred people feared dead after the overcrowded ship sank of the museum has been added job survivors say they were in the water for five hours before being spotted the boat was packed with two hundred fifty people fleeing economic and political hardship in afghanistan or iraq iran turkey the ship was heading to a straight when it ran into a powerful storm. creators have now. it's twenty three past nine am here in moscow welcome to our business update 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 us has in mind its will continue to trade a separate indices but the trading platforms clearing systems and data centers will be integrated the new exchange is expected to go for public listing in two thousand

and thirteen aiming to raise it fleeced three hundred million dollars the merger is an essential part of the government's plan to promote moscow as an international financial center. let's have a look at the markets now all this law for a fourth straight day with the pressure coming from a stronger dollar and concerns about the european debt like sweden is trading at ninety two dollars over ninety two dollars a barrel brant is that over one hundred two dollars a barrel asian markets are lower on monday with the knowledge and retail stocks in their concerns again provided the backdrop to expected quite weak trading knowledge it shares trade lower in tokyo and weighed partly by the u.s. dollar weakening canst began over the weekend memories losing over three percent and panasonic is down. now it's less than one hour ahead of the opening bell here in moscow the russian markets closed in the red on friday he has lost over one and

a half percent and my sex ended point seven percent global. with little sign of a christmas rally trading volumes are beginning to drop towards the end of the year it. believes that the coming week is unlikely to deliver early yuletide gift. 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 kind of released and that will be will be taken very positively by where you are p. 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 i 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 back so let us turn wall 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 over the long term prospects for russia's finance looks more promising. our metals . all of this will be in very big demand from here to two thousand and twenty because according to all of. the world growing. three billion people in these people. this population will need more cars will need more food will need more gears all of what russia is producing or is part of the components.

vital for the automobile construction for example so the reliable sources. from here to two thousand and twenty rather and up for the russian economy but there could be bumps on the road. and russia has agreed to grant belo was a discount on all supplies increasing or purchases to one hundred fifty seven million barrels from next year but it will pay one billion dollars less than the current price now in exchange for this it has allowed russian companies to use refining process fifty percent of supply the products could be sold. at russia or go for export only in moscow half the price of gas supplies for minsk president says energy discount will allow the country to save four billion dollars. that's all for this hour but don't forget you can always find most stories if you log on

to our website. business thanks for launch. here in bygone days sleds were vital to get around. but today no more leisure than life line. one drives people to quit their modern lives and settle in remote woods. one finds them up to

survive in the freezing cold. a new beginning in russia's nose discover the arctic circle on r.t.e. . world for. science technology innovation all the list of mellow mints from around russia we've got the future covered.