broadcasting live from moscow twenty four hours a day this is r.t. 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 kim jong un has reportedly been named his successor meanwhile as the news broke that longstanding enemy south korea armed forces on high alert for the government has declared the situation an emergency kim jong il's body is lying in state in the most name in the capital for a funeral service on december twenty eighth until then the period of mourning has been declared in the country that is on our way takes a look back now 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 john 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 glee there's 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 former or you know in our thought or the general. 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.

very 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 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. 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 soyuz in twenty ten new 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 my mind 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 want to conflict would break out if another attack was launched now kim jong un are young and inexperienced leader is at the helm and will either open the door or continue to keep it shut 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 a lot stop train heading back into the south now with kim jong il tell you that perhaps soon we would see a train heading in that. setting light on the most secretive group. in the world and he's now our team korea. sixteen people now confirmed dead after more bodies were found in a freezing water. off russia's far east coast where an oil rig capsized thirty

seven people are still missing more than a day since the tragedy happened fourteen people have been rescued so far well for more let's cross live to artie's data greaves who is in the city of. close to the site of the merits. jacob grim news really but what's the latest we know so far. well the number of deceased being found here seems to be growing and growing but no more survivors as yet far those fourteen plucked from the sea just yesterday crossed the plenty missing though and this search and rescue operation continuing in earnest now they've been locating a number of lifeboats in the area trying to see if any survivors on board so far but it's being proving fruitless and we have a similar story yesterday as well it's really owing to the fact that this whole rig haps sized and sank very quickly some estimates but it is within twenty minutes north of the school the weather swept away many of those lines but for people who

had an opportunity to board them that's a situation that rescuers are dealing with here at present and they are very concerned owing to the fact that those any survivors now would have been in the warsaw around by over twenty four hours exposed to extreme elements that down here and tell you exactly at present it's minus twenty degrees celsius and this for centuries just above freezing so isn't quite harsh conditions we deal with in time not on the rescuers side at present because we do just have a few more hours a day like here in sakhalin left and that will limit the ability for error for the helicopters and such to aid in this rescue operation indeed as you say a very difficult situation do we know about the condition those of those that were rescued from the freezing water. all of those fourteen people rescued so far we

know that four were deemed in serious enough condition to be airlifted out and taken to hospitals in sakhalin now doctors of taking a look at them deemed that they actually are in a stable and fit condition as for the ten others was thought at the time when they're locked out of the sea that they are in stable enough and fit enough a condition they can actually take part and be taken back on the vessels that they were taken out of the sea answer their space to turn sakhalin about two days' time and what do we know about why this oil rig sank in the first place but there are number theories being speculated about at present one being that this oil this route took on a lot of water at a time and that led to capsize so quickly in sink in quite a short amount of time and there has been an official investigation already launched criminal prosecution into this case president of it himself is for

a full investigation to take place one area that criminal investigation may look into as why exactly was this all rick being towed into port in such stormy weather and conditions ok thank you jake agrees reporting from the subtle in region . well of course we'll be closely monitoring the rescue operation in russia's far east to bring you over there to start getting. instant updates are available on our twitter feed. people are. also more ahead this hour including can the protecting copyright pretext the internet censorship. by using copyright as a wedge issue suddenly we're able to put this power in the hands of the government . when pundits are sounding alarm over america's pending stop online piracy which

they say jeopardizes principles of freedom of speech on the internet. fifteen people have been confirmed dead and about one hundred others injured following a weekend of mass violence in western kazakhstan the situation in the central asian republics remains one of top of the deadly clashes between striking oil workers and police sparked more unrest across the region. is in kazakhstan. it seems that the authorities resort to order in these parts of the country were these were 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 forging a new 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 release station and have actually training to the

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 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 or in hours 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 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 you know that over sixty people have been detained after that including three the russian journalists who've now been then released we will be of course monitoring the situation as it continues here in kazakhstan. well coming up later in the program a battle of billionaires like a bunny to speak to russian tycoon and says the panel straight we've got more on that from london and this is being heard. in the u.s. the uproar surrounding the controversial stop online piracy act is gathering pace with the judiciary committee vote for later this week visit growing that the war aimed at fighting copyright infringement ultimately lead to censorship and the stifling of freedom of speech what is going to change you can expect. 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 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 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 to find out whether it's illegal or not and as you know copyright laws 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 under this bill the entire site to get shut down companies like google yahoo and facebook are furious over the pending stop

online piracy act google co-founder sergey brin compared the bill to censorship being china and you ran imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from the other 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 program aaron swartz was under investigation for sharing the 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 sports more 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 the company alleged it was covering infringement to share those e-mails 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 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 era now 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 right against economic injustice i don't mind that you want to dot com read about dozens of protesters who attended manhattan trying to set up camp on a church property on branches of it to them if you. know i'm less than an szell pope on the euro crisis explored in depth expert analysis on the debt drama log on to our web site.

one of the biggest civil trials in british legal history is entering its final stages with two russian tycoons in the spotlight aris is suing his former business partner the chelsea football club owner roman abramovich claiming more than six billion dollars in damages on monday out of it which is no way i will start giving his final statement parties are better to following 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 just to add remove it means 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 barry he claims his stake in sydney for 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 transfer to 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 caster protesters and demonstrators have been demanding that the ruling military hand over power to a supporting of the station so as we see the protests that is the name 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 terry county says the army is provoking anger in order to block all demonstrators while. 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 being dragged off you could see her. you

know being dragged by police when there are other images coming out of egypt of soldiers you're really going from the rooftop of the parliament building on to demonstrators below and this really takes one back to the colonial period in history and the history of their 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 i was 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 normally it's rangers 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 beatings of protesters in cairo well go on 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 nearly a thousand more missing the typhoon hit on friday nights causing a month's worth of rain to fall in just twelve hours tens of thousands have been forced from their homes by the deluge the rescue is currently being hampered by widespread power outages and flooded roads the philippines suffers about twenty typhoons and storms and here. the landmark israeli ambassador

prisoner swap has been completed the remaining five hundred fifty palestinians released under the egyptian brokered deal israel agreed to exchange more than one thousand palestinian prisoners israeli sergeant schalit was captured five years ago first phrase of the swap took place in october when she returned home and israel freed four hundred prisoners. iran state t.v. has released a video of the man it claimed was a cia spy who tried to gain access to the country's secret service iran's intelligence ministry identified. marty at bagram air field afghanistan agents kept track of him as he entered the country in august and arrested him let me 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 off the media's main job

a survivor 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 hardships in afghanistan iraq iran and turkey the ship was heading to australia when it ran into a powerful storm. but time now for a business update with kareena. hello and welcome to our business update this out thanks for joining me it's been called the deal of the year bob russian business magazine company the country's two stock exchange is complete then merger today the r.t.s. m i six will continue to trade as separate indices but the trading platforms clearing systems and data centers will be integrated the new exchanges are expected to go for 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 as an international financial center. let's have

a look at the markets now oil is low for a fourth straight day with the pressure coming from a stronger dollar and concerns about europe that might believe it's trading at ninety two dollars and a half of our zero brenton's blend is at over one hundred two dollars but the. asian markets extend losses after reports that north korean leader kim jong il died the consequences for geopolitical stability strike equity markets already down by concerns about europe's debt crisis south korea's cost to drop four percent depends nicky's giving up over one percent and hong kong's hang seng is losing over two percent this hour. here in russia markets drop at the start of the trading session as well pricing in european downbeat news guesses moving point four percent why is it is over half a percent lower energy stocks are weighing on the indices as the price of war goes down bag stocks are also lower. now with little sign of a christmas rally trading volumes are beginning to drop towards the end of the year

. troika dialog believes that the coming week is unlikely to deliver an 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 that will be will be taken very positively by where you are peon 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 be 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 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 adding crease social spending however the long term prospects for russia's finances looks more problems our metals guess. all of this will be in very big demand from here to two thousand and twenty because according to all forecasts. the world good middle class will grow by three billion people in these people. this population will need more cars will need more food will need more gas all of what russia is producing or is part of making components metal is vital for for the automobile construction for example so reliable sources. for from here to two thousand and

twenty rather and up demand for the russian economy but they could be bumps on the road. russia has agreed to grant belarus a discount on oil supplies minsky's increasing oil purchases to one hundred fifty seven million barrels from next year but it will pay one billion dollars less than the current price in exchange for this it has allowed russian companies to use fineries to process fifty percent of oil they supply products could be sold in belarus and russia or go for export early in. the price of gas supplies from minsk and president look says energy discounts the country to save about four billion dollars a year russia's all major tab near ft has agreed to develop the rich oil fields in iran in a deal worth one billion dollars it will work in partnership with the state petroleum and engineering development company iran's. oil minister says that the

field is expected to produce around twenty million barrels a year that's close to annual output after seeking more joint ventures in iran as western companies curb their curb their investment as part of economic sanctions against the country's nuclear activities. it's all the business used for now german about fifty five minutes for more financial news here in r.t. . so. at the. same in.

culture is that so much me going which of course is going to come to it like a pleasing phoenix rising from the ashes newt gingrich again shows himself to be a major figure in american politics does he represent the republican party. in the east. room if it's to the bank . the be.

the big thing the be. the best so. we're watching our tivo costing live from the russian capital the headlines north korea's longstanding leader kim jong il dies of heart failure age of sixty nine death sending shock waves across the city country and the whole region is youngest son kim jong un has been named as his successor and. sixteen people have been confirmed dead as rescuers continue to find bodies in the freezing the office of russia's far east coast oil rig capsized fourteen.