between ukraine and russia continues as both countries falter wait an agreement the price of full details in the business bulletin in twenty minutes time. for moscow with me marina joshie russia's demanding a probe into civilian casualties in libya caused by nato bombings that's their reaction to a report by human rights groups which claims dozens were killed in air strikes despite the airlines say its operation was almost flawless while the conflict is over and the man who stood in the way of western style democracy dead atrocities against his loyalists continue now you may find some of the images and report disturbing. this is what it's like to look death in the face a group of men the young and old captured after the nadir propped rebels overran

gadhafi hometown of sirte there was behind a camera delivers a verdict. for gadhafi. and the captives themselves seem doubts about what's coming next. and it seems like these play now is a costly be as the rebels assisted by western powers so to liberate the country from gadhafi i've been lodgings about he said district tendencies grow more and more outlandish by the day and that seems to justify any sort of treatment for his perceived loyalists in some places the violence is quite bad the town we looked out in was called where god and the militias from the neighboring town of misrata are terrorizing the people of to where they accuse them of having fought for qaddafi of having committed atrocities. in his name this is one of the liberated tripoli's new landmarks

a prison where moammar gadhafi was set to hold his political opponents with no access to lawyers and no chance for a fair trial. but while the prisons new guards have very elaborate in their rating gadhafi is ferocity his fear and hatred still reside in this neighborhood. obviously is a poor area in southern tripoli where more margot duffy had strong support base prior to his fleeing the district also has his name to the tourists present a scene of torture and arbitrary killings but while gadhafi is gone the human rights abuses still remain rather from this area still disappearing without a trace of their families are too scared to talk about. this is probably the only place in libya with families of a legit good after supporters can turn to for how mohammed to form peace and your earlier this year it's investigated the fate of those who disappeared in good

office prisons he is now primarily dealing with people who went missing under libya's new leadership it's usually mothers who come here and at first they are scared to tell me that this son or husband was with the khadafi forces they usually say he was a civilian courts in the crossfire but i tell them that i don't care which side he was on all i need is accurate information so that we can start searching. mohammad and his friends have been taking photos of unidentified bodies that have been popping up across libya in recent months this naturists are probably the relatives most realistic hope of finding closure but even after sifting through them many managed to retain hope like this man whose brother disappeared on the front lines of banjo. i hope he's in tunisia maybe his in hospital maybe he's lost his memory or has no way of contacting us. they say hold dies last and leave

it's still alive even if many people aren't. artsy tripoli. it's fear it syria could also face foreign intervention with unpredictable consequences the country's opposition is split over whether they need military help from outside in their fight against the government the division came as a country with this as some of the fiercest battles in this nine month old crisis almost two hundred troops and and so regime protesters are reported to have been killed in the latest series of clashes across the country the syrian authorities have agreed to a while in observers mission which it's hoped might help to end the conflict or to sarah first reports from damascus the arab league council is expected to send an advance team hit. syria in the next couple of days ahead of the observers mission that will that be entering now that was agreed upon on monday when the syrian government signed the proposal that opened the doors for those observers to then

into the country now that decisions receive a mixed response from the opposition outside the country the syrian national council that's the main body outside of syria said that they don't think that that decision is going to be as efficient as the syrian government is trying to make out if they called it a ploy and have still called the international intervention now that varies very widely with what the opposition group within syria is saying the national coordinator council here within the country said that they welcomed me they hoped that it would be implemented properly but they said that absolutely their stance is still very much against international intervention in their words they said that that could lead to the destruction of the country is something big that they do not want to see happening we went to the city of homs the other day that's one of the main conflict areas now we weren't allowed to enter any of the hotspots where the

conflict with continuing we were allowed to see some of the parts of the city speak to some of the people that this is the city has been described as being on the brink of civil war. to be almost the situation here in homes it's very difficult not things which make us feel intimidated because of the situation there have also been problems with the city receiving fuel on the gas. certainly the situation there and the civilians who are still living within that city are in a very very extreme situation and there's calls from all the people living there to resolve that as soon as possible. so for porting there and a u.s. base intelligence gathering firm has found most of the claims by the syrian opposition about the seriousness of the country's crisis are untrue the company called strapped for says protesters are exaggerating to win outside support from powers like the us dr paul craig roberts a former reagan administration official told r.t. he believes washington is not just backing the rebels diplomatically. the united

states is involved in stirring up the opposition and in arming yet they use the cover of the arab spring arab protests as they do and libya so these are not spontaneous protest and certainly authoritarian state like syria syria you wouldn't find people in opposition able to regularly themselves with arms military weapons that makes no sense for the syrians to themselves or opportunity for the country to be destroyed like libya or iraq or afghanistan or those who got saved in libya what's involved here is the russians i don't think they make the case in syria. and the americans the russian naval presence in the mediterranean just as in libya or the problem was the chinese all investments in syria goes

around and is in the target sites and lemon arms and so there will be knocking all of these countries one by one and while they stand there and don't unite in fact they can't unite and that's why they're so want to. so i had for you this hour here in r.t. the u.k. is getting increasingly unhappy meddling and it's a fair. it's simply outrageous but on elected officials in brussels can prevent off from bringing about reform but we said we were going to do when you have a tip into office. and we look into the controversy surrounding the e.u. as a chance to make britain reconsider its welfare roles for nonresidents. and r.t. starts the countdown to twenty twelve with a special series a first hand reports on landmark advance and transfer that shape the passing year.

this is. to history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shaped two thousand and eleven. now russia's six state duma the lower house of parliament begins its first session on wednesday and comes more than two weeks after elections that sparked mass protests over alleged fraud. joins us live now from the parliament building. was read out this duma is different of course from the previous one so tell us a bit more how the seeds her brad and what we can expect from it. and it marina is different and the first thing which makes it different is that opposition will obviously have a much louder voice in the new duma with united russia failing to secure a constitutional majority it's widely expected that the lower house of the russian parliament will again become a field of heated debates two hundred thirty eight seats out of four hundred fifty

four united russia and obviously one that is center for votes but the form worse than four years ago losing almost one hundred seats now the main intrigue today's about who will be the new duma speaker a government shuffle advanced last week with kremlin chief of staff symbian are wishing stepping down to take a duma seat and united russia party forward his candidacy for a new speaker the opposition has a different take on that and they have their own preferences. for the new duma speaker bass will be decided today during the first duma session also the last few days before this first session was about distributing committees unite russia is getting sixteen fifteen story out of twenty nine committees with fourteen committees going to opposition parties. well the first session of the state duma is going to have to as we speak but what about the controversy surrounding how it was

elected. did we know the scenes day one the first day when the results of the elections preliminary results were announced they've been protests following that on december town around twenty five to thirty thousand. people gathered for a mass demonstration mosco are getting the very nice all the vote that they've been also a number of illegal honors the rise of rallies set up and most consent was broken to other cities they resulted in people disrupted traffic that were cases over some activists calling for violence like in the case of logar i didn't see nobody that followed that was followed with a number of arrests in particular has just been released up to spending fifteen days in a detention center and actually today there was an unauthorized rally taking place outside the duma building as a result of that twenty people were arrested now as a in response to those claims that the elections had been rigged to make from the very border that they were investigation. fifty criminal cases have been already

filed for alleged violations steering the elections results the results so twenty one polling stations have been canceled of course we have to understand that twenty one all took over eighty thousand polling stations across the country it's not enough to say that the vote was on can not be considered legitimate and the results of the vote counts the best way we see the duma gathering today. because there is a very much indeed for this has had a child reporting here. now a new year is just ten days away now we are starting our own countdown with ten special reports on events that shaped two thousand and eleven that we are looking back at major stories through the eyes of r.t. correspondents who witnessed them we start with an area that saw a fair share of both breakthroughs and failures space projects consistently made it into the have lives but there was a much more that didn't aspire oliver reveals. well

one of the biggest landmarks the resort this year was the fiftieth anniversary of eureka guarin first space flight and just before one of the nasa astronauts went up there i was having to chat with him about what it actually meant to have that first flight by you current fifty years ago and he was saying really it changed us as a species we stopped being limited to our own planet we were able to go out and explore further of course a few years after guarin first month set foot on the moon. of mars five hundred project which came to an end this year was really something quite exciting it was great to be able to go in and have a look at it where they were when i'd seen it on television i was thinking wow this is six guys in a shed and then when i actually went to where the the mocked up spacecraft was i

realized it was six guys in a very very small shed for five hundred twenty days i mean doing them a bit of a disservice saying that they're in a show in a shed but when you see the pictures of the wood paneling and everything very small confined space that they were in for such a long time one year into their voyage the mars five hundred team currently simulating never journey to earth however it will be another five months before this store can be opened and they can step back into normality it was nice on the day i remember the day when they came out. the look on their faces when the door opened the look on the very very pale faces of course you have to realize these guys hadn't seen sunlight for such a long time. they were ecstatic to have come out of there. and it really was i mean whether scientifically it ends up being the building block or the the first step towards the first step i think it was referred to by the organizers towards

going to. in trying to send people to the red planet for real. well looking back on twenty eleven one of the things that really stand out is the crash of that progress module now it wasn't just the module itself they've been using those since the late seventy's it was the fact that this was carried on a soyuz rocket now the soyuz rocket is the only way we have now getting people into space. the progress module that was launched at the end of august was carrying valuable food and supplies for the international space station at the time we were hearing from morse and from the guys on the space station who that those food supplies have been for saying no this is fine it's ok i remember saying in my reports look these guys go through extensive cosmonaut training they know what they're doing they'll be fine. volkov who was actually the mission commander who was up there when he returned from his time in space he was telling me that yeah

they were genuinely a little bit worried they were generally scared at times they were going to run out of food they didn't know if they were going to be able to be brought back down to earth before that ran out in the beginning of twenty twelve. pressures that these people put themselves through evidence thankfully that these failures that we've seen today seen this year these failures that we've seen this year didn't result in . any major problems on months spaceflight that's always the big concern but. it has shown the perseverance of these people who do risk their lives going into space on a well as a job they do it without a choice. oliver porting that well this was just the first report in our special series on events that shaped twenty so don't miss the rest and we'll be bringing you a new story every day until the new year plus you can always find them on our web

site r t dot com or you can also check out plenty more news stories common now so let's take a look now at what else is there today. a man made to madness a dutch team of scientists have engineered a deadly virus that critics dubbed indestructible bioweapon and terrorist threat also. protester proof protection and new ride shield set to be introduced in the u.s. can stop occupy demonstrators from brazing find out more at r.t. dot com. britain may be forced to pay out more than two billion pounds in welfare benefits to non-citizens and that's if the european union has its way but with london's new spirit of non-cooperation the decision might not be so easy to impose our designs

are bad it has more. homeless and jobless this man's too embarrassed to be identified he came to britain from poland five years ago hoping to live a dream but the realities been a nightmare he claims the u.k.'s welfare state hasn't been fair on him. i'm a citizen of the european union five years ago i decided that this country would be my home but i didn't come here to claim benefits i came here to work. david's what the government fears is a benefit tourist here to take and not to give back english is still a struggle and the state says he doesn't qualify for its handouts a serious accident eighteen months ago put him out of work and he soon went bankrupt he's been living on the street ever since but still won't go back to poland. i thought this was

a friendly country but only if it needs you and you work for it becomes he could give me something but he doesn't need me i never thought it would be like this this is not a paradise. foreign nationals are eligible for welfare once they've lived here for over three months but they must convince the or forty's they are here to work and support themselves but the e.u. is ordering britain to relax those rules claiming they discriminate unfairly it wants to allow foreign nationals to get state handouts as soon as they arrive in the u.k. it's extraordinary for the european union to say that in britain when north are able to do an eligibility test before handing someone benefit you know first of all it's our money secondly it was in our manifesto that we were going to bring in these sorts of changes it's simply outrageous that an elected officials in brussels can prevent us from bringing about the reforms that we said we were going to do when we were voted into office the e.u.

commission is refusing to speak to us but it hasn't been shy in issuing britain with an ultimatum. it says the right to reside test foreigners must pass to claim benefits is too tough and has given the government until the end of this month to change that otherwise it will see that britain's refusing to budge otherwise it claims it will have to pay out two and a half billion pounds to those who work but anything back in the part the british welfare state exists to benefit british people. this was very clear in the original welfare state back in the one nine hundred forty s. which had contributed principle you contributed and you benefited if you didn't contribute you weren't eligible for she was sent to migrants from eastern and central europe most of those aren't eligible for welfare but already some are trying their luck and no doubt more will the u.k. is forced to sweeten the deal on the bennett london. and

a very full of now at other stories making news round the world the number killed in last week's massive flash flooding in the philippines has topped one thousand people that number is expected to grow where the authorities continue to find bodies most of the dead are women and children who drowned last friday when water gushed into their homes while they were asleep a state of a national calamity has been declared. female supporters of a pro muslim party in pakistan upheld an antenatal rally in response to a recent airstrike that killed twenty four people hundreds of women chanted slogans denouncing u.s. and nato they also carry batteries demanding very strong alliance forces from afghanistan after last month's attack pakistan retaliated immediately by closing its afghan border crossings to nato supplies. that amazing video of a radical escape a driver tries to overtake a truck i went through a russian road the cars pulling out to the center when there is

a moment of horror. a giant truck going in the opposite direction jackknives and seems certain to hit the car but this isn't a whisker the amazing escapes already received more than two million views on you tube and loads of comments and most people are amazed by the comrie action the driver. health officials in hong kong have slaughtered more than seventeen thousand tickets after a pair of cast infected with bird flu was found i called free imports valves have been banned for three weeks as a precaution until it's determined where the contaminated chicken came from bird flu occasionally infects people who have close contact with tainted poultry. all time now take over it's happening in the world of business gayeties here with.

hello warm welcome to the business program hopes for a quick end to the long lasting gas conflict between ukraine and russia have vanished the country's fall to reach agreement during high profile overnight talks however they say this will not affect the transit of russian gas to europe ukraine is struggling to persuade russia to cut the price for its energy supplies saying the burden is too big for the country's troubled economy kiev didn't even manage to pay november's bill itself and bar tough a billion dollars from russia's gas pump bank cousin to see when all from russia's national energy security fund says another gas war is unlikely as the existing contract runs for another seven years. the general and i was the last last war we have no confidence in general sales of mine it was the main reason for the you guess what now we have gone through to means that according to the law we.

can. see this quarter and that is why we can spend without any problems. to see what's happening in the markets oil is gaining for the day as investors are optimistic that shrinking stockpiles in the u.s. behind the size of the new economic recovery will mean demography old will increase lines weight is currently trading over ninety eight dollars per hour while bread is above one hundred and seven dollars per barrel and over in europe stocks a carrying on from tuesday's rally the fund says adding overhaul five percent remolded jackson's jump funds up one percent in the black buying some resource stocks all leading the guides that. the russian markets are mixed this hour yes is gaining almost one percent while the my sex is actually down around a quarter of a percent now. let's have a look at some individual moves on the my sex brew chips makes this our all major

role snapped is nearly half a percent down all these the bank is such a positive on top like a come us it is also flat the company plans to increase itself by ninety percent thanks to. ross's gas monopoly gas problem has decided to more than double the issues dividends the company's shareholders will get six point two billion dollars if the payouts approved next year's a.g.m. gazprom has been criticized for low dividend payments despite rising profits from growing gas prices however other say the move could leave the monopoly to miss balance budget due to planned gas discounts in neighboring countries as well as a possible reduction in gas exports to europe. more details have emerged about the possible sellers russia's largest. but that of o.c. newspaper reports yet is what forty five billion dollars to one hundred percent of the shares of the moscow at hub unnamed sources kind of financial can fool him for

group investment group or nova and sumo holdings on the most likely potential acquirers however play out the possible basel not ready to stump up the full amount being else it was reported that goldman sachs was retained to seal the deal. the shareholder structure of a russian a coal giant noddy's nichol has become even more complicated a mysterious the privately owned trading company a trusted gora has revealed it now possesses a new no point nine percent of the company previously it has eight percent of the forty billion dollars mind up bank to suggest tougher gora's stake could have been sold back to noise and its recent buyback program this would have resulted in a large profit for traffic goron however the annual accounts for the trade off do not show any significant financial profit other than previously known transactions speculation aside the destination of not is nicole's michette is unknown.

and that's all for now that the more updates on the website and i'll be back in fifty five minutes.

let's play. to. the issues that so much to me is going to make even a lot of people here you look at one came to the next the last each of north korea's dear leader again highlights the acute insecurity on the korean peninsula and beyond. the a.

player. play. book about what an arche line from moscow these are the top stories russia demands an investigation into civilian deaths from nato bombings in libya response to q. rides a group report which claims dozens were killed in airstrikes that's as locals say atrocities are still being committed in the country with former gadhafi loyalists the target. russia's newly elected parliament embarks on its work two weeks after the polls that sparked mass protests against alleged vote rigging.