says will only benefit tourism. worldwide news live from moscow is a city center this is artsy with me roll recent shame russia is demanding a probe into civilian casualties in libya caused by nato bombings that's the reaction to a report by human rights groups which claimed that dozens were killed in airstrikes despite the alliance saying its operation was almost flawless while the conflict is over and the man who stood in the way of western style democracy is dead atrocities against his loyalists continue you may find some of the images and oksana boy has reported to stopping. this is what it's like to look down in the face a group of men the young and old captured after the needier propped rebels overran

get off his hometown of sirte there was behind a camera delivers a verdict you did you work for gadhafi did you and the captives didn't sound seems dat certain about what's coming next. and it seems like these when you know that possibly be as the rebels assisted by western powers so to liberate the country from gadhafi i've been maginnis about he said to stick 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 a very elaborate in their rating is ferocity is here and hatred still resides in this neighborhood. obviously is a poor area in southern tripoli where more margo duffy had strong support base prior to his fleeing the district also had his name in a tourist prison a scene of torture and arbitrary killings but while gadhafi is gone the human rights abuses still remain valid from this area are still disappearing without a trace of their families are too scared to talk about. this is probably the only place in all the beer with families of a logic get out his supporters can turn to for how mama 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're scared to tell me that this son or husband was with the khadafi forces they usually say he was a civilian court 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. mohamed and his friends have been taking photos of unidentified bodies that have been popping up across lee beer 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 frontlines of banter about. i hope he's in tunisia maybe he's in hospital maybe he's lost his memory or has no way of contacting us. they say hope dies last only bit it's still alive even if many people aren't going to boycott artsy tripoli

. now a fear that syria could also face foreign intervention with unpredictable consequences the country's opposition is split over whether they need a military help from outside in their fight against the government the division came as the country witnesses some of the fiercest battles in this nine month old crisis almost two hundred troops and anti regime protesters are reported to have been killed in the latest series of clashes across the country the syrian authorities have agreed to allow in an observer mission which it's hoped might help to end the conflict so further ports from damascus you what i want to keep from the arab league is explain. to ride in the country that's the head of the observer mission that's expected to hit at the end of the month and the cools that mission concomitant moment in the same way as both sides of the conflict accounts at the death toll rising all the time in the city of homs the other day that the main

opposition city where we see say much of the fighting precis out was he would that says in parts of the city where the fighting is much more concentrated and we went to travel today spazzes that is the key dangerous but even the cars we were visiting with the struggling on you could hear the sounds of heavy gunfire breaking out across the city the government of calls and still maintaining the fighting and minutes and movement the opposition saying that the government had been operating in crackdown part of the of the protest is that i spoke to the foreign ministry spokesman the other day that he was saying that what's needed now from house like countries is that no one speaks adding fuel to this fire and again he moved the dialogue to be pushed in the situation if the outside or neighboring country. was to reward wants to help so they get out of the crisis what we need is to help

and provide good offices to push the opposition who seeing north of the you know to say yes to the you know going to come out on one thing but to discuss everything there are not there was a lot of you know water discussion we had on the freedom of democracy now here in the capital damascus the cities are my life and he felt safe from the conflict here at the moment and the signs that the economic sanctions that were imposed on the country by the arab the not the last month you know taking it. taking nothing around to see the deeds of the kicking out there be sure that that she today sanctions. how does that around the city with a they won't come and the for. the sanctions were put in place but not the kind of much more i last. longer is. reporting right meantime a u.s. based intelligence intelligence gathering firm has found that most of the claims by

the syrian opposition about the seriousness of the country's crisis are true become pany cold stressful says protestors are exaggerating to win outside support from powers like the us dr paul craig roberts a former reagan administration official told us here about t. that he believes washington is not just backing the rebels in a diplomatic. but the united states is involved in stirring up there are positions and in arming it they use the color of the arab spring arab protests as they do look so these are not spontaneous protest and certainly authoritarian state like through syria you wouldn't find people in opposition able to readily supply themselves with arms military weapons it makes no sense for the syrians to themselves opportunity for the country to be destroyed like libya or iraq

or afghanistan course who gets a little what's involved here is the russians don't they make mace in syria. and the americans do the russian naval presence in the middle ground just as in libya or the problem was the chinese all of us to syria goes iran is in the target sites and in lebanon and so there will be marking 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 we're so vulnerable. you're watching r t live from moscow still ahead for you this hour thank you k. getting increasingly unhappy with the e.u. meddling in its effect. it's simply outrageous but on elected officials and brought forth to prevent heart from bringing about the reforms that we said we were going to do when you have a kid into office we look into the controversy surrounding the e.u.'s attempts to

make britain reconsider its welfare rules for nonresidents. that we started the countdown to two thousand and twelve with a special series of reports on landmark events sadden trends that shaped the passing. of witnesses. to history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shaped two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . it's good to have you with us today here in our to the first session of russia's six state duma the lower house of parliament is under way after a heated debate sort of a member from the controlling united russia party was chosen as the new speaker it comes more than two weeks after elections that sparked mass protests over alleged fraud that you couldn't get out of an hour joins us live from apartment building with more caterina so we know the name of the new speaker now but tell us how was

he elected we hear there might have been some fiery debate in the process as you've just said indeed heated debates raised voices during the first in the session we were standing here outside the main room and we could still hear those debates in the duma side actually that these new composition of forces in the lower house of the russian parliament changed things significantly and has indeed made too much field of debates again and two hundred eighty five voices for and eighty eight against the year new speaker of the state duma is known that's united russia's candidate sit in that he always should mention the government shuffle advanced last week after kremlin chief of staff said again that if you can step down for state duma seat immediately united russia put him forward as a candidate for the duma speaker opposition meanwhile had a deeper and taken that they had their own preferences and they put forward their candidates to be speakers of the state duma but as united russia has

a majority they managed to. to put forward their candidates have been that which can all apart from that opposition will of course have a louder voice in the new duma united russia is no longer control of all the committees as it was in previous to myself and of course acts for it say that will change their approach towards lawmaking meanwhile as you've said there been protests taking place ever since the votes have been counted both authorize protests would remind on december the. from twenty five to thirty thousand people went out into the streets of moscow for a demonstration are being that the results of the vote was not fair or not fair and they said that the vote should be counseled that you know so we legal rallies taking place followed by mass arrests up to test is disrupted traffic some of the activists called for violence like blogger alexina by lee has been recently released after spending fifteen days in

a detention center but as analyst admit it but you kind of says i would say not violent he has has a good reputation as a blogger as an effective blogger but he has still to prove people that he could be just as effective as a politician. i think by this popularity so flies mostly with the internet community and that was he has managed to erase interest because a version of the recent trail is much will depend on his behavior in the future because one thing is to be a more people into that field and the other thing is to become a politician so far it's not yet sure that he is ready to again for the crystals to build to take the challenge and to become a political figure. in response to the claims that the election has been greek to diminishment very important to the investigation fifteen criminal cases have been filed or alleged. elections fraud election violations also the results of twenty

one polling stations have been counseled but of course twenty one polling stations are out of ninety thousand to cross the whole country is not enough to cancel the results of the vote and this is why the first duma session took place today all right you can approach over the life from the parliament building in central moscow thank you. we are coming to you live from the heart of the russian capital the new year just ten days away and we are starting off very young countdown with ten special reports on events that shaped two thousand. and eleven we're looking back at major stories to the eyes of our r.t. correspondents who witnessed them and we start with an area that sorts a fair share of breakthroughs and failures space projects consistently made it into the headlines but there was much more that did not put all of our reports.

well one of the biggest landmarks that we saw 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 that 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 well this is just 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 there is a ship in the 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 to 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 haven'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 mars and 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 and from the guys on the space station who that those food and 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 that they know what they're doing they'll be fine. volkov who is actually the mission commander who is 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 evident 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. this was just the first report mallett special series of events that shaped two thousand and eleven make sure you don't miss the rest will be bringing you a new story every day until the new year plus you can always find them on our web site. where you can also check out our new stories. and see what's waiting for you there right now called. made in minutes team of scientists and engineers

a deadly virus that. indestructible bio weapon terrorists through a. protest of proof protection and you said to be introduced in the united states can stop the occupy demonstrators from breathing find out more. now at twenty minutes past the hour here in moscow may be forced to pay out more than two billion pounds in welfare benefits to non-citizens that is if the european union has its way but with london's a new spirit of cooperation the decision that might not be so easy to impose. explains. 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 they 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 that's 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 priorities they're 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 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 what foreigners must pass to

claim benefits is too tough and it's given the government until the end of this month to change that otherwise it will suit 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 pot the british well first exist to benefit british people. this was very clear in the original welfare state back in the one thousand forces which had contributed principal you contributed and you benefited if you didn't contribute you weren't eligible forty percent of migrants from eastern and central europe most of those aren't eligible for welfare already some are trying their luck and no doubt more will the ukase force to sweeten their deal either bennett r.t. london. why before we get to the business news with katie first let's do the world update here on r.t. some other international headlines for you this hour the number killed in last week's massive flash flooding in the philippines is now tops

a thousand people that number is expected to grow with the authorities continuing to find bodies most of the dead are women and children who drowned last friday when water gushed into their homes while they were sleeping a state of national calamity has been declared. thousands of checks have joined the family. and the procession to pay respects to the late former president havel's body was taken to prague castle where it will be on display until friday state funeral of all was his country's first elected president after the nonviolent revolution that ended four decades of communism the government has declared three days of national mourning to honor the former leader who died on sunday aged seventy five. have a look at this an amazing video of a miraculous escape a driver trying to overtake a truck on a wintery russian road pulling out to the side here but ahead of him jack knifing truck coming his way seems like certain death is on the cards but the common driver

managed to stop and stall his car and then maneuver around the side of the truck he comes out footage again talk about a miraculous escape oncoming jackknifing truck more details on that at r.t. dot com more than two million hits are already on that video. ok let's get back to the business news now the beginning of the business news that is with casey. hello a warm welcome to the business program today house for a quick end to the long lasting gas conflict between ukraine and russia have vanished the countries fell to reach agreement during high price all 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 give didn't even manage to pay november's bill itself burra topham it in the big brother dollars

from russia's gazprom bag constantine semen all from russia's national energy security fund says another gas war is unlikely as the existing contract runs for another seventy is the general two thousand i was the last our last war we have no confidence in general sales of mine it was the main reason for that and you guess what now we have gone to work according to the law we. can award serious quantity that is why we can spend new year without any problems. those have a look at the market spoilers dining for the day on signs that the u.s. economy will be spared a recession and amid growing pressure on iran to tell its nuclear program why sweet is currently trading at i have a ninety eight honest about why the brand is above one hundred and seven dollars european so it's a carrying on from the first. percent while the doc says enjoying days of just under one percent the second the stocks amid the speculation of the e.c.b.

supported euro banks and cheap funding helping them whether the fallout from the sovereign debt crisis and here in the markets all makes this hour the r.t.s. is gaining almost one percent while my sex is down around a quarter of a sun's does have a look at some individual moves that on the my sags blue chips makes this our b two b. is slipped into negative territory all my general staff destructive positive on top micah kemas is also flounce a company plans to increase itself by nine percent next year while previous sign i have seen much of fall expects no significant movements in the stocks this way. russian market has underperformed global markets significantly over the past three weeks. by a large margin will probably continue to observe there's a political risk remember present and perhaps are increasing as we get closer to

the weekend. and we have another manifestation scheduled to take place in moscow so i think many investors will want to take. a wait and see approach anticipating so i don't expect there are significant moves in the russian market before the end of the week. russia's gas monopoly gas from has decided to more than double the issues dividends the company's shareholders will get six point two billion dollars if the payouts are approved at next year's a.g.m. gazprom is being criticized for low dividend payments despite rising profits from growing gas prices however arliss say the move could leave them an awfully to miss balanced budget due to planned discounts for neighboring countries as well as a possible reduction in gas exports to europe. and other news of russia and has it stan have set up a new nano technology fund it will consist of one hundred million dollars in state funding and it's hoped that figure will be matched by private investors the founder

will invest it in sectors such as alternative energy biotechnology and telecommunications. more details have emerged about the possible sale of russia's largest airport the madia though the very most newspaper reports the owners want a forty five billion dollars for one hundred percent shares for the. unnamed sources kind the financial consortium alpha group investment group run over and see my holdings on the most likely potential acquirers however they are possible buyers are not ready to stump up the full amount being else it was reported that goldman sachs was retained to seal the deal. from a my colleague dmitri medvedev will be taking you through the business news next hour good bye for now.

luke.

three thirty pm here in moscow you're watching a few headlines now. civilian deaths from nato bombings in libya it's all in response to a human rights group report which claims dozens more killed in the airstrikes as local say atrocities are still being committed with four michael duffy loyalists. brushes a newly elected parliament embarks on its what two weeks off in the polls of spalls mass protests against alleged.