arrived immigrants in the u.k. must be as eligible for handouts as britons themselves. a very warm welcome to you this is r.t. live from moscow worse now or just after six pm i'm. russia's urging nato to look into reports of widespread civilian deaths in libya caused by the military alliance is seven month long bombing campaign the claims filed by rights groups contradict nato's assertion that twenty six thousands of its airstrikes to not cause any civilian casualties and the killing as an end it just because gadhafi is now dead and gone former rebels continue to take their own supporters of the toppled regime you may find some of the images and acts on a boy has reported disturbing. 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 the verdict did you work for gadhafi did you. and the captives then sound seems doubtful about what's coming next. and it seems like these where you know that possibly be as the rebels assisted by western powers so to liberate the country from gadhafi i've been longines 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. 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 but no access to lawyers and no chance for a fair trial. but while the prisons new guards have a very elaborate in their rating doctors ferocity here and hatred still reside in this neighborhood. obviously is a poor area in southern tripoli where more margo duffy had strong support base prior to. the district also has its name in a tourist prison the 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 mammoth formed and your earlier

this year to investigate the fate of those who disappeared and get off his presence 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 gadhafi 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 for. him and his friends had been taking photos of the 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 front lines of banter . i hope he's in tunisia maybe his in hospital maybe he's lost his memory or has no way of contacting us. these guys last i think it's still alive

even if many people aren't going to boycott artsy tripoli. meantime activists in syria so the country has seen some of its fiercest fighting since under-estimate with over two hundred killed since monday the biggest number of casualties was reported in the syrian northwestern province of live that's where government forces allegedly used the heavy ammunition against the regime fighters that's ahead of the arrival of an arab league advance team which is going to prepare a monitoring mission in the country and as artists are further of course there are hopes the observers can present a clear picture of what's really going on inside syria. from the arab league's. specked to ride in the country it's a boy that's the head of the observer mission that's expected here at the end of the month and of course that mission concomitant moment to see really as both sides

of the conflict accounts at the death toll rising all the time in the city of homs the other day that's the main opposition city where we see so much of the fighting breaking out was here with their excess 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 daily life the struggling on you could hear the sounds of heavy gunfire breaking out across the city the government of course and still maintaining that there is fighting and militant movement the opposition saying that the government had been operating it cracked down policy on the protesters that i spoke to the foreign ministry spokesman the other day he was saying that what's needed now from outside countries is that no one should be adding fuel to this fire and again he called that dialogue to be pushed in the situation if the outside warrant neighboring country but he. wants to help sort

of get out of the crisis what we need to do is to help and provide good offices to push the opposition who is seeing north to say yes to the you know we're going to come out on one thing but to discuss everything that are not there was a war you know what a discussion we are not afraid of democracy now here in the capital of damascus the cities are made largely felt safe from the conflict here in the main the east side of the economic sanctions that were imposed on the country by the arab league not the last month taking it back now taking nothing. to see the deeds of the kicking out and then be sure that that she today sanctions and power cuts around the city will they they would complement the forms citations would put in place and not become much more frequent and long for a fair bit longer as well. reporting right there still to come in just

a few minutes here on our brand new high tech the soyuz spacecraft just launched successfully from the baikonur space center carrying a new crew upwards to the international space station. championing the rights of benefit. the e.u. targets britain's tough turned out policies saying the u.k. is obliged to dollar billions to non-citizens something london believes will only encourage them not to work. history in the making. ten stories that shaped two thousand and eleven. nearly ten minutes past the hour here in moscow russia's state duma the lower house of parliament has just held its first session after a heated debate. from the ruling united russia party was chosen as the speaker it comes as protests continue against the elections two weeks ago sparked by

allegations of vote rigging that you. have been following. it was a very intense first session of the state to my heated debates and raised voices receipt of the voting the voting for a new duma speaker with two hundred thirty eight voices for and eighty eight against a new speaker has been chosen and that's ruling united russia's candidate so given that each can a government shot full advance last week when mr b. and i wish can until recently kremlin chief of staff stepped down for a duma seat united russia put forward his candidacy of the new speaker but opposition parties disagreed and they have their own preferences for their mandates however were not enough told way to united russia in the vote apart from that opposition will have a louder voice in the new duma with united russia failing to secure a constitutional majority is believe that the lower house of the russian parliament

will again become a field of heated debates and now that united russia does not have a majority of the committees fourteen out of twenty nine committees so far will be controlled by the three opposition parties it's also believe that the whole approach to lawmaking in russia will change however political analysts stress that for the opposition parties that not only means a victory but also is a serious test of their readiness to take upon responsibility for crucial laws in the country the nature of the debate this shit you because now their position gets about half of the way it is so they will control what you're going to dissolve the threat to then and this is a significant victory for them and they're the same that was significant yes because they will have to show that they're ready to share the responsibility for the fate of the three that they're able to provide constructive criticism of the policy and provide new ideas so we will see how these two mobile function and how the weather or position is ready to go before the start of. this

dumas first session it goes ahead against the backdrop of a lot of protest so what can you tell us about well during the first plenary session of the news the elected lower house of the russian parliament members of the opposition gathered for an unsanctioned protest outside the stadium when according to opposition bloggers over twenty people were arrested during its also today is well known for its harsh criticism of the russian government was released from custody where he spent the last fifteen days after he was arrested during opposition rallies which took place shortly after the parliamentary elections in the country which took place on the fourth of december there also been number of peaceful demonstrations including one in moscow when over twenty thousand people gathered on one of the city's main squares to do months in the knowledge of the results of the parliamentary elections claiming their results were falsified and

number of violations took place during the electoral process following doubts russian president. ordered an investigation into the case and already fifty criminal cases were filed in that respect and at twenty one polling stations the voting results. however that does not change the outcome of the parliamentary election the state is going to stay in the way it was shades on the fourth of december and the ongoing investigation is not going to change that. we are coming here live from the heart of moscow the iraqi prime minister has told kurdish authorities to hand over his rifle the country's sunni vice president this allegations of running a hit squad blasted the charges as fabricated and accuse a prime minister of cracking down on competition in order to tighten his grip on power following america's withdrawal experts fear is likely to ignite fresh

sectarian tensions between shia and sunni muslims to discuss this now i'm joined live from gaza by dr honey mahmoud a political analyst and thank you for coming on the program today so do you think the prime minister's charges against a vice president are political in basis. i'm not sure you can hear us very well dr. mahmoud the question is with the prime minister's charges against the vice president of the v.p. running a type of hit squad against officials and against police do you think the charges could be politically based. i think there is a problem with the voice here i hardly hear you and i. don't know mahmoud a political analyst i'm terribly sorry i will try and get back with you when we have a more solid connection thank you for joining us so briefly. we apologize for those technical difficulties there somewhere there might be a mouse chewing on the cable so it's now

a nearly quarter past the hour here in moscow a russian soyuz spacecraft carrying three future international space station crew members has blasted into space in orbit the soyuz are stuffed full of newly developed a digital equipment is expected to reach the eye on friday as easily so now it was a lucky witness at the launch. why is rocket just about to blast off here from baikonur cosmodrome in that context and let's take a look at this site. absolutely

incredible there will reach the top speed of one point five kilometers per second and i will have the rocket in orbit and plus the ninety minutes from blast off that we just saw onboard our three space men including russian cosmonaut are they going in young go along with an american astronaut new european astronaut from holland and they will be onboard the international space station for some six months of course that means they will be spending christmas and new year's there for some of them it's not the first time they'll be spending the holidays there we had a chance to speak to them just before takeoff and what they said word was yes we'll have some kind of celebration of their commander will certainly have the christmas hats ready and we will take part in some kind of celebration but we really do have a lot of work to do what they'll be doing there is conducting several of some thirty six or so experiments there and also be doing engineering research one of the experiments which is considered the most important in terms of research that's going on at the international space station is actually trying to find life forms

on the outer surface of the eye s.s. of course this is the only way now it's reach to have crews reached i assess through the site space program because the u.s. nasa i should say of course grounded their shuttle missions to the i s s so it's seen. all the. this is the last mission to the i s s for two thousand and eleven we're hearing that will be several more missions in two thousand and twelve and now it's the only way to continue this very international what all the basement say is a very important program for the international space community reporting from baikonur cosmodrome now away for r.t. . well a two thousand and eleven has been a year of a sharp ups and downs for the space exploration industry daring projects consistently made it into the headlines but there was much more that did not put all of it reveals.

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 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 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 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 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 manned space flight that's always the big concern but. it has shown the perseverance of these people who do risk their lives going into space well as a job they do it for do it out of choice. so that was just the first report of our special series are waiting you every day until the chimes ring twelve on december thirty first to do make sure not to miss the rest of them awfully insightful they are otherwise you can always catch them on our website of course that is our dot com. and you conflict has erupted between

britain and the this time over the u.k.'s treatment of so-called benefit tourists brussels has given london an ultimatum to relax benefit laws saying the country must dole out handouts to anyone who asks for them but is r.t. as are the bennett reports britain's new spirit of non-cooperation may help to complicate the matter. 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 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 belong to me if it needs you and you work for it you can treat could give me something but it 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 of dorothy's 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 where not 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 official from brussels can prevent us from bringing about the reforms that we said we were going to do when 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 part the british welfare state exists to benefit british people. this was very clear in the original welfare state back in the one thousand forces which had contributed principle 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 let's turn over to dimitri he joins us next now with the business news. banks rory russia will become one of the world's five biggest economies if the governments objectives are achieved the problem is the target of boosting the country's gross domestic product to seven percent growth a year and significantly improving the labor capacity he hopes to reach this by changing the structure of russia's economy. our ambitious goals can only be achieved within the framework of a new model of economic growth instead of raw materials we should count on high tech production to change the structure of the economy we're going to create up to

twenty five million high tech jobs we will have to invest almost forty three trillion rubles the next three years into the economy it roughly equals the country's g.d.p. twenty tent city in the east coast for a quick end to the long lasting gas conflict between ukraine and russia have attached the countries fail to reach an agreement during high profile overnight talks however they say this will not affect the transit of russian gas to europe ukraine are struggling to persuade russians or cut the price for its energy supply saying the burden is too big for the country's troubled economy give didn't even manage the pain of embers bills itself and borrowed half a billion dollars from russia's gazprom bank because they didn't seem enough from russia's national energy security fund says another gas war is unlikely as the existing contract runs for another seven years. the general two thousand i was the last our last guess what we have no confidence in general sales of man it was the main reason for the you guess what now we have corked it means that according to

the law we. can award serious quantity that is why we spend without any problems. so you go to the markets this. is back to gains first day of games actually in science the u.s. economy could be spared a recession and the growing pressure on iran to kushal its nuclear program to light sweet and brands are up around half a dollar a barrel but some. european stocks are down point four percent in london and a quarter of a percent in germany the european central bank on wednesday offered loans to five hundred twenty three euro area banks as part of a three year funding operation designed to ease liquidity banks and miners are bucking the trend. and another twenty minutes to go until the end of the session in russia it's all looking red to the uk c.s.s. half a percent down my six is one point two percent in the negative territory blue chips

mostly down this banks all some of the biggest losers burbank is down more than two percent after it's head to get i'm going to have said that the privatization of the bank would go ahead after the presidential elections of twenty twelve ross nafta is also declining point seven percent and trying to make a comment is down one percent the company plans to increase in sales by nine percent next year. news in brief now russia's gas monopoly gazprom has decided to more than double this year's dividends the company shareholders will get six point two billion dollars if the payout is approved at the next year's a.g.m. gazprom has been criticized for a low dividend payments despite rising profits from growing gas prices however analysts say the move could lead to monopoly to a miss balanced budget due to planned gas discounts for neighboring countries as well as a possible reduction in gas exports to europe. and other news russian kazakhstan have set up a new nano technology fund it will consist of one hundred million dollars in state

funding and it's hoped that that figure will be matched by private versus the fund will invest in sectors such as terms of energy biotechnologies and how they can you kate. and more details on the most about the possible sale of russia's largest airport medals to newspaper reports the owners want from four to five a billion dollars for one hundred percent of the shares from moscow unnamed sources claim the financial consortium alpha group investment group or novell holding the most likely potential buyers however they add these companies are not ready to stump up the full amount being asked earlier was reported by goldman sachs was retained to seal the deal so the business news for now we will be back in fifty five minutes time with an update i'll see that tony.

if you're just joining us a very warm welcome to you this is your headlines now twenty six thousand. civilian casualties. nato is claims of a flawless in libya intervention all as a new and just as bloody campaign unfolds against former supporters. of freshly elected parliament has chosen to. convene for the first time in two weeks for its election sparked protests and calls for a week.