now five pm on thursday here in moscow this is artsy live with global news i'm a real receiver shine it's time for change in russia this from president dmitri medvedev who outlined a plan for sweeping democratic reforms with the country's political system first in line that you could only watch over was listening to the annual state of the union address. first and foremost make sure that it promised that people's voices will become louder things just sweeping reforms of the country's political system political status meant was listening carefully to his address to the parliament as he sketched out the first steps which need to be taken he plans to bring those initiatives to the newly elected duma in the very near future in the last months of his presidency should your present leadership my

proposals are to introduce direct elections for russia's regional heads to simplify the registration of political parties to remove the need to gather signatures to take part in federal and regional parliamentary elections to cut the number of signatures needed to take part in the presidential election i also suggest changing the system for the parliamentary election i suggest introducing proportional representation in two hundred twenty five constituencies this will allow each territory to have the director representative in the parliament. well this wasn't as comfortable as usual for admission at that had to deliver these annual address mostly because he had to respond to the most recent events in the country protests and allegations which followed the december of four parliamentary elections and claims that the elections had been had been raked early admission and that if at ordered a thorough investigation as a result of that criminal cases had been filed for alleged violations during the

elections the results of twenty one polling stations cancelled by the president's trust today that elections in any country are part of domestic affairs of that country and the russian leadership would not allow any foreign interference but our . people's right to express their opinion by all of due to means is guaranteed but attempts to manipulate the people of russia deceive them to instigate social discord are acceptable but we won't allow it. three mists to prove a case is to draw society into the shady enterprises we won't allow interference from outside in our internal affairs russia needs democracy not chaos. goals but this address looked more like a long to do list. should he become the country's next prime minister rather than a farewell address from him as a president he again emphasized the role of the enlarged open government as an

instrument to get feedback from the people this government consists of russia's prominent figures from different areas of society it was with various ideas he described today as and social elevator for the most creative and active ones and he also quoted eisenhower when he was talking about a model of democracy is suitable for russia it's not let the government do it for us he said but let us do it ourselves. reporting there from the kremlin it was a final address to the federal assembly as president with russia choosing a new leader in march next year political analyst dmitri babich says he made a positive contribution to the democratization of the country. i think he leaves a pretty good legacy because even if we had concrete facts you know russia joined twitter when he thinks. he leaves a different society than the one that he took when he became the president now we have people who all bruised the require more freedom i think that these measures

that he mentioned during his speech for years they are not very they are these still who flunked the desire for greater freedom to desire for greater freedom from well to do part of the population and i think that's a very good. five minutes past the hour here in moscow a team of arab league peace monitors is due to arrive in syria today as part of an ambitious plan to bring peace to the conflict torn nation and their arrival comes as violence reaches a peak with hundreds reportedly killed in just the past few days this latest round of violence are drawing strong international reaction with turkey accusing president assad of turning the country into a bloodbath the u.s. has also renewed calls for him to step down and order the military off the streets or face more international measures syria is already suffering under a slew of economic and a regional sanctions but as is often the case it's the ordinary people who are

feeling the pinch these are further reports. it's been nearly ten months since syria's uprising began the capital of damascus has remained largely sells it from the conflict right here in the bustling sensei's seems like it's business as usual this one says it's in the winds of change have begun sublime a little stronger the arab league's imposed tough economic sanctions the effects of which the felt even had in a poor area of damascus interest in her family struggling to make ends meet her son here has learning difficulties for the beans for a living he barely makes one hundred fifty syrian pounds a day and three dollars to support him and this is why. now the fuel for his vending cart has become harder to get hold of with the economic sanctions i'm driving by i sat. there last products available and the prices are pushed higher

there's been fights over gas we've been trying to manage by cutting back as much as we can but sometimes when we can't afford it which is don't eat the economic situation in syria was one of the areas president had been faints be making very well be it. for a population that it started seeing the results of economic opportunity. financial transactions. back out become the new. they could be even the financial times ahead. because of the economic sanctions people rush to stockpile fuel and gas just. people are a little bit afraid of the fact that water or gas might home out this is why you see these queues this in place by the arab league it was hate the sanctions which the government had and when it came to ending the violence in the country because inside syria at the moment many feel it every day people are looking for economic

sanctions so it's just like taking. the one hit that must have become part of the daily life of many people here in syria. from the arab league will be paving the way for an observer mission to at the end of the month much opposition they remain skeptical about whether that to bring about any change . in the west of the conflict areas change can come a moment to seeing some parity of families like. finding life under the sanctions increasingly desperate search for. damascus. commenting on the situation in syria new york based off a political analyst eva golinger says she believes the true situation in the country is not being told by the mainstream media most of the international media with the exception of a few stations have ignored the fact that. the charlotte government is fighting

armed groups internally and its country groups that have been armed again by outside forces and they've instead tried to portray it as civilians peaceful civilians protesting for change in their country who are being massacred by the government this is an incredibly dangerous manipulation of fact that's occurring and and that we've seen in other countries like the case of libya that's been used to justify outside aggression military action and war and and political assassination of a head of state again this is an attempt to try to alter the perception of what's taking place in the country and also to get the support from other countries on board for those countries and their governments to be out to justify their actions to overthrow a government to implement another that would be subordinate to a foreign agenda. later in the program here and we return to where the very first spog civil unrest ignited in north africa and the middle east giving birth to the so-called arab spring. i was very frightened of those moments like that when you

realize that the mood in a place like telling a scale from one second to another a change in the middle east correspondent discusses what it was like at the epicenter of the trip of the entire region there's you know the latest episode of ah to use a special series of testimony two thousand and eleven in just a few minutes time. with this is. to history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . and an hour ten minutes past the hour here in the russian capital the european union has restricted sales of drugs used in the united states to execute convicts over forty inmates are being killed by lethal injection in america this year alone and supporters of the move to disrupt supplies hope it will cut that number resulting as ivor bennett explains restrictions could actually make the situation

a lot worse. they've tried hanging electrocution and most recently a drug used to euthanize animals but now american jails will find it much harder to kill prisoners on death row the main supply line for its lethal injections has been cut off after the e.u. slaps new restrictions on drug exports i really think this will make a difference and we will see the effects of this this control order in the coming months that the the u.s. relies on european drugs for use in executions and without them they're going to be stuck and lives will be saved specific execution drugs aren't made in the e.u. but several american states have been importing sedatives instead drugs designed to help being used to hurt. exports of drugs like sodium thiopental will now be controlled to stop the use in a three part lethal cocktail the n a static was being used to put the condemned

inmate to sleep as another drug paralyzed before the final heart stopper was administered without that initial numbing stage lethal injections are unconstitutional under u.s. law the usual supply for these drugs has been dwindling since the only u.s. manufacturer ceased production last year american prisons though found an alternative source right here in west london at this fairly unassuming driving school buildings also shared by dream farmer a british firm exporting british drugs to u.s. prisons to kill people the u.k. government soon found out and banned its use so american prisons searched elsewhere r.t. reported in may how some states have begun using pen to barbara told a drug normally used to put pets to sleep that's never been tested for human executions its primary use for humans is to treat epilepsy but it has no pain killing properties many feel its use on death throes tantamount to torture this can

cause excruciating pain if something goes wrong and because we have no tests we can't guarantee that nothing will go around to people at risk of not just being killed being tortured to death following a report danish manufacturer impose their own restrictions to prevent printed barber tools misuse the new e.u. embargo covers eight barbiturates in total including painted barber tell us stockpiles will eventually run dry but many fear it's only a matter of time before prisons try again with something else unfortunately the death merchants in the us can sometimes be creative in terms of what they put to use in order to put people to death and so i think what we need is a clause which said if other drugs should appear on the market and we discover the u.s. is misuse. those we can quickly have a quick procedure to add those to the list without in a waiting of the year aside from lethal injection other methods like hanging and

firing squad are still sanctioned in the us but are now rarely used these new restrictions may not choke off the drug supply completely but it will certainly tighten the noose on america's controversial death penalty. by the bennett artsy london. and you can find more on this story and many others on our website called including why one of the seats in the russian parliament is extra special a custom made chair is all that of a boxer and new deputy nicholai of a new year so he can legislating comfort we've got his impressions on our first day in the duma. and an explosive mistake dozens of surface to air missiles bombs and guns all being found on a china bound british registered danish owned ship. carrying company officials say it's just a big mix up. where we try to on arrival back story. a quarter past the hour here

a wave of synchronized bombings has whipped through the iraqi capital killing at least sixty three and wounding almost two hundred. could be heard racing to and fro as massive plumes of smoke rose above. authorities say at least fourteen devices were set off throughout the city ranging from car bombs to hidden explosives well no one has taken responsibility the bombings come as tensions between shia and sunni muslims reach a boiling point it's also been less than a week since u.s. forces withdrew from the country leaving behind and of uncertainty peter van buren who served as a diplomat for the u.s. foreign service for over two decades believes this is one of the consequences of foreign intervention. he noted states unleashed a lot of demons in iraq when we invaded in two thousand and three the most significant of which was the ethnic and religious tensions between the sunni's the shias and the kurds that was an issue that plagued the american occupation for all of its long desperate nine years and even though the united states troops have

pulled out as of last week that doesn't change the equation those tensions still exist in iraq and will have to resolve themselves one way or the other i'm afraid that the resolution will likely involve violence hopefully not at the levels that we saw in two thousand and five and two thousand and six but politics in iraq is very much a full context sport it's a dangerous game to play there and people often do die in the course of political resolutions. in a few minutes is the business here on our t.v. but for now as we promised we continue our look back at the past twelve months with the ten reports on the events that shaped two thousand and eleven today it's egypt a country where a million man uprising became a springboard for a tide of riots and protests. and i'll share what she went through reporting at the center of the arab spring.

i think my biggest impression from covering the egyptian story this year is the status of betrayal and the anger that people in egypt still have when i was there back in january when the revolution started talking to protestors they the general consensus and really this is what people were saying to me was that they felt that they were part of the street they were creating a new times and a new future for egypt. going back again in november when the second resolution happened or the second part of the first revolution depending who you talk to those same protesters told me that they felt that the trust that they had placed in the army had been misplaced there are hundreds of thousands of people who lost on arriving here in times square as you can see many of them heeding. me and occupation it was dangerous covering the egypt stories of journalists and i think it was even more dangerous to cousin that as a foreign journalist i remember when we have a better time so if you read we kept

a very low profile we tried not to go too much into the crowd in tough to square we took all kinds of signage that we had on us that said we were journalists i mean of course a con tied to camera so by and large you don't want to do the attention she then is necessary the officers from which we were forecasting we took off all the signs that said that we were media because this was also was inciting anger and frustration among the people. people often ask me if being a woman is an advantage or disadvantage to going to dangerous areas as a journalist most of the time that is an advantage because we find that people have to shake things mode with you i'm talking to men and women because you're a woman or at least we think perhaps in a male colleague but i did feel frightened being a woman in tough experience that people. they believe in they simply replace them with one thing takes months remembering what went on and i can tell me that

anything i'd look for tough is square when i walk through female colleague whether it was an egyptian camera man away russian cameramen and i always felt much safer putting my arm through his but people would still want possibly brush up squeeze a part of my body and look at me with this kind of leering that leaves you feel very frightened and very vulnerable as a woman. back in february when the police were taken off the streets there was a real sense of complete the oneness most in cairo and i remember doing a lot of reports at night it was. very i am not now i'm not. married yes i am certain that night i had to move back to the hotel because there was a curfew and there were no cars on the street and it was almost so we'll walking past apartment buildings and seen people coming in front of the apartment buildings that had formed a kind of nightwatch group and you had people in their eighty's and their ninety's standing there with literally a kitchen knife or a kitchen broom and with that they were going to protect their apartments farming

these gangs that were patrolling the streets of cairo they were trying to steal what they could because as i say there were no police around this is your friend as if. there was one incident or particularly i was very frightened and we were standing on the outskirts of tusker square i was talking to a group of people and as always had to speak to one person and everybody comes to see what's happening and and people will be in the waiting room so it's not that they listening to what's being said often they just want to get a voice is exposed on the tenor and in the moment and that's and that's the scary part is that these things happen in a moment in a moment in time change when people started yelling and shouting not that they just wanted their voices to be heard but that they're actually going to hurt us as journalists and the egypt you come in and i was working with understood in egypt. what was happening he started screaming for me to get into the cockpit i remember the drive it because we had

a driver that had been allocated to us came screeching down the road i remember being pushed by the crowd and the journalist did the kemah and was pushing me into the common to getting into the car he kind of flung himself in off to me in the car was banging on the car as we sped away i was very very frightened and it was moments like that when you realize that the mood in a place like tucker square from one second to another can change dramatically. and i don't even know if the word revolution is the one i would but i don't think the revolution in egypt is over we've witnessed to say zz's of perhaps the same revolution or two revolutions but again the anger the frustration the disappointment the same sort of hopes of not being realized is poll people on the streets of cairo every week when there is a saying that this country is nowhere near where people had hoped and dreamed it would be back in february and i think this is the general uncertainty that is sweeping the middle east there is

a sense that things are changing but another sense of no one not knowing exactly where and how and what ultimately these changes will bring. and as we look at other news from around the world here on r.t. the fear paula many women feel on the streets of cairo has now come into focus thousands marched into or square as they continue to show their outrage over the treatment of female protesters several women have been physically assaulted by soldiers during the recent government crackdown on activists the brutality included being pulled by their hair stomped on while they lay on the ground the military council promised to punish those responsible for the demonstrators demanding trials are. the current wave of protests which began last friday are calling on the military government to hand power to a civilian authority in egypt can. french lawmakers have passed a bill which would make it a crime to deny the mass killing of armenians by ottoman turks in one thousand nine

hundred fifty the document will now go to the senate for approval hundreds of french turks have been protesting in front of the national assembly in paris saying the atrocities of the past should be left to a story. spain's new prime minister sworn in after an early election announce the measures he will take to save the country from the financial disaster looming over fellow eurozone nations he said he will deepen austerity in all fields except pensions to cut spending by over sixteen billion euros in two thousand and twelve but ya know what i hope he also named his new cabinet including the former head of the lehmann brothers investment bank in spain as finance minister collapse in two thousand and eight kicked off the worst of the banking crisis for nearly a century spain has become the third state following italy and greece to see a change of government during the financial turmoil next hour we hear from a member of the european parliament who thinks measures taken by governments in

those countries have come at a vital cost to democracy. last month we saw crews in two e.u. member states is. as in greece elected prime ministers were toppled in favor of bureaucrats respectively a former european commission member former vice president of the european central bank they head what are called national governments but the governments have been put together for the sole purpose of pushing through an agenda that would be rejected at a general election so that we see the if you like the anti democratic tendencies that were always there implicitly in the eurozone we now see them explicitly apparatchiks in brussels deal directly with apparatchiks in athens and in rome the people and their representatives have been cut out altogether. turned over to dmitri now here on r t time for your business update.

and welcome to business r.t. economic achievements are high and present event of the gender in the spotlight of his address to the federal assembly on thursday. as president is coming to an end he pointed out that the russian economy has managed to grow faster than his peers despite the global slowdown. in the russia has successfully overcome the most difficult period of global economic instability and his return to pre-crisis growth levels our economy is growing by around four percent which is to the most developed countries we keep government debt it's a very low level and meet all our liabilities russia has become the world's sixth largest economy. the rest of president very of speech centered around top economic priorities for the coming years and these include integration boosting

competition and increasing the role of small business economists jacob now from morgan stanley russia believes medvedev speech echoes recent statements by prime minister let him have it. what i see is a combined effort by both of them to articulate a economic and political reform program you i think that if we think back to earlier in the year when you had a debate between medvedev who was talking about a program of reforming modernization and putin who is putting more stress on stability i think that we can now see what the choice of the leadership is and that is to go for a program of modernization short the impact of these reforms may be somewhat negative because we may see acceleration capital outflows in companies who may have an increase in uncertainty but in the medium term if these reforms are implemented i think that they. should improve russia's growth prospects and make the

realisation of the top line objectives of the reform program which are twenty five percent of g.d.p. in investment and six to seven percent growth rate that much more realizable. reisa going to the markets this out while it is still gaining for the session in a row lights where you're trading thirty one cents higher this is a sharp drop comes in and u.s. crude stockpiles and that's overshadowing persistent worries that the euro zone crisis could hamper global oil demand brand at over one hundred makes dollars. european stock markets also positive resources stocks and banks are gaining this is ahead of a batch of statistics coming out from the united states jobless claims expected to come in better than expected barclay's is leading the gains on the front seats of more than two percent and also how much bank is the biggest gainer on the back two

percent also. in russia another hour of trading and markets are mixed reflecting a change in the russian ruble currency right the odds. yes as a point four percent m i six is down point three second i get the main movers on the my sex most new ships are down gas problem despite how it will prices losing a third of a percent also continuing its decline almost two percent down and after it was gaining for most of the session now down by a notch the company launched sales of its latest model lada granta. headlines are next on.

not.