russia's president orders sweeping reforms making it easier to run for office and proposes to return to direct elections of regional governments in his annual address to the polish. arab league monitors headed for syria as the conflict reaches a bloody peace and international sanctions causing living conditions to deteriorate . and tightening the noose on america's controversial death penalty e.u. plugs the flow of drugs used to kill us in.

our six pm on thursday here in moscow this is r t live with me rule research it's time for change in russia first from president to me treatment of yet if you outlined a plan for widespread democratic reforms for the country's political system first in line. i was listening to the annual state of the union address. first and foremost measurement that it promised that people's voices will become louder thanks to a sweeping reforms of the country's political system or political stablish 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 the president. my proposals are to introduce direct election to 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 the nation is that it to deliver these annual interest mostly because you had to respond to the most recent events in a country protests and allegations which are followed the december before parliamentary elections and claims that the elections had been have been raked early admission ivette 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

stressed 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 means is guaranteed attempts to manipulate the people of russia deceive them to instigate social discord are acceptable but we won't allow extreme. mr provocator 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 well 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 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 made very dear he described it today as a social elevator for the most creative and active ones and he also quoted eisenhower when he was talking about a model of democracy suitable for russia it's not let the government do it for us he said but let us do it ourselves. how do you could have been reporting right there when it was maybe a half final address to the federal assembly president with russia choosing a new leader in march of next year political analyst or dmitri babich or says he made a positive contribution to the democratization of the country. i think he leaves a pretty good legacy because even if we have concrete facts you know russia joined all trade or when. he leaves a different society of the that he talk 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 they still reflect

the desire for greater freedom desire for greater freedom from well to do part of the population and i think that's a very good development. another key focus of media if address was that of economic reform let's turn to dimitri of the business to ask for more on. why the need for more integration competition and contribution from small business medium and better if that russia's economy is in good health and has come back to pre-crisis levels we'll tell you more about that in our business reporter. now five past the hour here in moscow a team of arab league peace monitors is due to arrive in syria today all as part of an ambitious plan to bring peace to the conflict torn nation their arrival comes as violence reaches a peak with hundreds reportedly killed in just the past few days this latest round of violence is 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 yet more international measures syria is already suffering under a slew of economic and regional sanctions as it often the case it's the ordinary people who are feeling the pain and sorrow for three points. it's been nearly ten months since syria's uprising began the capital of damascus remain low as he sells it from the conflict. in the bustling sensei it seems like it's business as usual this one says it's in the winds of change has begun to play a little stronger the arab league's impose tough economic sanctions the effects of which have been felt even head in a poor area in the damascus grass and her family struggling to make ends meet her son is learning to follow the beans for a living he barely makes a hundred and fifty syrian pounds a day three dollars to support him and physically. now the fuel for his vending

cart has become harder to get hold of with the economic sanctions driving the price up. their last products available and the prices are pushed higher there have been fights over gas we've been trying to manage by cutting back as much as we can sometimes when we can't afford it which is don't eat the economic situation in syria was one of the areas president assad had been seen to be making some progress be it. for a population that it started seeing the results of economic opportunity. financial transactions. have blackouts become the new. they could be even the financial times ahead. because of the economic sanctions people rush to stockpile fuel and gas just in case people are a little bit afraid of the fact that water or gas might run out and this is why you

see these queues this in place by the arab league it was hate the sanctions would full the government hands when it came to ending the violence in the country was inside syria at the name and many feel it every day people being punished economic sanctions still. taking the lead that he won here that. has become part of the daily life of many people here in syria. 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 in they meant to seeing some parity of t.v. families like. finding life under the sanctions increasingly desperate search for. damascus. and a commenting on the situation in syria a new york based author and political analyst eva golinger says that she believes

that 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 being 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 i'm a little bit later in the program here and we were turned to where the very first sparks of on the rest ignited in north africa and the middle east of course and giving birth to the so-called arab spring. on this very 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 in change from the middle east correspondent discusses what it was like at the epicenter of events that shook the entire region this yeah well the latest episode of all season special series testimony two thousand and eleven in just a few minutes time. this is. just history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shaped two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . i know we're coming to you live from the heart of moscow the european union has restricted sales of drugs used in the united states to execute conflicts over forty

inmates have been killed by lethal injection this year alone in america so. orders of a move to disrupt supplies hope it will cut that number but is not is either bennett explains restrictions could actually make the situation much 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 of executions and without them they're going to be stuck and lives will be saved specifically 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 they use in a three part lethal cocktail the end of it 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. manufacturers ceased production last year american prisons though found an alternative source right here in west london for this fairly honest evening driving school buildings also shared by dream farmer a british firm exporting british drugs the us 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 cannot guarantee that nothing will get around to people at risk of not being killed being tortured to death following our report danish manufacturer imposed their own restrictions to prevent printed barber tools misuse the new e.u. embargo covers eight barbiturates in total including ten to. 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 at those to the list without in a way to another year aside from lethal injection other methods like hanging and firing squad a still sanctioned in the us but a 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 bennetts artsy london. and you can find more on that story and all the other stories on our website dot com including why it won all of the seats in the russian parliament is extra special custom a chair is ordered for a box and new deputy nick alive so he can actually try to comfort we've got his impressions on a day in the duma. and then explosive mistake dozens

of surface to air missiles guns were all found on a china bound british registered danish owned ship in finland carry a company official say it's just one big mix up. where we try to unravel that story . now quarter past the hour here in moscow a wave of synchronized bombing says ripped 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 baghdad authorities say at least fourteen devices were said throughout the city ranging from kabul to hidden explosives while no one has claimed responsibility of the bombings that come as tensions between shia and sunni muslims reaches a boiling point so as have been less than a week since u.s. forces in the country leaving behind an air of uncertainty peter magowan buren who served as a diplomat for the u.s. foreign service for over two decades believes that this is one of the consequences

of the foreign occupation. the 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 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 last week that doesn't change the equation whose 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. and it's a good to have you with us on this day and now as promised we continue our look back at the past twelve months without these ten reports on the events that shaped

two thousand and eleven today it's egypt a country where a million a man uprising became a springboard for a tide of riots and protests. what she went through reporting at the center of the arab spring. i think my biggest impression from covering the egyptian story this is the status of betrayal and anger that people in egypt still have when i was there back in january when the revolution started talking to protest as they the general consensus in radius is what people were saying to me was that they felt that they were part of the street they were creating a new time seat and a new future for egypt. going back again in november when the state conversion to sion happened or the second part of the first revolution depending on 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 feeding. me and occupation it was dangerous covering the egypt stories of journalists and i think it was even more dangerous because when that as a foreign journalist i remember when we gave back to him say a few weeks we kept a very low profile we tried not to go too much into the crowd and tough to square we took all kinds of signage that he 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 to them is necessarily the offices from which we were for cost and we took all the signs that said that we were media because this was also was inside some 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 and you laced with me perhaps in a male colleague but i did feel frightened being a woman in tough explain to people. they may even need to be replaced why not take ten months remembering one time when i can tell me that anything i go through tough to square i walked with a male colleague whether it was an egyptian temperamentally russian cameramen and i always felt much safer putting my arm through his but people would still will possibly brush 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 completing the oneness most in cairo and i remember doing a lot of reports of my talks. and i don't know how to. get from certainly at 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 walking past apartment buildings and soon people coming in front of the apartment buildings that had formed a kind of night watch 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 wish that they were going to protect their apartments following 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 serious or particularly i was very frightened we were standing on the outskirts of tusker square i was talking to a group of people and as always have to just speak to one person and then everybody comes to show what's happening and and people told me in the waiting room so it's not that they are listening to what's being said often they just want to get a voice is exposed on the thames. and in the moment and that's and that's the scary

part is that these things happen in a moment in a moment the entire move changed when people started yelling and shouting not that they just wanted their voices to be heard but that they actually wanted to protest as journalists and egypt should come in and i was working with understood it needed . what was happening he started screaming for me to get into the cockpit i remember the drive it because we had to drive it that had been allocated to us came screeching down the road i remember being pushed by the crowd and the journalist david cameron man was pushing me into the comedy getting into the car kind of throwing himself in off to me in the car was banging on really caught as we stayed away i was very very frightened and it was moments like that when you realize that the mood in a place like toughness square from one second to another can change dramatically. i don't even know if the word revolution is there why 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 if you will 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. eight more reports that you can hear see every day until the new year more memories of two thousand and eleven future experience here and certainly telling in explaining the stories to you that you did not see. do stay with us for now though let's get over to dimitri the latest in the world.

thanks rory economic achievements are high on present event of the gender and in the spotlight of his address to the federal assembly on thursday with his president coming to an end he pointed out that the russian economy has managed to grow faster than its peers despite the global slowdown. russia has successfully overcome the most difficult period of global economic instability and has returned to pre-crisis growth levels our economy is growing by around four percent which is close to the most developed countries we keep government debt at a very low level. russia has become the world's sixth largest economy. the rest of president event of speech centered around priorities for the coming years and these include integration boosting competition and increasing the role of small business economists jacob bell from morgan stanley russia believes medvedev speech echoes the recent statements by prime minister vladimir putin. what i see is

a combined effort by both of them to articulate a economic and political reform program new 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 reform and 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 realization of the top line objectives of the reform program which are twenty five percent of g.d.p. and investment and six to seven percent growth rate that much more realizable. and

there's still hope for a quick end to the a long lasting gas route between russia and ukraine gas problems c.e.o. alexei miller believes the parties could strike a deal by the end of the that's despite a series of meetings between russian and ukrainian officials this week failing to find a solution ukraine's prime minister says whatever the outcome of the talks the government has allowed for record high gas price in the country's budget next year he was struggling to win discounts for gas supplies from moscow and says the current price is too high for its troubled economy. he whiles take a look at the markets starting with commodities and yet another session of growth for both light sweet and brant light sweet is just two cents below ninety nine dollars per barrel brant is at one hundred eight dollars per barrel and that's after a sharp drop in u.s. crude stockpiles overshadowed persistent worries that the eurozone debt crisis

would curtail global world and. stocks in europe are also looking positive. as banks and a resource is storks getting in some gains we're going to see the opening of the u.s. market soon and it is also looking positive as jobless claims came in lower yet again b.m.p. parivar and commerce bank are the biggest gainers in paris and in frankfurt respect . it's moved to russia with another twenty minutes left on the clock and the yacht c.s. is looking positive point three percent to my six down point six and that's because the ruble strengthened by vs the dollar mainly take a look at what's moving the my sex and. gas from not an exception of d.t.b. one of the biggest losers among blue chips down more than one percent. was gaining for almost a session now down point two percent that's after it launched its latest model la the ground. the podium of the global oil majors as witnessed

a reshuffle. russia's rosneft became the biggest oil producer among public companies during the first nine months of the year produced one point six million tons more oil than the previous leader america's exxon mobil and the say that the output of the u.s. was hit by the arab revolutions which led to an eighteen percent loss of its oil production in the region have to increase its output by two point seven percent with a majority of its oil deposits located in russia. also in brief italian carmaker fiat has decided to build its own plant in russia with a deal expected to be signed in the country's leningrad region of st petersburg next year. will be around one hundred thousand cars a year plan to create a joint venture with local car makers solos but the plan for. your crossing could leave russians with low alcohol beverages next year starting from

two thousand and twelve every produced or imported item must have a new excise step but it's unclear how this will be put into practice say they will have to put a cork in production if the government fails to approve the norms by the end of the year so producers of want they will run out of warehouse alcohol by march. and that's all for now rory's next with the headlines to stay with.