midnight in moscow i match reza good to have you with us here on our t.v. our top story it's time for change in russia this from president dmitri medvedev outlining a plan for widespread democratic reforms within the country's political system first or he's a catarina graduate who was listening to the annual state of the union address he has more. 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 or 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. 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 have 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 for 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 but 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 but attempts to manipulate the people of russia deceive them to instigate social discord are acceptable but we won't allow it. it is to see into the surprises we want interference from outside into a live thing is russia at least democracy not chaos. so this address looked more like a long to do. should he become the country's next prime minister rather than a farewell address from him as the president he again emphasized the role of the enlarged open government as an instrument to get feedback from the people this government consists of precious prominent figures from different areas of society

it wasn't vetted and he described it today as an 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. you can find president had better the full speech on our web site r t dot com plenty of other interesting stories there waiting for you including why one of the seats in the russian parliament is extra special a custom made chair order for boxer and newly and new deputy to make a lot about bolivia so we can legalize in home for his first impressions on the first day in the duma we've got that. a team of arab league peace monitors has arrived in the syria's part of an ambitious plan to bring peace to the conflict torn nation the arrival comes as violence is reaching a peak with hundreds reportedly killed in recent days its latest round of violence is drawing drawing 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 regional sanctions but is often the case it's the ordinary people feeling the pinch as r.t. sara first reports from damascus. it's been nearly ten months there is that rising began. the capital of damascus has remained largely sheltered from the conflict. in the bustling sun so it seems like it's business as usual as one says the winds of change have begun supply over there will stronger the arab league's impose tough economic sanctions the effects of which have been felt even head in a poor area in the suburbs of damascus and her family struggling to make ends meet . he has learning difficulties the beans for a living but he barely makes one hundred fifty syrian pounds a day three dollars to support him and his wife and now the fuel for his vending

cart has become harder to get hold of with the economic sanctions driving the price up. their loss 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 we just don't eat. economic situation in syria was one of the areas president assad had been seen to be making some progress be it slowly the for a population that it started seeing the results of economical pitchiness a lot financial transactions. and blackouts become the new name and is that they could be even the financial times ahead. because of the economic sanctions people rushed to stockpile of fuel of gas just a taste 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 which the government had and when it came to ending the violence in the country was inside syria the name and many feel it every day people took being punished economic sanctions felicitous these are like taking the bet that he will want to hit the mosque has become part of the daily life of many people here in syria and it's 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 too will bring about any change. in the west of the conflict areas change can come in they meant tesing some parents of t.v. families like. finding life under the sanctions increasingly desperate search. damascus. and later in the program a return to where the very first sparks of unrest ignited in north africa and the

middle east to rise to the arab spring. was very very hard times and it was most likely only realized that the mood in a place like texas from one system to another changed dramatically. our middle east correspondent discusses what it was like at the epicenter of events that shook the entire region this year the latest episode in our t.v. special series testimony twenty eleven coming up human. this is. just history in the making. testability. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . a wave of synchronized bombings has a rip through the iraqi capital killing at least seventy two people and wounding nearly two hundred ambulances could be heard racing back and forth as massive plumes of black smoke rose above baghdad authorities say at least fourteen devices went off throughout the city ranging from car bombs to hidden explosives and other

three blasts rocked the capital later in the day that's also been less than a week since u.s. forces withdrew from the country leaving behind there of uncertainty and surging religious tension more on the tragedy and what it bodes for the country i'm joined by labor m.p. jeremy corbin a member of the stop the war coalition live in london so the attacks in baghdad seem to be continuing with two more blasts reported over the last couple of hours that makes seventeen today what message do you think those responsible for these atrocities are trying to send. i think they're trying to say that the iraqi government is not able to control the situation and that it's the forces that it has that its disposal cannot impose its will and i think it would for now steve very difficult period when i think the origins of all this relate back to the u.s. led invasion and the disbandment of the then existing iraqi army and police forces . now for years the u.s. and its allies including the u.k.

gave their unconditional support to the current prime minister nuri al maliki in the same man and now being accused by some of sparking and fanning a new sectarian war and undoing what the allies were trying to do there do you think there's any irony in that. i think there's a huge already in this because the british and americans have always claimed that iraq would emerge from this is a democratic western style state and that maliki was a product of a democratic process the reality is that the deputy prime minister been arrested and apparently cues to planting bombs or attempted assassination of other people and now this may have on the streets and it seems to me as though the iraqi government is tookie extremely beleaguered and the dangers of course they will ask for western forces to come back ian in order to protect that government and so will then have a western backed government with huge opposition from its own people in the midst of all violence and chaos across the whole region i think the west needs to rethink

its strategy very very carefully now this comes just a few days after the u.s. occupation of iraq came to an official and now having been a vocal critic of the war for so many years and largely ignored by many of your peers in government how do you feel about what's been achieved during the occupation. well what's been achieved has been a large number of deaths a huge amount of profits for arms companies a lot of oil contracts signed by western oil companies and a lot of chaos on the streets and a huge level of private mercenary security forces and the biggest u.s. embassy the world has ever see was apparently thirteen thousand personnel housed within its and so it doesn't look to me it has been a complete withdrawal it looks to me as though there is a security presence left behind in order to protect the government that has been so happy to do business with the west this could play out into something extremely nasty over a long period it does require a democratic come in there in the whole country and it does require the

participation of all those political forces in that outcome and that clearly is not happening in the present time and do you still maintain that the iraq war was a legal and the due process of law was not applied to those who started it. i absolutely do the war was an attack on a sovereign state it was a war for regime change where in the case of britain the british parliament was told it was sold to a wall for dissolved into of the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and the damage it's done in iraq in the region and the civil liberties of everybody in every one of the participating countries is absolutely huge there's a big lesson here and i think it's a benchmark in history of the ultimate folly of the war in iraq all right we have to end it there jeremy corbyn labor m.p. and member of the stop the war coalition thanks for your time. well time to continue our look back at the last twelve months with our teaser ten reports on the events that shaped the year today egypt a country where

a million man uprising became a springboard for a tide of riots and protests or days policy or shares what she went through reporting from the heart of the arab spring. i think my biggest impression from covering the egyptian story this year is the sense of betrayal and anger that people in egypt still have there are hundreds of thousands of people moscow right now in times square as you can see many of them heeding what. occupation it was dangerous covering the egypt stories of journalists and i think it was even more dangerous to covering it 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 ican tied the camera there by and large you don't want to do the attention to them 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 shake things mode with you and i'm talking here 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 experience that people. may believe in a place to take me a break i can tell me that anything i'd look for toughness square i want to female colleague whether it was an egyptian cameramen away russian cameramen and i always felt much safer putting my arm through his but people would still walk past me brush and squeeze a part of my body and look at me with this kind of mirroring 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. since i was completely honest most in cairo and i remember doing a lot of reports at night. i am not now not in. track pants and 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 sunil walking past apartment buildings and seeing 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 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.

there was one minister particularly i was very frightened we were standing on the outskirts of tackle square i was talking to a group called people and as always have to just speak to one person and then everybody comes to see what's happening and and people who live in the ratings really angry 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 telegraph 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 new change and people started yelling and shouting not that they just wanted their voices to be heard but that they're actually going to appear to us as journalists and the interruption come in and i was working with understood immediately both was happening he started screaming for me to get into the cockpit i remember the drive that 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 who did the kemah and was pushing me into the comedy getting into the car seat kind of throwing himself in off to me in the car was banging on the cot as we sped away. and 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. just to say this is of perhaps the same with aleutian or two with illusions but again the anger the frustration the disappointment the scenes of hopes of not being realized is poll people on the streets of cairo if you will when there is a sense 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. things are changing but another sense of no one not knowing exactly where and how and what ultimately these changes will bring. and artie's got more reports that you can see every day leading up to the new year more memories of the year past radio experience on our t.v. so don't miss it. the european union has restricted sales of drugs used in the u.s.

to execute convicts more than forty death row inmates have been put to death by lethal injection this year alone and supporters of the move to disrupt supplies hope it will cut that number in the u.s. but artie's over better reports restrictions could actually see the situation get 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 u.s. allies on european drugs for use of executions and without them they're going to be stuck and lives will be saved specifically execution drugs are 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 but it's 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 penta barbato 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 just being killed being tortured to death following a report danish manufacturer impose their own restrictions to prevent penta bottles misuse the new e.u. embargo covers eight barbiturates in total including painted bottle u.s. 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. we can quick. aside from lethal injection other methods like hanging and firing squad are 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. london. is facing an uncertain leaders struggling to reach an accord on how to solve problems.

well today we're joined by conservative m.p. mr daniel had him thank you very much for joining us first question that everyone is asking is where do you see the eurozone headed well we can now see very clearly that the euro is a recessionary instrument i mean it's making people poorer it's causing deflation and emigration in the southern states is causing tax rises in the northern states if we were looking at this completely logically we would immediately move towards an orderly unbundling of the single currency but of course the european union is not looking at it logically they come at this with so much political capital and

actual capital invested in it that they can't bring themselves to admit that it was a mistake and so i'm afraid we risk the very thing they purport to fear which is a disorderly breakup of the euro caused by having tried to keep it together for too long an orderly break up is that really the sheep are at least painful option here and there are those that would argue that a breakup would be the more expensive option but do you think there are no good options from here there are no easy outcomes when you are looking at states with the level of debt that some of the e.u. member states have so we're dealing with lesser evils but there is no question that allowing each country to return to its own currency to start pricing its way back into the market exporting its way back to growth is less bad for all the maybe some . short term uncontainable transitional costs is less bad than carrying on with the current crisis on december ninth the e.u. leaders agreed most of them at least agreed to move on into forming

a fiscal compact and the u.k. used its veto to read any treaty changes so that when it comes to those who are saying that the u.k. probably will have less influence now in making decisions in the e.u. wouldn't it have been better if the u.k. had just got on board with the rest with this was the argument of course. that we were given when the euro was launched in the first place you have to be part of it or you'll lose all the influence you know the city of london will decline and so well look who was right you know i mean look there is nothing less attractive in politics and saying i told you so but there is no there's one thing less attractive and that is listening to the say discredited arguments from the same shameless politicians who got it wrong who got it badly wrong ten years ago and who are now trotting out exactly the same logic what else has to happen before they accept that their logic was flawed well wisher logic is flawed do you think the economic or political logic mainly the impossibility of jamming widely divergent economies

into a single exchange rate and a single interest rate there is also a democratic cost it's not only a political cost last month we saw crews in two e.u. member states initially as in greece elected prime ministers were toppled in favor of bureaucrats respectively a former european commissioner and a 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 all the e.u. is still continuing to ask and look for help from outside the european union outside of the euro zone for money to beef up their. those mechanisms to help the bailouts of the euro zone countries as well as the i.m.f.

what do you think of this measure of trying to look for help from the outside will it actually help solve the problem i mean this is this is treating a debt crisis with more debt and you don't help an indebted friend by pushing more loans on them when a country can't meet its. existing liabilities it's crazy to extend those liabilities we should move towards a. partial orderly default in countries which simply can't meet their debt and an agreed separation of the of the eurozone so you're saying that a euro collapse is the only solution here the collapse of the euro will be the beginning of a solution or you see the end of the euro as it currently stands will be the beginning of a solution but the real solution will come when there is a proper devolution of power so that decisions are taken more closely to the people that they affect and if you if you look at one of the really successful prosperous

countries in the world the little ones the hong kong was the switzerland lichtenstein's the channel islands the monaco's the brunei's and the european union would argue that because of these projects they are in fact helping the growth expansion progress of member states of the european union do you think the good does outweigh the bad in this case if the funds were the way to growth greece would now be the richest country in the union and germany would now be the poorest. and the crowds would be marching furiously in kiel and hamburg and duesseldorf protesting about the greek loans right. just as with individuals so with entire states if you become dependent on subsidies from somewhere else. or enterprise you start perfectly rationally arranging your affairs around qualifying for the grounds instead of creating wealth and this is the tragedy of the recipient countries the best and brightest people in those countries the entrepreneurs the people who could have done so much making things inventing things selling things creating businesses

in their home states because nothing can compete with the advantages of being on the e.u. payroll because they all start gravitating towards by the directly the brussels bureaucracy or in directly becoming contractors or consultants dependent on loans we in the contributor countries grumble about it but the real pain is felt in the recipient countries thank you. this was the plant that was responsible for causing the world's worst industrial disaster and now it had been abandoned in a condition where it had become

a source of pollution or the most recent study that was done shows that this water pollution and spreading. will continue to be in the more than hundred thousand people in the. groups working with the children see the children to be ten times more likely to be born with birth defects in children in the rest of the country. in the sea as little as five hundred dollars but lifelong injuries. and. unpunished. days sleds were vital to get around. but today the life line. one drives people to quit their lives and settle in remote woods.

one finds them up to survive in the freezing cold. beginning in russia's nals discover the arctic circle on r.t.e. . twelve thirty am in moscow here are to have lived. brushy needs to mock received but not chaos of president medvedev outlining the primary challenges for the country saying russia is on the brink of a new political era where every believes will be heard. arab league observers arrive in syria as the conflict there reaches a bloody peak at international sanctions caused living conditions to deteriorate. and tightening the noose on america's controversial death penalty the e.u. floods the flow of drugs used to kill u.s. death row inmates.