in the russian capital a second mass protest took place on saturday against the parliamentary poll result the results. moscow's biggest rally in recent history has come and gone without incident as thousands came on to the streets of the capital to protest against what they call a rigged vote and they want a rerun join me in a new small way for more details in central moscow. in syria the festive holiday spirit is broken by a new round of violence in damascus that leaves dozens dead. and a dubious resolution david cameron reveals plans for involvement in the oil rich somalia calling the country a threat to british security. thank

you for joining us five o'clock here in moscow thousands gathered in central moscow to protest against this month's parliamentary election results the rally was organized by opposition groups who say the poll was raked artes and he said now i was at the scene. it's certainly fair to say that the head count of this saturday's rally beats that we saw it two weeks ago at below plan square official figures we're hearing from the interior ministry is that thirty thousand opposition is saying some hundred thousands but certainly tens of thousands of people came onto the streets of moscow to call for free and fair elections you have lots of different political groups here people that just came out and say they're not part of any political group that in fact they don't want this to be politicized they want to just come out and have their demands made and what they're demanding is a rerun of december as part of the mentoring vote we saw several different faces of the opposition but also some celebrities it's fair to say will procure of who of course is

a relatively new politician who's running for president in march showed up he didn't speak to the crowd like was expected but he did go around and really talk to people it looked a little bit from afar like some kind of campaigning really and what he did say was that if he becomes president he would dissolve this this state duma and call for new elections we also saw former finance minister alexis accouterments speak to the crowd he spoke officially on stage and he called for people who were involved in the so-called vote rigging to be brought to justice and called for a snap elections in terms of the parliament well as soon as we saw protests which happened in almost immediately after the vote some of them sanctions others unsanctioned we heard reaction from both president ms vega and prime minister putin saying that protests are encouraged in terms of people coming out and voicing their demands and that's important for russia's political development and important that people are politically active as long as it stays within the law but we also just two days before this rally heard from president medvedev

a proposal about some mass reforms to russia's political system disease centralized power from moscow but also to create more of a representative proportional system in the russian parliament there are a lot of different political parties and organizations that have been coming out to these. protesters not really leaders there are faces of the opposition some of them more well known than others one of the most well known as parties themselves he is supported by washington's national endowment for democracy he wasn't as well received as two weeks ago of course that might have something to do with the recent phone recording scandal in which conversations he had on his phone were leaked to life news and there you could blatantly hear him rudely speaking about other opposition leaders in fact he was booed a bit by some of the people standing in the crowds perhaps because he called some of the protestors hamsters probably the biggest speaker of the day was next in the bar and he's really the rising star of the opposition he's an anti-corruption activist and well known for his russian blogging very well known here in russia and

becoming more and more well known in the west you certainly become a star of the media i think it's fair to say he was detained at one of the earlier protests after the elections and stayed in detention for fifteen days so this was the first time he spoke publicly after being released and he was very well received well you don't hear a lot about nirvana is his nationalist trends if you ever go and read his walk you can read about some of his movements and his words what he's calling for is for more and more people to come out to these next protests that are being planned he called for a million people to come out onto the streets certainly there is a feeling that crowds will continue to come out until their demands are met and we have more from the russian capital for you online log on to our you tube channel for a video from the heart of saturday's rally and you can get all the background on moscow protest by heading to our web site that's our team dot com.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to operations throughout the day . syria mourns the victims of friday's twin tower attacks where forty four people were killed and more than one fifty wounded syria's muslim brotherhood has claimed responsibility while the arab league works to put a peace plan into action sara furth looks at how the tragedy has dampened the people's holiday spirit. chaos and confusion in damascus as the capital which until now has remained largely spared from violence starts to feel the effects of an escalating conflict but. the first day of the league's work was a bloody tragic day the people of syria will never forget these terrorists and this

time of year the capsule is usually brightly lit is christiane's here a camp attempt to send to the population get ready to celebrate christmas but these scenes of devastation are a harsh contrast and a stark reminder of just how much the country has changed in the past nine months. last year to christmas we used to wish health and pray for people in other countries that were going through hard times with war we never thought that this year it would be us. this year is totally different because of the situation in our country. the priests here are planning their own mark of respect for the. we. of syria our people to avoid the external signs of the beauties but to go. no one really feels like celebrating anyway when the country's hospitals are full of casualties the

government claims it's fighting armed militant groups sponsored from abroad meanwhile the opposition originally marked by its insistence on peaceful protests it's now been joined by growing numbers of army defectors and has become increasingly armed after months of quite downs by the government and this violence spreads it's prevailing extremely hard to know exactly who is responsible for what . you have for instance a victim. from somebody who is not. the government's. position the. government. taxing killings have been met repeatedly with claim counter-claim and accusation. have. two different views.

the arab league team will be attempting to cut through the rhetoric and discover his version of events is most accurate they many remain skeptical about how much they'll be able to achieve but there's one thing that everyone here is hoping for and that's for the violence to be stopped the christmas celebration. down this religious services will be happening. again for being with their country there are. a tense situation in syria has made world headlines for over nine months now we've been one of the few foreign media channels allowed to cover the unrest and homes damascus and other parts of the country and fact it's one of the top ten events that shaped nearly a whole year of news on our team our correspondents are silly i was in syria for much of the crisis and these are her firsthand recollections.

well when we went to syria it was sometime in october and the situation was getting very tense there so our flight arrived at the around three in the morning so you can imagine the surprise and the shock of security forces when three foreign journalists arrive at a time when there was a media bad international journalist there will. be a syrian capital you can see behind me traffic is just about started to flow again going into the city damascus was rather peaceful it was quiet although very tense still because everybody knows what was going on in the country. and what's interesting mostly for us is that we saw a kind of. diverse opinions on what was going on there was no clear.

there were more than two sides it was not i want the regime or i don't want to be. and there was one time you were interviewing a young man and he was rather critical of the government so he gave his point of view and what you didn't see on the camera is that there was a group of men around him and listening to what he was saying. and afterwards after the interview was finished they all came up to us and said get us on camera we want to see what we feel. and then we also spoke to those people who were protesting specifically those who were on the streets in about twenty minutes outside of damascus one of the guys that we interviewed he actually disappeared for two days and he said he was held by security forces. after forty eight hours of detention and torture they took all of my money and belongings and threw it into

this. st. we also spoke with soldiers families those who have been killed and you can wholesale feel that they are angry at the protesters because their sons have been lost fathers have been lost husbands have been lost so you can understand the point of view that they're coming from how console gers kill other soldiers this is impossible whatever media says this is plainly lawyer. speaking about fear look out tell you one incident we were supposed to interview one of the leaders of the national coordination council the local opposition. the interview was sets and he when we called him he said i might have to cancel because we there were security forces we think who were at the office and they wrote some threats on the wall. we had to our fixer who translated what it meant. it said you're working for the u.s.

we're going to kill you. and so they were threats at the members of the f.c.c. particularly the leader. that was a scary time because we they were just outside we didn't know whether they would come in and we asked there are interview are you scared he said you only die once. so the syrians are very i felt hospitable people but when when it comes to political talk when it comes to expressing a political view in a crowd it can really get heated they would. jostle at the rally that we went to it got pretty rough. our camera. and so forth. every detail but that is your job you go in there he try to get you try to do what you can to try to film as much as you can try to put it in as much context and we

had to tell sometimes. to tell people please calm down otherwise we can't get anything on film or hear the sounds of the syrian conflict with our lives together to show their support for the government is that a far cry from the images we've been seeing in other cities around the country where there have been reporting a lot of the integrated forces and government photos show for every one think it's a matter where in this country whenever they get news about syria it would never really be everything you suppose syria i would really pay attention and although everybody here say i think that's correct i don't think that's or that's not as precise as i think it was so i'd like to think that because of my trip there and my experience there. that when i see something about syria i don't take it at face value i remembered everything that i had gathered and big looked through with through that perspective rather than just what i see.

and every day right up to the new year will bring you more personal reflections from the correspondents who cover the biggest stories of two thousand and eleven still to come on the program a controversial goodbye just days after u.s. troops withdrew from iraq our team takes a look at the legacy that some say they have left behind. and still glowing from the success of its intervention in libya britain now turns its side to another oil rich african state somalia is seen as a training ground for terrorists with the potential to incite extremism among young british muslims its fate is going to be decided i had a summit in london in february here's our tease laura smith for more. in the words of prime minister david cameron somalia is a failed state that directly threaten his interests his solution options ranging from humanitarian aid right through to military intervention and reports suggest

that in the new year following the perceived success of the libyan campaign in government circles somalia could be the next target for u.k. forces newspapers as saying that the royal air force could be sent to help african union troops to support the weak u.s. backed transitional government's equipment and money other main donations despite a tough economic situation. there around one hundred thousand somalis living in the u.k. making up one of the largest muslim groups according to m i five somalia is the native terrorists training ground where british residents from a variety of backgrounds pakistan baghdad dash yemen go to study jihad the risk is that they then come back to the u.k. and carry out terrorist attacks there's also the threats of piracy and the kidnapping of aid workers and tourists but crucially somalia also has boston

gas reserves and other natural resources including the iranian which the u.s. and other countries have had their eye on for years is many points also to somalia as to t.j. position presiding over a large parts of oil transport routes through the gulf of aden and usually following military strategist to planning long term intervention some way. of looking at political second. oil gas one of the biggest does a huge somali community round here. most of whom are from the south. and saying to me. can we please have support to get a functioning system of government and the. so you see this as a direct result of the perceived success by the government of the campaign in libya operation made to oust gadhafi successful next stop somalia. and if you feel like catching up on more news this christmas eve party dot com is

exactly what you need here's what else is waiting for you online social networking is reaching some pretty help secure places you wouldn't believe it but now the christmas tree in central kiev in ukraine has its own twitter account why you'll find the answer online plus. during the holiday and taal it is norad the north american aerospace defense command is on a mission to make sure all those christmas gifts reach their hopeful destinations by keeping santa under close surveillance. five seventeen now thank you for joining us violence comes just days after u.s. troops said goodbye to iraq nine years after the invasion began over one hundred thousand iraqi civilians and thousands of american soldiers lost their lives in the

war that cost america a trillion dollars now many iraqis say the war was a mistake and they are sending that message very clearly to u.s. leaders our correspondent sean thomas reports. packing up to head home it may be easy to overlook the total costs of war at least one hundred fourteen thousand iraqi civilians killed as well as one hundred thousand american soldiers millions displaced from their homes not to mention a one trillion dollars financial burden still the former occupiers leave behind or some words of encouragement i can say with confidence in the next twenty or fifty years iraq will be all we do here in the gulf region that rivals a country. that's. iraq now is a safe and secure environment it's not a safe and secure is as it should be or it will be but it's it's progressing very well the american occupation of iraq saw the fall of the baddest regime the capture

and execution of deposed leader saddam hussein and the implementation of a democratic government but now nearly nine years later is of the country better off a little that they below and the u.s. troop invasion of iraq in two thousand and three and their grievances think the committed made the situation here worse there are so many mistakes committed by the us military leadership especially in managing civilian us banks here this had a negative effect because. in fact many here say it was the american mismanagement of iraq and that led to the rise of sectarian violence in the country all people if you us who brings the us to iraq. he said us. who are putting the damage to the infrastructure of iraq he said. so i think. we on american must cooperate in order to. put up this. culture that hate. between

two peoples the timeline for u.s. troop withdrawal was set in two thousand and eight and while the obama administration initially tried to extend the deadline the official transfer of power came sixteen days ahead of schedule on december sixteenth two thousand and eleven right now the u.s. and iraqi governments are working on a new type of diplomatic relations building a new type of trust if you will but now the next step is in the hands of the iraqi government to move the country forward as america's influence waned political infighting and sectarian divisions in the iraqi parliament have diminished as well giving iraqis hope for a strong future but as iraq prepares to move past this dark chapter they have a message for their former occupiers to our friends america. the police don't know that it was. because you would mistake is a great mistake. because teach.

you to be sure and friends are few right now in a region in which america's reputation lies in fred's in the eyes of many in iraq sean tanisha. now let's take a look at some other news making headlines around the globe first to nigeria at least sixty one people have been killed in days of unrest in the northeastern part of the country members of the radical muslim group boko haram clashed with security forces in a fierce gun battle people living near the city's central mosque were asked to leave before armed soldiers moved tanks into the neighborhood the recent string of clashes began on thursday with boko haram campaigning to implement strict sharia law across the country. yemen has been shaken by an arrest of security forces fire on mass crowds killing ten and injuring dozens officers use guns tear gas and water cannons against demonstrators in the capital sanaa they were demanding that former president ali abdullah saleh be tried for his long and violent crackdowns on

anti-government protests when he was in power a thirty three year rule ended last month when he handed over power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. believers around the world are celebrating christmas in the biblical town of bethlehem over one hundred twenty thousand visitors have gathered for a midnight mass at the church of the nativities a place where jesus is believed to have been born festivities are underway in the u.s. u.k. and europe but also in iran where the holiday is very important to the christian minority and in taiwan thousands gathered in the capital to take part in the city's christmas eve parade with city officials and santa suits and fake snow helping to spread the holiday spirit. in the vatican city pope benedict the sixteenth has led the celebrations with a traditional christmas service in st peter's basilica after mass the eighty four year old pontiff delivered his annual speech reflecting on the hardships facing the

world and being with greetings delivered in thousands of languages. while we have a seasonal treat in store for you later as max kaiser and stacy herbert give christmas itself their own unique treatment kaiser report is coming up next hour. after a leveraged buyout off the road by kohlberg kravis roberts that was white knight in the firms for more of both of all of santa claus the seven elves unfortunately were working with him had to be sold into prostitution but santa was made whole and mrs claus unfortunately is to big cookies for the rest of her life in a gulag somewhere in the south pole things are still happening in sin as workshop states you heard to just follow all the apparently santas stopped in at the kaiser report in the break matt let me check it out let's see what you got this other years max is battling valuable. oh. god i remember and. this is what santa gives really. good.

this just was one of the last call if he walked into the office looking together money managed that's how they walked out of the office. two thousand and twelve a set to be the year of the presidential election as people in the u.s. russia france and south korea will be going to the polls and with millions yet to make their choice the question is what makes a good modern day leader laurie harford us asked people on the streets of the big apple. important elections will be held in many countries in two thousand and twelve what's it going to take to be a good leader in today's world this week let's talk about that what do you think is the most important quality for

a world leader to have right now just empathy for what's going on right now just inability to be able to be flexible just with the american people the people the world and a lot of patience i equate intelligence with humor. i mean say oh yeah a quick mind do you think this sense of humor would be appealing in a world leader think it's an international way of speaking you know everybody gets it and everybody likes it circumstances or control of the country so somebody step up and take the reins you know would you follow someone that was strong like that even if you didn't necessarily believe. yes they're true leader and were honest with people is having the ability to lead people more important than having the intelligence or the right kind of policy. yeah i would say it is because you have to have a whole team of people that are actually implementing your work so you have to be

able to provide that process for them though is it important for them to have money so that they understand how it works or is it important for them to not have so much money that they're in touch with people i think it's probably important for them to have come up having. i mean. i mean you look from. i mean he understood what it was what it was like to have nothing. good of course for me it was a new a possible. candidate. in the lead of my mind because you had to really man. my vision was and what he was a man who really wants to lead nations to. the future do you think it's possible in today's world or is it too different a time now than it was in the path of sort of this totally different because of global war does that alter the very complex the no these are the management of us being courted by of a so shows so show. it's totally change your mind over how to be the people no

matter what qualities we'd like to see in the new world leaders of two thousand and twelve let's just hope we aren't too disappointed in who they turn out to be. in our latest edition of technology update the new super strong and ultra light material that's making its way into every day life and a tour of one of russia's high tech marvels that's coming up shortly but first r t a recap of our main story.

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