this week's top stories from r t tens of thousands rallied peacefully in central moscow against the results of the recent parliamentary vote by president to meet him in their ballots poland's political reforms. the head of the arabs only the mission to syria arrives in damascus amid fresh claims of pilots. and a new air out as north korea mourns the death of its ruler kim jong il is now a sunset steps into power in. a very warm welcome to you and karen tara thank you for joining us four o'clock here in moscow and to your top story tens of thousands gathered in the russian

capital on saturday in a second peaceful rally protesting over the results of this month's parliamentary election protesters were calling for a rerun of the election which they claim was raked the russian interior ministry said thirty thousand people showed up but organizers say the true number was over one hundred thousand meanwhile president medvedev gave his annual address to the nation promising one spread political reforms some of which are already underway in the newly elected state duma peace cannot reports. the time for change has come. earlier people are tired of not being able to promptly solve the most pressing issues people are tired of having their interests ignored speeding and his fourth and final state of the union address the president listed a set of proposals which have already been deemed to be sweeping political reform but he wants to change the rules for the registration of political parties. as well

as for taking part in elections in fact a total ground up rebuild of the whole electoral system today governors in russia are up pointed directly by the president they used to be elected in the ninety's but this was cancelled and thousands now the meeting with wants to bring the vote back as part of the move to vertical ice power in russia it took over a decade to build to the current vertical system of power but now russia's regions are told it's time to start gaining more independence from moscow the president's proposed reforms will also hit the state duma which will include two hundred twenty five deputies each independently elected within their own territory or constituency and when it comes to new parties in order to register political parties need to gather at least ten thousand approval signatures and have representatives in over a half of the eighty nine regions the new initiative is to reduce this figure to

five hundred which should give the green light for more political forces the president's speech followed the recent parliamentary election which caused widespread discontent among the public the biggest brutus rally since the collapse of the you was a sore have been taking place across the country with tens of thousands of russians shouting out accusations of fraud and other violations over fifty criminal cases have been opened looking into the allegations while the results from more than twenty polling stations have been cancelled russia has enormous potential enormous human capital physical capital and has the potential to become a world leader and they would like the spirit of the educated people would like to play a part in that the president praised a legal right to express opinion warrant any attempts to manipulate and provoke the people will not be accepted when you know it we won't allow extremists or probably caters to draw society into their shady enterprises we won't allow. interference

from outside in our internal affairs russia needs democracy not chaos but getting back to the reforms that need to be the most another proposal concerning his own post as well you know order to run for president independent candidates have to gather at least two million approval signatures from voters three hundred thousand as asked the new figure currently being proposed which will most likely widen competition for russia's top job even though the president doesn't plan to run for a second term in office it doesn't mean the reforms will be forgotten the need to mediate if he's aiming for the prime minister's seat if he wins the upcoming presidential vote in mark he is going to of moscow and yet. the head of the arab league's observer mission to syria ross and damascus general mohammad al doppies aim is to check the country's compliance with an arab peace plan aimed at holding the nine month long unrest a further group of fifty arab league monitors should reach syria on monday

according to estimates more than five thousand have been killed since march the monitors visit coincides with fresh claims of violence in the city of homs and twin suicide bombings on friday that killed forty four but as artie's sara firth reports with western sanctions strangling the country it's the syrian people who are bearing the brunt. it's been nearly ten months since there is uprising began the capital of damascus has remained largely sheltered from the conflict in fact in the bustling sand so it seems like it's business as usual as one says the winds of change have begun to blow a little stronger the arab league to 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 the new has learning difficulties for the beans for a living but he barely makes a hundred and fifty three in pounds a day three dollars to support him and his wife. now the fuel for his vending cart

has become harder to get hold of with the economic sanctions driving the price up. there are less 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 opportunities a. financial transactions. blackouts become the. 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 this is when 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 being punished economic sanctions still. thinking. that he will want to hit. that 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 too will bring about any change. in the west of the conflict areas changed. to seeing some parity of teeth families like finding life under the sanctions increasingly desperate search. damascus. the u.s. and its allies claim their foreign policy is aimed at stopping president assad's

regime cracking down on protesters but despite mounting evidence the west remains reluctant to recognize that the opposition is also armed some analysts believe it's because the anti damascus coalition wants to see regime change in syria what we see hear about these atrocities five howser. death here and the so-called massacres none of these numbers are confirmed that they are actually given and if you look at the media they are actually telling you that they're getting their information from the. rebel army but they're not getting it from inside the country but of course when you look at the mainstream media at least here in the united states they are just repeating those numbers because this is basically a make up of a psychological warfare first of all the decision on syria was made months or years ago even as the preparation began and this is a turkey on the border there nato's air base there injured airbase may

two thousand and eleven so they have the decision they have had this station they have been preparing for an actual war and then they begin the propaganda and the psychological warfare by trying to get the public support for an unwarranted war and that's the pocket sea off the u.s. foreign policy you're looking at live playing right in front of you. and later this hour of the inside track on the year's most momentous events. in news that's where a drone is going but we couldn't stop thinking. what if they make a mistake one of our t.'s team of international correspondents marina finishing up shares her own experience in the nato strike zone and war torn tripoli. north korea is still mourning the death of its leader kim jong il who passed away

on saturday from a heart attack at the age of sixty nine his death was announced on state t.v. on monday by a weeping newscaster and thousands of people were shown crying in the streets his youngest son kim jong un has already been named as supreme leader to keep the dynasty going the former rulers body is now lying in state in the capital young young as north koreans continue to pay their final respects with a funeral planned for december twenty eighth which news of his death put the country's neighbors on high alert japan called a special security meeting fearing instability in the region while south korea says its military is on standby independent journalist james corbett believes that north korea is used by china and the u.s. as a pawn in their own political games in the region. the north has always been the sort of madwoman in the attic when it comes to east asian politics and it serves as i think a useful function for a number of parties in the region not only as

a sort of proxy for china which has been really propping up the regime internationally by giving it its support on the international skip stage which can then use the menace of north korea and be seen to be keeping north korea in line but it also serves a sort of strange function on these two stage for for example the united states which one would think would be interested in disarming north korea but in fact in every single stage of north korea's nuclear armament even united states has been deeply involved with that the arming of the north korean regime with two light water reactors back in the one nine hundred ninety s. under clinton and it plays and it's very interesting counterpoint to the hysteria that we see going on over the possibility that iran's money one day develop a nuclear weapon well here we have a nuclear armed state that's been a law being missiles over our head here in japan for years now and threatening the entire region and yet they've just walked away from those talks for the last two years so it plays a very strange role in the stage and relations right now after the fall of the

gadhafi regime in libya revenge killings have become a common occurrence in the country stability peace and freedom from persecution are just a dream that tribal violence is on the rise like a has more. this is what it's like to look at death in the face a group of man the young and old captured after the nadir propped rebels overran get off his hometown of sirte there was behind the camera delivers a verdict did you work for gadhafi did you. and the captives themselves think that certain about what's coming next. scenes like these play now with a costly b. as the rebels assisted by western powers so to liberate the country from gadhafi i've been maginnis about he said to stick tendencies grow more and more outlandish by the day and that seems to justify any sort of treatment for his perceived loyalists in some places the violence is quite bad the town we looked out in was

called where god and the militias from the neighboring town of misrata are terrorizing the people of to where they accuse them of having fought for qaddafi of having committed atrocities. in his name this is one of the liberated tripoli's new landmarks a prison where moammar gadhafi was set to hold his political opponents with no access to lawyers and no chance for a fair trial. but while the prisons new guards had very elaborate in their rating is ferocity is fear and hatred still reside in this neighborhood. obviously is a poor area in southern tripoli where more margot duffy had strong support prior to his fleeing the district also and his name to the tourists presents a scene of torture and arbitrary killings but while gadhafi is gone the human rights abuses still remain rather from this area still disappearing without

a trace for their families are too scared to talk about. this is probably the only place in all the beer with families of a logic get after supporters can turn to for how mohammed to form peace and your earlier this year it investigated the fate of those who disappeared in good office prisons he is now primarily dealing with people who went missing under libya's new leadership it's usually mothers who come here and at first they are scared to tell me that this son or husband was with because daffy forces they usually say he was a civilian courts in the crossfire but i tell them that i don't care which side he was on all i need is accurate information so that we can start searching. mohamed and his friends have been taking photos of unidentified bodies that have been popping up across leadbetter in recent months this naturists are probably their relatives most realistic hope of finding closure but even after sifting

through them many managed to retain hope like this man whose brother disappeared on the front lines of banjo. i hope he's in tunisia maybe his in hospital maybe he's lost his memory or has no way of contacting us. they say hope dies last only bit it's still alive even if many people aren't. artsy tripoli it is believed that up to thirty thousand people were killed in the libyan civil war that's a story that's dominated headlines and stay won and has become one of the top ten world events that shaped the year here are tea parties maria and lost in the cover the situation from inside libya and now looks back on her time there.

we arrived in libya in the evening this is how you'd expect this kind of story to start but actually we crossed that unusual border when the sun was too high. our driver told us to be careful we all thought that was a little bit on necessary. but he explained that they sway nato and qaddafi. could both blame each other if the scope killed. on our first night in tripoli would go to a very warm welcome rixos hotel we stayed was just a kilometer or two away from. his residence. and that was bombed that night as it had never been before and would never be wards . it was literally shaking curtains in our rooms were moved even with the doors firmly closed my bed was just beside

a glass wall i did dick were into the room because i was scared. an explosion could destroy literally. my western colleagues explaining that. rixos hotel at the time was the safest place in the because nature knew best where journalists order but we couldn't stop thinking. what if they make a mistake president so succeed with this search here in st for they have been woken up by a strike in the middle of the night and all summer long slender to hear this story as you can see behind me some world three story buildings. and there were no. professional rescuers at the scene. only man who bare hands. and one after another they pulled out five dead bodies. where she couldn't see that but is themselves. because they were just wrapped up in blankets.

lifeless bundles. in the morgue we heard that they were three little babies that. they were lying there. cold tables still in pampers. and next morning nato confirmed. it had made a mistake the intended target during last night's airstrike in tripoli was a military missile. from our initial assessment of us it appears that one weapon did not strike intended you to a weapons systems. of course i wanted to meet khadafi or his son say for this every journalist did but that was kind of impossible.

as you remember one day after a news conference my friend and a time photographer came to me and pointing at the man. in his suit told me he wants to meet you the next night i got to call the car he said wait someone told me weeks back to them to blindfold us but they didn't do anything like that. you know the option of hold the enter the room and no one paid any attention to. what he was different when he entered we all noticed we all knew that he is right now in the room. there was an injury common knowledge from a very powerful man. he invited me to follow him in a separate. group. with questions many questions like what do you think about what do you think about the uprising hey maybe what do you think about me what do you think about my father but i was calm and confident and then he suddenly

stopped and looked at my shoulders high heels. and he went. sweetie what about your questions and you know he looked like he didn't take me seriously actually and i looked at my notes and him on the first questions there was did you or your father. give the order to kill civilians. but i didn't tell him that and i was like smiling just ordinary questions. and he said ok let's go. and that interview was one of the past interviews in my life if not the best interview safe was very sincere. very open he thought always before answering that was really literally electricity and that truth. will left next morning and i had

a feeling that i would never see this country again. i didn't go back six weeks later. but that was a different country already with new faces new heroes new everything. the country i had traveled in the summer of two thousand and eleven it is now just a part of history for good. every day right up to the new year we'll bring you more personal reflections from our correspondents who saw the biggest stories of two thousand and eleven first hand in case you missed any you can see them all on our website r t v dot com. it's been a week of mourning and russia as more monster region for the victims of last sunday's oil rig disaster the platform mostly manned by a crew from would months was sunk in a storm while being towed to port in the country's far east sixty seven people were on board fourteen of them were immediately saved after the platform went down but there are six are still unaccounted for and listed as missing with the search and

rescue operation over there's little hope of finding any more survivors the bodies of seventeen victims have been recovered investigators suspect a breach of safety procedures is to blame for the tragedy while there was no fuel spill it's the deadliest oil rig disaster in russian history. still ahead for you this hour christmas tragedy. five separate terror attacks in nigeria by an extremist sacked have killed at least forty. the citizens of cash strapped dystonia are paying the price for joining the euro as they're forced to fork out for other nations mistakes. iraq has been having deeper into political crisis since the final u.s. troop withdrawal earlier this week the country has been rocked by a massive bombing in baghdad which claimed at least seventy two lives on thursday it was the worst attack in months in iraq and its leaders in gauged in the tit for

tat blame game over the latest wave of violence fears have been growing of a return to the sectarian conflict of two thousand and seven that left thousands dead as the u.s. made good its promise to pull out the troops it insisted it had left behind a stable country but former american diplomat peter martin van buren thinks that the current situation in the country is a direct result of the occupation. be very 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 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 on christmas day nigeria was rocked by a series of blasts targeting christian worshipers leaving at least forty dat most died on church doorsteps after attending christmas mass authorities acknowledged a lack of ambulances in the area and mourns that casualty numbers may rise the radical muslim sect boko haram has claimed responsibility for the attacks the group was involved in prolonged violent clashes with military forces that have killed at least sixty in the past few days stephen lemon a radio host and author from chicago says april's election results contributed to the unstable situation in the country. boko haram may be an extremist islamic sect but he issue is very political corruption crow years of deprivation human need and last prosser lections

were worse than free in fear. hello jonathan was away he represents the christian south about half of nigeria is a muslim there in the north they want my house you know i used it yet there they are being totally shut out of the system and jonathan is a close western terrace close washington ties close big oil and ease their way or if they're me to turn the country over to big oil and let them just suck the wealth out of it if the expense of the people vests the anger that striving these arabs at has been a year since a stone and became the newest member of the single currency but with the recent euro zone debt troubles historians find themselves apprehensive about their financial future artes and exceed itself ski has more. on paper these people live

in one of the most prosperous economies of the baltic region reality their homeland . is the e.u.'s poorest country and after spending a year being part of the euro zone these people say the positive changes they were promised are nowhere to be seen at the helm of a lot recently euro commission check their pensions are authorities told they received an average pension of six hundred this is far from reality pensions in greece which fifteen hundred here get around two hundred. a stone he adopted the euro last january but despite a general positive attitude towards the move until now it is mostly big businesses and politicians that are really enjoying the transition there are clearly some political advantage in terms of if you want lock in your stone you have more firmly into the you economic advantages as well in terms of investment the support for the euro is holding up very well you know people seem to be to see the advantages you may be politically wrasslin economically but the year award option party soon

brought a painful hangover since september a stone has agreed to take part in the european financial stability facility the body created to combat financial crisis and the bailout countries like greece and now experts say this membership comes at a price and can not afford to buy the formula for us is very bad because we need to . march. or percentage from our g.d.p. the rich countries something more than nine percent from our budget the poorest country we need to pay off march richer countries the country central bank has even warned of a possible recession recent polls suggest up to sixty percent of historians are against their country's membership of the. the government however doesn't seem to

pay attention and refuses to drop out of this relief fund meanwhile members of this community say they would rather help greece with dictators and far it would then see their pension money having their adopting the euro soon or later was a necessary condition for a stone you to join the european union but being part of the european financial stability facility was not in the agreement and while economists are speculating whether stonier should continue its membership in this organization ordinary people are left to wonder why they have to pay someone else's debts. reporting from tallinn in a stony. coming up shortly a former head of the un's nuclear watchdog talks to our team about how can john eales death might further upset the already unstable region that's coming up right after a recap of our main stories in just a couple of minutes. witnesses

. to history in the making of. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. .