very warm welcome to you i'm karen tara thank you for joining us four o'clock moscow and to your top story tens of thousands gathered in the russian capital on saturday and 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 rate the russian interior ministry said thirty thousand people showed up but organizers say the true number was over a hundred thousand meanwhile president medvedev gave his annual address to the nation promising once proud political reforms some of which are already underway in the newly elected state duma cannot reports. the time for change has come. 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 porting elections in fact a total ground up rebuild of the whole electoral system today governors in russia are up for him to directly by the president they used to be elected in the ninety's but this was cancelled in the early two thousand snow the meeting with wants to bring the vote back as part of the move to vertical eyes 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 tutorial constituency and when it comes to new parties in order to register political parties need to gather at least to. 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 u.s.s.r. had 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 the legal right to express opinion warned any attempts to manipulate and provoke the people will not be accepted up with him when

you know it's going to then that 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 it's not chaos but getting back to the reforms to the media to finance to another proposal concerning his own post as well in 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. is going to have already moscow. 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 halting 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 homes and twin suicide bombings on friday that killed forty four but as artie's sarah 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 syria's uprising 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 to blow the little stronger the arab league's impose tough economic sanctions the effects of which would be felt even head in a poor area of damascus and her family struggling to make ends meet.

has learning difficulties the beans for a living that he barely makes one hundred fifty three and 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. last products available and the prices are pushed higher there's been fights over gas we've been trying to manage by cutting back as much as we can sometimes when we can't afford it we just don't eat. economic situation in syria was one of the areas president had been seen to be making some progress be it slowly the for a population that it started seeing the results of economic opportunity to block financial transactions. and blackouts become the new. they could be even down to financial times ahead. because of the economic sanctions

people rushed 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 is take the sanctions with the government hand 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 so it's just like taking it that that he just threw on his head that must have become part of the daily life for 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. position they remain skeptical about whether that too will bring about any change. in the west of the conflict areas change can come a moment to seeing some parents of two three families like. finding life under the

sanctions increasingly desperate search for. 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 here about these atrocities five to house the. death here and the so-called massacres none of these numbers are confirmed 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 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 this is basically a make up of a psychological warfare first of all the decision on syria was made

a years ago even as the preparations began and this is a turkey on the border they're on their nato air base they're injured air base may two thousand and eleven so they have the decision they have had the decision 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 key 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 and 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 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 skipped stage which can then use the menace of north korea and to be seen to be keeping north korea in line but it also serves as 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 among one day developed 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 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 you did you work for gadhafi did you. and the captives then south seemed that certain about what's coming next. scenes like these play now with a costly b. as the rebels assisted by western powers to liberate the country from gadhafi i've been lodgings about he said district 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. 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 have very elaborate in their rating good actors ferocity is here and hatred still resides in this neighborhood. obviously is a poor area installed in tripoli where more margot duffy had strong support base 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 so that families are too scared to talk about that. this is probably the only place in all the beer with families of a legit good office supporters can turn to for how mama to form peace and your earlier this year it's 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're scared to tell me that this son or husband was with the khadafi forces they usually say he was a civilian court 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 lee bit 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 a whole dies last only bit it's still alive even if many people are in. artsy tripoli but 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 unnecessary. but he explained that they sway nato and qaddafi. could both blame each other if journalists got killed. when our first night in tripoli we got 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 our wards. it was literally shaking curtains in our rooms were moved even with doors

firmly closed. my bed was just beside a glass wall i moved to dig. into the room because i was scared that an explosion could destroy literally. my western colleagues explaining that. rixos hotel at the time was the safest place in the because major new vests were drawn this morning but we couldn't stop thinking. what if they make a mistake the residents of secrecy with this search here in three probably have been woken up by a strike in the middle of the night and all several bombs landed here 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. wishing you could see that but

it's. because they were just wrapped up a blanket. by lysis bendel. in the mall we heard that they were three little babies among the dead. they will line there. the cold metal tables still in pampers. and next morning nato confirmed. it had made a mistake intended target during last night's best strike in tripoli was a military missile. however from our initial assessment of us it appears that one weapon did not strike the intended target due to a weapons systems failure. of course i wanted to meet qaddafi 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 line to 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 room and groom me with questions many questions like what do you think

about what do you think about the uprising hey and 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. and i looked at my notes and among 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 and to you safe was very sincere. very open and he thought always before answering that was really literally electricity in

that true. 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 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 dot com. it's been a week of mourning in russia as more months region for the victims of last sunday's oil rig disaster the platform mostly manned by a crew from wood 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 the six are still unaccounted for and listed as missing but the search and rescue operation is 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 mark of an durant thinks that the current situation in the country is a direct result of the occupation. 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 dead most dying 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 the issue is very political corruption cronyism deprivation human the last elections were worse than free and fair here who fell out of the recent way he represents the christian south about half of nigeria is muslim they are in the north they want. it year the year they are being totally shut out of the system and jonathan is that close western territories close washington ties close to big oil and ease their near east their me to turn the country over to big oil and let them just suck the welfare of the experience of the people vets the anger the striving these arabs it 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 artie's aleksey itself ski has more on paper these people live in one of the most prosperous economies of the baltic region in 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 that were promised are nowhere to be seen but the home of a lot recently euro commission check their pensions are thorough he's told them received an average pension of six hundred euros this is far from reality pensions in greece which fifteen hundred euro we hear get around two hundred. stoli 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 locking your stone you're more firmly into the e.u.

economic advantages as well in terms of investment the support for the euro is holding up very well people seem to be to see the advantages you maybe politically rather than economically but the year award option party soon brought a painful hangover since september stone has agreed to take part in the european financial stability facility the body created to combat financial crisis and bail out countries like greece and now experts say this membership comes at a price and can not afford to buy the formula for us very bad because we need to. or. from our g.d.p. the rich countries something more than nine percent from our budget the poorest country and now we need to pay off my trichet countries the country central bank has even warned of a possible recession recent polls suggest up to sixty percent of historians are

against the country's membership of the. the government however doesn't seem to pay attention and refuses to drop out of the relief fund meanwhile members of this community say they would rather help greece with potatoes and four i 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. coming up shortly a former head of the un's nuclear watchdog talks to r.t. about how. 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. to

history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shaped two thousand and eleven.

thank you for joining us four thirty here in moscow your are your week's top stories tens of thousands gather for a peaceful rally in the russian capital demanding a rerun of the parliamentary elections president dmitri medvedev of val's folded her arms promising an overhaul of the country's political system. we had alba the arab league's mission to syria runs into masochism in fresh claims of violence and international pressure mounts on the syrian regime and its tracks.