you're watching r t a very warm warm welcome it's eight am here in the russian capital and this is lucy catherine of reporting for you now on this day two decades ago the world's largest country ceased to exist the fall of the soviet union meant the end of the cold war and also the birth of a dozen states but even today the collapse of the u.s.s.r. raises unanswered questions as artie's own and you've got your explains. even today the many generated their own explanations for the full of a global goliath but some putting it down to the role of just a few. the nineteen ninety one august coup was a turning point in the country's history with images of yeltsin standing on a tank creating a new hero yet for most here even that wasn't seen as causing

a fatal crack in the soviet union it was over very sudden and. shocking i mean there were people here even months before who were shoring us that this was going to go on forever so i mean all the billions and billions and billions that the us and put into intelligence and forecasting or proved to be completely useless the collapse of the soviet union was not so much a revolution rather it was a peaceful divorce of former republics longing for independence but the breakup led to long lasting and painful consequences. the collapse of the soviet union is the biggest geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century. and in that assessment led him or putin is not alone older many russians began enjoying freedoms never imagined in the u.s.s.r. sixty percent still believe the collapse did more harm than good twenty years on

russians still seem undecided over how to treat of the legacy of the u.s.s.r. in moscow most soviet names have long been a race from the streets and people's memories but some symbols of the parts stand out so rigidly it can feel like those two decades never happened this one human to worker who wasn't so took six years some thirty million dollars to restore but even the government would consider taking down what is among the most famous unofficial symbols of the u.s.s.r. and strong worker and a portly collective farmer were a symbol of crisp air a chance to billeted in a country with a planned economy everyone knew they would be provided with their metaphorical hammer and sickle. and knew exactly how much to produce with that nine hundred ninety one change told that the post soviet economies were shattered their deficits skyrocketed production plunged and it took them years to get back on their feet in

the last years of soviet union there was a possibility before to solve your you know to continue with i don't for terror and political regime but to liberalize the economy in the market in the same way as the charge. but among the political elite many didn't want to support the drive to more than once and in turn save the union instead they wanted to destroy it and during that descent many republics were plunged into ethnic violence after gaining independence when it was clear the union was falling apart it seems the national minorities started dragging the blanket to their side but it was at that time that georgia forcefully included self-assertive an uprising into its territories of similar ethnic clashes between armenia and azerbaijan claimed the lives of over thirty thousand people one thousand people were killed in the transnistria conflict russia remains on a peacekeeping mission there at least a thousand people were killed in a post breakup clashes between georgia and south the search here and over one

hundred thousand were displaced into g q stan the consequences were the worst sixty eight thousand killed and over a million people displaced. even mosco itself didn't feel secure after the fall of the berlin wall the world briefed as sigh of relief but it didn't last long when nato set about creating a new wall made of missiles the allies steadily moved towards russia incorporating former soviet republics but leaving most out of europe's new security framework the west broke a number of promises to russia often russia could have expected that there wouldn't be a nato expansion that. russia itself would perhaps even join nato or become part of a new system of european. collective security so on the full of the u.s.s.r. put an end to the cold war era for over

a fundamental shift in global geopolitics with just a few now calling the shots and without a powerful counterweight today's world remains far from secure exiting the gretsch over r t. now former russian prime minister he is getting a play about cough was actually one of the few people watching history unfold from inside the corridors of power in moscow later on this program he'll share his views on the designation of the u.s.s.r. . the key thing was and it was brought to go because attention and i did tell him about it too in the presence of others that one should have started with an economic treating and if we had signed a treaty establishing a single economic space i think it would have been a step towards preserving an upgraded modernized soviet union which could have freed itself from the darker parts of its legacy that's why we should have started with an economic treaty and many in fact were ready to go along with that but even

the baltic states were ready to go along with the idea of preserving a single economic space of course it wouldn't have been enough put it would have been a huge contribution to averting dissolution there's nothing today that can be similar to the soviet union in any way but integration is one of the driving forces of globalization and it's do you think everywhere if we go along with these forces and today we can say that the trans nationalisation tendency of business as well as integration process is at stake level by the driving forces of today's reality so if we succeed in going along with them and this is gender will not differ much from that of the west and it will additionally focus more on the national interests of each state i think it will be a great advantage. now of course you can hear more of former prime minister have any pinnacle of a version of events right here in r.t. in just over twenty minutes time. now former libyan rebels are now chanting for

syrians to follow their revolutionary path hundreds of worse larry some of whom are said to be former terrorists and that are now ready to pick up arms a yet again this time to overthrow president assad arctics on a bike of reports from tripoli. a butcher my dad made. the owner of the ski pop shop in tripoli still undecided what's the most fitting term for syria's bashar al assad. jealous of his economics if we give him another and a look at syria. other syria. you can get a lot of people in syria. out of solidarity with their arab brothers the owners of the shop have even put on display the syrian rebels tricolor but they're very firm on where the revolutionary support should be and we don't want in syria and it's all just we have. an hour before something here that is so just like no longer this subject we have to have you know but i think yeah we want we.

in less than three months libyan rebels have gone from being celebrated as liberators to being called occupiers tripoli residents rally almost every week calling on the armed militia to leave and for some of the young man who looked on adrenaline and willing to part with their rifles syria seems like the next logical destination. your sort of we're all ready to join the syrian revolution and with the help of allah we will make sure that what happened in libya will repeat itself in syria that the home go by libyan mother over the portraits of shady bar i now ubiquitous on the streets of tripoli be some rebels even styling themselves to resemble the famous revolutionary. book with the help of we can all belong to give aren't fighting for peace and freedom around the world. and it seems that che guevara's idea of exporting revolutions have gotten a second birth in the middle east the arab spring has created

a boy and marketplace for soldiers of fortune they move from one revolution to another motivated by personal gain some by conviction all others by the venture if i put out a vision of freedom and for now at least it's the freedom to live by the gun. as a romantic and spontaneous as it may appear aiding the syrian uprising with mercenaries may not be such a genuine move video women and children in syria gunned down by sniper sorry bolland on you tube well it's still unclear who is pulling the trigger but there are terrorists who are shooting at civilians men women and children blind terrorism random killing simply for the purpose of destabilizing the country or from libya or from afghanistan or pakistan foreign fighters have been brought in here by the cia and the other western services. one man's terrorist could

easily be in our man's freedom fighter but for the united states it's now one day i can bet hige one of the leaders of triple a militia was once on the cia most wanted list today he's a face of the democratic leader who according to r.t. store says that a group of several hundred li been rebels to syria just last month. they are facing this situation before. it comes to be when. i think. the use of soldiers of fortune is hardly new in this troubled region middle eastern rulers hard and for centuries a save garcia against their own populations and it now looks like the history of mercenaries in the middle east has got to this new and no less bloody chapter in

the art sea tripoli. now still to come in this program nigeria's christmas killings are going to hear what led to the atrocities that saw dozens of christian worshippers die on one of their most holy days. when it comes to pakistan the country now has its eyes eastward when it comes to future partnerships the president of pakistan is firming up his country's ties with china well this comes after a very rocky year with the united states with more toys have been all but destroyed from the raid to kill osama bin laden that ended up taking place without the information of islamic law through last month's deadly drone attack artie's british leader explains. the top ranking diplomat from the hu jintao administration has said that this visit is very important marks sixty years of diplomatic ties between china and pakistan and he's hoping that this trip will bring that relationship to a new level to an all time high the leaders from both the countries talk about security regions in the area and obviously all of this comes just one month after

the nato military strike on a pockets than afghan checkpoint that actually killed twenty four pakistani soldiers all relations between pakistan and the united states as a result of that incident or i don't know all time low so many analysts are saying that this meeting could be a sign that pakistan is actually shifting towards depending more on china as opposed to the united states beijing express their solidarity with pakistan after that incident and actually a pakistani diplomat said that china has backed all of our efforts referring to that nato air strike both china and pakistan have a lot of mutual concerns they have a very strategic partnership one of their major focuses on their mutual neighbor india another major focus is trying to work together to counterbalance the united states influence in this region recently china actually invested two hundred million dollars to build

a port in pakistan where they're hoping there can be more energy trade between the two countries china has also worked with pakistan in the past few years to build nuclear reactors in that country let's just last month pakistan and china actually participated in military exercises together so this visit is just yet another signal that the two countries are moving closer together and you know time will tell what that means as far as the united states influence in this region. now in just a little bit of time we're going to continue our look at the year's most significant events today are two focuses on the earthquake in japan and the subsequent tsunami disaster that struck that country as seen through the eyes of our correspondent. suddenly there was there was panic i was outside of the car about to film the sound . and the police and the emergency workers suddenly just like sounds like. it's all

in jackets but i could understand it was that you could see the fear panic and also they were shouting tsunami literally yelling in my face to get back into the car. this is. history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . now there has been a global condemnation of the christmas day bombings in nigeria that have resulted in nearly forty people killed the attacks have targeted christian worshipers the deadliest bombing was in a suburb of the capital where an explosion struck a packed congregation in church as worshippers left morning mass a second attack followed shortly afterwards outside of a church northeast of a series of other explosions were also reported elsewhere in that country to radical islamist sect of boko haram admitted responsibility for the attacks the militants there have been involved in

a prolonged bloody fighting with government forces in recent days leaving more than sixty lives political talk show host stephen leatherman says that election contributed to the country's instability. both will have a room maybe an extremist islamic sect but he issue is for the political corruption cronyism temper of the human the last elections were worse than freedom fear goodfellow shot of the way he represents the christian cells about half of their each year you know he's a muslim here in the north they were marginal i was given the year they are being totally shut out of the system and jonathan is a close western clothes who are huge in ties clothes big old guys in the eaves their mayor to turn the country to big oil and let them sort the wells out of it is

the experience of the people vs the anger the striving. now is always lots more stories waiting for you on our website r t dot com one story for example how dollars make you deadly suspicious that's a security advice from the united states that says paying with cash single you out as a terror suspect and hope floats in south korea sends out humanitarian aid on its way to their struggling neighbors in the north we've got all the details on r.t. dot com. and more of this hour's world headlines right now. a suicide bombing during a funeral in northeast of ghana's and has left thirteen people dead including a member of parliament the bomber detonated his explosive filled vest as mourners began to leave the church it is thought that m.p. was the top of the m.p. was a target and the taliban has targeted prominent political figures in afghanistan throughout

the year. and in yemen tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in the country's capital to voice their anger at the deaths of anti-government protesters and security forces had opened fire on the preschool protesters on saturday killing about thirteen people but that led demonstrations to swell calling for vice president that country's vice president to quit for failing to arrest the killers and the weekend violence prompted president sali to val to leave the country yet again he's already signed a deal to end his decades long rule in february. now r.t. is remembering the ten the key events of twenty eleven today which went to japan's massive earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly ten thousand people and also caused a series of explosions at the fukushima nuclear plant power plant and put the world on watch fearing an atomic disaster artie's ivor bennett was in japan in just hours after the tragedy struck.

covering the earthquake and tsunami in japan was very difficult because i was actually on my own the cameraman and producing the visas so they had to wait and i went with a flip camera a laptop when i was there and got a satellite phone and so on the road i was trying to to do lines whenever i could set up a satellite phone trying get a link. and only when i actually got there that was when i fully understood the full force of the tsunami i didn't i didn't appreciate that until i actually saw the sea of every left. and i remember actually at one point setting up the lamp to want on for a boat being perched on a on a on a road and just been dumped by the tsunami. and i was quite a surreal experience definitely. to begin with

a very strange if you were in a building suddenly you. could feel yourself shaking slightly and it was difficult to walk in a straight line for about thirty seconds and gradually over these three days i actually got used to the tremors the strange as that sounds suddenly there was there was panic i was outside of the car about to film a stand up. and the police and the emergency workers suddenly just like the sound seeing. it was all in jack things but i could understand there was the you can see the fear and panic and also they were shouting and tsunami literally yelling in my face to get back into the car there's another news crew there shouting at them to get back into the car and go inland as fast as possible because there was this. as the threat of another another tsunami there'd been a tremor the tide proceeded and they thought another tsunami was coming so in those . when we were racing inland as fast as we could weaving our way in between all the

day every. member looking around and thinking hang on a minute there's no shelter here. what it was he was destroyed in the previous tsunami and there's no high ground and the only way we're going to be safe is to actually. beat the water. i had to take a taxi to sendai from tokyo it took about ten hours because all the transport links were down and arrived in the middle of the nights no hotels were open the only place to stay was actually a relief center and this was inside the local government offices and they were people there who just lost everything all they had were the clothes on their bank whatever positions they had with them at the time the earthquake struck and clearly their houses have been destroyed and they will all they had been in the relief center was was a cardboard sheet of cardboard to lie on and i spend one not one night that i was

pretty unbearable because it was very cold there's very little food around and one thing they were rations to be would all they had was just a cucumber and a slice of bread so that was that was one meal actually. on top of this was also the fear of radiation because the situation in fukushima was just going from bad to worse and i was always in my mind it was a very real fear you could see. amongst everyone else also. there wasn't any visible panic it seemed like it wasn't in japanese culture to panic and such but more there was certainly fear this is a town over water i around half way between tokyo and fukushima i'm still a hundred fifty kilometers south of the nuclear power plant but already the radiation levels here over double that of those in tokyo are going to make meeting one. young family one young couple with a newborn baby actually just. i think

a week old also been born to cover of a before the before the earthquake and. the mother wasn't particularly well some or she was very weak and obviously she wanted to stay put there from sendai that they had left they just didn't trust what the government was saying that the sister situation in fukushima was under control and they just wanted to get out they were heading heading to tokyo by whatever means possible. and then suddenly the tempo changed when there was a third explosion and then the fourth explosion and the different reactors in fukushima one morning the happening very quick succession and suddenly. everyone was very scared. so all the news crews were. just suddenly packed up and left and that really difficult for me was i was on my own i didn't have anyone else to consult. and i just realized at that point ok i'm going to get out this is the

start of japan's ravaged east coast norene like by that they're very just lie strewn all over the place here are walls collapsed over here elss of fallen down such as the force of the tsunami this is also the point where we're going to turn back because the dog account is reading the highest it has done all day one point zero four microsleep it's plain how obviously when i left japan. i felt great relief because covering the story being very stressful i barely eat in london he slept but the story for me wasn't over though until when i was back in moscow. the next day i had to get to the hospital rooms checked for radiation and thankfully i was clear. now iver story isn't the only one you can watch we have more on the year's ten key global events as witnessed by our own international correspondents you can also watch their accounts of what they saw and what they heard by heading to our website r.t.

dot com but for now let's get the latest headlines in business with katie. hello welcome to business here on all say christmas is in most of the world but in russia the festive season has only just begun despite debt concerns in europe and the u.s. shelf is still all slowing down as marina culture of thousands out russian men are the full fronts of the seasonal spending extravaganza. the year's eve as when the russians give gifts and this year they're going all out at least eighty one billion dollars will be spend this the server and a fifth of that will go towards presents consumer spending is expected to increase by twenty eight percent and muscovites will withdraw twenty percent more cash than any of the month of the year that's about five hundred sixty dollars each if you

are a russian woman then you can look forward to a particularly lavish gift as man will spend twice as much ice or partners so what kind of gifts are we looking at it's what the most popular items are expected to be alcohol then we have a choice and finally household appliances so not all that romantic on the the christmas tree and the russians are not the only ones refusing to tighten their belts many experts had predicted americans and europeans would trim their spending but it's turned out to be a different story most surveys now suggest we will see an increase actually the average american is expected to spend up to twenty two percent more while in the u.k. some shops already seen an increase in sales more than last year but this may be because it's been such a tough year for ordinary working people know about the holiday season is here so

we feel that they have an excuse to finally spend some money on them so. and their loved ones. let's have a look at the markets now crude prices all flocked to positive last week so all futures pose the biggest weekly gain in two months as indications the u.s. economic recovery was gaining momentum and growing fears over disruptions of writing or supplies boosted prices as in asia japanese stocks all catching up with broad gains in global like to involve itself holiday on friday shares of machinery manufacturers and other exporters are leading the advance with the thought gee construction manufacturing gaining over around one of the halls of the cent meanwhile markets in home call australia and singapore all closed all the days and it's now us in two hours ahead of the opening bell here in moscow the russian markets closed lower on friday. just a notch well them i said and did point seven percent in the rads. and not so for me

for now i'll be back in about fifty five minutes for more business news.

oh no i didn't. get it. down like the official auntie obligation job on the phone on my pod touch from the q jumps to. life on the.

video on demand marty's mind gold compass and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com. good monday morning to you it it's eight thirty am here in the russian capital and you see caffein of and you're watching our t.v. . it's been twenty years since the world's largest country was wiped off of the face of the map the breakup of the soviet union and of communism in the region and gave birth to a dozen new states but its legacy continues to divide those who mourn and celebrate its collapse and former libyan rebels are taking their revolution on the road to syria.