hello broadcasting live from moscow you're watching our carriage alston well on this day two decades ago the world's largest country ceased to exist before all of the soviet union meant the end of the cold war and the birth of a dozen new states but twenty years on the collapse of the u.s.s.r. raises unanswered questions as a country which over explains. even today many generate their own explanations for the fall of the global goliath but some putting it down to the role of just a few. i'll give you two reasons gorbachev and you. 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 move 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 all the billions and billions and billions that the us imported into intelligence and forecasting all 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 pushing your savior is going to tell you the collapse of the soviet union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century. and in that assessment let 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 morning a man to work or and go 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 them. nineteen ninety one changed all that the post saw it a condom use were shattered their deficit 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

chinese. but among the political elite many didn't want to support the drive to modernize 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 you have no national minorities started dragging the blanket to their side but when i was at that time in georgia forcefully included self-assertive an uprising into its territories 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 thousand killed and over

a million people displaced even mosco itself didn't feel secure after the fall of the berlin wall the world breathed a sigh of relief but it didn't last long when nato set about creating a new wall made of. 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 was. perhaps even join nato or become part of a new system of european. collective security the full of the u.s.s.r. put an end to the called war era for ever a fundamental shift in global geopolitics with just a few are now calling the shots and without a powerful counterweight today's world remains far from secure sixteen

grandchildren are teen. a former russian prime minister again a primakov was one of the few people watching history unfold from inside the corridors of power in moscow they say he shares his views on the dissolution 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 treaty or 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 read it self in the darker part 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 taking effect everywhere we go along with these forces and today we can say that the trans nationalisation tendency in 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 interest of each state i think it will be a great advantage. and there you can have more of a former prime minister of guinea primakov subversion of events in just over twenty minutes time here r.t. . former libyan rebels are now chanting for syrians to follow their revolutionary path hundreds of mercenaries someone famous said to be former terrorists ready to pick up arms again to help overthrow president assad ati's oksana boyko reports

from tripoli. a butcher my dad made the owner of this keep up shop in tripoli still undecided what's the most fitting term for syria's bashar al assad. tell us that it's economically the biggest game in the end the one that syria. another syria. you can't make it a lot of the people in syria. out of solidarity with their arab brothers the owners of the shah perhaps 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 a and are people such as syria now these are just let it go along if this all just we have all we have enough 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 really almost every week calling on the armed militia

to leave and for some of the young man who looked on the channeling enemy willing to part with their rifles syria it seems like the next logical destination. your sort of we're all ready to join the syrian revolution and with the help of all along we will make sure that what happened in libya repeat itself in syria. over the portraits of shaky bar i now ubiquitous on the streets of tripoli be some rebels even styling themselves to resemble the famous revolutionary. guard work with the help of we can all be like to give aren't fighting for peace and freedom around the world. and it seems that che guevara's a deal for exporting revolutions have gotten a second birth in the middle east the arab spring has created a buoyant marketplace for soldiers of fortune they move from one revolution to another motivated by personal gain some by conviction on others by venture if i put

out the vision of freedom and for now at least it's the freedom to live by the gun . as your mantic and spontaneous as it may appear aiding the syrian uprising with mercenaries may not be such a genuine. video women and children in syria gunned down by snipers are involved on you tube while it's still unclear who is pulling the trigger there are terrorists who are shooting at civilians men women and children blind terrorism random killing simply for the purpose of destabilizing the country they are 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 hiking but hodge one of the leaders of triple a militia was once on the cia most wanted list today he's the

face of the democratic leader who according to artist or says that a group of several hundred leavin rebels to syria just last month. we can't do any to support the syrian people because we know they are facing this situation before . it comes to be would. be able to get i think. the use of soldiers of fortune is hardly new in this troubled region middle eastern rulers hard then 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 it's new and no less bloody chapter x. than we are at the tripoli. pakistan has its eyes on the east for future partnerships with the president firming up the country's friendship with china it's after a rocky year with america where ties have been all but destroyed from the raid to

kill osama bin laden without informing us none of that through to last month's deadly drone attack what is pretty sure their expense. the top ranking diplomat from the hu jintao administration has said that this visit is very important it 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 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 will

shortly we continue our look at the year's most significant events today we focus on japan's earthquake and tsunami see to the correspondent. arrived in the middle of the nights no hotels were open the only place to stay was actually a relief center and that and this was inside the local government offices and though people there who had just lost everything all they had were the clothes on their back whatever positions they had with them at the time the earthquake struck and clearly the house has been destroyed and they will all they had been in the relief since it was was a cardboard the seat of cardboard to lie on. witnesses. to history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on r.t. . so i can head online for more world news at r.t.

dot com how dollars make you seem deadly suspicious the security here vice in the united states that says paying with cash could highlight use of terror suspects. and hope floats south korea sends humanitarian aid on its way to the struggling neighbors in the north and the details of r.t. dot com and there's a wealth of video reports as well on our you tube channel. eat . eat.

down the official auntie application to your i phone or i pod touch from the top story. g r g life on the go. video on demand. my broadcasts. are as you just read now in the palm of your. question on dot com. more of this hour's world headlines for you now a suicide car bomb has exploded outside the rocky interior ministry in baghdad leaving five dead injuring dozens more detonated an explosive laden vehicle that a checkpoint leading up to the ministry during the morning rush hour a wave of bombings has struck iraq since the american troops pulled out early this month. a south korean delegation has been allowed into north korea in the death of the late leader kim jong il a former south korean first lady and the carmaker under crossed the heavily

fortified border to pay their respects north korean leader died of a heart attack nine days ago the two countries are still technically at war and on visits require government approval. there's been global condemnation of the christmas day bombings in nigeria that have killed nearly forty people deadliest warming it was in a suburb of the capital which struck a packed congregation as they left church a second attack followed shortly after outside a church northeast of. explosions were poured elsewhere radical islamist sect says it's behind the attacks. tens of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in yemen's capital to voice their anger at the deaths of anti-government protesters security forces opened fire on peaceful protesters on saturday killing thirteen and that led demonstrations to swell vice president to quit because we can violence prompted present salo to vow to leave the country

where he signed a deal to end his decades of very. well arty's remembering the ten key events of twenty that. today we turn to japan's massive earthquake and tsunami that killed more than ten thousand people it also caused a series of explosions at the fukushima nuclear plant the put the world on watch fearing an atomic disaster artie's i bet it was in japan in the hours after the tragedy struck. was actually on my own the camera man and producing the visas so they had to wait and i went with a flip camera a laptop when i was there i got a satellite phone and so on the road i was trying to do long 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 the every left. and i remember actually at one point setting up the laptop want on for a boat being perched on a on a on a road and just being dumped by the tsunami. and i was quite a surreal experience definitely. to begin with very strange if you are 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 these three days i actually got used to the tremors as 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 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 no news crew there shouting at them and 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 precede it and they thought another tsunami was coming so in those moments when we were racing inland as fast as we could weaving our way in between all the deborah. remember 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 to 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 the houses have been destroyed and they will all they had been in the relief since it was it 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 and there's very little food around one of their rations but people 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 it 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

was in 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 of our war i around half way between tokyo and fukushima i'm still one 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 me think one young family one young couple with a newborn baby actually just. i think a week old also has been born to cover the before the before the earthquake and. the mother wasn't particularly well summer 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 turkey by whatever means possible. but then suddenly the tempo changed when there was

a third explosion and then the fourth explosion and the different reactors in fukushima one morning they're having a 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 you know remain like father there bridges lie strewn all over the place here a wall collapsed over here is a fallen down such as the force of the tsunami now 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. microsleep it's plain how obviously when i left japan. i felt great relief because covering the story being very stressful i bending eaten up any sleds 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. and we have more on the year's ten key day with events as witnessed by artie's international correspondents here also watch their accounts of what they saw by heading to r.t. dot com. that well that's get the latest business news with katie. hello will malcolm to the program here and i'll say christmas is the most poles of the wild but in russia the festive season has only just begun despite. the u.s. facilities lying down and as marina closed found out russian men are at the forefront of the seasonal spending.

years 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 stamper 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 spent twice as much i serve partners so what kind of gifts are we're looking at while the most popular items are expected to be alcohol then we have a choice and finally household appliances so not all the hot romantic on 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 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 now about the holiday season is here so feel that they have an excuse to finally spend some money on themselves and their loved ones. let's have a look at the markets down japan's nikkei and as high as it was catching up with broad gains in global markets after friday's holiday shows of machinery manufacturers and other exporters advance the most construction machinery rose point eight percent meanwhile markets in hong kong australia and singapore are all closed for holidays while european traders are enjoying boxing day the first of markets all gaining the most before trading sessions that will not to mizzen the

u.s. economy will recover continue to recover helping boost global output. disappoint for lingering global financial uncertainty russia is still aiming to chart a further five percent more foreign investment in two thousand and twelve presidential aides. said he expects investors to start bringing their cash in the second quarter of next year investment into russia grew around twelve percent the shit but most of the money was short term credit which doesn't provide fundamental support for the economy. when actually stricken cyprus we got the first tranche of a credit package from russia before the year the country agreed at the weekend to take a two and a half billion euros from moscow to support its economy or the top price waterhouse coopers can claim is that around fifteen percent of cypresses g.d.p. is from foreign companies using the island as an off shore find out. the majority

of the therms are affiliated with. bunches of. super jet aircraft that shake up to twenty percent market share some developing countries including those in asia and south america is makers believe the plane is a global player which will boost both the firm's reputation and sales. we had to sell our boat and in russia for the original not so maybe abroad so there is room for that that's why we have all of people in from out west manufacturers over twenty years to get to. our targets in the range of one thousand or one thousand americans so we bring gas to a twenty percent market share so in twenty years time. and that's all from a finale that's about fifty five minutes to join if you can.

to move. to.

the be. it without t.v. headlines for you now it's twenty years since the world's largest country was wiped off the map the breakup of the soviet union ended 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. former libyan rebels are taking their revolution on the road to syria mercenary groups including former terrorists abroad in the country saying they're ready to pick up arms to help oust president us.