live from moscow you're watching r t v well welcome to few jews joined this is now one am here my name is kevin irwin and our top story activists in syria claim twenty seven civilians have been killed by government troops over the last twenty four hours it comes as the primary team of arab league observers arrives in the country their mission is to include a peace plan intended to ensure the regime ends its crackdown on the opposition damascus denies committing atrocities saying it's fighting an armed insurgency orchestrated from abroad backing up that claim hundreds of fighters from post gadhafi libya have allegedly flocked to help bring revolution to president assad libyans and i will openly voicing their support of the syrian uprising as it's on a boycott. a butcher our 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

. is economic the biggest game in the world like the syria. other syria. you can make it a lot of the 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 syria and its soldiers we have. and our people are subject to the reserve judgment on this subject we have all we have it all but i think we want we. in less than three months libyan rebels have gone from being celebrated as liberators to being called occupiers tripoli residents rarely almost every week calling on the armed militia to leave and for some of these young man who on a. channeling and willing to part with their rifles syria seems like the next

logical destination. 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. the portraits of shaky bar i now ubiquitous on the streets of tripoli some rebels even styling themselves to resemble the famous revolutionary. 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 idea of exporting revolutions have gotten a second birth in the middle east the arab spring has created a buoyant marketplace for soldiers of fortune they moved from one revolution to another some motivated by personal gain some by conviction all others by the venture if i put that all on the vision of freedom and for now at least is the freedom to leave 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 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 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 anonymous freedom fighter but for the united states it's now one day hiking but hodge one of the leaders of tripoli militia was once on the cia most wanted list today he's the face of the democratic leader who according to artists or says not

a group of several hundred li been rebels to syria just last month. we can do to support the syrian people because they are facing the same situation as before and we appreciated comes to be with. the syrian people who. i think we should do what the use of soldiers of fortune is hardly new in this troubled region middle eastern rulers hard them for centuries a save cars against their own populations and it now looks like the history of mercenaries in the middle east has got to its new and no less bloody chapter in the wake of artsy tripoli i spoke to the director of the center for middle east studies dr told me the western media will often fail to see the difference between armed insurgents and peaceful civilians no one can deny the presence of the and serbian in syria even hillary clinton did recognize this and said they are well equipped

and well trained like that there are many. servers they mix between civilians and children because when they talk about thousand of people killed in syria they don't mention. civilians and also we cannot deny that. about two thousand. or so were killed in syria. those observers are going to syria to see on there and was going on. coming your way a bit later this disastrous chain reaction. 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 the sounds of. it was all in jack things but i could understand there was that you could see the fear and they can also they were shouting tsunami literally yelling in my face to get back into the car.

what about the with international correspondents i have a brain that looked back at the risks that he had to take while reporting for you ravaged by the war power of make. pakistan facing a crisis in its relations with the u.s. appears to be seeking more support from another powerful ally that china ties with america but all but severed after last month's deadly drone attack by the u.s. military in this year's raid to kill osama bin laden without knowledge the pakistani president is now firming up the country's friendship with beijing holding talks with chinese officials last week just chairing a professor of political science at hong kong city university says the two countries have reported cooperate in partnership that allows pakistan to counterbalance its relationship with the united states. pakistan has been between spece for the history of the people's republic of china increasingly pakistan. has a certain strategic value to china certainly as for your novel pakistan's relations

with the united states in difficulties because of the nato attack on military outposts last month washington d.c. we feel has to deliver the kind of policy demanded by being against any government and at the same time it is very significant and the top chinese diplomat when he was in pakistan he met the president the prime minister the army chief of staff arguably. the most powerful soldier in pakistan as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are the head of the interservice us intelligence so it seems that china would be would have been ours to give more military aid to pakistan to balance against the weakening ties between pakistan and the united states and it's also possible that time numbly play a certain mediating role between the military and of government and certainly

tensions between the tool have been high in the recent year also. it was a day to celebrate for some and want to commiserate for others it's twenty years now since the soviet union would was dissolved the fall of communist rule ended the cold war and created more than a dozen new nations but also the economic hardship and regional conflicts. reports . even today many generate their own explanations for the fall of the global goliath but some putting it down to the rule of just a few. i'll give you two reasons gorbachev and yours. 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 all 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 u.s. and put 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 it's a vehicle so use the collapse of the soviet union is 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 amanda 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 them. nineteen ninety one changed all that the post soviet economy is were shattered their deficits skyrocketed production plunged and it took them years to get back on their feet in the last years the soviet union there was a possibility before to solve your you know to continue with i know for a terror and political regime but to liberalize the economy in the market in the

same way as the tardis 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 or before when it was clear the union was falling apart it seems you have the national minority started dragging the blanket to their side but there was at that time that 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 break up 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 mostly with self didn't feel secure after the fall of the berlin wall the world gripped a sigh of relief but it didn't last long when nato set about creating a new wall made of me so the allies steadily move 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 but perhaps. join nato or become part of a new system of european. collective security the full of the years the saarc put an end to the called war era forever 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 sixteen

grandchildren r t. well twenty years on would like to know what you think about the collapse of the u.s.s.r. what do you think it meant for the world that's the question of the door called this is telling us in response forty one percent of you say quote it would have been good if nato clubs with it one of the three of you say left the u.s. unchecked the view that communism offered for a better future is coming in next to fourteen percent still twelve percent smallest number now take the opposite view saying quote we're better off without the evil and. you can influence those figures too by going to our teams or called while there is well always plenty of other stories to interest you maybe like the first take a look so we got there how flashing dollar bills could give you a bad reputation the latest security advice the united states says that paying with cash could brand you a terrorist suspect plus. see

performance of russian carroll's classical favorites and folk songs at the kennedy center in washington played by russia's renowned you're all for the morning. now to continue our series looking back at some of the major events of twenty eleven through the eyes of our correspondents who covered them today we're focusing on japan's earthquake and tsunami one of the huge stories of the year that killed over ten thousand calls explosions at the fukushima nuclear plant bennett flecks on his experience reporting from japan in the hours after the tragedy. covering the earthquake and tsunami in japan was very difficult because i 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 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 debris left. and i remember actually at one point setting up the lab 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 very strange if you are in a building suddenly you. and you feel yourself shaking slightly and it is difficult to walk in a straight line for about thirty seconds and gradually 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 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 the shouting at them to get back into the car and go inland as fast as possible because there was this. as a threat of another another tsunami there'd been a tremor the tide proceed in 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 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 though 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 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 there's very little food around and one thing they were rations for 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 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 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 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 meeting one young fan. one young couple with a newborn baby actually just. i think a week old also been born the cover of a 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 but 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 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 like strewn all over the place here a wall collapsed over here is a fallen down such as the force of the tsunami this is also the point where we're going to turn back because big 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. i for one of our team of international correspondents bring you the news never a day or until the new year will bring you more personal reflections from them of the news events that molded twenty eleven if you were catching them as well there on our web site r.t. dot com now as we've been reporting earlier in the program twenty years ago the world's largest country ceased to exist next and more common about that we talked to a man with inside knowledge who witnessed the unraveling of the soviet union firsthand .

do you perhaps recall saying once that you do not understand what stopped the president of the u.s.s.r. mikhail gorbachev from using military force in order to prevent the signing of the treaty enforcing the dissolution of the u.s.s.r. in one thousand nine hundred one do you think that the u.s.s.r. should have been preserved at any cost. you see i don't even think there was any need for military force what could have been done that's my opinion while others

may have theirs but i think that the better russian military district could have been given an order to encircle the three leaders passing their time in bolivia sky pusha drunk and groggy on their legs just about to sign off these documents that they were jotting down on the spot and simply take them to their homes instead of arresting them and just take away these papers but this was not the key thing the key thing was and it was brought to gorbachev attention and i did tell him about it too in the presence of others that one should have started with an economic treaty 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 legs. gorbachev gave a public response the next day after we had made the suggestions to him he said he didn't think an economic treaty should be signed first because he was sure it would jeopardize the signing of the political treaty which he thought had been pre-agreed

one thing that wasn't considered properly was that once a single economic space is in place relevant supranational political structures will develop that's inevitable that's why we should have started with an economic treaty and many in fact were ready to go along with that even the baltic states were ready to go along with the idea of preserving a single economic space in the process. if we look back at history any large enquiry disorder sooner or later do you think that having a single economics piece would have been enough to avert dissolution. of course it wouldn't have been enough but it would have been a huge contribution to averting dissolution and you see we can't really compare that situation with today for instance as they are completely different and that's because back then in the soviet union everything was centralized and existed as a single system and no one going to anything through dissolution no one did perhaps

russia benefited a little more than others because it's larger and stronger and has a more developed economy but on a large scale no one gained anything that's beyond question by now the republics of evolved into sovereign states which have come a long way and developed a connections in relations with other states in the west and with china and so long those it's a completely different picture even today creating a single economic space if it's done properly full scale and we currently have agreements with bella ruse and kazakhstan pertaining to that and it's also possible that curious dan will join in if it all goes well it will be one of the pillars of securing integrity and preventing any dissolution for them that we don't disclose those do you think it's possible chris. store something similar to the soviet union through your asian economic community which comprises several core soviet republics near. no i don't think of it as anything similar to the soviet union 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 levels are the driving forces of today's reality so if we succeed in going along with them if we take over these forums and promote our agenda through them and this agenda will not differ much from that of the west we will additionally focus more on the national interests of each state i think it will be a great advantage in a solution as you pointed out it is a well known fact that economic problems were the primary contributing factor to the us the stars dissolution today it will look at the us and the e.u. shaken by a purple economic crisis can we expect out of for america to discourse at some point too similar to the way the u.s.s.r. did and you know no i don't think so of course some serious impact is inevitable in

the case of europe which i recall a talk i had with a person i deeply respect former chancellor schmidt of west germany or he is now ninety two or ninety three and he's still a totally bright person i had an insightful conversation with him last year you know he said the events in the eurozone would have an impact he believes it could on the one hand lead to a deeper integration of a number of states within the e.u. in terms of foreign policy defense under the issues on the other hand the old timers of the union were to have complied with the requirements or you would have a different attitude to those who joined the union just recently. and here's the final question on the u.s.s.r. promoted a certain ideology any strong state needs to have an ideology do you think russia has come up. with song of its own. i used to go need to know someone once they called a national idea has not been articulated yet of going we all work to make people's lives better and safer for the demographic situation needs improving the economic

model needs an overhaul sure because the one that was in place before the two thousand and eight crisis will not work in the future with these challenges are evident was good and taken together your mortgage if they represent russia's national idea that question thank you but if you're welcome. culture is that so much of allaah to the people at nigeria will that it all worth ten to twenty years ago an old historic event happened the soviet union came to an end and with it the conclusion of a cold war what is the soviet union's. whether you dive from high or to the depths. catch the power of the wind or drift in the beauty of the currents. the well

prepared is a must and if you're lucky enough. you'll never forget your experience we only need a firm ice cream that's going to be heaven. in the flight see up close and below the ice on our team. well. it's a technology innovation called the least developed minutes from around rush hour we've got the future covered.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule the day. you're watching out in front you live from moscow is one thirty am here now more scrutiny on our top stories dozens abuses in into syria as the arab league gears up to monitor the implementation of a pig's bladder but hundreds of mercenaries from abroad are allegedly fighting for . the u.n. estimates more than five thousand civilians have been killed in syria it's just not true for the regime claims that fighting on the side of the mobile. shifting to the east by.