thank you for joining us with r t it's tuesday two o'clock here in moscow and karen with a look at your stories fifty arab league monitors have arrived in syria to assess president's assad peace plan implementation this is the first time foreign observers have been allowed inside the country since internal fighting erupted in march meanwhile more than twenty people have reportedly been killed as tanks opened fire on the city of holmes damascus denies the accusations saying it's fighting an armed insurgency orchestrated from abroad r.t. has learned that hundreds of fighters from post gadhafi libya have allegedly flocked to help be bringing resolution to president assad's door libyans are now openly voicing their support for the syrian uprising as oksana boy discover it. a butcher our dad made the owner of this kebab 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 enough in the way that the syria. love and 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 are people subject syria these are just life long if this soldier we have to have enough but i think yeah we want to leave. 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. 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. over the portraits of shaky bar i now ubiquitous on the streets of tripoli some rebels even styling themselves to resemble the famous revolutionary. war 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 buoyant marketplace for soldiers of fortune they move from one revolution to another motivated by personal gain some by conviction all there is by the venture if i put out on the vision of freedom and for now at least is 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 snipers are involved on you tube while it's still unclear who is pulling the trigger there are terrorists my prayers 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 a face of the democratic leader who according to r.t. sources not a group of several hundred libyan rebels to syria just last month. we can't do any

help to support the syrian people because we are they are facing the same situation as before and do because she hated the who comes to lead been the wood and if we could see why the syrian people who they need help to get their freedom i think we should do it the use of soldiers of fortune is hardly new in this troubled region middle eastern rulers hard them for centuries a save gars 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 actually we are at sea tripoli according to u.n. estimates more than five thousand people have been killed in syria since march the regime claims it's lost thousands of troops fighting against armed gangs investigative journalist terry may solve things for arson areas are to blame for many of the deaths they say there is five thousand people killed the. security forces of course it's absolutely. there is

a lot of people killed but very few by the security forces was for them here by this groups they put inside the crowd and with the same armor groups they use in libya you know you work with some different divisions between six and good people coming from libya who are now in syria especially the military government of tripoli libya is now in turkey to organize all the fight and they're due to tripoli which was the people from my kid no responsible for security and people it and they are you know all of them inside syria and the. spanish reporter was first in libya recognize them here in inside of the top of the so so-called free. syrian army but not syria. coming your way later this hour a disastrous chain reaction. suddenly there was there was panic cause outside of

the car about to film the sound. and the police and the emergency workers suddenly dislike the sound saying. it was all injecting rooms but i could understand there 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 one of our team of international correspondents ivor bennett looks back at the risks he had to take orders from japan ravaged by the wrong power of nature. pakistan facing a crisis and its relations with the u.s. is now seeking to firm up the country's friendship with china ties with america have taken a blow after last month's deadly drone attack by the u.s. military and this year's raid kill osama bin laden without being told the pakistani president now seeking support from beijing held talks with chinese officials last week joseph chang a professor of political science at hong kong city university says the two

countries have an important relationship that allows pakistan to counterbalance its tense relations with the states. has been between spece for a while the history of the people's republic of china increasingly pakistan. has a certain strategic value to china certainly as for your normal pakistan's relations with the united states in difficulties because of the nato attack on military outpost last month and washington d.c. we feel has to deliver the kind of apology demanded by b. pakistani government and the same time it is very significant and the top chinese diplomat but he was in pakistan he met the president and the prime minister the army chief of staff arguably them. powerful soldier in pakistan as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the head of the into services

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 number to mediating role between the military and the government and certainly tensions between the tool have been high in the recent year also two decades ago the soviet union fell apart leading to a major change in the world's geo political balance and creating more than a dozen new nations artistic at that inaugural that explores the legacy of the soviet collapse but 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 gold which of guilt. 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 all the billions and billions and billions the u.s. 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 savings goal 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 one human to worker who wasn't so took six years some thirty million dollars to restore out of him 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 economies 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 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 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 and apprise year 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 eight thousand killed and over a million people displaced even mostly with self didn't feel secure after the fall of the girl in world the world gripped a sigh of relief but it didn't last long when nato said 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 offing russia could have expected that they wouldn't pay nato expansion that. russia itself or perhaps. join nato will become you know a system or europe you could click to secure the feel of the u.s.

says sorry put an end to the cold war era forever a fundamental shift in global jew politics with just a few known calling the shots and we go to paul full column to wait today's world remains far from secure exiting the grand children r t. we're always interested in your opinion and today we're asking you what you think of the collapse of the u.s.s.r. what that meant for the world log on to our website r.t. dot com and have your say and our latest web poll so far forty one percent of you who say it would have been good if nato had collapse with it one in three say it left the u.s. on checked the view that communism offered hope for a better future is coming in next with fourteen percent and even a smaller number of you say we're better off without the evil empire so you can influence these figures by heading to our tea dot com and while you're on our web

site check out the many other stories we have for you there. and keeping the taliban quiet a u.s. senator is pressuring twitter to block the accounts of known terrorist groups supporters. abandoned but in good hands this little bear cub already has millions of worldwide fans for the full story of baby psycho to visit our website at r t dot com. now we continue our look back at some of the major events of two thousand and eleven through the eyes of our correspondents who covered them today were a member of the earthquake and tsunami that shook japan killing more than ten thousand and causing explosions at the fukushima nuclear plant artie's over bennett reflects on his experience in japan reporting just hours after the tragedy struck. 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 and got a satellite phone and so on the road i was trying to do live 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 just being dumped by the tsunami. and i was quite a surreal experience definitely. to begin with 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 a sound saying. 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 to 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 proceed in and they thought another tsunami was coming so in those moments when. 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 to about ten hours because all the transport links were down 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 it was a cardboard the seat 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 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 to be seen 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 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 meeting one young fan. one young couple with a newborn baby actually just. i think a week old or so just been born the cover of a before the before the earthquake and. the mother wasn't particularly well

some of the 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 fukushima one morning the happening very quick succession and suddenly. everyone was very scared. so all the news crews were. to 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 a wall collapsed over here is a fall and 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 them barely 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. every day right up until the new year will bring you more personal reflections from our correspondents on the events that dominated two thousand and eleven xnews if there's any you missed catch them on our website r t v dot com. twenty years ago the world's largest country ceased to exist next 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 distrait could have been given an order to encircle the three leaders passing their time and believe this guy 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 wouldn't 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 legacy gorbachev gave a public. 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 supra national 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 inquiry 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 gained 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 republican have evolved into sovereign states which have come a long way and developed a connections and relations with other states in the west and with china and so long those it's a completely different picture but 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. do you think it's possible to restore something similar to the soviet union through. your asian economic community which comprises several core soviet republics. 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 state level 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 interest of each state i think it will be a great advantage in a national 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 if we look at the us and the e.u. shaken by a powerful 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 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 would have a different attitude to those who joined the union just recently at the start and here's the final question that 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 some of its own. internal certainly one of the. called a national idea has not been articulated yet we all work to make people's lives

better and safer the demographic situation needs improving the economic model needs an overhaul 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 and taken together your mortgage if they represent russia's national idea that thank you you're welcome. lead the least explained areas. untouched by money. surrounded by steep law. case paintings on display for thousands of years. east and science beyond the tiger. achi.

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. played. cluck cluck cluck cluck . thanks for being with us a two thirty here in moscow we go now to a quick recap of your headlines first group of arab monitors is in syria to assess the situation on the ground this as reports emerge of tanks firing on the city of homes causing casualties numbers to rise the u.n. estimates more than five thousand civilians have been killed in syria since march. and you ally pakistan seeks closer cooperation with china as it faces a crisis in its relations with the u.s. .