it starts on t.v. dot com. you're watching r t and tonight the observers arrive the arab league team reaches syria's most troubled city the mid reports the government tanks and pulling out. three years since israel waged a deadly assault on gaza the palestinian still struggling with its legacy to the courts now to try to make amends. in our series about twenty eleventh's most significant events our correspondent shares have personal experience of explaining who is ringing the changes at the top in russia.

hello thanks for watching r t it's eleven pm here now in moscow my name's kevin owen and first activists say tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of syria's third largest city of homs apparently emboldened by the arab league observers visit to the country the city which is seeing some of the fiercest battles between state and opposition was the monitors first destination it's reported the government tanks were withdrawn from the area after around thirty people were killed in the latest violence there the fact finding team plan is to assess the real situation and ensure president assad's compliance with the regional plan that's been put forward to end the bloodshed but there are doubts over the mission's impartiality. they have to investigate activities of the free syrian army these are mercenaries and defectors all are armed by outside powers did these outside powers are basically from qatar in the emirates and we all of the arab league which is now called troll bait did she. you see the gulf cooperation council

exists to get themselves in this case we still don't know are they going to investigate the need to call truly call and senator said out in the near the border between syria keep and syria in the skin there room which is very across the border basically from a little let's see two hours hardly going to investigate there are they going to be furthest against shipment smuggling weapons via the jordanian syrian border we still don't know that but it's a tall order for the area each full season then easer nobody's directly democracies they are investigating one of their all but they're also implicated in the whole big picture pepe escobar talk to me a bit earlier with the claim that the syrian opposition is being backed by extremist fighters is shared by foreign journalists working on the ground in the next hour of the program just letting you know we're hearing from a french reporter who exposed the rest through eyewitnesses he met.

i think that all be the action to destabilize the country. we see a lot of people killed but this is not the civil war quite told us they want to interweave throwing troops inside and i'd be. using proxy from going to concede. the problem because he's way before. but there are putin pledges the government will do everything possible to ensure transparency in the upcoming presidential election promises said it's actually it is best interests as a candidate it. has got more about that announcement as well as other developments in the russian world of top level politics. russian prime minister said that the upcoming elections for the country's top job should be. transparence in order to

achieve that budget would you suggest that the talks should be held with the country's opposition to hear out their suggestions on how to achieve that transparency but it was suggested that the internet should be used as a platform for such talks were people can freely express their opinions about it and of course this comes after opposition protests which took place after sunday's parliamentary elections when tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of moscow demanding to know the results of the actions. you're going to misstate to speciate presidential but i want to stress that we're the first who need the transparency because we need to be sure that people support us of course there are forces to which it's not the development that's important of the turmoil of course they have their rights but the problem is that they have neither a united programs no means of reaching their goals for them so that they just want to deal of the election that's the problem today. involves service and

presidents and the country's prime minister say that they are happy to see the faces of the opposition and to hear them out however according to the puts and opposition members are not doing much for now but protesting against the newly formed white women meanwhile the architecture of the country's political system is already changing presidents meet be difficult to produce laughs too cool to be the country's deputy prime minister so the man is now out of the kremlin and he's known to be the chief strategist all over the current insurance policies over russia that is just one of the ideas suggested by presidents of a different how to change the country's political system you'll see just a number of reforms which will make it easier for political parties to take part in the elections and who are the presidential candidates to also participate in the elections. and

a few minutes here on are some of the most significant events in russian politics twenty eleven see our correspondents firsthand impressions as part of a. series of reports we've lined up for you. this is. history in the making. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven. palestinians in besieged gaza are marking three years now since israel sent tanks and fighter jets to attack them the operation lasted for twenty two days and cost almost fifteen hundred lives indeed entire families were wiped out. the battle still rages on only now it's in the courtroom as artie's paula slayer explained. is unusual not because he laid a claim against israelis but because he won victory though is bittersweet it was the year i'm

a broken man the israelis say their army has morals what morals are they talking about it. it was december two thousand and eight for three weeks israeli soldiers bombed the gaza strip killing nearly one and a half thousand palestinians for all to five were civilians at the same time hundreds of rockets fell on southern israel killing three israeli civilians and the government couldn't get to my home for sixteen days because the israeli soldiers were firing all the time as soon as they left i went down inside on the walls the soldiers had written you'll find the bodies fifty meters away i found the body of my brother buried in the sand and the bodies of my sister much to cover with some bricks. so lay took his case to the palestinian center for human rights in a person sitting moved they secured an out of court settlement with the israeli military it took so let's see weeks to achieve the bodies of his mother and sister because of continue fighting in the area these women military said this made the

case since you know they feel justified with the way some solider saved just under one hundred fifty thousand dollars compensation. if someone loses his leg or his hand up or is killed or injured and all the money in the world in the are now what we're fighting for here is a financial compensation it will offer some relief. the palestinian center for human rights has more than two hundred cases on its books but the heavy paperwork iraq received and expenses discourages many others from coming forward this man however is a rare exception he filed a claim three years ago and is still awaiting a response today. i thought. it was early morning there was showing an apartment above was on fire i want out so i wore my hands up in the soldiers told me to pull off my shirt and trousers i did with a suit but they find iraq i would behind me my mother had been blown apart i recognized her by the ears of my two year old daughter my father my aunts my cousin

my entire family was killed at that moment but convincing israeli authorities that compensation is due can be a major obstacle and therefore. the military operation thought according to the israeli case low. for. then the state will be exempt from. whether saddle up will have judges case will help other palestinians is not yet clear these radio army has also said it's opened an investigation into what happened but so far no indictment against any israeli soldier has been filed policy r.t. . iran has threatened to block oil shipments through one of the world's busiest waterways if the west applies fresh sanctions against it that announcement came from the country's vice president as its navy held war games near the crucial straits of hormuz dr saad mohammad marandi from the university of toronto me it

would be foolish for the us to push it to such measures. i think any. hostility against iran and that's basically what an oil embargo would be. would force iran to take retaliatory measures and that would indeed create a very difficult situation globally because that would mean the halt of oil exports from the middle east the iranians are quite capable of closing the strait of hormuz and i think that the americans know that quite well iran's defense capabilities are are very different from what they were ten fifteen twenty years ago and the iranians of course hope that the americans don't. act foolishly but americans do seem to be having in a very irrational manner and dragging the region towards a very dangerous situation because if you miss any of those stories head to r.t. dot com the very best place for you to get updated any time you should not need a t.v.

these nice pictures on the as well to my wallet is the festive period just take a little bit go here no need to be aware of this little. cute little cubs already captured millions of hearts you can see why even those polled are. pretty now heaven knows it will only get bigger though because he was being hundred in denmark that's online also. continue with the festivities a toast in space this going on the board are heads above water heads rather aboard the international space station as the crew prepares to see it nor one new year but sixteen of a evening chaps that's at r.t. dot com as well. this is r.t. as eurozone nation sinking ever deeper into crisis the u.k. treasury now says it's working on a contingency plan for the single currencies collapse the proposal includes

introducing come. will control measures as well as closing our country's borders and even maybe evacuating ex-pats and tourist from affected countries robert oulds is president of the bruges group of campaigners against excess unification in europe he told me that many nations and actually benefit if the eurozone was to collapse well the european leaders are trying to shore up the eurozone by having greater degrees of centralization and more having countries like france and germany have the final say in a sense over the budgets of those e.u. member states that have excessive budget deficit but that really isn't the answer to the problems really needs either a massive injection of cash into countries like greece and italy to shore up their economies to retool in the trillions of euros that's what one option of course another option would have cost to recognize that the single currency has hurt competitiveness in many nations of the eurozone and has damaged economic growth

meaning that the economies can't grow their way out of the debt crisis that they're in and they're just in this debt spiral and having deeper austerity measures forced upon them. you kobe center for economics and business research has given russia an optimistic forecast for its future standing the world's biggest economies by twenty twenty calling this group says it will rise from its current number nine position to take up the fourth spot no mean feat want to talk about that let's go live to one of the top international consultants north. adrian hi there thanks for being with us so we've got a glowing report here of russia's economic future what do you know about the credibility of the group first of all that produced it and what does the report actually say in more bit more detail. well the center for economic and business research is a london based think tank it has been founded in led by our consultant or rather well known consult and doug was mark williams and i believe that all these

forecasts are worth in a way well what everybody anyone wants to make out of them because it's very normally just base themselves on certain economic data and then project forecasts into the future i'm all good we'll read about all these forecasts for now it is that are based exclusively on economic and economic centered world view as though everything works always turns around the economy and yet the reason why so many surprises overtake even the greatest exports nowadays is because the world human history is not economics it is it goes through much more complex and deeply ingrained factors such as politics such as for example history sort of for example social of billionaires so the very fact that they are making these forecasts based mostly on almost exclusively on economic data i think should be taken with a little bit of course of years of the whole idea of bricks you know brazil russia

india china and south africa acronym invented by goldman sachs again it's a rather very arbitrary because we base our world view i was going to say. things have changed so radically in the world since two thousand and eight of the crash and one of the reasons behind this optimism let's look at face value look at this report one of the key drivers why they're saying russia is going to do so well. well quite clearly i think they're going to say that russia's going to be doing well and it's again i would i would said it inserted with the whole concept behind bricks which i insist was invented by goldman sachs which is not a good source because if you look at the if you look at the brics countries brazil russia india china and south africa they more or less have a gross domestic product of about fourteen trillion which sort of is similar to the gross domestic. product of the european union and more or less similar to the gross domestic product of united states so in a way the global planners want to sort of put some sort of quote unquote order on

the table and they figure if europe is really going down very fast if america has such a bad projections let's now look towards the brics country let's make another clump of countries a very arbitrary one of that and see if we can drive business and expectations towards those of those sectors of the world but i think that they are told will be lacking the political overtones of the political view and even understanding to be able to see things as they really are but what we've got are rather cloudy crystal ball over the forecast of russia's economy is in stark contrast to that the fortune being told for the worsening situation in the eurozone does that mean that europe's economy still going to recover ten years hence. i wouldn't be surprised if the european economy is in for a very long period of trouble and no doubt the russian economy because not of its economic basis but because of its geopolitical potential being such a large country having such vast natural resources. russia can do nothing but

the future as long as the series of policies aren't ways more beyond any criticism one can do to circumstantial governments russia has a will move of this parasitic global banking and financial system so probably russia as other countries throughout the region may be in the i'm definitely china and even some qualities in latin america have good potential because of the very fact that they are keeping away to some great extent from the global financial system and because these countries themselves especially the case of russia have huge natural potential but they all have to do is tap into it and naturally you quality will then follow in a rising manner adrian's so good she thank you for your consultation the international consult and those who are joining us from one as our as you watch pretty shady. if you achieved into a scope of hours ago you heard there we had a developing news story talking about massive earthquake tonight reached a magnitude of almost seven on the richter scale it hit southern siberia near the

russian mongolia border we've got bit of update on that for you now the epicenter was bring it on the map there was in a sparsely populated areas there's a bit of good news at least according to preliminary reports by russia's emergencies ministry as well no casualties reported so far have a shocks worth hundreds of kilometers away it was a big quake this one in some of the regions major cities including askers big dam there as well experts wrote checking them out with no reason to think it was a problem but it's something they're bearing in mind that communication their networks and kristie supplies in the area also suffered severe interruption such a quake tonight in that area seeing him out there up to seven on the richter scale . a nearly released report about the fukushima nuclear crisis said it was down to the plan's operators being ill prepared and not responding properly to the earthquake and tsunami disaster that followed a major government inquiry said some engineers abandoned the plant as the trouble started another staff delayed reporting significant radiation leaks professor christopher busby scientific secretary to the european committee on radiation risks

he believes the report left many questions unanswered i don't think. that this inquiry has gone far enough because there are lots of questions that they haven't asked and there are lots of questions that still haven't been answered the most important one is has to do with the health effects of the contamination. it's kind of assumed everybody knows that these health effects are not going to be serious but i just like i said before the health effects will be very much more serious than anyone is saying now and i can tell you that they will probably be in some years time another story which will show also that i'm right and this is really sad because actually if they did concede that there was a big problem then people could be could be moved out and other other activities could take place which would ensure that fewer people got sick than are going to so really this is quite a criminal affair and i would hope that eventually somebody would be brought to justice or at least there should be some court case about it it's extremely

unlikely that the that these reactors are in what they call cold shutdown i mean i think this is discourse manipulation. very recently xenon being released from those plants and the xenon isotopes have sufficiently short lives for us to know that fissioning is still taking place in those reactors. professor christopher busby talking to us from the european community of radiation risks. now let's focus in on the most significant events in the buildup to this year's russian duma election as part of our series revisiting the key events of twenty eleven he's innocent now we cover those developments for us she shares her experience of the outgoing year in russian politics. well i think that day it became clear that russian politics are changing lots of people say that russian modern politics are stagnant that they're predicting bold

but nobody that day expected that announcement to be made yes people expected and there was speculation that they would run for president twenty but no one expected it as early as september. the first ten that this congress and united russia wasn't going to be as simple as just the platform for the being announced was glazier putin and. entering the hall on time exactly when it was supposed to start together and that's when the atmosphere inside the hall kind of changed everyone thousands of people at the same time you could feel their energy going something was going to happen today. first to come up on stage was putin and he made the big announcement which no one expected that he believes that top of the list for the duma lections in december. after that everyone thought ok that's it this is the big news we felt something in the air

that something was going to happen and now it's been announced to me three major major will be part of united russia if you believe the list that was in it. and then of course you have to me saying that he believes that. should run for president in twenty twelve and there was just this uproar explosion of applause at least certainly in united russia people there i think were genuinely surprised like i said no one expected this to come today they thought they were coming to hear what their plans for the dumas elections were. the elections this year. were a big deal first of all because. clearly united russia has lost popularity and the ironic thing is you have people who referred to the vote to demonstrate how much they popularity but then also refer to the same exact vote saying that it was falsified so how can you refer to

a vote that you don't think was real to demonstrate this kind of popularity think this was an interesting to thing to me as a journalist covering the elections. so we have a lot of western publications and networks referring to this popularity fall for united russia which certainly you can feel it happened a lot of people i think went out to vote against united russia it's not a secret that the opposition in russia for twenty years hasn't really been able to get it together you have these figures like journal. who are very well known and and they are part of that whole stagnation because they've been around for years but you don't have any real opposition and i think that's what this young generation the so-called hip serves that that are part of social networking and are on twitter and facebook and trying to be part of politics that's what they came out to vote they really came out to vote to send a message to united russia and that became very clear that. you know two thousand

and seven it was some sixty four percent and it's just under fifty percent this time around so clearly united russia has a lot of work to do in this became very visible in these elections also of course in the protests that we're seeing straight after the elections on monday we saw people come out to choose to prove which is not very far from the from the kremlin thousands of people opposition members were arrested the interesting part about being in moscow at this time is to see how many different networks cover it differently you have. russian state television only covering it when it gets really big you have western media covering any little meeting that happens in the center of moscow many times exaggerating the situation. and then the saturday after the election you really had it's fair to say historic day in russia you had tens of thousands of people who came out to my square just

around the corner from the kremlin it was the same protest some fifty thousand people is the most common number we have all the figures do vary depending on who you ask peacefully protesting for fair elections and you had the riot police and officials just letting them do their thing and their symbol really i think a really strong example of this these white flowers are these white ribbons and there's pictures of actual riot police holding these flowers and it was certainly a feeling that day for me that it's such an interesting time to be in russia and i'm glad to be someone they can they can work on all of these stories and cover elections and cover protests and and kind of be really in the thick of it here in moscow not a far telling the story about russia from outside of russia but being in the center of it on. one of our correspondents or a lady who loves her job as well every day so you year we will bring your personal view for more of our team of international correspondents who brought you some of the biggest news stories and what's turned let's face it to be

a very big news in the twenty eleven if you missed any of it so far as well you can now watch our correspondents what they think about it. website r.t. dot com ok it's now exactly twenty six minutes past moscow time rest dominated by stories for the financial world caused report on the air shortly after we've got across the latest business next. i lay there welcomes a business while a number of western economies are drowning in debt russia is on course to post a one percent budget surpluses had a pretty new year holiday meeting of the government of prime minister putin ever size the improvements that have been away from the energy sector and those. new figures we. narrowed which is a very positive factor in improving your economy it shows that the effort to diversify is bearing fruit it will be around nine point eight percent of g.d.p.

which is almost two percentage points lower than the initial phone calls made at the beginning of the year. and in all the economic news russia's economy expanded more than five percent in november compared to the same period last year yet know it ministry says mining and electricity sectors maybe quantities of the grade but there was a slowdown in construction investment so let's have a look at the markets and all prices are on the rise as the u.s. economy continues to surprise out unless by growing more on the anticipated has been keeping the market on edge iran has said that they may stop the flow of crude from the crucial strait of hormuz waterway in the persian gulf if foreign sanctions are imposed on his exports and now they have another day to souray all u.s. stocks alpha i will street is finding its first thing after last week's gains it but it's out janet is that now up two percent on the nasdaq is up

a percent meanwhile the closely watched consumer confidence index to the highest level in eight months and i bring your indices ended most if not in typically then post holiday have to choose dan as for london just enjoying that christmas holidays attacks though they managed to gain a point two percent. and other russian markets close loved the altar over of the sand while the mindset is finished over a quarter of a percent in the razz and on to the individual there is also almost two percent that's mostly gas from also finished the company says paul that says show will be in line with four calls a forty billion dollars new poll of a percent is crazy the joint venture with another all come to a rationale to develop russia's promising trezeguet all failed. so for now let's go for the business team from me on the web site www dot com slash

business.