hello thanks for watching r t it's eleven pm in our 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 has seen 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battles between state and opposition was the monitors first destination it's reported the government tanks were withdrawn from the area after around thirty people were killed in the latest violence there the fact finding team plans to assess the real situation and ensure president assad's compliance with the regional plan has been put forward to end the bloodshed but there are doubts over the mission's impartiality. they have to investigate the activities of the free syrian army these are mercenaries in the shakhtar it's all are armed by outside powers did these outside borrowers are basically from qatar and the emirates and we all of the

arab league which is now called troll bait did she 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 book near the border between turkey and syria in the skin there room which is very across the border basically from aleppo let's see two hours early going to investigate there are they going to the sticking point shipment smuggling weapons by the jordanian syrian border we still don't look good it's a tall order for the area each call caesar in that these are not is directly democracies they are investigating one of their all but they're also implicated in the whole big picture. pepe escobar talks to be better able to claim that the syrian opposition is being backed by extremist fighters 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 armrests through eyewitnesses he met. i think that all be the action to destabilize the country are not working we see a lot of people killed but this is not a civil war quite all. they want to interweave throwing troops inside maybe doing libya or using a proxy from the go to concede the very problem because greece currently is ready for battle. but there are putin pledges the government will do everything possible to ensure transparency in the upcoming presidential election the prime minister said it's actually it is best interests as a candidate it artie's nataly not a covers 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 dob job should be transparent in order to achieve that budget which is suggested that talks should be held with the country's opposition to hear out their suggestions on how to achieve that transparency but it wasn't 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 the country's parliamentary elections when tens of thousands of people gathered on the streets of moscow demanding to know the results of their actions. and you're going to misstate the speech of president assad but i want to stress that we're the first who need the transparency because we need to be sure that people supporters of course there are forces to which it's not the development that important of the turmoil of course they have their rights but the problem is that they have neither a united programs that normally means of reaching their goals for them so that they

just want to deal legitimize the election that's the problem today was more than. in both service and presidents and the country's prime minister say that they're happy to see the faces of the opposition and to hear them out however according to what's been put in opposition members are not doing much for now but protesting against the newly formed moment meanwhile the architecture of the country's political system is already changing presents me the difficulties of with the sloughs too cool to be the country's deputy prime minister so the man is now out of the kremlin and he is known to be earth chief strategist although 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 also suggested a number of reforms which would make it easier for political parties to take part

in the elections and who are the presidential candidates to also participate in the elections. so you know of a cover there and a few minutes here on our to look back at some of the most significant events in russian politics twenty eleven see our correspondents firsthand impressions as part of our preview year's series of reports we've lined up for you. with this is. to history in the making. testimony. 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 the israelis but because he won victory though is bittersweet with the way they get 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 so 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 body of my sister much to cover with some bricks. solide took his case to the palestinian center for human rights in a person sitting move 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 the way so solid received 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 now what we're fighting for here is a financial compensation it will offer some relief. to 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'm told him it was early morning there was showing in the apartment above was on fire i want to outside with my hands up in the the soldiers told me to pull off my shirt and trousers i did what they said 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 aunt my cousin my entire family was killed at that moment but convincing israeli authorities that compensation is due can be a major obstacle if it's in there for you is what the military operation thought according to the israeli case flow. 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. 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 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 heart 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. really. do seem to be heading 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 anytime you cannot name your t.v. these nice pictures on there as well tonight well it is the festive period just take a look what we got here no need to be aware of this little bear and this cute little cubs already captured millions of hearts you can see why even those polled are. pretty now having as 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 an 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 cap. but will control measures as well as closing our country's borders and even maybe evacuating ex-pats and tourists 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 euro zone 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 of having deep austerity measures forced upon them. or you cobra a 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'll rise from its current number nine position to take up the fourth spot no mean feat while to talk about that let's go live to one of the top international consultant 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 and more bit more detail. well the center for economic and business research is

a london based think tank it has been founded and led by our consultants a rather well known couldn't solve them 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 economic data and then project forecasts into the future i'm all good we'll read about all these forecasts all these and now it is that are based exclusively on economic economics centered world view as though everything were always servants 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 so sort of variables 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 and the acronym invented by goldman sachs again it's a rather very arbitrary because we base our world view i was going to say look at things that 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 took 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 call up of a very arbitrary one of that and see if we can drive business and expectations towards those countries and those sectors of the world but i think that they are totally 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 with the full cost 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 won't 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

to the future as long as a series of policies aren't ways and more beyond any criticism one can do to circumstantial governments russia has a little of this parasitic global banking and financial system so probably russia has over countries throughout the region maybe in the other 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 consultant knows you are joining us from one as our as you watch pretty shady thoughts. but if you are too good to us couple of hours ago you

heard we had a developing new 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 which 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 are 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 and i know it's kind of assumed that everybody knows that these health effects are not going to be serious but just like i said before the health effects would 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 am 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 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 there from the european committee on 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 two but no one expected it as early as september. the first ten days that this congress and united russia wasn't going to be as simple as just the platform for the duma lections being announced was glazier putin and to meet the demands of 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's going to happen today. first to come up on stage was lead singer putin and he made the big announcement which no one expected but 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 months of age of will be part of united russia if you believe the list that was in it. and then of course you have to meet three men to do saying that he believes that putin 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 these so-called hipsters 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 they lost. 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 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. in a square just around the corner from the kremlin it was a sanction protest some fifty thousand people is the most common number we have on 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 in 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 that 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 all. you know one of our correspondents and lady 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 very big news here too in the eleven if you missed any of it so far as well you can now watch our correspondents and 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 of the financial world cars report on the air shortly after we've got across the latest business next. by labor welcomes a business while a number of western economies are drowning in debt russia is on course to post a one percent budget surpluses the pray new year holiday meeting of the government of prime minister putin ever size improvements that have been away from the energy sector. deficit narrowed which is

a very positive factor in improving our 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 other economic news russia's economy expanded more than five percent in november compared to the same period last year yet now it ministry says mining and electricity sectors maybe contributed to the great 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 your market on edge iran has said that they may stop the flow of crude from a crucial strait of hormuz waterway in the persian gulf to foreign sanctions are imposed on us exports and now let's have a look at ways to souray all u.s. stocks other i was straight is finding its footing after last week's gains of both

the dow giant is that now up two percent on the nasdaq is up half a percent meanwhile the closely watched consumer confidence index surged to the highest level in eight months and i bring your indices ended most if not in typically then post holiday that have to choose dan as well and then just enjoying that christmas holidays attacks though they managed to gain a point to this. other russian markets closed. over one of the mindset is finished over a quarter of a percent in the red and on to the individual. cost almost two percent that's mostly gas from also finished the company says will be in line with four calls a forty billion dollars loophole a third of a percent is created a joint venture with another rationale to develop russia's promising president to talk all failed. so for now also for the business team from may

on the web site www dot com slash business.

joining us here in moscow this series are two international these are all top stories. the arab league team reaches syria's most troubled city of middle ports that government tanks are pulling out. fair and clear prime minister putin promises transparency in the upcoming presidential election after a series of mass protests against the lead for the parliamentary vote. and three years since israel waged a deadly assault on gaza the palestinians still struggling to.