if you. run from funds to question these. stunts on t.v. dot com. the arab league's mission on iran is in syria most troubled city of homes amid reports of government tanks withdrawing. three years after israel's onslaught on gaza palestinians continue their fight not for their lives this time but for justice in court. and with two thousand and twelve just around the corner we look back at the most significant moments in russian politics. thank you for being with us two o'clock here in moscow we go now to your top story tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in syria's third largest city

of homs demanding international protection the city which has seen some of the fiercest battles between state and opposition was the first destination for the arab league's monitoring team that began its work in syria this week government tanks have now reportedly been pulled out of the area the observers mission is to assess the situation in the country and ensure president assad's compliance with a regional plan to end the bloodshed but as journalist pipe escobar says there are doubts over the mission's impartial impartiality. does have to investigate activities of the free syrian army these are mercenaries in defectors who are arm lie outside followers did these outside followers are basically from qatar and the emirates believe the arab league which is now controlled by the g.c.c. they go to cooperation. themselves in this case we still don't know what are they going to dress to gauge and need to cool truly to command center. set up directly

in the you near the border between sure you keep it and syria in the skin in the room which is very across the border basically from listening to our spin are you going to investigate that you are really going to hurt us to get into shipment then smuggling weapons to fire at the jordanian syrian border we still don't know but it's a tall order for the arab league season there these are not exactly democracies they're investigating one of their all but they're also implicated in the whole big picture russia's prime minister vladimir putin approach pledges to ensure a transparent and fair presidential race in march two thousand and twelve as announcement comes amid a reshuffle at the top with a leading kremlin strategist taking up a new post in the government. reports. russian prime minister said that the upcoming elections for the country's dubbed job should be transparent in order to achieve that i didn't want to 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 where 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 there is out of the elections it could go on you're going to misstate the species but as an actress who 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 the right but the problem is that they have neither a united programs nor means of reaching their goals and they just want to deal legitimize the election that's the problem today when the new was in motion. in both the russian president 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 new leader who are inspiring women meanwhile the architecture of the country's political system is already changing presents me the difficulties of 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 over the current. policies over russia that is just won over the idea suggested by presidents of a different how to change the country's political system you'll see just a number of the storms 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 and later in the program are to recall some of the most significant events of russian politics in two thousand and eleven see our

correspondence is first hand impressions as part of our series of end of your reports. lots of people say that russian modern politics are stagnant predictable but nobody that day expected that announcement to be made yes people expected and there was speculation would run for president. but no one expected it as early as september. this is. history. two thousand. it has been three or so began the serve and a twenty two day long operation around fifteen hundred people were killed for those who lived through the battle still rages on but in a different kind of battlefield artie's polis lawyer has more. is unusual not because he laid a claim against the israelis but because he won victory though is bittersweet.

i'm a broken man the israelis say their army has morals what morals are they talking about . 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 doing this because the israeli soldiers were firing all the time 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 body of my sister much to cover with some bricks. so lay took his case to the palestinian center for human rights in a precedent setting 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 says this made the case exceptional and they feel justified replacing. just under one hundred fifty thousand dollars compensation. if someone or he is up or risk killing or injuring to the all the money in the world to me are now. worth fighting for here is a financial compensation that it will offer a settlement from. the palestinian center for human rights has more than two hundred cases taxol is 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. from thought. it was early morning there was showing any part when a bomb was on fire i want out side with my hands up in the soldiers told me to pull off my shirt and trousers i did with a suit but they find

a rock i would behind my mother had been blown apart i recognized her by the ear 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 if it's an act of war he was working with for the operation thought according to the israeli case low. for. the state will be accepted from the city with a subtle i 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 police fear r t. iran is threatening to stop the flow of oil through the strait of hormuz one of the world's busiest commercial waterways if the u.s. and its allies impose more sanctions on tack runs crude oil experts dr saeed

mohammad marandi from the university of tehran says it would be foolish for the u.s. to push iran to such measures. but i think any. hostility against iran and that's basically what and or the 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 iraq'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 hating in a very irrational manner and dragging the region towards a very dangerous situation informative critical and analytical r.t. is available for you twenty four hours

a day on air and online check out our website at r t dot com waiting there for you right now. aiming high russia is on its way to joining the world's top five economies by twenty twenty. under way or under wraps there will be no penalties and the public eye of the pakistani find out why women have to buy their more delicate garments under the counter. thank you for being with us to turn right now with european nations sinking deeper into crisis the u.k. treasury is working on a contingency plan for the euro's collapse the proposal includes introducing capital control measures as well as closing the country's borders and even evacuating ex-pats and tourists from affected countries robert oulds president of

the brewers groups of campaigners against access unification in europe says that doing away with the euro could actually benefit some nations. well the. leaders are trying to shore up the eurozone by having greater degrees of centralize ation having countries like france and germany have fallen off site in a sense over the budgets of those e.u. member states that have excessive budget deficits but that really isn't the answer to the problems really needed as even a massive injection of cash into countries like greece and italy to sure what they have a cold amazed to be talking in the trillions that's one option of course another option would of course to recognize that the single currency is haute competitiveness in many nations of the eurozone and has damaged economic growth meaning that the economies can't grow their way out of the costs that they were in and they just in this spiral and having deep austerity measures forced upon them

a massive earthquake reaching a magnitude of almost seven has hit southern side bear and near the russian mongolian border the epicenter was in a sparsely populated area and according to preliminary reports by russia's emergencies ministry there have been no casualties however shocks were felt hundreds of kilometers away in some of the region's major cities and staff are being evacuated from mine shafts in the area communication networks and electricity supplies have suffered interruptions and the russian emergency ministry has sent rescue teams to deal with the after in japan a much more devastating earthquake in march this year cause the most serious nuclear accident in twenty five years the fukushima crisis a major government investigation has found that the plant's operators were responsible for many of the worst after effects through being ill prepared and not responding properly to the disaster professor christopher about space scientific secretary to the european committee on radiation risks he believes the report left

many questions unanswered. i don't think that that this inquiry has gone far enough because there are lots of questions that they haven't asked and lots of questions that still haven't been answered the most important one is it has to do with the health effects of the contamination that 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 inquiry which will show 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 zene on the tapes of being released from those those plants and the xenon isotopes have sufficiently short off lives for us to know that fissioning is still taking place in those reactors now to continue our series revisiting some of twenty eleventh's most significant events through the eyes of the arctic correspondents who covered them and he said now i was in moscow for the parliamentary elections and gives her view on how the world of russian politics has changed over the last year. 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 there was speculation that they would run for president twenty two but no one expected it

as early as september. the first ten that. this congress the united russia wasn't going to be as simple as just the platform for the duma lections being announced was lazy or 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's going to happen today. first to come up on stage was 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 major major of will be part of united russia he will be 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. 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 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 of course

in the protests that we're seeing straight after the elections on monday we saw people come out to choose to crudely 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 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 some 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 have the riot police and officials

just letting them do their thing and their symbol really i think a really strong example of this where these white flowers or 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. that 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 to far telling the story about russia from outside of russia but being in the center of it all. and every day right up to the new year will bring you more personal reflections from our team of international correspondents on the landmark events that dominated the headlines of two thousand and eleven and if you've missed any of there are available to watch right now on our team dot com. north koreans are preparing finally to lay their late leader to rest but the world is still keen to know what lies ahead for the country after kim

jong il has appointed successor and youngest son is now in charge but very little is really known about him artie's maria from the russian out went back to school to uncover more about the man who has big shoes to step into. the death of the north korean dictator has raised questions and hopes over whether the dictatorship one of the last in the world will follow or will this extremely close society remain isolated and its new leader to do so little is known about the late leader's great successor his third and youngest son kim to name is a bit of a dark course even his age remains a subject of speculation his thought to be twenty seven or twenty eight his new ascension to power increases the media hunger for information about him so his expensive education in switzerland said led tracked it's a lot more interest and entrepreneur in moscow with russian origins alexander how

good she believes he could have been one of kim's classmates when news spread that kim trannie may have gone to an elite school in this week's margins in late ninety's the businessman brought out his all the book to refresh his memory there were quite a few koreans. quieter than others. with the last name him. as kim is the most common name in korea alexander remembers that koreans always different from other students they were very disciplined they were very disciplined as a group of students. very serious for their interaction. they wouldn't always take part in. fun and games at the other students were very hard studying to be top of course they didn't like to although some think that this is leaders son may be a figurehead overshadowed by his recently promoted uncle who is thought to wield

the real power alexander says the three years china has apparently spent in europe may change the country's future forever i think. it will make him realize that he has to do something good for his people for his country and make a change in terms of. past experience his knowledge of foreign languages. the skills that he managed to retain being a world the outside world used to get most of the news from behind north korea's iron curtain through the country's strictly censored state run media covering the live of the secrets of society from the inside has been an almost impossible task for international journalists but the details now emerging about the new leader is exposure to the liberal west or for a glimmer of hope that he may ease bag the rigid control over the two terran regime and begin to open north korea to the world and maybe the war old to north korea.

r.t. more. we were turned to syria next as r.t. talks to a french journalist who's been reporting from the country throughout the conflict and shares his firsthand impressions of what's really happening there. as the conflict in syria continues it's been extremely hard to establish exactly

what's been happening here inside the country we're joined now by independent journalist the airiness sun thank you very much for joining us now you've been working on the ground here in syria can you tell us where your perceptions of the situation are to begin we have some groups entering inside the country and making big problems trying to quit islamic emirates of the border first. and various people. recruits some of them to to make bigger fighting groups and no way of entering in coordination with the political opposition or to miscount to a very. long history of opposition between the bass party invite muslim brotherhood so no reason that i didn't speak to in this. army.

groups coming from abroad so that's why there's groups come in go quite everywhere because we have some support now inside the population begin by. frayne subversion but they find a support inside become. in the difficult to know why they find the support it's because people is ready to use any means to reverse for government or if it's. for some ideological reasons and if you are of the muslim brothers they said the very reverse. president bashar said not because they want democracy but because he's. so it could be the beginning of a religious war inside the country and you're also on the ground during the war in libya in what ways did you draw comparisons to the situation that's happening now

in syria so the way it works for me too is exactly the same way do exactly the same way to create the file on the united nations first who we've version of a council on human rights and after the security council they try to manipulate a rubber league exactly in the same way in the libyan case they organize a big story in front of vision of a concern for human rights they say there is five thousand people killed by security forces of course it's absolute who on the base a lot of people killed but very few by the security forces most of them killed by this armor groups they put inside the cold how do you see the situation progressing now first. i think that all be the action to destabilize the country are not working we see a lot of problems

a lot of people killed but this is not the civil war great way to organize if they want to enter with foreign troops inside like be doing leiby are or using proxy from the gulf council i think they really are. very the problem. because bass country is ready for battle glorious country is leaving soon sixty years in the middle east with that will not likely be now on the economic level of those big problems the beginning of ascensions destroy different part of the economy of course all the tourism is totally destroyed but during the winter you have the more fuel. is so also a problem we. different imported goods. but. i think this. is no changing because varies new agreements

between syria. and china of that so wait why no to impose. sanctions. and it could be. still for his country but to rediscover very quickly but to prove your suit disaster victims just before the orbitals arrived countries around so they have to stop because centuries so no. syria is able to resist a very long time to be. pushing from the top thanks very much for joining us.