i mean moscow i match reza good to have you with us here on our team our top story tens of thousands of north koreans have taken to the capital's snow covered streets to pay their final respects to their late leader the farewell ceremony will last two days started with a funeral procession led by kim jong il's youngest son and successor the longstanding leader of the world's most reclusive state died eleven days ago of a heart attack knowledge of his heir kim jong un is shrouded in mystery though some are hoping his western education may see a more open country specialist on asia dr ten ten below things that's not entirely up to the successor to determine the north's fate. but the sun as we know it was educated above the edge in switzerland and having the same but listen gets grossly moving this to me is freedom of action. to the north insisting that also.

use fake you know it's money well known you respect to be the americans so it is not north korea and since don't want to see americans who want to keep the. change. some what's unites they want to contain china and understand you do differently but you know it's all part of the same package so. one can do is in many respects fairly limited. we will again will have see but i don't really depend so much on the americans. journalist and war correspondent eric margolis shares their view with there is little chance of change in north korea because of the excessive influence of its military. but it's good speculation that is his uncle is than some of the members of the family are kind of pulling his strings but i think more important is the one point one million man north korean

army for the father announced kim jong il forty done well over a year ago now it's the new policy of militarized north korea as it wasn't sufficiently militarized and the whole country it's really as the quote frederick the great it's an army disguised as a country. and that's what's happened to this great and the some military rule which to me says that it's unlikely there will be major western style reforms because this means cutting spending on the military the military is so powerful it's well fed it has all the prerequisites and good position so does the communist party so that they will be any force against change rather than for. what's the whole coverage of commercial yields funeral service you can go to our website our team dot com. the new post revolution egypt heading abroad an attempt to mend ties with other countries as part of this chiro's foreign minister has been talking with

his counterpart here in moscow but the situation at home is still very tense the north african country will have to prove it's going to be a stable partner or he's ever piss going off has more. well first of all this is agreed time for egypt to start we gaining some was positions on the international political stage and syria is in the spotlight the arab league has been able to send observers into the country the organization's headquarters are in cairo so egypt is directly involved and of course syria was discussed at the meeting a moscow russian foreign minister said a deal of it all praised the fact that observers were finally allowed into syria at the same time both russia and egypt once again show me criticize the violence in the country but stood against any foreign military intervention egypt is also be reporting to a regional player when it comes to the middle east peace process that was discussed at the meeting here as well but all of this comes as leet situation in egypt itself

is quite complicated i'm in the ongoing violent protests and the country being in the middle of the problem and she election with several islamist oriented to political already seeking to court including the muslim brotherhood and the first round of the election showed that all of these parties combined managed to gather around seventy percent of the votes the second round is expected shortly and it is planned that the new parliament will start working by the late by the end of january so this is a good time for egypt to start regaining its international contacts. going situation in syria looks set to dominate these talks in moscow the latest development tens of thousands of taking to the streets of syria's third largest city honks demanding international protection it happened after the arab league's monitoring team visited the area observers mission is to assess the situation of

the country and ensure of president assad's compliance with a regional plan to end the bloodshed for more on this i'm joined by james corbett editor of the independent news website corbett report dot com based in japan. good to speak with you again so the head of the observer mission has called the situation in homs reassuring seeing no clashes in relative calm there but only two days ago there were reports that twenty people were killed what do you think we can expect from their final report. well i think that the final report will be a pretty much preordained conclusion that there will be findings that the assad government is not doing enough to to listen to the concerns of its citizens but personally i'm not sure what is more ridiculous about this story the the idea that the the autocratic thugs of the arab league states are going to presume to pronounce on the democratic leaning is of the syrian government a word that the international community is supposed to take what they say with any sort of moral authority but clearly these are not people in a position to be lecturing on this but i think as i say i think the the report has

been pretty much preordained and i would be very surprised to see that that it concludes anything other than the fact that the assad government is to blame for what's going on in syria right now what do you think would be a better objective third party to assess the situation there. i'm not sure it's really the responsibility of the international community to be involved in this in the first place i'm not sure exactly what grounds the international community has to be coming into syria to presume to be able to dictate to the syrian government what it should be doing with its people any more than we would expect the syrian government or any other league of states under whatever suppose that international authorities coming in to for example washington and presuming to tell the obama administration how they should be dealing with the occupy protests i mean that would not be something that that's just a nonstarter in any sort of international discussion but for some reason on the in the syrian situation it seems to be perfectly viable idea but of course this is just all political theater that's being played out for the benefit of the public

that is obviously unwilling to go along with military intervention unless there is the decree of some sort of body that's seen to or at least we're told has some sort of moral authority to pronounce on the subject that russia is praising the arab league observers mission hoping that it cayley's to ease a situation or evolve some of the conflict so they'll be no need for un resolution what's your view on that how efficient do you think this mission could be. it could presumably it could actually avert military intervention if if. do come out and say that the tensions are internal and need to be dealt with internally but again as i say i don't think that's what it's all timidly going to conclude but we certainly have to hope that that is the case because as you know military intervention in syria would be an extremely destabilizing event in the region and would lead i think almost inevitably to some sort of confrontation with iran if not with eventually with other states in the region so i think it is absolutely imperative that this mission does and defuse the situation but as i say i'm not hoping for that possibility now some are hoping that the observer mission will make it clear

that among the opposition groups there are those who are armed and actively resisting with weapons the assad regime also to blame for provoking this violence do you think that's a likely finding of their report it's certainly if this report is to deal with the with the facts on the ground as they are one would almost inevitably expect them to conclude that as i say i'm not hopeful that that will be the case but certainly even if they do come out with that in the final report i find it very difficult to believe that that would be trumpeted all in the western media as that's a topic that so far has not been given much coverage at all in most of the media that's that's been presuming to cover the story but has been conveniently leaving out the fact that the protesters are armed and have been attacking syrian forces as well and that issue has not really been dealt with so far at all in the media one would assume that that would be conveniently covered up and if that was to be from one of the findings of this report all right james corbett editor of the independent news website corpora port dot com thanks for perspective thank you.

well stay with us here on r t still to come on the program. who is trying to poison eventually to take us to a sort of a became by the time and sort of mid sentence just think oh my god i just called brief and he will put. in a few moments we bring your correspondent a personal reflection from greece's argue looks back at me headline. and business techie gives the green light to solve stream of it another barrier has been removed for russia to build the pipeline from the black sea to europe business in about fifteen minutes. but first a lot of near putin has said he's ready for dialogue with the opposition but he once again criticized for a lack of clear direction and leadership parties are in a glue show has more. hello arena so what more we heard well there was this was a rather surprising announcement by russian prime minister putin who said that he's

actually ready for a dialogue with the opposition he just said that he's not quite sure on the form and he was speaking to journalists when he said that he is. and that he is a fully aware of the fact that the former finance minister. actually went out and joined the opposition forces on the square just several days ago but he said that is a grown man he makes his own decisions and he did not consult with you before doing that neither did he actually have to also prime minister said that of course if he could wish if he could give one present to the russian people it would be fair to completely fair presidential elections twenty twelve of course those elections are scheduled to happen in march of this this year and of course this statement comes again just several days after a monumental me a monumental rallies took place in moscow where people who people along with the

opposition forces came out to protest what they believed. or to be honest fair parliamentary elections in russia. or whether he's a really good go live from central moscow what are they thanks for that report. britain is reportedly working on emergency plan to shore up its economic defenses in case of a euro doomsday u.k.'s treasury is said to want to avoid an influx of economic refugees plans include evacuating british ex-pats from affected countries and even the temporary closure of borders financial analyst robert all says attempts by european leaders to avoid a worst case scenario are only making one more likely. pian 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 deficits but that really isn't the answer to the problems milt's really needs either

a massive injection of cash into countries like greece and italy to shore up their economies course another option would of course to recognize that the single currency has hurt competitiveness in many women nations of the eurozone so really there's a number of options either to transfer funds from the north to the struggling south or of course have an orderly break up of the eurozone. greece store remains of the center of the european financial storm as twenty eleven draws to a closer to has been looking back at what's been a year of despair and discontent for austerity hit greeks are too sorry for it when it's their anger reaching a boiling point covering protests in the country. they were i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift and it's likely we saw people's protest movement sort of spread around the world and

greece is certainly for me very much on the front line if that fight and it became really the sort of pace to child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis to became a social crisis and if this does is saying that if you're a hammer everything looks like a nail if you push people into a corner then they're going to come out fighting and i think increase that was exactly what happened. the first time in. reporting and they had a protest planned there remember in the morning. it was just still think cool in a very very close to central square as the year you think crisis rumbles on greece is once again found itself the focus of international attention and it seems like everyone had an opinion about it that you're. going off and finishing to. coming back and getting a phone call to say that we need to do another one at that exact moment we could

hit the noises that would just like popping sounds it's a take us going off on the other corner sometimes. almost immediately you just get a huge surge of people coming posture i mean you can barely me. this is a really intense experience and you sort of when you. in the center of it i can tell you what it's like to be around people. that. the angry that they feel to a point where the having to turn outs and these sort of clashes abrupt i mean it's really scary because it's not just a small hall cool. these people you know old people young people completely normal families that are turning up that have just reached the point where they don't know what to do anymore. we literally found ourselves in the center. just. one of the streets as all the riot police started pushing back

late at the anarchists these guys just backing down you know the people sort of running at them and throwing rocks and metal and just it was absolute chaos i was going off in different parts in time everyone was just sort of running around thinking very very lowest and we were just stunned to be honest i mean it it's just gone from one hundred in the space of sort of twenty minutes and we found ourselves right in the sun and i remember just saying just keep filming this just keep filming it really made it very hard to even to pretend that it may not be that he does not turn out to be bad. but. he.

as we've. been. trying to reports and eventually did take us to a sort of a became both of us time and sort of mid-sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore. and. and i remember seeing the city in the car and getting caught in the middle of the take us and just thinking oh that's just. staying there coughing and spluttering and. to remember being quite embarrassed about but then we realized that it obviously that clip caught a lot of people's attention. and i think it actually folk it that it was striking a chord with a lot of people because at that time still there was very much a sense in europe in the way it was being reported that you know this is

a problem that greece is having its a great problem and we were all sort of witnessing what was going on and i think when we were increased we realized very very quickly that it wasn't just. something that was going to face everyone. and absolutely you know he felt when you were reporting that you witnessing people passing their breaking point they were just so angry. and very quickly alston tightness. in the crowd we're not sure exactly what that thing off but everyone's just trying to get up and you could see people beat by the riot that it was. almost you left all of that. and maybe just. right from the very beginning we wanted to. get a good story from a different angle we were much more interested in getting the social side of what was going on i hope for everybody to become and. try to get out of

the crisis was what was always important to us is getting. the people in greece getting their opinion across to the kids i think a lot of their voices really have got lost in the whole political economic talk kind of forget what it's all about which is about you know the people who are there in your. and then. in that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone back they just say well. we're going to bring you the personal reflections of our correspondents worldwide on the stories that shape the year and if you've missed any of them you can always find them again at our team dot com. the russian court has ruled that a russian translation of the main book of the harry krishna movement is not extremist and therefore should not be banned the case has been filed by state prosecutors who claim the translation of the text contains signs that instigate

religious and racial hatred the court cited the lack of evidence for those claims the book itself is viewed as the bible of the christian a movement which is considered controversial in russia some view it as a sect case sparked a strong reaction among indians in the country and the indian political elite who call the accusations absurd. take a look now at some other stories making headlines across the globe starting in gaza were a series of air strikes have killed three and injured nearly a dozen more israel's air force carried out the strikes claiming it was targeting militants to prevent an attack on a part of the israeli egyptian border the initial strike killed one man after a rocket hit his motorcycle the second hit a police vehicle. the trial of egyptian former president hosni mubarak resumes after a three month delay mubarak faces the death penalty if found to have been behind the killings of some eight hundred fifty people including during protests that

overthrew him in february he's under arrest in a hospital since april the trial was postponed the lawyers asked the judge be replaced or request that it's since been denied mubarak is the first ousted leader in the so-called arab spring uprisings to appear before a court. as u.s. presidential candidates tell the nation how they plan to lead it into the future some of been exposed for a lacking basic knowledge of foreign affairs it seems the general public is following suit as are he's honest churkin to discover it. it's three agencies of government when i get there that are gone commerce education and the what's the third one there let's see if he's looking to to actually fire tens of thousands of federal workers and eliminate an entire cabinet level position and he can even remember its name asked me who is the president of you beki beki beki beki stan stan i'm going to say you know i don't know do you know it's not the fact that he doesn't know it's the fact that he doesn't think he should look it up so you agree

with president obama livia. basic knowledge of those attempting to spearhead a country can leave much to be desired would be this leave americans choosing their politicians and their country's potential future let's find out. for some reason i don't know anything about libya do you know what is the pakistanis know i do not know what the pakistan and pakistan. do you know the us is an airbase there. nor do we know about libya. you know dispel libya yes yes do you know the united states was involved in a war with libya. ok. you know why. i know absolutely nothing about. what about new mexico is that a state or

a country but is that i or any time you think that we don't you know. it's the old me under bush. while i actually. come on it was not that long ago you know no cheney was the vice president of the us. you know i have no idea i know it's. my son. cheney. so with the secretary of state kind lisa rice stella now we would be fools and nice to ignore their purpose and their plans some countries are at the top of politicians list to attack her belief am literally but how much do people really know about those faraway places. like wisconsin or it. was a president. who said that the president of iran is no capital

capital of iran do you know the capital city of iran. negative do you guys know what iran is oh yes yes yes what's the capital of iraq. was the president. the president he just died but the capital of the capital yes i do what is it you're asking me i can't tell you that either top secret i don't want to. show live here it's. anything yes it. is the president of iraq iran iraq they all right you know his name but a jet a giraffe or so when it comes to picking a future for the you was choosing what comes next may be tough without the knowledge of what has gone on in the past and even the very present situation at thirteen we are. up next with all the latest business news stay with us.

thanks matt very welcome to the business update turkey has given the green light just south stream to cross a sponsor the black sea the pipeline is intended to carry gas from southern russia to europe bypassing the transit countries of ukraine and belarus well it's planned to have the capacity of sixty billion cubic meters a year and will cost around twenty billion dollars to built from fifty percent of the project while twenty percent belongs to any the rest is evenly distributed between france's e.d.f. and germany's one just whole. new year is beginning for the russian economy of the country fast apply for membership of the world trade organization but can one thousand nine hundred ninety three well finally that long negotiation is over and russia has been formally invited to join our g.'s dmitry medvedev looks at the changes that will bring.

becoming a member of the world trade organization is both a political and economic milestone the fact that for such a long time russia now a top ten global economy was outside the trading club that unites ninety eight percent of the world's population sounds pretty ridiculous under w. zero rules the average duty on imports of goods will be reduced to seven point eight percent for agriculture it will be lowered to ten point eight from thirteen point two percent and as for manufactured goods the decline will be to seven point three percent from the current nine and a half the parliament in russia still needs to ratify russia's exception to the w t o but obviously these changes will not happen in one day only a third of newly set in produce are expected to come straight after the ratification basically those which will not do any harm medicine for example will become cheaper gradually over three years to give local producers time to adapt to

new market conditions and when it comes to the weakest or sensitive sectors like cars imports will be cut inch by inch over the next seven years for years the government protected farmers and car makers and will continue to do so through subsidies although the funds will drop significantly over time and perhaps the definite winner in this whole situation is the consumer has regulations become more transparent and tariffs are slashed more companies will be coming to russia's market and competition will force producers to reduce prices the economic development ministry therefore expects to see an average reduction of around ten percent of us the world bank believes that that the total effect will amount to an extra four point three percent of the gross domestic product as spending will grow seven percent but yet again this whole process may take quite a while. and in the end russia is expected to finally improve the disproportional two percent of global trade volumes that it accounts for at the moment. let's all

have a look at how the markets are performing this hour well has slightly retreated from the gains it saw in the previous sessions that would still be very loyal to the sands tension in iran michael supply disruptions and another drive that is improving u.s. consumer confidence. in europe the footsie on the debts on the rise as trading resumed holding an extended holiday break and to offer a new tell inform the auction showed a sharp drop in deals retail company shares seeing gains as the retail sector has been boosted by post the stopping. and falling rocks of the markets mixed trading a stand by during holidays and it's to come with news out of the u.s. and europe the r.t.s. is losing ground even as oil sets another record high. ok that's it for me your up to date more news on our web site r.t. dot com slash business. if.

the limited.

period. if. three thirty pm in moscow these here are two headlines tens of thousands of grieving north koreans packing to the capital to pay their last respects to the late leader kim jong il who's being laid to rest after eleven days of national mourning. in egypt working to shape its post revolutionary future by reestablishing relations are brought as the country's foreign minister heads to moscow. a lot of your putin says he's ready for dialogue with the opposite.