video on demand. on a sense feed now in the palm of your. day one of the late north korean leader's funeral and put hopes of change under his successor overshadowed by some concerns that foreign nations may actually want to keep the status quo. post mubarak egypt seems to shape its international ties mid term oil and uncertainty at home while its ousted leaders trial five only resumes. are rushing a court decides against the betting a translation of a hairy question a holy text which was suspected of being extremely. poor

pm in moscow i mattress i could have you with us here on our t. our top story thousands of north koreans were seen crying in the streets of pyongyang as they watched the funeral procession carrying their late leader kim jong il's youngest son and successor led the farewell ceremony expected to last for at least another day little is known about the heir kim jong un but some are hoping his western education may see a more open patrick but asia specialist dr tim beal things external influence may decide or three his future as much as the next kim. sun as we know he was educated above the edge in switzerland and having the same but listen gets grossly overestimate is freedom of action. to the needles and systems but also. in the state to the outside world in him in respect to be the americans so he is not north korea and since don't want to see americans and want to keep the.

constraint some what's life they want to contain china rather different you differently it's all part of the same plot the same package so what kindle one can do is in many respects fairly limited. we will again we'll have to see but i don't really depends very much on the americans but journalist and war correspondent a correspondent eric margolis marcos shares the view that there is little chance of change in north korea during the excessive influence of its military biggest good speculation that is his uncle is than some other members of the family are kind of pulling his strings but i think more is the one point one million man north korean army for the father announced kim jong il for you guys well over your go now it's the new policy of militarized korea as it was insufficiently militarized.

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 son 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 military so powerful it's well fed it has all the prerequisites and good position so does the communist party so that they will be a force against change rather than the fore. managed to gain some insight into the man who now holds the reins in north korea after we caught up with one of his former swiss school classmates his impressions of king's young kim young loon available a click away at our t. dot com. tough period of post revolution uncertainty in egypt isn't stopping the country from gathering its international policy foreign minister has been meeting his counterpart in moscow where they've discussed the arab world turmoil in the

foreign and the frozen israeli palestinian peace talks piskun of those following their meeting. well first of all this is a great 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 sergei lavrov off praise the fact that observers were finally allowed into syria at the same time both russia and egypt once again showing we criticized the violence in the country but stood against any foreign military intervention egypt is also removed courtly to a regional where when it comes to the middle east peace process that was discussed at the meeting here as well but all of this comes as the situation in egypt itself is quite complicated i'm in the midst of the ongoing violent protests and the

country being in the middle of the problem entry election with several islamist oriented the political parties taking 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 awaits by the end of january so this is a good time for egypt to start regaining its international contacts. the trial of egypt's former leader hosni mubarak resume wednesday after three months of break he's accused of corruption abuse and the killing of demonstrators during the january uprising and may face the death penalty if convicted for more on the situation in egypt andro by jeremy salter an associate professor of middle eastern history and politics at bill kent university and author of turkey thanks for

speaking with us so the verdict in the mubarak case was initially expected january twenty fifth now it might not come until next march which way egypt's lengthy parliamentary elections will finish what do you make of the timing do you think that's coincidence or any kind of connection there might not be here. martin. no. not. yet. so the. next. in the long. run.

i'm somewhat. some of mubarak supporters are outside the court chanting we remove mubarak we got hussein referring to egypt's current military ruler but there's been a slow progress but elections are happening so do you think these accusations seem fair. this is the mom. who does not want one. and. it would be good. if it. were enough. and now there is more on.

the. problem. so. not. really. all right jeremy assad associate professor of middle eastern history and politics in turkey thanks for being with us. head of the arab league observer mission in syria has described the situation in the rest of city of homs as it reassuring so far the flashpoint city was the modest first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti-racial amount arrest your arrival was met by a massive demonstration tens of thousands demanding air national protection but there are doubts the mission can bring positive results. 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 these more ridiculous about this story be the idea that the the autocratic focus of the arab league states are going to presume to pronounce on the democratic leanings of the syrian government to work with the international community is supposed to take what they say with any sort of moral authority clearly these are not people in a position to be lecturing on this but but i think as i say i think 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 so that the assad government is to blame for what's going on in syria right now. well stay with us here on our team we have still lots to come in the program. in the trying to force eventually to take us they sort of a they came they thought i meant sort of mid sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't be any more. and if you moments we bring you our correspondents personal

reflections from greece as our team takes a look back at twenty eleventh's main headlines plus. and debate this another barrier has been lifted for the thousand three talk is given the brain lights across this part of the black face auntie's house that means twenty minutes in the basement but that's it. but first of all out of here putin says he's open to talks with the opposition that organize the parliamentary protest rallies but says there is no one to talk to the premier reaffirm the need for a dialogue insisting there's always been an open channel between him and rivals our teams are in english go house. russian prime minister meeting with journalists earlier today when responding to their questions about the possible dialogue with the opposition he said that he's actually ready for that except for a few at this point according to legend which in the opposition forces do not have any concrete programs or any leaders and their motivation is not quite clear so it's really hard for him to understand in what form of the dialogue should take

place but he also mentioned that seeing his own close close people close to him and his relatives sometimes interacting with certain authorities that he sometimes wants to go out and participate in a rally on his own he also finished up with a sort of a joke when asked about what would be the best present for he will what present he would give to the russian people for new years he said that the president the best present for the russian people would be a fair and free presidential elections in twenty twelve of course all of this comes just days after a monumental rally which was held in the below me a square in the aftermath of the problem entry elections is russia's state duma tens of thousands of people came out on the streets protesting what they believed were on fair elections. we've been following the most significant events in russia's big politics log on to our tea dot com for that and we have got plenty more there right now here's a taste. ali with blockbuster about an important accountant but this is no ordinary

money man it's about the women power and scandal about some of the former i.m.f. chief into the tabloid gutter. and how the cia taps into you tapping out a tweet and why it's snoopers plan a few millions of messages a day on social networks. the people of greece will be glad to see the back of two thousand and eleven a year of cuts riots and vilification by other european nations for bringing them to the brink of collapse our first reported from the thick of it from the start and she shares her firsthand account in our series looking back on the year's events that changed the world.

i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift on its axis slightly we saw people's protests nathan sort of spread around the world and greece assassination me very much on the front line of the fight and it became really this sort of produced a child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis to became a social crisis and yet this does a 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 increased that was exactly what happened. the first time in. reporting and they had a protest planned i remember in the morning our hotel was just off the corner syntagma very very close to central square as the year is saying 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 and i remember going off and finishing doing my first live shows and coming back and getting a phone call to say that we needed to do another one and at that exact moment we could hit the noises that we just you hear like popping sounds it's a take us going off on the other corner syntagma. 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're right in the center of it i can't tell you what it's like to be around people that angry that angry that they feel to a point where they're 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 side of one of the streets as all the riot police started pushing back late at the anarchists these guys are backing down you know the people sort of running at them and throwing rocks and metal and it was just it was absolutely. five is going off in different parts in time and everyone was just sort of running around thinking very very you know it's 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 century and i remember just saying just keep filming this is keep filming it in the mainstream. even if that if it was. a different.

kind of. bad. because. he. was the. people. who were trying to reports and eventually to take us they sort of a became both of us arm and sort of mid-sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore. and i remember seeing the fishes in the car my getting caught in the middle of the take us and just thinking oh that's just. this thing coughing and spluttering in. do you remember being quite embarrassed about that but then we

realized that it obviously that clip caught a lot of people's attention each year and i think it actually felt good 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 with paul said you know this is a problem that greece is having is 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 a greek problem and this is something that was going to face everyone. right from the very beginning we wanted to see. the story from a different angle we were much more interested in getting the social side of what was going on right now there's a chance you might lose everything that we know in this country you don't know what . you can you can plan your life i hope for everybody to be calm and. try to get out of the crisis if that was what was always important to us is

getting. the people increase getting their opinion across because 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 and you're talking to and lucky in that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone back there just a welcoming. welcome to bring you the personal reflections from our correspondents worldwide on the headlines of two thousand and eleven. at r.t. dot com. russian court has decided against banning a translation of the harry christian as most holy text or group connected with the christian orthodox church had claimed it was extremist parties or tell you no the cover is following the reaction to the case. i want to tell you so what was the group's complaint exactly. will it all started because of one of the

translations oath about gods as it is into russian going to have been sparking for a show and religious hatred now the case was one of the prosecutors in. the area. where all the money question the women's members they're suspicious now are if you take a look back at the relationship between washington and the movement it was never an easy one during the ninety's with russia was going through one of its most difficult times to move and was simply considered to be really just sapped you can imagine do you images of russia in the ninety's and serve all those serve people dressed in bright and colorful clothes dancing around listening to music spreading to what russians thought was suspicious literature convincing teenagers joining in stay with them and maybe simply thought they were drug addicts for the bruising of threats to the society if. so it is you can see. the russians there have been

suspicious about the movements for quite a while however it was g.-tube lack of understanding of the movement as was this particular case a misunderstanding over the one particular translation over the book as the court has proved today and jury will do so to our minister of foreign affairs of russia has been saying that this is not about their original book that is obviously sacred to hindu people but rather about that particular translation in better that was extremist or not. and tell you what is the court said about if the city. and so you can repeat the question what does the court said about this about its decision has made any statement about it. well the statement was made that the insulation over the book was not recognised to be extremist at all as they said. the confusion that's in it has been spreading among prosecutors savior and

representatives of every national interest all right our he's intel you know because i live in central moscow thanks for that update. finally in this news blog oil prices have surged after a wrong threaten to block shipments through one of the world's biggest busiest waterways if new western sanctions cripple its own exports the country's navy commander says the cut off will be easy to inflict let's get some analysis on this from political analyst chris bambery live for us in london. thanks for joining us so just over a sixth of all the world's oil trade passes through the strait of hormuz between the gulf of oman in the persian gulf what happens to the global oil trade if this gets blocked. well we've seen today the surge of the price of oil and potentially that could happen throwing another spanner into the whole walkies international economy which is not looking too good at the moment as we go into two thousand and twelve i think the irony is is that you know in two thousand and three america

invaded iraq with the of controlling the region the middle east and controlling the oil supplies we know you see that probably our american control of the middle east is its weakest in decades it's lost mubarak in egypt but it's not in control of iraq iran has considerable influence in iraq it is extending its influence into afghanistan we see that the acid regime has not been overthrown in syria it is when turned its control over security forces and the conflict in syria which is no developing is very becoming course are intertwined with what's happening with iran and of course we have has war in lebanon a massive power strain and the unrest in eastern saudi arabia and back when this is a potential trouble for america and the danger is this is not just simply a military conflict or a complete with iran it can be easily spillover into regional conflicts it which him as a see america is a much weaker hand that it did over

a decade of gold. and oil trade oil embargo on iran which is one of the world's top exporters will inevitably impact the markets even if there is no gulf blockade which side do you think would suffer most in this case iran or the clients who get its oil. well iran says because you can beat that blockade it could rely on its existing trading partners it's what has to be seen whether china and russia would join in with these sanctions that's an open question that americans could probably force using the military which in the gulf could probably force open the straits of hormuz but that would mean a war with iran and that as i see it would be a huge huge escalation and would threaten world peace and therefore i think the iranians are really challenging the americans sensing the american american american weakness we know that both from british sources that there are plans to attack iran and israel is egging on america to attack iran over the question of its

nuclear nuclear program but i think again in a comparison with iraq in two thousand and three iran is in a much stronger position iranian nationalism should not be should not be underestimated even opponents armitage about who rallied to support iran's given britain and america's history in iran and there's a long history of unfortunate british and american intervention in here so i think we're witnessing quite a dangerous escalation and it's the sanctions which the west the talk of the importance of iran which is responsible for that situation developing i think we should be clear about that is the west who've racked up this situation every step yet just to wrap up here when iran made a similar threat in two thousand and eight the u.s. said it would consider such a blockade an act of war u.s. warships our position near the strait do you see this escalating. yes i do see it escalating i think be very easy to escalate though clearly hawks in washington and certainly in tel aviv who want

a military strike against iran and america we know where it's economic and some of these develop it's always been inclined to use its military strength to reinforce a boxer's additional role in the world and as the economic situation worsens in two thousand and twelve i think you could see more a possibility of more military adventures as the western powers britain france and america sense that economically they might be weak militarily they can use their weight to buttress their position i think they're making a big mistake with iran as well because relatively iranian economy is doing well and iran is in a position to exert more influence a regional basis as we saw this week with the new agreements in afghanistan and that must hurt the americans to see it really is growing in influence in iraq and in afghan afghanistan i think it with a sense of desperation in washington and among its allies in london all right we have to wrap up chris brown bam bam very in london thanks for a perspective sports coming up in twenty minutes including the preparations for the

first ever youth winter olympics but first layers but the world of business with katie. welcome to the business program turkey has given the green light to sell streamed across its part of the black sea the pipeline is intended to carry gas from southern russia to europe bypassing the transit counters of ukraine and belarus is planned to have a capacity of sixty building. and will cost around twenty billion dollars to build . fifty percent of the projects while twenty percent belongs to me the rest is evenly distributed between france's e.d.f. and germany's winter still. a new era is beginning for the russian economy the country thirst apply for membership of the world trade organization back in one nine hundred ninety three finally that long negotiations over a moscow has been formally invited to join dimitri medvedev changes this 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 the usual 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 ahau. 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 producers 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 the 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 and that's

all we've got time for now but i'll be back in about fifty five minutes. whether you dive from high or to the depths. catch the power of the wind or drift in the beauty of the currents. being well prepared is a must and if you're lucky enough you'll never forget your experience we only need them a screen that's going to be having. in the flight see up close and below the ice on our teeth wealthy british style seinfeld's.