day one of the lake north korean leader's funeral and suppose hopes of change under his successor are overshadowed by concerns that foreign nations but actually want to keep the status quo. post mubarak egypt sixty shaping international ties amid turmoil and be at home while exhausted leave his trial finally resume. and russian court decides against banning a translation of a how to question a holy text which was suspected of being extremist.

at eight pm here in moscow welcome you're watching r.t. live with me kevin our first thousands of north koreans missing crying in the streets of pyongyang as they watched the funeral procession carrying the late leader kim jong il's youngest son and successor led to the farewell ceremony which is expected to last for at least another day that holds no end of the air kim jong un but somehow hoping his western education may see a more open country but asia specialist dr tibial think six term live ford's will decide north korea's future but she is the next. as far as we know he was educated above the edge in switzerland long as you know and i have no say but i think it's grossly overestimating is freedom of action. partly because the north korean system but also a lot mainly in respect of the outside world including respect to the americans so it's not north korea and since don't want to open up and see americans and want to

keep it. constrained some what's like they want to contain china rather different differently but it's all part of the same same package so what kim jong un can do is in many respects fairly limited. we will again will have seen but i don't really depend so much on the americans. journalist of war correspondent eric margolis shares his view that there's little chance of things to change in north korea because of the excessive influence of a military. good speculation that is his uncle is and some other members of the family are kind of pulling his strings but i think more of course is the one point one million man north korean army for the father announced kim jong il before he died well over a year ago now it's the new policy of militarized nation of north korea as it

wasn't sufficiently militarized. the whole country is it's really as the quote frederick the great it's an army disguised as a country. and that's what's happened is great and the son military rule which to me says that it's unlikely there will be major western style reforms here because this means cutting spending on the military and 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 any force against change rather than for. blotchy also managed to get some insight into the man who now holds the reins of north korea after we caught up with one of his former swiss school classmates his oppressions of kim jong il and on r.t. dot com right now while you're there tell us what you think is set to happen next in north korea so it's good to hear your thoughts in the italian minister so from the start to go now to pose that question to you more than half of you think nothing's going to change at all in the reclusive state just under

a quarter believe the new leader will hold little sway against the increasingly mighty militaries we're talking about just then only seven percent who do think there's going to be more openness and freedom in north korea and as you say there are same numbers still believing that this increase will increase the likelihood of korean unification so a positive for some percentage of their job voice now by heading to our r.t. dot com home page. a tough period of post revolution uncertainty inside egypt isn't stopping the country from strengthening its international policy the foreign minister has been meeting his counter party room osco where they discuss the arab world turmoil in the frozen israeli palestinian peace talks r.t.c. got piskun offspring following that meeting. first of all this is a great time for egypt to start we gaining some was positions on the international political stage since 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 in of course syria was discussed at the meeting in moscow russian foreign minister said you know i would offer praise the fact that observers were finally allowed into syria at the same time both russia and egypt once again strongly criticized the violence in the country but stood against any foreign military intervention egypt is also removed totally 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 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 combine managed to gather around seventy percent of the vote so this is

a good time for egypt to start regaining its international contacts. and the trial of egypt's ousted president resumed on wednesday after a three month break hosni mubarak's accused of corruption abuse and the killing of demonstrators during the january uprising and may face the death penalty if convicted egyptian journalist of some a dire told us it's an attempt to divert protesters attention from their battle against currently is. well there is definitely a growing sense among especially among protesters that this trial is a mock trial basically designed to cool down the public opinion one of the reasons they are losing popularity is that the islamists like the mainly the muslim brotherhood did leave the square because they're now move busy with the elections and the muslim brotherhood strategy now is to bring change through the parliament rather than through the street. so who really remains in the square now is

our activists with the moves socialist tendency almost socialist agenda who did not do very well in the elections and they see they still perceive the street. the main lobbying. platform. the head of the arab league observers mission in syria those describe the situation in the rest of city of homs as reassuring so far the flashpoint city was the monitors first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti regime unrest their arrival was met by a massive demonstration with tens of thousands demanding international protection reaction now from more thorough and middle east expert eric alley he's in london this rally thanks for taking the time to be with us the arab monitors say the holmes is relatively calm so far they've seen no clashes but there are still reports out there suggesting the people are being killed how credible can these

findings be do you think from them i think there's you know if we look at the broader picture of the situation in syria is no reached crisis point. the regime which is promising reform but delivering nothing carrying on the repression you have oversight forces being backed by turkey. i'm sure nato countries though we don't know. the crew physio who are arming rebels. trying to make it into a total civil war and then you have the opposition which is largely inside the concrete which is not in favor of foreign intervention which ones to have a national patriotic struggle themselves to get rid of so it's a situation which remains confused but which don't carry on like this indefinitely

so what help come the arab league observers bring them in the opposition is claiming that the observers are not being allowed to move around freely what was the point of living i mean if that's the case well and you know we don't know what is going on where they're being led in and where they're not being led but the letting in the you servers was to show the arab league which by the way has been one of the most. had to call them ice ations in the arab world for a long long time doing nothing on palestine doing nothing to prevent the war on iraq and now it's being used as a name geo by the west so i don't take the arab league as such too seriously obviously the syrians left in the monitors to show that they're not going to hide at all thinking they'd find nothing so we shall see what happens of it the main thing to stress here is that we need a negotiated settlement in syria. which but me which permits a new constitution which has multi-party rule and which in trying to democratic

freedoms we do not want a western intervention as in libya we treat each passing day the information coming out of libya shows the disaster that both countries because what are your thoughts about the syrian government's gesture releasing eight hundred prisoners that have been detained over the past nine months during the unrest and started i mean do you think that's a sign that the regime is wanting now to make concessions on proven leaders were just mistreating their people it might be too little too late in my opinion i think what has characterized the baathist regime in syria has been it's true better to its brutality and its arab. in capable of pushing through a reform program be the lie if they were going to bend they drew back that indicates to me that the both his leadership is divided and that bashar assad is

actually not a strong president whether he can now all his people behind him for a negotiated settlement that democratize the country and that opens up the possibility of him being out of power if they don't do that the situation will get worse just focusing on one other aspect of the arab observers visit do you think that the. arab league observers might now have knowledge armed opposition extremists operating in syria in a way that foreign nations have seemed reluctant to do so far well i don't know why they have seemed reluctant to cause most of the major thems rich of seemed reluctant to notice that are the ones that are supplying the weaponry and arming of i mean the truth of the soviets of being very active here and so is turkey so the big question is whether they can force the united states this is the main bar in the world to organize an intervention in syria and here you have ironically enough

pressure from the israelis on the united states saying they don't particularly want change in syria so i think it's a situation which is fraught with difficulties from all sides my concern is the syrian people too many syrian people have died in recent months as a result of the brutality of this regime and that needs to be stopped traffic thank you fearful for the program much appreciated tara kelley author and middle east expert joining us on the line there from london thank you for the turbulence in the arab world was a massive point of concern for the un's most powerful body this year of course more views and thoughts on that and other global changes a little bit later this hour in fact when russia's u.n. ambassador joins us for an in-depth interview vitaly churkin on this program live with me then bit later this hour if you can stay around for that. this is art and still to come the head of the program for you. it was trying to force eventually to

take us to a sort of a became base but i'm in sort of mid sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore. in just a few moments we've got our correspondents personal reflections from grace as r.t. continues to a twenty eleventh's main headline. next overdue or putin says he's open for talks with the opposition which organize the parliamentary protest rallies but he says there's no one to talk to the premier reaffirmed there's a need for a dialogue insisting there's always been a channel between him and his rivals but he says when he takes up the story the russian prime minister meeting with journalists earlier today when responding to their questions about the possible dialogue with the opposition he said that he is actually ready for that except for at this point according to your logic which in their position forces do not have any concrete programs or any leaders and their motivation is not quite clear so it's really hard for them to understand in what

form of the dialogue should take place. we've never been against dialogue with the opposition we're in constant talks with them we're only against one thing and i am personally against it and that's any kind of extremism any there are a lot of different leaders in the opposition but they have to formulate a unified platform single out a position so that we can actually understand what these people want. 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 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 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 honest fair elections. lottie's across the changes in russia's political world of course you can't be too bored following our online coverage of r.t. dot com we got the kinds of movers and shakers there for you as well tonight hollywood blockbuster. ok no ordinary money we're talking about here it's all about the women power and scandal which sent i.m.f. chief into the tabloid gutter and how the cia taps into your tweets we look at why it's through millions of messages a day on the social network. the

people of greece will be very glad to see the back of twenty. three year of cuts some vilification by other european nations for bringing them to the brink of collapse sisera first reported from the very thick of it from the start that she shares her firsthand impressions with us in our continuing series reflecting new year's events the change the world. i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift on its way we saw people's protests nathan sort of spread around the world and greece is certainly for me very much on the front line of that fight and it became really the sort of the child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis to became a social crisis and yet this does this 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. it was just the corner a very very close to central square as the year i think crisis rumbles long grief 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 to . coming back and getting a phone call to say that we needed to do another one and that exact moment we keep it the noises that we just you hear like popping sounds it's a take us going off on the other corner. almost immediately you just get a huge surge of people coming policy 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 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 on the center. just the side of one of the streets as all the riot police started pushing back late at the anarchists and these guys just one backing down you know the people sort of running at them and throwing rocks and metal and it is just it was absolutely i was five is going off

in different parts in time and everyone was just sort of running around thinking very very lowest and we were just stunned to be honest i mean it just goes from one hundred in the space of sort of twenty minutes and you know we found ourselves right in the century and i remember just saying try me just keep filming this just keep filming it and i made it very hard to even take that if it was even a difficult to find out about the body but it. was the. people. who were trying to reports and eventually to take us to a 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 guys and just thinking oh that's just. thing coughing and spluttering in. i remember being quite in virus the bout. 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 reported in this is a problem that greece is having is a great problem and we're all sort of witnessing what was going on there and i think when we were increased we realized very very quickly that it wasn't just a greek problem this is something that was going to fade 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 may lose everything that we know in this country you don't know what. you karmic 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 it is getting. the people increase 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 were there and you're talking to. the lucky in that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone back they just say welcoming. so we will continue to bring you more personal reflections what team of international correspondents worldwide talking about the headlines the big news

here it was twenty eleven if you've missed any as well it's all available online on our website or to dot com. all prices have surged after iran's threaten to block shipments through one of the world's busiest waterways if new western sanctions cripple its own exports of the country's navy commander says the cut off will be easy to inflict iran is currently conducting a huge war game near the crucial hormuz strait with some cutting edge torpedoes an unmanned aircraft taking part the drill spans an unprecedentedly large area of international waters the u.s. sees also maintaining a naval presence in the persian gulf to may lead to ensure the passage remains free we support the political analyst chris bambery believes the west is putting world peace on the line right now with its stubbornness on sanctions that americans could probably force using their military which in the gulf could probably force open the straits of hormuz but that would mean war with iran and that 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 weakness we know that 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 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 importance our message about a rally to support iran's given britain and america's history in iran there's a long history of unfortunate british and american intervention in iraq so i think we're witnessing quite a dangerous escalation and it's the sanctions which the west the talk are important iran which is responsible for that situation developing i think we should be clear about that is the west who have racked up this situation every step. the russian

courts decided against banning a translation of the howling krishna's most holy text a group connected to the christian orthodox church had claimed it was extremist parties nataly not a covers been following the story. blowhole started because of one of the translations of quads as it is into russian which thought to have been sparking a reshuffle and religious hatred now the case was filed after prosecutors thought that the behavior of the hurry krishna movements in the top screeching in sabeer was suspicious and of course with those people the book is sacred but he take a look back at the relationship between russia and the hari krishna movement it was never an easy one but in the ninety's there when russia was going through one of its most difficult and gloom periods over history so far the movement was simply seen as a religious cult if you can imagine the grim images of russia in the ninety's and all those people just in bright and colorful clothes or listening to rock musing

spreading towards russians stuart's was suspicious literature and is it convincing young people to join in and stay with them many saw them as drug addicts many earth believe that they were posing a threat to the society and so there was definitely a lack of understanding of the movement in the first place as this case was a lack of understanding of chance lieschen of the book intervention as the court has proved today in all this time russian ministry of foreign affairs has been saying that this trial has nothing to do with their original book that is obviously sacred to hindu people but rather whether this particular translation over it into russian was extremist or not. was promised in about ten minutes time i hope to be talking live to the man who will give us first how the dallas's of the ongoing turmoil in the arab world will be talking with russia's ambassador to the united nations little bit later this hour just come in to our new york studio with him shortly now so let's get across all the latest business with katie.

my. hello and welcome to the business program the russian ruble is once again a falling victim to global economic uncertainty is also one and a half percent against the dollar in the last twenty four hours and it's down thirteen percent since may however the presidential i will quote it doesn't believe the situation is cause for concern. we keep on widening the exchange rate corridor as there is significant she's showing on the currency market but we don't think the ruble exchange rate will overrun the rational border said by the central bank the biggest impact at the moment is made by capital outflow which is due to many factors starting from situation in europe to a well known problems with corruption. 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 countries of ukraine about

a rose is found to have a capacity of sixty billion cubic meters a year and will cost around twenty billion dollars to build gas from as fifty percent of the project while twenty percent belongs to israel is in may the rest is evenly distributed between france's e.d.f. and germany's winters all. so let's see what's happening on the markets today all prices are declining for the first time in seven days but they're still high on investors' fears of a possible sanctions against iran that may cause supply disruptions announced the equity markets u.s. stocks are falling falling on the news from europe and reaction to the news that the european central bank's balance sheets expanded to rankle off to lending more money and in europe the dax is also reacting to that news from the e.c. big it's now retreating snapping three days of gains meanwhile the footsie is trading flat as a positive of returning from that christmas break as in russia the markets closed

in the red yalit yes possible while the mice i've ended point two percent in the red. and that's also me and i'll be back in about fifty five minutes for more business up days good bye now. whether you dive from high or to the depths.

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