i am here in moscow welcome you watching r.t. live with me kevin now and first thousands of north koreans missing crying in the streets of pyongyang as they watched the funeral procession carrying their lately there kim jong il's youngest son of success and less of a farewell ceremony which is expected to last for at least another day because no one of the heir kim jong un but silva hoping his western education may see a more open country but asia specialist dr to be real thing six term liberals will decide north korea's future as much as the next. as far as we know he was educated above the edge and switzerland dogs do that and have an effect but i think that's grossly overestimating is freedom of action. part of the north korean system but also mainly in respect of the outside world an immune respect to the americans

so it is not north korea and since don't want to open up and see americans and want to. constrain some what's like they want to contain china rather different differently but it's all part of the same like the same package so what kim jong un can do is in many respects fairly limited. we will again will have sued i don't really depend so much on the americans journalist a war correspondent eric margolis shares his view that there is little chance of things to change in north korea because of the excessive influence of the military . there's good speculation that is his uncle is handsome 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 north korea as if 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 to this 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. lotty 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 it's always good to hear your thoughts in the italian so far the

softer tone of the 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 an increasingly mighty military we're talking about just then only seven percent of you think there's going to be more openness and freedom in north korea and if you can stay there the same number still believing that this thing crease will increase the likelihood of korean unification so a positive four percent of their job voice now by heading to r.t. dot com. 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 agreed 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 and of course syria was discussed at the meeting in moscow russian foreign minister said a deal of it off freeze 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 poured into 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 and shia lection 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 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 gyptian journalist of some a dire told us it's an attempt to divert protesters attention from their battle against current leaders. well there is definitely a 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 there is. mainly the muslim brotherhood did leave the square because they 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 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 this 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 a you know if we look at the broader picture of the situation in syria is reached crisis point you know the regime which is promising reform but delivering nothing carrying on the repression you have cite forces being backed by turkey. i'm sure nato countries though we don't know. the proof as yet 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 a national patriotic struggle themselves to get rid of so it's

a situation which remains confused but which can carry on like this indefinite so what help can the arab league observers bring i mean the opposition is claiming that the observers are not being allowed to move around freely what was the point in 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. the most fair to call them associations 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 an engineer by the west so i don't take the arab league too seriously obviously the syrians left in them on it as to show that they're not going to hide it 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 mitt 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 train each passing day the information coming out of libya shows the disaster that both countries for 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 all that prove that leaders were just mistreating their people it might be too little too late in my opinion i think what has characterized the book his regime in syria has been it's true better to its brutality and its arab. in capable of pushing through a reform program the lie that they were going to bend the group back that indicates

to me that the both his leadership is divided and that by sheer assent there's actually not a strong president whether he can now all his people behind him for a negotiated settlement to 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 folks in one other aspect of the arab observers visit do you think. the arab league observers might now 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 nations which of seemed reluctant to notice the ones all supplying the weaponry and arming people i mean the truth of the so these have been very active here and so there's 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 on 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. thank you fearful for the program much appreciate it tara kelley author and middle east expert joining us on the line there from london thank you. with the turbulence of 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 a bit later this hour 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 sort of a became base but i meant sort of mid-sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore. in just a few moments we've got our correspondent 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 it 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 opposition 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 because 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 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 square in the aftermath of the problem entering elections it's russia's state duma tens of thousands of people came out on the streets protesting what they believe were honest fair elections. 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've got other kinds of movers and shakers there for you as well tonight hollywood blockbuster about. 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 . through millions of messages a day on the social network. the

people of greece will be very glad to see the back of twenty eleven no doubt brought to me a year of cuts riots and vilification by other european nations for bringing them to the brink of collapse to sarah first reported from the very thick of it from the start she shares her firsthand impressions with us in our continuing series reflecting the year's events the change the world. you know i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift on its axis slightly 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. it became really that 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 court a very very close to central square at the year i think crisis rumbles on grief is once again found itself the focus of international attention and it seems like everyone had an opinion about it that you went on there and going off and finishing to. 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 would just 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 angry that they feel to a point where they're having to turn out and these sort of clashes abroad 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 census in. just side of one of the streets as all the riot police started pushing back late at the end of. 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 everyone was just sort of running around thinking very very lowest and we were just stunned to be honest i mean it just gone from one hundred in the space of sort of twenty minutes and we found ourselves right in the sense of and i remember just saying just keep filming this just keep filming it in the main street right now it's very hard to tell even to prepare him it may not be that difficult to find out. about it. but. we. must leave. the people. who are 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 footage of me in the car my getting caught in the middle of the to you guys and just thinking oh it's just. this thing coughing and spluttering in. do you 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 is a problem that greece is having as a greek problem and we're 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 become 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 you kind of forget what it's all about which is about you know the people who are there and you're talking to. him that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone back there just a 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 as all available online a website or two dot com. well prices have surged after a rand threatened 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 in 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 a 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 the military which in the gulf could probably force or put in 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 opponents armitage about raw it 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've racked up this situation every step. russian courts decided against banning a translation of the how the christian is most holy text a group connected to the christian orthodox church that claimed it was extremist parties nataly not a covers been following the story. blowhole started because of one of the translations of course that gets out 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 if you 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 goon 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 as a 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 jews lieschen of the book intervention as the court has proved today in all this time russian ministry of foreign affairs has a saying that this trial has nothing to do with their original book that is obviously sacred to you hindu people but rather whether this particular translation over 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 a 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. hello and welcome to the business program the russian ruble is once again falling victim to global economic uncertainty is one and a half percent against the dollar in the last twenty four hours and it's down thirteen percent since may however the president. 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 a way 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 there to markets u.s. stocks are falling falling on the news from europe and we are going to use the european central bank's balance sheet expanded to rattle 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 to positive of returning from that christmas break as in russia the markets closed in the red yard yes possible so while the my side ended point two percent in the red. and that's all from me for now be back in about fifty five minutes for more business updates goodbye.

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 only nice them a screen that's going to be heaven. in the flight see up close and below the ice on our t.v. . practically and goes down. squandered money. abandon mine. what is no. more new sixty square kilometers of environmental devastation and those who are still surprisingly alive and finding are just their lives getting bad out here.

but not saying hardly any birds squirrels you know. you know our know what's going on here. on screen on our t.v. . this article when you live from moscow it's eight thirty pm moscow time my name is kevin owen and these are our top stories day one of the late north korean leaders funeral but hopes of change his successor overshadowed by concerns of foreign nations might actually want to keep the status quo. a russian court decides against banning a translation of krishna holy text which was suspected of being extremist. and post mubarak.