given the green light to start change across this part of the black body thousand the business bulletin in twenty minutes time. nine pm here in moscow welcome if you just joined us this is our live with me kevin zero eight and first thousands of north koreans were seen crying in the streets of pyongyang today as they watched a funeral procession carrying their late leader kim jong il's youngest son and successor led the farewell ceremony which is expected to last for at least another day it all is now over and of the air kim jong un but some are hoping its western education may seem more open country now but asia specialist dr tim beale thinks external influence will decide north korea's future as much as the next. time as we know he was educated above the education switzerland monsoon that can

have an effect but i think it's grossly overestimating his freedom of action in part because the north korean system but also mainly in respect of the outside world including respect to the americans so it is 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 like the same package so what kim jong un can do is in many respects fairly limited. we will again we'll have see but i don't really depend so much on the americans journalist war correspondent at margolis is the view that there is little chance of change in north korea because of the excessive inference 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 important 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 says the new policy of militarized north korea as it was insufficiently 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 a force against change rather than for. artie's managed to get some insight into the man who know all the reins in north korea after we caught up with one of his

former swiss school classmates his impressions of kim jong il are on our t. dot com right now while you're there tell us what you think is going to happen next in north korea this is what you're telling us we got a question online posing that to you well this is what you're telling us sixty three percent is more than half of you think nothing is going to change at all in the reclusive state agreeing with our guest we just heard of just under a quarter of you believe the new leader will hold little sway against an increase in military might at nine percent it was seven last hour i think there's going to be more openness and freedom in north korea and again small change on this one a last hour now eight think that this will increase the likelihood of korean reunification a positive note there from me a 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 counterpart in moscow where they've discussed

the arab world turmoil in the frozen israeli palestinian peace talks and he's a go piskun off 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 off phrase 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 parliamentary 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 vote so this is a good time for egypt to start regaining its international contacts. the trial of egypt's ousted president resumed on wednesday after a three month break barak's accused of corruption abuse and the killing of demonstrators during the january uprising and may face the death penalty if convicted gyptian journalist osama diet told us it's an attempt to divert protests as attention though from the battle against current leaders. 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 there is. mainly the muslim brotherhood did leave did leave to 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. quieter now so who really remains in the square now is activists with. a 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 has described the situation in the restive city of homs as reassuring so far the flashpoint city was the monitors first stop indeed 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 the london based middle east expert tariq ali isn't confident he told me the arab league has not been doing its job properly for a long time you see the syrians let in the monitors to show that they're not. thinking they'd find nothing but really has been one of the most. in the arab world for a long long trying doing nothing. doing nothing to prevent the war on iraq and now it's being used as a name field by the west so the arab league to seriously so we shall see what happens of it. we'll be hearing out it's never going to be easy for a country on the brink of civil war by terrorists and extremist groups on the ground to implement major reforms and that's what russia's ambassador to the un vitaly churkin told me in an exclusive interview on this channel we believe that

the syrian government should be extremely prudent and should refrain from excessive use of force we believe that there has been there are been some extremely troubling reports coming out of syria about excessive use of force by those or it is but also telling that the everybody must put pressure on on the destructive elements of of the opposition or various destructive elements which may have found their way into syria that they are a while and acts are not going to be condoned by the international community this is a this is a key to. finding a peaceful way out of the situation there are some reforms were announced. some of them we are pretty far reaching like changing the constitution and getting rid of the political monopoly of one party but of course of to expect that those reforms can be implemented in a situation when the the crisis is sort of teetering on the brink of civil war even

under normal circumstances in any country forms of such magnitude are not easy to implement but all that in a situation when there is an armed conflict being encouraged from various quarters one would see weapons being moved. illegally into syria all that of course becomes a theoretical conversation coming up here on r t from moscow for you. it was trying to force eventually to take us to a sort of a became base but i meant sort of mid-sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore. just a few moments will bring your correspondent personal reflections from greece as we look back more of twenty eleven has made headlines. but in a potent says he's open for talks with the opposition which organize the parliamentary protest rallies but he says there's no way to talk to the premier

reaffirm that there's a need for a dialogue insisting there's always been a channel available between him and his rivals are here when it takes up the story . 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 and 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 said that the best president he would give to the russian people for new years 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 lot near 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 unfair elections he's across the changes in russia's political world of course you can be too by keeping up to date with it online at r.t. dot com we have other kinds of movers and shakers there as well tonight a story about a hollywood blockbuster about an important accountant that exciting until you realize it's no ordinary money man it's about women it's about power scandal all of that sent the former i.m.f. chief into the tabloids in the year just gone more online. and now the cia taps

into your tweets we look at why plowed through billions of messages each and every day on the social network. the people of greece will be very glad to see the back of twenty eleven a year of cuts riots and vilification by other european nations to bring them to the brink of collapse. of first reported from the very thick of it from the start for us she now shares her firsthand impressions in our continuing series reflecting the years events to change the world. ok 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 is certainly for me very much on the front line of that fight and it became really the sort of place to child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis to became a social crisis and you know this there's 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 euro is in 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 each other and 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. 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 go to a point where they're having to turn out 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. the center sometimes 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's 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 going from north to 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 just keep filming it in the main street right now it's very hard. even to prepare him it may not be that easy difficult to find out about it but it. was.

as we. the people. who were trying to report 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 and getting caught in the middle of the to you guys and just thinking oh that's just. thing coughing and and spluttering. 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 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 become 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 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 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. my colleagues sort of we continue to bring you more personal reflections from our team of correspondents worldwide as they reported on the headlines of the year that we are just leaving and if you missed any of the series it's all available for watch as well on our website on. oil prices have surged after a round threaten to block shipments through one of the world's busiest waterways if new western sanctions cripple its own exports and the country's navy commander says the cutoff will be easy to inflict iran is currently conducting a huge war gave me the crucial hormuz strait and some cutting edge torpedoes an unmanned aircraft taking part of. a large area of international waters indeed some

presidents of the big the us soul so maintains a naval presence in the persian gulf mainly to ensure their passage remains free political and this chris bambery believes the west is putting world peace on the line right now with its stubbornness about sanctions. that americans could probably force using the military 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 rao it's a support iran 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 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. the russian courts decided against banning a translation of the how to christian is most holy text a group connected to the christian orthodox church had claimed it was extremist ultimately not a cover report poll started because of one of the translations of quote god 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 tourist region 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 boom periods over history so far the movement was simply seen as a religious cult 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 to what russians stuart's was suspicious literature as a convincing young people to join in and stay with them many saw them as drug addicts many 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 even through russian as the court has proved today in all this time russia ministry of foreign affairs has been a saying that this trial has nothing to do with their original book that is obviously sacred to you and hindu people but rather whether this particular

translation over into russian was extremist or not. the telling of a cover reporting for us are coming up very soon working to death we've got a story reporting on those risking their lives just to feed their families coming up after the a business with katie next. hello and welcome to the business program the russian ruble is once again forming victim to the global economic uncertain say it's lost one and a half percent against the dollar in the last twenty four hours and it's down thirteen percent as may however presidential. volkova does not believe the situation is cause for alarm. because we keep on widening the exchange rate corridor as there is significant she song 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 which is. turkey has given the green light to south stream to cross its part of the black sea the pipeline is intended to carry gas from southern russia to europe bypassing the transit countries of ukraine and belarus is found to have a capacity of sixty betting cubic metres a year will cost around twenty billion dollars to build gas problems fifty percent of the project while twenty percent belongs to italy is in a way the rest is evolute distributive between france's e.d.f. and german is a window all. so let's see what's happening in the markets all prices are the kind for the first time in seven days but they're still high on investors bit of possible sanctions against iran that may cause supply disruptions and let's see how the markets are getting on the u.s. stocks are falling following on from the news from europe in reaction to the news that the european central bank's balance sheet expanded away called after lending

more money. and in europe the dax is also reacting to that news from the e.c.b. is now we're treating snapping three days of gains meanwhile the footsie is also suffering from the news as they trade on their first day off of that christmas break i want to. the russian market is closed today in the red the all to ourselves of the so while the my says and of point two percent in the red. let's see how the individual moves got on on the my sax and it does and it makes all company lukoil going over percent. gas probably lost three quarters of those that i'm finding stocks were among the main retreat as of the day with a bag down point nine percent. a new era is beginning for the russian economy the country first applied for membership of the world trade organization back in one thousand nine hundred ninety three finally that long ago a station is over and also has been formally invited to join dmitri medvedev lots

of 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 very 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 the total effect will. amount to an extra four point three percent of the gross domestic product as pending will grow seven percent but yes 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 most of the business is for now i'll be back about fifty five minutes me in the meantime there's plenty of business news on our website r.t. dot com slash business. 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 some face cream that's going to be have a. in the white see a full and below the ice on our t.v. .

change. pm here in moscow these are the top stories from our team day one of the late north korean leader's funeral ends but hopes a change in his successor overshadowed by concerns that foreign nations might actually want to keep the status quo. post mubarak egypt seeks to shape its international ties amid turmoil and uncertainty at home while its ousted leader trial finally resumes. also a russian court decides against banning a trance.