tonight crowds of north koreans gather at the start of the late leader's funeral but hopes of change under his successor are overshadowed by concerns of foreign nations what actually want to keep the status quo. post mubarak of egypt sixty shape its international ties amid turmoil and at home while exhausted leaders trial finally received. a russian court decides against banning a translation about a christian holy text which was suspected of being extremist.

eleven pm now here in moscow welcome watching r t live with me kevin i wait and first thousands of north koreans were seen crying in the streets of pyongyang earlier today as they watched the funeral procession carrying their late leader kim jong il's youngest son and successor to lead the farewell ceremony which is expected to last for at least another day little is known of the egg but some were hoping as western education may see a more open country forthcoming but asia specialist dr tim beale thanks external influence that will decide north korea's future as much as the next camp. as far as we know he was educated in switzerland and i have no say but i think it's grossly overestimating is freedom of action. in the north korean system but also will mean you know respect to the outside world including respect to the americans so it is not north korea and since don't want to go not that soon no. because we

want to keep it. constrained some what's life they want to contain china rather different you differently but it's all part of the same the same package so what kindo 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 journalists of all correspond eric margolis shares the view that there's little chance of change in north korea he thinks because of the excessive influence of the military but it's good speculation that is his uncle is and 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 in seclusion 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 for. artie's 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 impression of kim jong un r t calm right now what it is as well because what you think is going to have the north korean x. this is what returning. to our web poll all of our for you think nothing's going to change all that inclusive state fifty years you see there believe new leader will hold little sway against an increasingly mighty military only nine percent think

it's going to be more open and free here in north korea after this unsightly feel and believe the change at the top will increase the chance of career reunification on a positive note a job voice now 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 here in moscow where they discussed the arab world more on the frozen israeli palestinian peace talks but he got a peace can offset 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 and 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 and she 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 rake 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 diet says it's an attempt to divert protested attention from the battle against the 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 there is. mainly the muslim brotherhood did leave did leave the square because they're now moved busy with the elections and the muslim brotherhood strategy now is to bring change through the parliament rather than through the street at least squares quieter now so who really remains in the square now is activists with the. tendency more socialist agenda who did not do very well in the elections and they see they still

perceive the street as the main lobbying. platform. of the arab league observers mission in syria has described the situation in the rest of city of holmes is reassuring so far just a warning you may find some of these images coming up that disturbing the graphic the flash point city of homs was the monitors first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti regime request and unrest opposition reports meanwhile suggest that at least six people were killed in one syrian town by security forces on wednesday which holds a london based middle east expert terry callier says the observers findings are unlikely to improve the situation. obviously the syrians let in the monitors to show that they're not going to hide. thinking they'd find nothing but the arab league has been one of the most amazing in the arab world for a long long trying doing nothing. during nothing to prevent the war on iraq and now

it's being used as a name here by the west so i don't take the arab league as such too seriously so we shall see what happens of it. earlier we spoke exclusively to russia's u.n. ambassador who said that the assad regime should stop using force against his own its own people but the toilet checking believes the country is no chance of carrying out promised reforms during a civil war that's packed with extremists 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 who are it is but also telling that the everybody must put pressure on on the destructive elements of the 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 real reforms can be implemented in a situation when the the crisis is sort of tittering on the brink of civil war even though 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. a full exclusive interview with russia's u.n. ambassadors now on our website if you'd like to see it i spoke at length of your

own for about half an hour a question about the major international stories of twenty eleven and how they'll develop and thinks in twenty twelve metallic thoughts on the arab spring iran's nuclear program the middle east turmoil and more on our website outing dot com here in a few minutes the year the money and the patient run out in greece. to try to apportion eventually to take us to sort of a became place but i'm instead of me. just thinking oh my god if i just called brain any more. surely our correspondent personal reflections from greece's r.t. continues looking back at the events that shaped twenty eleven. political 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 dialogue insisting was always been the channel open between him and his rivals not is really good reports 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 logic within 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 order 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 plan for a single out position so that we can actually understand who 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 at the best president he would give to the russian people for new years would be fair and free presidential elections in

twenty years well 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 parliamentary elections is russia's state duma tens of thousands of people came out on the streets protesting what they believed were unfair elections. parties across much the changes in russia's political world you can be in step with us why go to our website. while you're there we've got to have other kinds of movers and shakers . a story about hollywood blockbuster about an important accountant but. we're not talking about any ordinary money man we're talking about women we're talking power we're talking scandal all this sort of stuff the former i.m.f. chief of the tabloid gutter. and how the cia taps into your tweets we look at why it's snoopers plowed through millions of messages a day on the social networks. twenty

eleven it'll be a year the people of greece will be glad to see the back of a year of cut vilification by other european nations for bringing them to the brink of collapse. of first reported from the very thick of it from the start she no shows of first hand impressions now continuing series reflecting the years events the change the world. you know i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift on its way we saw people's protest movement sort of spread around the world and greece essentially for me very much on the front line. and it became really the

sort of the child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis to became a social crisis and if this does is saying that if you're a hammer everything looks like a nail if you push people into a corner then they're going to come out fighting and i think increased that was exactly what happened. the first time in. reporting and they had a protest planned and i remember in the morning. it was just. very very close to central square at the year anything quite as rubble zone 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 to. getting a phone call to say that we need to do another one and 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. 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. just. one of the streets as all the riot police. people sort of

running at them and throwing rocks and metal and. it was absolutely. going off in different parts in time everyone was just sort of running around 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 we found ourselves right and i remember just saying just keep filming this is keep filming it and i made it very hard to even to pretend that it may not be that easy to slip out of china. and. as the. people.

they're. trying to reports and eventually to take a sort of a became sort of mid sentence just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe anymore . and i remember seeing the fit in the car and getting caught in the middle of the take us and just thinking oh. 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. 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 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 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 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 talking to. him that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone

back there just a welcoming. party sort of join the search will continue bringing more to personal flexions more team of correspondents worldwide as i reported on the headlines of the year that we are just leaving if you missed any you'd like to catch some more again there about. oil prices have surged after a shipment through one of the world's busiest waterways if the western sanctions cripple its own exports the country's navy commander says the cut off will be easy to inflict rather. really conducting a huge war gave me the crucial hormuz strait with some cutting edge torpedoes an unmanned aircraft taking part that drill spans the largest area of international waters the country's ever used for such maneuvers the u.s. also maintains a naval presence in the persian gulf and says it won't allow passage to be blocked political analyst chris bambery told us he believes the west is putting world peace on the line right now with his stubbornness about sanctions. that americans could

probably force use in a military way which in the gulf could probably force open the straits of hormuz but that would mean war with the rand and that would be a huge huge escalation and was threaten world peace and therefore i think the iranians are really challenging the americans sensing the american weakness we know that both from british sources that there are quietens 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 the 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 of the

importance of 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 . a russian court has decided against banning a translation of the head of krishna's most holy text a group connected to the christian orthodox church had claimed it was extremist parties nataly never cover reports. 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 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 to what russians thought it was suspicious literature and this is 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 even through russian 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 even do people but rather whether this particular translation over into russian was extremist or not. but all you know recover at about ten minutes time tonight people of all slates cross-talk program assesses the imprint that mikhail gorbachev left in history in the year that the one and only president

of the us has turned eighty years of age who got that coming up after a quick look at the business right now with katie. hello and welcome to business the russian ruble is once again falling victim to the global economic 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 president. doesn't believe the situation is cause for alarm. 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. turkey has given the green light to south strain 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 its plan to have a capacity of sixty billing cubic metres a year will cost around twenty billion dollars to build. fifty percent of the project while twenty percent longs to italy as it may the rest is evenly distributed between france's e.d.f. and germany is we just. so let's see what's happening in the wallet of the markets today all prices are to kind for the first time in seven days but that's still high on investor spears a possible sanctions against iran that may cause supply disruption and now let's see what's happening with yet it is u.s. stocks falling falling onto the news from europe in reaction to the news of the european central bank balance sheet expanded told blackpool's high after lead in. the european markets are now open with both of the sort of an up close up with both the dax on the footsie that finishing off the day session in the red but that was

most affected by the e.c.b. looking at three days of gains. on the phones he also reacted to the news as investors worry for the stability of the usa want to. name russia the markets closed in new read the altar yes last a percent of all the my sales ended point two percent in the red and let's see how those individual. energy majors ended mixed company lukoil gained over who said paul gas mostly gas from three quarters of the banking stocks were among the main retreat as of the day was spent by down point nine percent. a new era is beginning for the russian economy the country first applied for membership of the wall trade organization back in one thousand nine hundred three finally that long negotiation is over russia has been formally invited to join to. the 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 w t o 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 that's 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 import duties 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. well that's

it from a and the rest of the business news tape well is that some more with more business news in the meantime you can check out the website at balti dot com slash business. the list explore real. touched by. surrounded by steep drop. case

paintings on display for. eastern something beyond. the. news today volunteers once again fled.