eleven pm now here in moscow welcome watching r t live with me kevin are weird 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 the lead the farewell ceremony which is expected to last for at least another day little's no end of the air came 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 kim. it's far as we know it was educated in switzerland not see that it had an effect but i think it'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 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 soon i don't really depends very much on the americans journalist a war correspondent margolis shares the view that there's little chance of change in north korea he thinks because of the excessive influence of the military. speculation that is than some of the members of the family are kind of pulling his strings but i think more than one point one billion and north korean or. for other announced kim jong il for you guys well if you're go now the new policy

of militarized korea as it was in seclusion militarized. a whole country it's really as the quote frederick the great it's an army disguised as a country. and that's what's happening to this great military rule which to me says that it's unlikely there will be major western style forms 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 for parties 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 il on our t. dot com right now one of those well because what you think is going to have the north korean x. this is what been talking. to our web poll for the hour for you think nothing's going to change at all the crucial state fifty years you see there believe new

leader will hold little sway against an increasingly mighty military money nine percent think it's going to be more open and free here in north korea after this and slightly fewer believe the change at the top will increase the chance of creative reunification on a positive note voice now calm. 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 turmoil and the frozen israeli palestinian peace talks but he got a 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 you know of an awful 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 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 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 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 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 the square because they're now move busy with the elections and the muslim brotherhood strategy now is to bring change through the parliament for other than through the street at least squares quieter now so who really remains in the square now is activists with. a tendency.

who did not do very well in the elections and they see they still perceive the street. the main lobbying. platform. of the arab league observers mission in syria has described the situation in the restive city of homes as reassuring so far just a warning you may find some of these images coming up at the stove and they are 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 tariq ali who says the observers findings are unlikely to improve the situation. obviously the syrians let in the monitors to show that they're not. thinking they'd find nothing but believe 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 here by the west so the arab league to 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 vitaly churkin believes the country has no chance of carrying out promised reforms during a civil war that's packed with extremist. 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 already is but also telling that everybody must put pressure on. the destructive elements of the of

the opposition or various destructive elements which may have found their way into syria that they are violent acts are not going to be condoned by the international community this is this is 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 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 reforms of such magnitude are not easy to implement but all that in a situation where. 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.

ambassador is now on our website if you'd like to see it i spoke to him at length of your own about half an hour a christian about the major international stories of twenty eleven and how they'll develop and thinks in twenty twelve tele check ins 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 patience ran out in greece. trying to pull its eventually to take after a survey they came they threatened to read. just thinking oh my god i just can't breathe. surely our correspondent personal reflections from grace's r.t. continues looking back at the events that shaped twenty eleven. putin says he's open for talks with the opposition which organize the parliamentary protest rallies but he says there's no 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 his when it 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's 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 because 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 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 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 very much the changes in russia's political world you can be in step with us why go to our web site r.t. dot com while you're there we've got news too of other kinds of movers and shakers . a story about hollywood blockbuster about an important accountant would read on we're not talking about any ordinary money man we're talking about women we're talking power we're talking scandal all the sort of stuff that said the former i.m.f. chief into the tabloid gutter it's all about 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 cuts riots and 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 she know shares of first hand impressions in our continuing series reflecting the years events the 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 protest movement 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 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 the reporting and they had a protest planned there remember in the morning our hotel was just off the corner syntagma very very close to central square as the usa 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 then 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 we just like popping sounds it's a take us going off on the other corner sometimes. almost immediately you just get a huge surge of people coming posture i mean you keep telling me. this is a really intense experience and you sort of when you're right in the center of it i can't tell you what it's like to be around people. that angry that angry that they feel to a point where they're having to turn outs and these sort of clashes abrupt i mean it's really scary because it's not just. a small hall cool. these people you know old people young people completely normal families that are turning up that have just reached the point where they don't know what to do anymore. we literally found ourselves in the center. just. one of the

streets as all the riot police started pushing back late at the anarchists these guys just when 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 going from one hundred in the space of sort of twenty minutes and we found ourselves right in the century and i remember just saying just keep filming this just keep filming it really made it very hard. even to think that if it was easy this is a difficult time that you got a bad. beat . as we.

keep. trying to reports and eventually to take us to a sort of a became both of us time 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 spluttering in. do you remember being high in virus the bout. then we realized that it obviously that clip caught a lot of people's attention and. 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 angry we realized very very quickly that it wasn't just a greek problem this is something that was going to affect everyone. right from the very beginning we wanted to. get that 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 in greece getting their opinion across because i think a lot of their voices really have got lost in the whole political economic talk kind of forget what it's all about which is about you know the people who are there

and you 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 post or flexion small team of correspondents worldwide as i reported on the headlines of the year that we are just leaving if you missed any of the other cats more again they're about to. oil prices have surged. 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. 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 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 was 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 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 ammunition about the roué 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 court has decided against banning a translation of the head of christians most holy text a group connected to the christian orthodox church had claimed it was extremist parties in the telling of a cover reports. bowl 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 harry krishna movements in the talks region in sabeer was suspicious and of course with those people the book is sacred but he can 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 dressed in bright and colorful clothes or listening to rock musing spreading to what russians thoughts 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 valk intervention as the court has proved today in all this time russian ministry of foreign affairs has been a saying that this trial has nothing to do with their original book that is obviously sacred to hinder 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 peter viles let's cross talk program assesses the imprint that

mikhail gorbachev left in history in the year that the one and only president of the u.s.s.r. 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 presidential. 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 which is. turkey has given the green light to

south strain to cross as 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 cost around twenty billion dollars to build. fifty percent of the project while twenty percent longs to in a way 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 walls of the markets today all prices are to kind for the first time in seven days but that's still high on the spears of 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 hold high after lead in. the european markets are now open with both of the sort of an up close call with both

the dax on the footsie that finishing off the day session in the red the dax was most affected by the e.c.b. knew nothing we days of gains. on the first he also reacted to the news as investors worry for the stability of the usa wants. and russia the markets closed in the red the all to us 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 last 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 make. 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. 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 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 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. that's it from the rest of the business news tape well we've got some more with more business news in the meantime you can check out the website it's all t dot com slash business goodbye for now. among the least expensive koreans. and touched by money.

surrounded by stupid law. case paintings on display for thousands of years. the eastern sun beyond the time go. on see.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are ruled the day. top stories for marty day one of the late north korean leader's funeral ends but hopes of change on his successor of the shuttered but concerns that foreign nations well actually want to keep the status quo. post mubarak egypt seeks to shape its international ties now amid turmoil and home while its ousted leader's trial finally resume. and russian court decides against banning a translation of a how to krishna holy text which.