crowds of north koreans gathered to get a final goodbye to their late ruler during a two day funeral in. egypt's new leaders try to build ties with russia while back home the alst mubarak's trial resumes after a three month break. syria releases seven hundred fifty five people detained during the uprising against president assad while the head of the arab league mission find nothing frightening in the rest of the city of homes. and russian prime minister putin says he's up for talks with the opposition but there's no one to deal with urging his rivals to get borgen eyes and hold a constructive dialogue with the government.

thank you so much for joining with us tonight on karen tara two o'clock here in moscow thousands of north koreans have been shown weeping in the streets of as they watched the funeral procession carrying their late leader the memorial ceremony was led by kim jong il's youngest son and successor little is known about kim jong un but there is some hope that there will be a more open korea under his rule is a specialist dr tim beal things foreign nations have an interest in keeping things as they are. as far as we know. but listen goats. to me is freedom of action. but also. in the state to be outside welding the respect to the americans so.

it is not north korea and since don't want to not see americans we want to keep it . contained. somewhat like they want to contain china rather different differently but it's all part of the same plot 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 war correspondent eric margolis says there's little chance of change in north korea due to the excessive influence of military. good speculation that is his uncle is and some other members of the family are kind of pulling his strings but i think more important is the one point one million man north korean army for four other announced can draw forty guys well over a year ago now says the new policy of militarized north korea as it was

insufficient and militarized. the whole country is it's really as the quote frederick the great it's an army disguised as a country. and that's what's happened is great and the son military rule which to me says that it's unlikely there will be major western style reforms you because this means cutting spending on the military or the 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 as we caught up with one of his former classmates his impressions of kim jong un our on our team dot com right now and while you're there don't forget to share your opinion on which direction you think north korea will head next. here's what you are telling us most think nothing will change at all in the reclusive state a fifth believe the new leader will hold little sway against an increasingly mighty

military only eight percent think that there's maybe a transition to a more open north korea and slightly fewer believe that there is a chance of korean marines cation add your voice now by heading to r t dot com the home page. cairo is seeking to regain its place in the world after toppling of president mubarak's rule regime egypt's foreign minister has been meeting his russian counterpart in moscow where they discuss the trouble in the wider middle east you're going to scoot over ports. first of all this is a great time for egypt to start we gaining some was positions on the international political stage since syria is in the spotlight the arab league has been able to send observers into the country the organization's headquarters are in cairo so egypt is directly involved in of course syria was discussed at the meeting a moscow russian foreign minister said a deal of it all praised the fact that observers were finally allowed into syria at

the same time both russia and egypt once again show me criticize 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 midst of 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 meanwhile the trial of egypt's president resumed on wednesday after three months

break egypt journalist ahmed says hosni mubarak's hearing as an attempt by the ruling elite to divert protesters from their battle against the current leader. 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 the islamists like the 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 rather than through the street. so who really remains in the square now is activists with the moves socialist tendency. 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 monitoring mission in syria says there is nothing frightening in the flashpoint city of holmes that came on the day damascus set free seven hundred fifty five people detained in the uprising against president assad which began nine months ago just to warn you some of these images are graphic a city was the monitors first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti regime unrest day before their arrival police used tear gas to disperse around seventy thousand demonstrators the opposition claims that nearly forty people have been killed in syria in the two days since the monitors began work fergus hobson from the future of freedom foundation says assad had no chance of the sealing the situation on the ground. bodies that are being vocal about it we can assume that they are closer to the action and more understanding of it so. they are better situated to assess it in other international law is. not perfect but that at least

there have been a better position than most of the nations within the arab league they do not want to be have their fears intervened with and so that likely will could be more likely to result put giving out information that would go against intervention in syria because they don't want that sort of intentional themselves the arab league is bringing five hundred people they only get fifty days or so i don't know how you can conceal anything from five hundred people over four months months period of time so it will provide a greater degree of transparency so what do you have that could quote in the short term and i doubt that you can keep it contained in such good such a large investigation. earlier r t spoke exclusively to russia's u.n. ambassador who said the assad regime has no chance of carrying out promised reforms during a civil war pact with extremists. we believe that there has been there have been some extremely troubling reports coming out of syria about excessive use of force

by those sort is but also telling that the everybody must put pressure on. the destructive elements of the of the opposition or that is 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 some of the forms were announced. some of them we have three to fight each other like changing the constitution and getting rid of the political monopoly of one party even under normal circumstances in any country forms of such magnitude are not easy to implement 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 set of conversation you can always get coverage of our stories online at r.t.

dot com here's what's waiting for you there right now. a russian court finds out her personal attacks translation doesn't incite hatred and throws out a complaint from a rival religious group. and a hollywood blockbuster about an important accountant but this is no ordinary money man it's about the women power and scandal which sent the former i.m.f. chief into the tabloid gutter. oil prices have surged after iran threatened to block shipments through one of the world's busiest waterways if new western sanctions target its own exports and the country's navy commander says the cut off will be easy to. and flecked iran is currently conducting a huge war game near the crucial harmless strait cutting edge torpedoes an unmanned

aircraft are involved in the drill which 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 the passage to be blocked political analyst chris bambery believes the west is putting world peace on the line with its stubbornness on sanctions. that americans could probably force using the military which in the govt would probably force open the straits of hormuz but that would mean war with iran and that would be a huge huge escalation and would threaten world peace and therefore i think the iranians are really challenging the americans sensing weakness we know that both from british sources that there are plans to attack iran and israel is egging all in 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 important so our message about we rallied 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 talker 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. well they made a point and reaffirmed the need for a dialogue with the opposition which organized the recent protest rallies and moscow prime minister says that he's open for talks but that there's no one to talk to because his rivals lack unity parties that even go sky has more on the story. the russian prime minister meeting with journalists earlier today when responding to their questions about the possible with the opposition he said that he is actually ready for that except for at this point according to your logic which in

their position forces do not have any concrete programs or any leaders and their motivation is not quite clear so it's really hard for them to understand in what form of the dialogue should take place. we've never been against dialogue with the opposition we're in constant touch with them we're only against one thing and i am personally against it and that's any kind of extremism any through 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 these people. 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 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

entry elections is russia's state duma tens of thousands of people came out on the streets protesting what they believed were honest fair elections the people of greece will be glad to see the back of two thousand and eleven a year of cuts riots and vilification by other european nations for bringing them to the brink of collapse r.t. sarah furthur ported from the thick of it from the start she's now sharing her firsthand impressions in our continuing series reflecting the year's events that changed the world. ok 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 is certainly for me very much on the front line if not fight. it became really the

sort of place to child the financial crisis it turned into a political crisis 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 is exactly what happened. for the first time in. reporting and they had a protest planned there remember in the morning. it was just off the corner syntagma very very close to central square as 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 need 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 feel 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 in the center. just side of one of the streets as the riot police started pushing back late at the anarchists and 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 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 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 and that made it very hard to get people to pretend it was. a difficult to find out about it but it. was the. people.

there. who were trying to reports and eventually to take us they sort of a became 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 take us and just thinking oh that's just. thing coughing and spluttering in. do you remember being quite embarrassed about that 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 that you know 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 this is something that was going to fade everyone. right from the very beginning we wanted the. story from a different angle we were much more interested in getting the 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't blame your lights i hope for everybody to be calm and. try to get out of the crisis if that was what was always important to us it is getting. the people increase getting their opinion across 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're talking to. the lucky in that's amazing people i mean every single time i've gone back there just

a welcoming. will continue to bring you more personal reflections from our team of correspondents worldwide as they reported on the headlines of the year we're just leaving and in case you've missed any of these series they're available to watch right now on r.t. dot com. next the newly elected deputies in russia's lower house of parliament have been gathering for their very first sessions earlier i spoke to the man now in charge of the duma's foreign relations committee to ask if the new faces will bring about any changes.

i'm joined today by lexi push the newly appointed chairman of foreign affairs in the russian parliament thank you for being with us you come from a background in television what do you think that you're going to bring to this position that other people lack. well my big ground is larger. than to be i have started my career as a diplomats in the united nations in geneva i was part of the russian delegation. soviet legation of. the committee on does armaments basically i never left the field of foreign policy studies so i would not say that i'm new to the area.

a person like me can bring i think during my. work on t.v. i got a pretty accurate. feeling. the russian population and the russian citizens. of russian foreign policy what kind of foreign policy they would like to. and. what images they have of their own country of themselves and how they place russia and themselves. on the global scene i think it's very important that. foreign policy measures the. image that the population would like to have of the foreign policy do you think that there's still a future for the reset and not reload policy promoted by barack president barack obama well i think that there may be

a future for you. but i think that it's time to reset the reset the reason. crisis. status. when russia responded positively to the. hillary clinton were offered sort of a lover or during that meeting in february two thousand and nine. and number of contradictions have accumulated since that time and the. biggest contradiction is the issue of the a.b.m. american a.b.m. system in europe. very tough statement which was made by me to me do it underscore . and we should mention the number of kontum measures that russia may take if the a.b.m. system is placed by the united states and europe without taking into account the russian worries on this score going summits where in terms of it if.

nato leaders in the member. was declared. a success but it was maybe a success in p.r. relations i mean. the spirit of the summit was positive but the results of the summit with neal basically we. russia offered a certain plan which could have mean a compromise between russia and. nato on the a.b.m. issue but this plan this suggestion was not accepted by nato do you think that both with russia and the u.s. having presidential elections and twenty twelve do you think that there's going to be some sort of impact on bilateral relations with that outcome cold with. bilateral relations especially such complicated relations as relations between russia and the united states and my feeling is that these elections will not be an

exception and the effect will be negative the republicans taking a bomb of from the right sometimes from far right positions and basically hold those positions or. to russia to be an architect of the reset policy is considered to be by the some of the republican candidates is a sin so what kind of reset can we have. in these conditions i mean the administration will have to be sensitive to this attacks they cannot just you know pay no attention for the election times and as we know all this is a being modeled after the requirements of the electoral campaign obama cannot be insensitive to this criticism so i think we are in for a very hard year in russia you know solutions i think that in russia to the reason lot of disappointment with the reset russian. parliament or it's

also the russian population is of the russia has given more to the united states than it has received from the united states we made a number of steps which were quite important for the united states and to goto support for those their policies in the framework of the resets now what have we got in return the admission of russia in w t o basically i don't think it's really a kind of payoff because. those elections have been going on for almost twenty years and i seem russia was doomed to be inside the w. two it was just a question a matter of time and when hillary clinton decided that it is. affordable for the us administration to attack. russia on the results of the election this has just shown that all this state of research between moscow and washington is extremely fragile so i not very optimistic about the prospects of the reset in the

electoral he both in the united states and russia alexei pushkov i'd like to thank you for joining us it's been a pleasure. seemed . a.

pity. from. the a.

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