around the north koreans gathered to bit a final goodbye to their late ruler during a two day funeral and counting on. syria releases seven hundred fifty five people detained during the uprising against president assad and while the head of the arab league mission finds nothing frightening in the rest of the city of damascus says armed insurgents have killed at least two thousand members of its forces since march. egypt's new leader is trying to build ties with russia in talks in moscow a while back on the outs of presidents trial resumes after a three month break and barak is accused of corruption abuse and killing demonstrators a during the january uprising and may face the death penalty if convicted. 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 organized and hold a constructive dialogue with the government. hello and thank you for joining us six o'clock here in moscow on karen terribly thousands of north koreans have been showing weeping in the streets of pyongyang 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 king john 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. strong as we. go. overestimating is freedom of action. part of the north korean system

but also mainly in respect of the outside world in respect to the americans so it is not north korea and since does not that soon americans who want to keep it. constrained somewhat like they want to contain china for more on this now we are joined by christina our with the korea policy institute christine thank you for being with us the first thing that north korea's neighbors stead when they found out about kim's death is raise their military alert status why was that. i think that when you're talking about north korea's neighbors you're talking specifically not about china but you're talking about japan and south korea and if you are speaking about china you're speaking about china's response to these two nations and so you have to understand that the region is basically

structured by a neo cold war alignment the u.s. and its two client states south korea and japan are linked together in a kind of mutual defense pact a kind of you know chemist that has tied in terms of a kind of common security agenda and so if you look at the policy. of the current south korean president who is a hard liner relative to north korea and his policy has been very much one of the clips policy there hasn't been any kind of continuation of the detente that we saw under the two liberal presidents of south korea. and before that the nobel peace prize winner can date june and you know the policy has been one that has been for all intents and purposes a kind of eclipse policy and so we've seen these states that have been historically

linked to the u.s. having very little mission with regard to north korea and that also goes for the obama administration and it's in these states that had a sort of high security alert and you could say that china's was very much a sort of response to that that response a part of japan and south korea well as the new leader is about to step in and should other countries especially those the united states and south korea reconsider their approach to pyongyang. i think that it's a perfect opportunity to do so we have basically. an opportunity. even in symbolic opportunity with the death of kim jong il you know basically the u.s. has had a sort of historic sort of anathema to north korea but with regard to kim jong il there's almost been a kind of personal animus on the part of recent u.s. leaders toward the north korean leader and at this moment you also have to

understand that as all the eyes of the world are trained on north korea and north korea as a kind of spectacle as and lessly being interpreted in international media what's misunderstood is that in point of fact it's not that the world is waiting to greet at two north korea but north korea historically has been as a very small country that has been fighting for its own sovereignty and autonomy it has been reacting to external forces around it at this moment north korea has basically a year old request to the u.s. and to the e.u. and other international. nations bodies it's cetera and they've asked for food aid and this has been. as i said this was something that north korea reached out to the international community about a year ago the u.s.

is in a position to act on this request at this moment and so even though it may seem like the world is waiting on north korea to make its first move north korea is actually in a position in which it's been waiting for the u.s. to respond to its request for today but what about are their chances of fanning all of the two koreas drawing closer together even possibly reuniting in the future i think that there are very high hopes you know. as i mentioned the current president of south korea which has had an extremely neo conservative policy toward north korea and even though there was a great deal. anger and outrage in south korea about incidents that happened last year like the shelling north korean shelling of young chung island there is also very lot of popular sentiment in south korea that viewed lack of vision the lack of engagement but lack of positive leadership on the part of the south korean

president toward north korea in an absolute reversal of his predecessor sunshine policy approach as destabilizing relations with north korea and i think that you see even in sort of pullin mary pulling among south koreans a kind of rejection of the hardline stance of the current president and in so far as that is the case it bodes well for the possibility of some of the kinds of connections that were made during the two previous presidential administrations in south korea that you mentioned china earlier what's their policy really going to be towards north korea now. well i mean i think we already have signs that that is china china has indicated publicly that it is willing to meet with the new north korean leader and so you know there have been in the past decades

a kind of increase in close ties between north korea and china in no small part because the bilateral relations of north korea chew countries like japan and south korea have deteriorated in recent years christine hall fellow with the korea policy institute thank you for joining us thank you. cairo is seeking to regain its place in the world after toppling president mubarak's regime and egypt's foreign minister has been meeting his russian counterpart in moscow where they discuss the trouble in the wider middle east artes you go to school off reports. first of all this is agreed time for egypt to start we gaining some was positions on the international border goal 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 showing we criticize the royals 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 entry election with several islamist oriented to 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 ousted president resumed on wednesday after three months break adoption journalist osama diaz says hosni mubarak's hearing is 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 there is. mainly the muslim brotherhood did leave. 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 a move socialist tendency almost socialist agenda who did not do very well

in the elections and they see they still perceive the street. the main lobbying. platform. the head of the arab league 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 the city wants and the monitors first stop to investigate the government's response to the anti regime unrest the 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 hartson from the future freedom foundation says assad has no chance of concealing the situation on the ground. bodies that are being vocal about it we can assume that they closer to the action more understanding of it so. they are better

situated to assess it been other international players so it is not perfect but that at least there have been a better position than most of the nations within the arab league they should you know want to be at their fears intervene with and so to be more likely or could be more likely to resist put give you information that would go against intervention in syria because they don't want that sort of international themselves the arab league is bringing five hundred people they've only got 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 great degree of transparency so what do you have that could call in the short term and i doubt that you can keep it contained it's a good subject a large investigation. 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 a harish create a christian attacks translation doesn't incite hatred pros out

a complaint from a rival religious group. and a hollywood blockbuster about an important contest. 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 got gutter. thirteen minutes past the hour thanks for being with us ludden reports and reaffirm the need for a dialogue with the opposition which organized the recent protest rallies in moscow the prime minister says he's open for talks but that there is no one to talk to because his rivals lack unity parties if you know go scott has more on that story. the russian prime minister meeting with journalists earlier today when responding to their questions about the possible log with the opposition he said that he is actually ready for that except 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 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 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 on fair elections the people of greece will be glad to see the back of twenty eleven or a year of cuts riots and vilification by other european nations for bringing them back into the brink of collapse r.t. sarah firth reported from the thick of it from the start she now shares her firsthand impressions in our continuing series reflecting the year's events that changed the world. you know i think in two thousand and eleven we really sort of felt the world shift and. we saw people's protest movement sort of spread around the world and greece assassination me very much on the front line 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 yet this does a saying that if you're a hammer everything looks like a nail if you push people into a corner then they're going to come out fighting and i think increased that was exactly what happened. the first time in. reporting and they had a protest planned i remember in the morning. it was just still think cool in a very very close to central square as the european saying 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're. 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 would just like popping sounds it's

a take us going off on the other corner. almost immediately you just get a huge surge of people coming policy i mean you can barely me. this is a really intense experience and you sort of when you're right in the center of it i can't tell you what it's like to be around people. that angry angry that they feel to a point where they're having to turn 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 on the. side of one of the streets as. these guys are backing down you know the people sort of

running at them and throwing rocks and metal and. it was absolutely. going off in different policy syntagma 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 you know we found ourselves right and i remember just saying just keep filming this is keep filming it and i made it very hard to get people to pretend that it may be that difficult to find out. about it. as we. the people.

there. trying to reports and eventually to take us to 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 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 quite in virus 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 it was a great problem and we were all sort of witnessing what was going on 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 fade everyone. right from the very beginning we wanted to. get 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't blame your lights i hope for everybody to. 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 the 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. sarah firth will continue to bring you more personal refer reflections from our whole team of correspondents worldwide as they reported on the headlines of the year we were just leaving in case you missed any of the series so they're available to watch right now on r.t. dot com. coming up 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 dumas 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 am new to the area.

a person like me can bring i think during my. work on t.v. i got a pretty accurate. feeling. toward the russian population and the russian citizens. think of russian foreign policy what kind of foreign policy they would like to. and. what image 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 matches 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. but i think that it's time to reset the reset rees. crisis. status. and when. our and when russia responded positively to the. political system were offered with sort of your love for all during that meeting in february. my feeling is that a 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 mid-term inventive. nato leaders in november last year was declared. a success but it was maybe a success in p.r. relations i mean. some of the spirit of the subject 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. by that

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 republican so taking a bomb from the right sometimes or 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. pay no attention for these election times and as we know. being modeled after the requirements of the electoral campaign bomb i cannot be insensitive to this criticism so i think we are in for

a very hard year in russian you know solutions i think that in russia too there is a lot of disappointment with. the reset russian. parliament who is also 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 we were quite important for the united states and to go to support for those their policies in the framework of the resets now what have you 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 signed a w t o it was just a question a matter of time and when hillary clinton decided that it is. affordable for the u.s. administration to attack. russia on the results of the election this has just shown

that all this state of reset between moscow and washington is extremely for gyle so i not very optimistic about the prospects of the reset in the electoral he both in the united states and russia. like to thank you for joining us it's been a pleasure. the e. p s.

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