now only six hours left before we kick off the new year here at moscow do stay with us for the live coverage exclusively on artsy role research showing the new year has already arrived in the pacific and parts of russia's far east is making its a gradual sweep across the globe as we approach prepare to ring it in two thousand and twelve that is so we are looking back at the key events that shaped two thousand and eleven it's already been dubbed the year of protests and artie's and he said no way has been covering them. two thousand and eleven could easily go down as the most eventful year in years the killing of bin laden after a decade long manhunt libya's gadhafi after months of nato bombing and the death of north korea's kim jong il don't even begin to illustrate twenty eleven.

times shows the protester as person of the year and although there were different slogans signs and demands of solutions twenty eleven will ultimately be remembered as the year people came out onto the streets the arab spring bloomed into a european summer which harvested an american auto from cairo to california moscow to madrid to her ear to occupy global rallies shared common themes but if one thing stood out in the middle east and north africa alone it was protests that lead down one road regime change. tunisia and egypt got rid of their dictators without war but libya was not so lucky nato and allies began a humanitarian mission with a fierce bombing campaign the critics called it

a mislabeled invasion to take down gadhafi for benefits the only reason they're interested in with libya is about the oil you hear anybody screaming and yelling about all those people last week they were killed in the ivory coast or whose sudan gadhafi was brutally killed in october as the world watched the graphic video go viral thousands of civilians were killed over months of bombing and that's twenty twelve neared syria found itself in a similar set up for intervention russia and china fearing a repeat of the situation in libya as civil war intensifies this is a direct effect that that rhetoric clash between the u.s. and nato on one side and russia and china on the war you know on the other side much more david was in libya protests continue in egypt libya syria and many more arab countries as the year ends. the battle to

save a drowning single currency left to board rooms and banks in twenty eleven and flooded the streets of europe most commonly and violently in athens greek debt became the centerpiece of the euro crisis protests raged against desperate austerity cuts to qualify for i.m.f. bailout germany and france vying for influence in the debt ridden zone i think we will see an exit of greece given the situation in which the greek economy find itself has become really unavoidable draining the economy of big brother germany can't go on forever greece and italy are now led by on a lark to brussels back technocrat leaders who are trying to curb the crisis coming into a new year critics say twenty eleven bell outs or bust was the beginning of the end for the single european currency there's every chance the euro is going to crash. london burned for days in the summer of twenty eleven what began as

a peaceful protests demanding justice over the death of a twenty nine year old man who was shot by police turned into days of riots and left authorities helpless talks of possibly bringing out the military bars the shops were looted car set on fire and windows smashed across the u.k. the police the job center all the banks everything that's happening the recession you know there's a lot of anger about that social experts also through a felt multicultural program and racism into the mix you know stop and so on a sense of the place certainly institutional young people probably institutionally racist as well the riots faded but the problems are still passing some say only a spark is needed to set the public off again. occupy wall street became a household name in the u.s.

and around the world but when the protests began in september if you were talking about it the mainstream media stayed silent until seven hundred people were arrested on the brooklyn bridge and then truly based in the end of his fruits of american politics but. they are disorganized they look funny when i protest nobody seems to know but negative coverage didn't stop o. ws from spreading from small towns to huge ports occupied was not going anywhere rates on campus heavy handed police and burning pepper spray only helped occupy grow and spread their message of the need for economic equality and an end to corporate greed their slogan became we are the ninety nine percent and they the rich the one percent from oakland to boston the more people occupied the more brutality became more evident.

but you're. right there are police forces have been militarized they're working more in cooperation with the pentagon they're buying and being given military surplus to quit meant that has been kind of designed for use in war and this is something that leads to treating the public as you would treat an enemy a public that has promised to come out in full force in twenty twelve. parliamentary elections were the push behind tens of thousands of people coming out onto the streets of moscow after allegations the december duma vote was raked. the protest at least fifty thousand strong the largest in recent history call for free and fair elections and remained peaceful ruling party united russia lost

popularity in the vote with official results putting their numbers i don't most fifty percent but experts say a sixteen percent drop from two thousand and seven should be taken as a warning i think a lot of people wanted to punish. united russia for having power for so long and maybe not doing everything they could protest organized by vast groups of opposition members are set to continue in two thousand and twelve next year russia along with the u.s. and france holds presidential elections which makes it a safe bet people will be out on the streets in twenty twelve in europe america and around the world and he's now a party moscow. now the arab spring uprisings were arguably the most significant events of the last twelve months and protests are still raging across the region even after some regimes with all the snow crossed a line to a cross more than

a really good move the location of one of them there in cairo egypt president mubarak forced off in february it was the second arab nation by revolt take us back if you will to the very beginning and what you saw while you were there covering you. well as you have mentioned it all started actually it all started with the end of last year it started in tunisia and let's look at the three countries which are now which now you can say successfully toppled what they call the story tearing regimes and those are. egypt let's look at what's happening in those countries right now in tunisia you will of course. be leading islamist party and not coming to power people are saying that they are rather happy with the fact that they have gotten rid of ben ali but at the same time inflation has gotten worse unemployment has gotten worse people are saying that they have not gotten anything that i have asked for except for freedom of speech now of course freedom of speech was one of

the main reasons why these revolutions happened but other than that it's really other than expressing their opinions people have really not been able to get anything else you look at libya also country which demanded freedom from the oppressive regime of moammar gadhafi they have gotten rid of that regime we all remember pictures following pics over twentieth killing off the colonel of course people in fact were lining up by entire families to have their pictures taken with his body at a shopping center and followed several months after that what do we have we really do not have any sort of improvement in in the sphere is off economy or social spheres as well it's in there it's also becoming increasingly islamist state and of course back in egypt we are still in the middle of a parliamentary. runoffs in fact the third leg of the very complicated electoral procedure is going to take place here on the third of january again that the two parties which are storming ahead in these elections are also islamist parties who

have the freedom and justice party which is a party from the muslim brotherhood and then you have the self the muslim party which promises that the future of egypt lies in its islamic pasta and they do say that sharia law will be the official state law off of. this country so several months in fact a year after the arab spring has blossomed all over the northern african and middle east continent really there have been no improvements in any sphere other than you have still thousands of people coming out. to protest in cars also in tunisia still demanding the improvements they have asked for and that is the only thing that has really changed and now you have people coming out in words essentially asking where are those things which you have asked for and again people in power in egypt right now for example are just the supreme council of armed forces who really have not gone they have not really made any move means towards

making lives easier in fact several non-governmental organization offices have been raided here just several days ago with a lot of that with that there are cell phones of people who work their cell phones computers documents being confiscated the officials in egypt have not given any explanation for why they did that and when eyebrows were raised in the year in the united states offices which were sponsoring these non-governmental organizations the egyptian authorities have provided no info and no explanation but they did say that they will pay close attention to any foreign statements coming from any foreign leader who are going to make comments about the internal affairs in egypt so this is the situation that you have in northern africa protests and no improvements whatsoever for the real. three revolutions are bringing some form of change to the arab world as you mentioned a couple of times now no improvements no no major constructive towards peace and stability let's let's address one of the other countries still seeing protests but

no change of power can you give us a bit of a past and present a lot of syria. well syria again of course there are there we have these reports coming from western media sources saying thousands of people have been killed until very recently there was no mention of the armed rebels there was no mention of the fact that states troops were in fact being killed until very recently the western media either closed to either chose to close their eyes or to ignore those or to say that those days were not true whereas when we were in syria personally in homs i have seen people armed civilians on sitting under a bridge and when i asked about who those people were i could get no clear explanation neither from the people who were on the ground or from the government officials they are some of them chose not to tell us who those people were others were simply scared then of course they have still the ongoing strife and countries like yemen and bahrain of course in yemen there are still there is a story of

a complicated three party situation when you have the government versus the protesters and then you have the educated the educated and also protesting only toward not agreeing neither with the government nor with the people who are demanding democracy in fact russian foreign minister sergei lavrov has said that there is a civil war raging on and given and this very similar situation is a traveling involved and all those of course to all those countries that are also getting at least vocal support from from western states who are saying that they're all for democracy and they welcome that democracy in these countries what will happen in them judging by the situation in the three states that we have mentioned earlier and those are egypt libya and tunisia is still unclear the lucian may happen but what will follow is yet another big question all right how things are going to come up with that. life and kyra thank you. on a lighter note a car will meet the new year two hours after moscow stay with us our coverage from the russian capital staying with the arab spring and now let's get some more

analysis and insight from a journalist author. of excuse me william life and frankly i think of it coming on the program today of course we are aware you are the author of the book full spectrum dominance totalitarian democracy in the new world order let's start with two news here we just heard from a really go to. touch down on the issue of tunisia many twelve months since president ben ali was forced to flee the country after the revolt that what has been achieved since then all the tunisians happy with the revolution and the results forthwith. quite obviously the tunisians are not happy the economy is a disaster since the operations a year ago the tunisia was picked as the first in a series of dominoes in a very carefully planned destabilization strategy that was planned out more than a decade ago in the pentagon and by the rand corporation and others in washington to redraw the map of centrally in the middle east. and it's not intended to stabilize or bring democracy to any of these countries and as your correspondent in

cairo just going to go now egypt is your photo of. egypt the second arab spring revolt the deposed president mubarak that was back in february elections are underway but the protests resumed again this month with more lives being lost why is there still so much anger and why is the anger still causing so much violence. well i think there's anger because there's been a little change but also because. it's quite the case that foreign n.g.o.s financed by the u.s. congress and others the national endowment for democracy various other so-called human rights politicized organizations are fanning the protests claiming putting the military against against these human rights n.g.o.s so. the idea is to create as much chaos through the region as possible in order to justify i believe a stronger nato role permanently in that region and when you when you talk about

nato that's not turn our attention to that libya libya as all the deadliest uprising with a civil war there are going to be left tens of thousands that khadafi as we all know among them nato weighing in with airstrikes causing civilian casualties is that piece of loss for the libyan people what can they look forward to for two thousand and twelve. i think they can look forward to pure hills. the opposition groups were given a promise by the french well before the to. cut off the government that they would get a chunk of the oil revenues and that was the incentive they were armed by the west . now libya is being converted according to the latest information into a giant nato aircraft carrier if you will and the libyan oil is being used as a bargaining chip with japan and others hillary clinton has promised libyan oil reportedly in return for japanese reducing its intake of the rainy and oil and putting financial pressure on iran so we can see what what the game is in libya is

not about democracy or libyan welfare it's about using that to militarize the entire eurasian land mass. as you say that the issue of using libyan oil as bargaining chips among those involved with nato on the. what they called was this u.n. resolution to protect civilians although it's not into full on the wall let's not talk about syria because syria does remain a flashpoint on the rest there still going on people's talking about everything being on a brink of a civil war the control slip bring from president assad what's driving the conflict that do you see any end game in sight. well i see a very real and game in sight but you have to take the entire arab spring it goes from afghanistan to iraq all the entire world is being transformed under a blueprint that was really presented by the bush administration after the occupation of iraq in two thousand and three two thousand and four it's a whole series of destabilization that will redraw the entire political map of the

middle east and ultimately i believe is directed toward china and toward russia. for nato to be in a position to control the energy flows of the entire eurasian landmass toward that larger agenda. author of the book a full spectrum dominance totalitarian democracy in the new world order william and bill i thank you very much have a very happy new year and frank thank you you'll be celebrating the arrival of two thousand and twelve just about three hours after us here in moscow thank you. but the latest from syria is that the two largest opposition groups have agreed to unite against president bashar al assad violence continues across the country and tens of thousands have been staging rallies against the regime security forces for now reportedly opened fire in response to the rallies government supporters have taken to the streets in several cities including the capital damascus arab league observers are currently there on the ground monitoring the situation in five

provinces gripped by on the rest they would be aware of reports that dozens have been killed since friday alone that adds to the figure of five thousand the u.n. says have been have lost their lives in total the government blames armed gangs for causing the violence a journalist ramzy about who used to work in the region says the conflict is actually being managed from outside. this is a real worry we do not know what the americans are cooking right now obviously they are of they are thinking of a much greater political context than syria they are thinking iran they are thinking the stability of iraq in the post american withdrawal and they are also and most importantly they are thinking israel how will the political vacuum if such a vacuum is created in damascus affect israel israel's security and the northern border particularly the golan heights front israel cannot afford another

security nightmare from their point of view of course to be added to that of south lebanon and gaza and this is really the most that would the americans are very worried about they are worried about. israel's security and there are lots of concern about democracy or human rights in syria or anywhere else in the middle east i think the americans are yet to find a formula that would assure them that in the absence of assad there will be a political rejean that they can trust and i think this is what the americans are trying to ensure right now. is gone there is going to be another alternative that america can work with and until the americans find an answer to this question we are going to have this this conflict raging on for a long time. watching r.t. live from moscow now iran plans to test fire long range missiles in the persian gulf over the next few days as part of naval drills which have been increasing

tension in the region almost daily and led to saber rattling from the u.s. chair sentence warships into the area earlier this week iran threatened to close off the key hormuz strait oil exporter in response to western threats of sanctions over tehran's nuclear program. gynae can more or less. they have today we see the degree of tension rising iranian and american warships kind of brushed shoulders earlier as u.s. ships passed the area where terror on is holding a ten day military exercise the u.s. fifth fleet said they crossed the strait of hormuz unhindered and that he was a routine passage iran's right in to cut off the strait of hormuz which is the major golf oil artery forty percent of the world's tanker shipped oil passes through that strait the u.s. said they would not tolerate any disruption of supplies which suggests that if you ran goes through with their threats we might see a military showdown there but now based on the statements that we hear washington

seems to think that iran is bluffing but right now you can find itself in a situation where its main source of livelihood namely oil export is in danger because of the looming sanctions and the threats that are coming from iran indicate that it's ready to take action to protect its interests if attacked it's almost sure to retaliate right now with the rand is flexing its muscle showing off its capabilities during their naval military exercise the touching upon some of the latest decisions the u.s. congress passed a bill that would dramatically complicate transactions through iran's central bank european and asian nations import iranian oil and use its central bank for their transactions president obama has yet to sign the bill and that's going to be a severe blow to the uranium economy around eighty percent of its revenues depend on crude sales e.u. ministers say. a decision on whether or not to boycott iranian oil will be made in coming weeks the west says all the rand has to do to avoid sanctions is to give up

their nuclear program iran says they're not going to do it they're not doing anything wrong by pursuing a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes some experts believe cornering iran like that by sanctions creates a powder keg which could blow up at a slightest spark and the potential confrontation over the strait of hormuz can be that spark. you can reporting right there let's go to some other world headlines for you this hour time for the r.t. world update first in nigeria twelve violence is continuing after a series of christmas day attacks killed dozens of the most recent blast occurred near a mosque in the northern city of my the good just as it worshipers were leaving friday prayers officials say the attackers killed four and injured at least several others an army spokesman has blamed the blast on the islamist group boko haram tens of thousands of fled their homes since christmas day when the militant group launched a series of attacks on churches throughout the country. demonstrators in turkey

have clashed with police during a second day of protests over a military airstrike that killed forty five on wednesday and thousands rallied in the city of it after the funerals of the kurdish civilians took place at least thirty people who were arrested as police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. parties have requested a u.n. investigation into the strike. the son of the late north korean leader kim jong il kim jong un has been formally named commander of the country's armed forces senior government officials declared kim jong un head of the communist party on thursday following his father's memorial at the movies seen as the twenty seven year old consolidating his orthe already over the nation kim jong il who had a rule that since one thousand nine hundred four died of a heart attack two weeks ago. well the new york's time square

was one of the iconic spots to meet the new year so it seemed a good idea to be in a good time to send our own big apple resident to ask people. how and what items they'll be happy to let go of and see the back of in two thousand and eleven. two thousand and twelve is now a riving what would you rid the world of in the new year this week let's talk about that i think wall street protesting because it doesn't really help anything at all if you ask me i'm a business student it's my fifth year in college and i just i don't know what the point as i understand what they're fighting for and i agree for but for me i'm like you just taking up space i would probably say that after gambling the world be a better place without those things yeah i think we would probably be lots of benefits. i agree i think a lot of people would protest about oh i have no doubt

a lot of people would protest definitely including the government because they are acts of much money out of it would be occupy the liquor store time yes or at noble borders and more borders let's just all be one country. because it's so difficult to travel or are people trying to score points seem politics. you'd make clean up politics than twenty two out made them to do things that are good for the world to not just get to get reelected oh poverty for sure so how do you think the world leaders should go about starting that. well distribute the wealth intolerance you'd make everyone tolerate all different cultures yeah. that's a tall order i know well you asked if i could religion probably ban religion yes all of our spiritual but religion as a religion we think the differences. around. control no matter what you'd like to abolish internationally let's just hope two thousand

and twelve brings us a little closer to a better world. you're watching live from moscow as we come down the final hours of two thousand and nine . and a recap of mine stories coming your way shortly. moment .

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on. taking down the final hours of two thousand and eleven back of the year the protests on racial uprisings in the arab world as well as public fury in america. syria's opposition unites against the government new wave of violence which.