and we look at how russia helps feed asia's hungry economies are heading to one of the country's finest export gateways. comments you're watching r.t. welcome to the program since the last american troops left iraq the country is learning to manage its own affairs the consequences are proving fatal for some a decade of conflict was meant to herald a move to democracy but journalists there say intimidation and brutality against them is rife espoused in my discovered. this spring iraqis inspired by neighboring arab countries began protesting against their government in a square in baghdad one which shares its name with the better known counterpart in cairo. but iraqi journalists trying to cover these protests are

all but silenced by the government security forces and today's iraqi journalists who speak out are routinely imprisoned beaten or just simply killed it seems to be a high level of intolerance or dissent or for public criticism of either government policies or particular leaders use it felt to me a freelance journalist showed r.t. some shocking youtube footage from the protests this february that explicitly show iraqi security forces targeting him because he's a journalist. he shouts which is arabic for journalist over and over again but it makes the police more violent three or four maybe five right police were around me one of them slapped me in the head other one kicked me in the by and they grabbed me fast managed to escape arrest thanks to two foreign journalists who intervened but since the arrest of one of his colleagues he

stopped covering protests altogether became hard for journalists for example to go to tahrir square myself i don't go there i stopped there a long time ago not because. i'm not that scared to be arrested. you know i'm worried to be mistreated we tried to speak to journalists who've been arrested in baghdad but everyone was too afraid to appear on camera so we came up here to the more peaceful kurdish region to see if the situation was any different here i met a young photographer who was arrested while covering similar protests in the kurdish region but after the interview he called to tell me he was scared of reprisals from the government and asked to blur his face and change his name after his arrest in april he was imprisoned for four days and tortured. six men came to the room and started to shout at me and beat me with cables then they gave me electric shocks they wanted me to admit that i hadn't been at the protest. when he

was finally released after four days a friend took pictures of his wounds and published them in a local magazine immediately ahmed was rearrested as a punishment for publicizing his initial arrest. came and they held me for three days and made me sign a document declaring that i would not talk to the press again back in baghdad the government spokesman admitted to r.t. that individuals in the iraqi government were indeed using their powers to silence the press noticed that people been. using there but this is again is not protected by the government the government of the against and you can see that there are people in the minister of interior for example they have misusing their their power against the citizen and there is this building that is they keep accountable and some of them has been fired almost nine years after the invasion u.s. troops are home but what of the country they're leaving behind. with politicians using the security forces to silence journalists it appears that iraq lacks any

credible press freedom a freedom that is essential to any democratic country sebastian meyer or iraq but on our website we're asking what you think will happen to iraq now that u.s. forces have left there's a split right now between a battle to see the country slipping into total chaos and equal number think things can't get any worse around tell us iraq is related through the government that's known to the u.s. and i mean their own picture of the rest believe iraq into a western style democracy log on to r.t. dot com and add your voice. a suicide bombing that killed at least twenty five people in the syrian capital has heightened tensions between the government and the opposition attack apparently targeted a police bus most of the casualties said to have been civilians it comes as arab league monitors who are assessing violence in the country due to get their first report this weekend antigovernment protesters rallied after the blast they knew the

syrian government for the products and international intervention for jordan based political analyst he said since the bombing is a song the opposition is actively trying to destabilize the country. from the start the demonstrations were not truly peaceful and there were many incidents of. perpetrating crimes against the army against the security forces against the civilians and of course there were denying it the so-called opposition denying it for a long time but now everything has become clear these terrorist acts these shameful terrorist acts are a clear indication that there are armed gangs and there are terrorists working in syria to disrupt their life in syria they are not aiming their aggression only against their regime but against the whole syrian people and against the whole syrian obviously what we are witnessing in syria is not

a revolution but actually it is a very ugly conflict to dismantle not only the syrian regime but to change the whole area it has nothing to do with democracy and freedom and that there are certain forces international forces and local forces as well which are actually trying to change the situation in the area for geo political reasons. respective of the costs that will actually be imposed on the syrian people and on the whole area. well still ahead for you the man who brings hollywood to moscow beginner can bring stars and students to russia today's last part that explains how he's succeeding kind of bring you back to. the big economy what should they be doing. with more money and. pumping more money they've been pumping millions and billions and trillions and done a good. president is in new york to ask how people would go about fixing the

stopping global economy. both christians worldwide are celebrating christmas but even for the julian calendar and so celebrate the birth of christ thirteen days off the western worship as it's also marks the end of a forty day fast round two hundred million people from the eastern tradition of worship in one of the oldest christian countries georgian wash. day with midnight mass. carried branches to be burned as part of their christmas ritual. leave to warm the community and remove just intolerance ati's piece all of that was at midnight mass at the christ the savior cathedral muscat. both christians celebrate christmas and here in russia was ushered in with a traditional service here at the christ the say because in the center of the

russian capital now that service presided over by the patriarch of moscow russia kirill of the russian orthodox church attended by the great new good the dignitaries old russian society president dmitri medvedev as well as other senior think is attending this church service around five thousand people in total crammed into the christ the savior cathedral more of them in fact actually taking places around the outskirts of the cathedral to just try and get a view of the church something what was going on in. of course to hear the bells that had been a ringing out to celebrate the birth of jesus christ now. question it always comes up is why is christmas being celebrated in january this is due to the fact that the russian orthodox church as well as some of the branches all the docs christianity use the julian calendar as opposed to the calendar used by western

christianity which means that in russia as well as some other countries christmas falls on the seventh of january huge day in the old calendar and something that has become a real tradition here in russia opening in one thousand nine hundred seven the traditional christmas. christ the savior. continues online as we bring you christmas celebrations here in russia. you can see the full christmas address from the russian church. also online the pentagon. has details on. different ways tonight. the details.

on the foreigners who are successfully pioneering business in russia today pathfinder. used to be a restaurateur and deciding one day to leave it all behind he's now hollywood's man in russia has already brought scores of actors and bands to the country. i basically ended up moving to russia all by accident in one thousand and ninety eight i was asked by a russian friend in los angeles if i could bring a hollywood studio to moscow because mayor luzhkov was interested in building multiplex cinemas and wanted a hollywood studio partner i had friends that were running warner brothers they sent head of international theatres with me gosh my my first trip was very impressionable i couldn't understand how so many young people i was meeting were

making tens of millions of dollars a year and some of them millionaires before they were thirty and these were some of the things that made me realize there's a lot of opportunity here there's not a lot of people who are doing hollywood business there hasn't been a lot of contact and interaction with celebrities i love a challenge what could be more challenging than moving to russia and trying to develop and create a business here for us with the. i didn't know any actors but i started meeting them just to bring them to russia or here on that project the russian comedy that's going to shoot in america steven seagal zola he told me they'll do a couple days for two hundred fifty thousand dollars well kilmer's interested in helping out. then wealthy russians started asking for other people and i just started calling everybody i knew in l.a. who knew a producer a new a director and i called them from russia after eight years i brought over eighty

actors and bands to russia i think it's very important for you to go to los angeles with me in the next few months we should meet with you hopefully make the roar releasing a different actors you would like to do cameos in this film the biggest challenge to overcome is gaining people's trust and performing one example is recently i was asked to bring john claude van damme to chechnya for the president's birthday and day. the city and. yet oblivious to that of the other one oh it is in my heart. it's a place most people are very afraid to go to of course john clyde you know his expenses need to be paid then others for him to go there and it's very frightening dealing and working with chechnyan friends knowing that if something went wrong didn't come and money is paid. who are people going to come calling and looking for asking for the money back and it took

a long time for me to win people's confidence that they would send money to an actor or a band in advance russia costs more than a lot of other parts of the world because russians have been willing to pay more you know if the russians weren't willing to pay more celebrities would be coming for less but when they have people making such big offers just to get them how can you refuse so russia's been great to help push up their prices jennifer lopez gets two million dollars to go and perform you know in russia and kazakhstan and some other places if you're american in the u.s. we understand our system how to set up a business so we can easily research any product or any idea we have to find out if it's been saturated or not in russia it's really different because it's so hard to get to the important people that make the decisions when i have to work with a person who works for someone here i get nowhere i can't do a deal because they need to see so much because their jobs on the line their names

on the line they're so afraid that just drags on and drags on whatever i'm talking to them about when you can pick up the phone and call the head of the company or someone on the board of directors i know in a week if i can do this deal or not with them rush is just much more individual life you really need to know some important people here to have success and you know i was thinking you're. from here which is part of the reason i never learned russian is i just thought ok one year from now i'm sure something will come up back in the l a the us i'll go back i'll start doing movies but it is so exciting here every day so many new things and new deals and new opportunities and that i haven't been able to leave. well from making money to losing it now as we ask whether it's time to let the public take over tackling the world's troubles nazis are in office to meet people

in new york to get their tips for the politicians in charge. today everyone's upset with how the world leaders are handling the economy so how would you fix that this week let's talk about that whole country do you think is doing a good job. let me say. you know now. what would you do to fix the problem in greece. in greece wow. i do you know how do you know because i know i say no no no maybe that's why it's going all around a good word to fix is each of our problems personally so for all working hard and spending money to local communities then. you know our way of part of building up each local community eventually the whole country gets right yes in

a time maybe for the government to stop trying to fix it and let people and companies fix their own wallets i think that's a good answer yes to fix the economy what should they be doing. should be pumping more money into it pumping more money they've been pumping millions and billions and trillions and done a good so why is that the solution that we keep going back to the only thing we can do so we can also see just do nothing and let people sort it out themselves. people can sort of themselves not a matter of not throwing money into the economy it's a matter of living within means if you don't have enough revenue then you have to cut spending yes so governments are trillions of dollars in debt so it sounds like they have no money right well they have to be obviously you can't stop everything all at once but you do have to you do have to pull back and you have to come up with a reasonable plan stop the hemorrhaging we don't just keep printing money and we don't keep inflating government so that's and most of the european countries are

having trouble because the government is sixty percent larger than it should be so why why did you and i see business and government leaders. can't because we don't get paid by the people that are behind the scenes and since i'm not ready for campaign contributions by people that. politicians are just. really so what should they be doing better. other probably trying to change its economy from an oil economy to something else we've got heaps of people with lots of brains and we need to be doing something about the environment. people with brains are in positions of power. so it seems like with the system that's currently in place for how world leaders get elected it might be time for solutions to come from someplace else. as the taliban prepares to open up a political office in qatar the us has indicated it's ready to back the initiative

it's seen as a crucial step towards peace talks between nato and its longtime enemy the taliban also wants high ranking taliban prisoners to be freed from going ton of the day. when it's a contributor. but he leaves the move could signal a major american defeat a decade long conflict. uncle sam has just recently authorized the opening up the official office for the taliban in doha qatar for. the opening of the taliban office doesn't bode well because he effectively has been cut from this wheeling and dealing between americans and taliban on the other side americans it looks like a real deal it looks like they have accepted demands by the taliban that is to keep cut is the government out of the loop and as for taliban themselves they look

like one in the only winners in this shadow negotiation the. taliban open out their office in doha they might as well door in it with the two nameplates with the calls from the counterinsurgency doctrine the first if we are not winning we are losing at dressed for the us armed forces and second if we are not losing we are winning for the taliban themselves but look at some of the mains from around the world now and first a tragedy in new zealand where a hothead by the burst into flames after hitting power lines killing innocent people on board two of them seemed died had jumped out of the basket in desperation plummeted to the ground. deadliest and most. mass crowds have gathered in yemen's capital and suspicions grow the present sun and win again when they got his agreement to quit but testers also want the release

of all political prisoners held since protests began a year ago position leaders for sunday will use the country's own rest to stay in power despite signing a regional deal to hand control to his vice president in exchange for legal immunity. spoken human rights activist in bahrain has been hospitalized for what his lawyer said was a brutal police beating up an anti government protest bill was a naturally hit on the head and face with sticks on officers the government says police found him injured while participating on the grounds march bahrain's a shiite majority began campaigning for more rights from the senate any year ago. it's hard to bring you more of russia close up as we continue to explore the countries far east.

yes they have region lies on the chinese border and this russia's main gateway to the pacific is also a center of coal and wood exports to the heavily populated few hundred asian economies as artie's dumbarton discovered keeping industry alive doesn't have to be expensive tradition. the hub are us krege and russia's far east is becoming a growing center for export to the hungry economies in the south china south korea and japan increasing material exports of wood and coal are going out to the pacific and south and is that they were looking at in my report. this monster called coal stacker is the new face of russia's far east coast it can load over four thousand tons of coal an hour into ships at this rapidly expanding sea terminal this year they exported ten million tons of the stuff almost exclusively south asian markets

but also aboard we've noticed there's a cool boom of coal consumption worldwide has increased so these ports covers almost all of asia. become comes from some of russia's largest deposits five hundred monitors in them and he joins the oil and timber flowing out of the region in ever greater quantities tugboats maneuver the ships into place through storms and the winter cold look in the us lot on when the bay freezes we know we're well equipped to break it sometimes there's difficulties with some patches but when essential to help these huge ships dark and undock all year round. and even the most modern tankers once on their way helped along by a much older technology. down this road but you ship internals a spring up to supply overseas markets will all see very foundations presented by this life past which moment for help makes a russia's gateway to the pacific hundreds of lighthouses dot the coast all the way

from the border with north korea up to the arctic. victor has been marrying his lighthouse for over thirty years but he's glad he's not too far out into the wilderness. we're close enough to the nearest town other lighthouse keepers are stuck out in the tiger without even roads sometimes a ship or helicopter deliver supplies but there's no other way to come or go picked has not had a ship run aground since the early one nine hundred ninety s. he seen bears moose and tigers visit his lighthouse and say's he never grows bored of the ever changing seascape far from feeling lonely he talks of the remand to system of being such a secluded spot on the coastline you know i used to go down to the bay floor i am catching crabs and start a fire then my wife and kids would join me and we'd have breakfast on the shore and watch the sunrise or in the summer this whole field would be bright orange and blue

if you can pick to retire next year he says he's come to love the spotlight robinson crusoe xylem and and while he can remember the pristine beauty of his coastline others are seeing it sail on into the future. with his talk a little bit more about the bar often the experience of moving here from abroad is a mean a holiday that came here from britain so i've asked itself is trying to upgrade itself trying to move into the health of the city in time and the modern and modern age with industry there also the. and you cosmodrome what do you know about the new developments here i know that isn't very very important to the local area and it is spreading transport links all the time people are finally investing far east which is obviously going to be very good economy and i'm here because my fiance is working for a while refinery and they're in and so more investment there and this president is

going to i think only improve it says that it was one of the biggest and most important projects is happening in russia and i said yes i think it's up and coming this region but as someone who's come from a different culture side what would you say with people who are thinking. it is possible business gigi's but should i come what would you say. to the judge how did during your russian with this important very few restaurants cafes where they have an english menu and things like that i think when i don't speak russian people find it frustrating rather mundane so i'd bet that in mind prices because it's a price extortionate question. can you give it a go try bit of an adventure well there we go that's an insight from someone who has made belief out to the far east to hobart off so it's not going to get me warmer here but it seems that with huge with the development of the region it is going to get more connected to the outside world. and to talk about that on the

back of the headline shortly stated. now it's not about spilling blood. it's the war of the barricades from one side

and fears blockade from the other. family. invisible border it has cut people from the land for twelve years. the conflict that divided serbia into two hostile parts is still not over.

if. i am. wealthy british soil. is not on the tightest money. markets why not come to. find out what's really. happening to the global economy with much stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines and to conjure reports on our.

minds in russia would be soo much brighter than if you knew about someone from feinstein pression it's. nice from the start on t.v. dot com. welcome back a recap of our top stories around with american troops now out of iraq concerns are mounting of what's being left behind it's proving deadly for journalists who are being silenced or even tortured by police for speaking out against the government. a suicide last targeting police bus that killed twenty five people in syria's capital as western tensions between the opposition and the government leaders the blame the attack on terrorists and protest is finding it increasingly hard to claim that just a peaceful demonstrate.