free. three stooges free. movie free broadcast quality video for your media projects free media. markets and lead america's plunge off the fiscal cliff well the republicans and democrats heigl about how to pull the safety code. that's number of dead in the moscow plane crash rises to five and investigators begin the painstaking probe into the accident revealed the tragic sequence of events. from painful austerity in europe and people across the arab world to the rise of that school awareness in russia as we turn a new page to twenty thirty three captures all twists and turns out getting it.

carried. united states has all but begun its plunge off the fiscal cliff at least on the markets and the last minute talks between republicans and democrats falling apart yet again america could be in for a hard landing wall street is in full retreat seeing five straight days of selloffs as panicky investors jump ship years day six hundred billion dollars worth of tax hikes and federal cuts are slated to come into force in america and the deal to avert that is still nowhere in sight there was artie's going to chicken reports the makings of this crisis with the rules to see. the u.s. congress created this cliff situation when they failed to agree on a budget that would help the country reduce its deficit and its you monger's debt and what they did was what they usually do they put off those important decisions

until a certain deadline that deadline is now so we came up with this scary word cliff to create lots of drama around which should be the ordinary maybe somewhat boring working process of any congress or parliament that is to agree on a budget the need to deadlines so the cliff which actually describes the mode in which the congress is working their inability to make decisions until the very very last minute the cliff that u.s. lawmakers have artificially created could become very real for the american people the vast majority of them over one thousand government programs would be cut it would hit the unemployed very hard they would stop getting unemployment benefits there would be other automatic cuts and tax hikes that would mostly affect those who are financially insecure but everyone knows even if the lawmakers don't need the january first headline they can pass measures retroactively and at the end of

the day they will decide something but congress seems to love the drama of the whole cliff situation they have all the attention in the world and literally the whole world the media of course help them hype it up. and with the countdown they started two months ago and while politicians here are enjoying all that attention turning last minute scoring political points the hype around the scary word cliff is already hurting the economy experts say it's affecting business and consumer confidence if wall street is any indicator stocks have been falling for a fifth straight day on friday they called it a fiscal cliff slide other markets are reaching signals certainty coming from the u.s. oil prices have soared in the asian markets ahead of a last minute effort in washington to reach a deal on fiscal cliff that's what you read in the news so this whole charade in washington could have implications on many levels and the fiscal cliff which some

call a product of u.s. lawmakers imagination could become a self-fulfilling prophecy now as if trying to find your way through a complex tax system isn't bad enough in the u.k. millions have been paying it through the news for telephone services to help them navigate it that's coming up later. another crew member has died in hospital after a passenger jet crashed at one of moscow's busiest airports it brings the number of dead to five three others are still fighting for their lives the red wings plane skidded off the runway and plowed into the embankment of a major highway on saturday experts believe bad weather brake failure or simply pilot error could have led to the tragedy. for national looks at how events unfolded. the twenty ninth of december the last working day of two thousand and twelve in russia four pm business is closed all business put off until the next year but i'm alays friends employees jump into their cars and escape the busy

capital he's got highway heads to the west a region where most of the luxury states and country houses are located traffic jams a common with a song with a day and a song of the year but want to lock the road is almost empty. passengers come out of the car to see what the sound was a big stack to see anything but not this. just minutes before that and similar to all for what number ninety six i think is when the little i've told you the first times it's unsuccessful the plane makes a wrong over the airport and begins to send in for a second time when they sign the plane touches down but can stall think fear is

true at that moment very slightly knows already they will not make it the jets reaches the end of the runway runs into the fans but still continues moving it finally stops after overrunning the asteroid by four hundred meters the plane breaks into three parts and tail is lying over the whole year the road people can easily see its number or a fix for four seven the middle part just bog misses away the cockpit is already partially damaged after the crusher is a science falls right at the edge of the highway it's a miracle indeed the road is empty at that time this is a ten lane highway the wreckage is only on one of the lanes of traffic continues on at least three here even after the tragedy there is passing by slowing down to see what happens they notice and left lane called street lights on the road a very road they usually drive every friday and everybody sings about moment course

if i'd have come minutes earlier or was eve i'd have been on that airplane people come out of their cars and try to help out those in the cockpit how pretty that. weather conditions technical failure and pilot error are among the investigators main causes of the incident was most likely a combination of reasons behind a fatal crash however a plane hitting a busy highway in one of europe's biggest cities could have last as much motive a state in trail of destruction there wasn't enough luck for everyone on that saturday evening. national party north korean. well for expert opinion on what may have caused the crash or more details about the plane you can head to r.t. dot com all that and much more is there for you right now. fighting between syrian government troops and opposition forces has intensified with new

clashes in the north of the country the rebels have also reportedly captured an oil pumping station it comes as the international envoy for peace in syria reiterated that dialogue is the only way out of the crisis and this was really supported by russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov as a to discuss the matter in moscow all right mohammed the editor in chief of the syria tribune believes the rebels are preparing the ground for foreign intervention . they're all off of the opposition militia will never win over the syrian army they were established to create chaos and the fear of the country for court intervention now for intervention is not happening and they're not quite real that the militia come up with them but they are trying to leave it was difficult for the syrian army and for the syrian government what should be mixed is a wide dialogue between all three but as we see some of the superpowers in the world are still not ready to to pressure the opposition for dialogue and this leaning more morons or this kelly to violence we need to see for.

real. there is no way to pressure or prevent as i have. to leave it there whatever they do we will be able to control the situation and after that they have to understand that there is no solution with dialogue and with the who would put them at the bottom. or u.s. ambassador with a price on his head. and the promises of three kilograms of dog die for america's unnecessary to the country for that story online. overweight medics in the u.k. should set a good example by having surgery and stop eating junk food that's what a new official report is expected to suggest be more about it in r.t. dot com. many things you might want to spend your hard earned cash on this holiday season

but finding your tax return probably isn't among them however millions of people in britain are doing just that they're having to pay a premium rate for official telephone helplines has more. your annual tax return a process that many adults find utterly daunting and perplexing luckily for the british public the tax man has a whole of way of telephone helplines to help and advise people on how to fill in the piles of forms needed for it getting through to someone might be a bit of a problem though britain is spending watchdog says that last year some twenty million phone calls went on our by the government tax office and of those lucky enough to get through between the months of april and september over six million people had to wait for over ten minutes just to get an answer from someone and i've decided to give him revenue and customs premium priced phone line a call to find out how long it would take me to get through to them.

i've spent over three and a half minutes waiting for someone to pick up the phone. last year customer spent an estimated thirty three million pounds in call charges just waiting to get through to somebody at the tax department exposing what critics call a shameful level of service him revenue and customs have released a statement saying that they've lowered the cost of calls to one of their premium phone lines the most popular one they also say that they're aware that they weren't able to deliver the standard of service that they're committed to in the past however they're now answering over ninety percent of the calls that are made to them but ultimately critics say that it's the complicated u.k. tax code that spans over seventeen thousand pages the british citizens find it so hard to get their head around and it's the telephone providers that are responsible

for the helplines that it cashing in on all the tax confusion well look back turvy events that shaped the year twenty twelve is coming your way after a short break. so how much does it take to get into russian politics how many hours of hard work how many patriotic deeds does it take to become one of the people who make the decisions in the world's largest country well i'll tell you how much it takes exactly seven point five million euros russia's federal investigative committee has a stablish that allegedly hey of and constantine should show from faire russia and the commies prospectively promised for a fee to get a businessman on to their party's electoral lists giving him a spot in the lower house of the duma the investigators have forwarded the state

duma an official request to strip the two m.p.'s of their parliamentary immunity and you're darn right they better street have their parliamentary immunity stripped i mean what's worse than government corruption some people in the government being so corrupt they can actually sell the government itself to someone for a fee so positions in parliament corruption on this high of a level needs to be punished severely breaking rocks in siberia or worse sounds pretty good to me tolerating flagrant corruption does not a great civilization make but that's just my opinion. he survived the atrocities. to make a final decision. has changed his life and the world around him. by giving. hope.

and love to so many children. become i think their work on. live. i live. the good speed limit you feeling. her. i wish i could lead. you to leave good luck lists.

a fairly. good. lick. the fallout from the arab spring together with the desperate street battles in debt hitting europe that's heated presidential races both in russia and the u.s. as a new year knocks at the door we look back on the easy legacy of twenty twelve. that's . fine now what critics have to point it while has reached its and along with the

ny encounter. but it looked more like this year a decade of war is and. was it when you. well we're still here and when it comes down to it the world not only didn't end but very little changed in twenty twelve we have the same challenges facing the globe the same conflicts preventing peace the same policies hampering solutions and many of the same people in power as we come into twenty thirteen so what will twenty twelve be remembered for let's take a look back. for some in gaza their world did end when israel launched a short but deadly campaign in response to rockets fired by hamas after one of

their leaders was assassinated the u.s. solidly backed israel but critics claim the use of disproportionate force has become too common a practice for the israeli defense force journalists also being targeted and children becoming casualties it has the same policy if you like as the united states with regard to collateral damage that it's happy to injure dozens of palestinian men women and children as long as they can kill one person who might have helped fire a rocket into israel shortly after a cease fire palestine celebrated gaining u.n. nonmember status but it's still a long way from statehood as is the region from a peaceful two state solution between israel and palestine this while conflict continues to rage in neighboring syria you know that trouble possibly stay running is country. he has to go assad must go. about the demands and predictions

that syria's president would fall in twenty twelve went on for phil he sat down for an exclusive interview with r.t. well into the year insisting he would not give up as the push for regime change continued and terror reigned in his country i'm not popular it was in me but with the with for twenty other countries i'm sick and i mean. i may be in syria and i have to revisit him but it's going to be deemed everything from civil war to sectarian fighting to terrorism to genocide syria stay the center of a media war through out twenty twelve with unconfirmed atrocities on both sides haunting the web and only one side taking the brunt of the blame for assad is crazy he's a brutal dictator reese killing his own people this is the same narrative that we've heard about gadhafi. but we didn't hear much about libya in two thousand and twelve on most networks or from western officials not until the aftermath of regime change there and the terror that ensued went too far u.s.

ambassador and embassy staff were killed in benghazi in september the most significant event two thousand and twelve is the failure of nato to follow up on its on its libyan momentum to create a forced regime change through proxy. mercenaries in syria and the fact that russia and china and iran stood firm on. the entire time table that nato had in mind to run this stabilization. and now the entire arab spring scenario is is it's not disintegration it's becoming a nightmare one that spread to western allies in the region like bahrain for mass protests to arrest and even death haven't provoked much global media coverage or any push for democracy. instead provocations like the film the innocence of a muslim made headlines and incited outrage across the arab world funded in the u.s.

and considered highly offensive to islam the movie didn't go over well in states now run by islamist after post revolution polls in egypt and tunisia. u.s. embassies were left in shambles as flags burned and freedom of speech was back on the debate table tonight the film was banned in some countries like russia and defended by others like the states as a protected light of expression a right not awarded to whistleblowers like julian assange and who had a busy year and. he was granted political asylum by ecuador after being released on bail while they're waiting a british court's decision on his extradition to sweden for most of twenty twelve assan to remain under house arrest but still managed to find a way to leak and change the world tomorrow his groundbreaking exclusive interview show premiered on r t was on sat down with guests shunned by the mainstream media like has the last house on the throne law here and internet freedom activists the

cypherpunks the future of the internet i think it's no journalist with the salt in the world working today has not used a wiki leaks cable whether it be at the lowest level of covering their right local health center to the idea of schools education let alone geo politics still many journalists lamba songes work on r t and he continues to be a man the west and mainstream media love to hate while he remains holed up at the ecuadorian embassy in london fearing u.k. officials will grab him the moment he steps outside. protests ripped across europe in two thousand and twelve as the euro crisis worsened leaving many no choice but to go out onto the streets so many people are becoming desperate people are gaga. angrier and angrier spain had millions on the street at a time demanding the government stop cuts and demos continued in greece who got

a forty four billion euro bailout masses were met with heavy handed policing in most countries across the e.u. which was awarded a nobel peace prize in twenty trials. they alternately if there are too many protests won't be to be able to afford the policemen on the streets and therefore we could actually end up not so much with a violent reaction from government but there's actually a danger of anarchy because government itself may break down but it is. not the case in the us where the occupy movement lost momentum this year corporate backed media and authorities managed to dull demonstrations demanding economic equality and responsibility is one of a party there where you know you wait for occupy to expand from its needs and from that. you know usually derided by the elites as a bunch of anarchist story or students who know how to seem better to do it is to

organize themselves politically something the group is promising and twenty thirteen with some predicting the old ws movement might have better luck in europe . russia saw protests this year leading up to and after vladimir putin was elected for a third time as president but not nearly as big as what we saw at the end of twenty eleven i think the demonstrations in russia were motivated by frustration the demonstrators had the care political goal which was to discredit the of the reputation of president putin or even to russia knowing that those plans could be continued russian were going to win the election they had no choice they had no possibility of beating them in an election so they tried to their strategy was instead to discredit used in the eyes of the west just before putin's inauguration protests in central moscow turned violent for the first time in three. an opposition movement began rallying arrests were made in both protesters and police

reported injuries several demonstrators face court hearings on charges of inciting mass public disorder and a dozen more trials will carry on in the new year with the opposition claiming this is all part of a kremlin clamp down on their movement but putin's reelection and protests didn't get nearly as much attention as this. was the riots rock riot on the altar of christ the savior and the scandal that followed made world headlines took over the blog a sphere and had celebrities like madonna defending them or the russian orthodox church was outraged you know there is no defense in this case it's simple p.r. lawyers on cooking up on ali fear they're working towards the brand in order to capitalize on it in the future and it's worked some of the groups girls got two years in jail for the stunt which was criticized by the west as too harsh the story made in the headlines for weeks on end leaving little room for stories like this.

thank you very much the way u.s. presidential candidate jill stein and her running mate arrested for protesting outside a debate for top party only candidates obama and romney the american system is designed to eliminate political opposition like some of the you know dictatorships that we criticize the debate makes a mockery of our democracy despite being on the ballot in a not states to technically win stine and other candidates were not allowed to debate and got almost no coverage in the lead up to elections on us networks instead third party candidates only chance to debate live on television was from artie's washington studio i think our founding fathers would be spinning it in their graves if they could see this. in line with polls and. actions obama won the election but his work is cut out for him along with other world leaders for the

year to come a rough economy growing discontent and conflicts either standing still or raging wild and he's now a party. and what has gripped your attention this year or you can tell us via twitter hash tag your messages with our team recall to share your thoughts on twenty twelve. now at least ten people have been killed and more than forty injured in explosions across iraq seven members of the same family were killed the largest explosion in the town of south of baghdad two more died in hillah local police say the attack was aimed at shia muslims in the town a blast has also been reported in in the kurdish held area to the north of the country. northern ireland now where an attempt to kill

a policeman by detonating a bomb under his car has been thwarted officers notice the device not far from the country's parliament before calling in the bomb disposal squad pro british loyalists have been rioting in belfast over the last two weeks off ignorant flag was taken down from outside the government building. three people have died in seven others were injured after a devastating landslide covered a highway in southwest colombia it's thought the death toll could rise as several cars are still trapped under the earth some three hundred emergency services personnel are on the scene with heavy machinery and rescue dogs. were coming out we may turn over the rocks priest who built a whole village for his adopted children all seventy of them that's in a special report in a few minutes time stay with. the

mighty volga that runs deep through the russian soul which is providing inspiration for songs and poems and is the country's main north south artery and decades ago schumann ingenuity connected it to the dawn river to the west the volga dawn canal is an engineering marvel within a day a vessel can pass the canals thirteen blocks ten million tons of shipping does so every year. another concrete giant is this finished fifty years ago it's the biggest hydroelectric plant in europe empowers the local city of volgograd and sends lots more electricity to moscow hydroelectric plant behind me is a potent example of how much the volga can provide but harnessing the river like this isn't without its cost. fishermen. been watching fish stocks for years they see the damage the downing of the river has done especially to russia's prized

sturgeon the source of. hydroelectric plant has done significant damage because it stopped fish swimming up to the spawning grounds. within a year all these houses would have fallen into the river depending on how many of the hydroelectric plants turbines are on the water level can change suddenly and dramatically too suddenly for the banks to absorb. control of the river flow by the plant has made building the plane more attractive serious floods are less likely but the water that is put into the drains is taken away from the fish that need it now at last the voice of the voters ecology might start being heard. the first time in fifty years the rules will contain a point on maintaining biodiversity in the river still have a chance to bring the volga back to life. meaning that the mighty volga is.