i thank. god. twenty thirteen spreads across the world we will show you the most spectacular celebrations and look ahead to be potential challenges that face this in the new year. these are live pictures from new york we're watching at the moment from times square as they welcome in the new year. we also look back on a year. filled with conflict and cuts protests and unrest and hear from our correspondents about how it could have all turned out differently. plus it is a fiscal cliff as a last minute deal seems likely to fend off a new year tax hike in the u.s. but the same man set for another showdown on capitol hill. and i learned takes

over as the head of the european union but it's massive dead leaves it in a weak position just as the broad calls out of a strong leadership. cloak borning and happy new year you are watching r.t. live from moscow with me. now the new year has reached the new year race has reached america's east coast midnight has just struck in new york these are live pictures from times square over a million spectators are there to celebrate the event with the traditional ball drop the iconic symbol has been decorated with tens of thousands of colored lights organizers say that. could be

a record tonight for new year's celebrations in the big apple these are live pictures many people celebrating you can see they're bringing in twenty to. well let's take a quick look at some of the most spectacular celebrations and firework displays of happened around the world new zealand was among the first to usher in twenty thirty crowds packed the harbor in oakland to enjoy the display the city sky tower while almost two million people turned out the key celebration in a strange sydney skyline erupting with the now standard jaw dropping fireworks at midnight from harbor bridge midnight later moved on to asia this is hong kong which really builds up the tension with the camps and then lit up the sky from both land and sea. europe has also welcomed the new year with a major fireworks display at the random the gate becoming one of the world's

largest open air parties dazzling display also splashed guys above the london eye in the u.k. campus of. the new year in russia officially kicked off when the clock spice guy in moscow rang out twelve times they are conic red square was filled with crowds as i work slit the skies above the kremlin russians it's been a year of major political challenges and the rise of vocal public opinion parties peter lavelle has taken a fine tooth comb to russian politics over the years and my colleagues haven't always been easy now he sees things panning out. so i think what is the future of russia's political opposition as you see it in the new year compared to two thousand and twelve i would say it's kind of bleak but not hopeless ok we didn't come up with any new ideas new organization new faces in the pussy riot is that we are of the opposition or it's pretty dreadful situation for the russian people and political development in general here in. there was political change in this

country and a positive change does make up the opposition as we head into the it's a very interesting question because i have gone to most of the major demonstrations and there were people there of goodwill in my opinion but then there were fascists there ok who were communists there and they were these are people they're ok and it's your right to demonstrate i for actually liked the idea but they didn't accomplish anything that i could see they have no organization no unifying ideas except for i don't like but i'm a recruiter which is not a very it's not a political agenda there were a few protests which i was at as well where it did seem like that was the method if you wanted to gain traction on this opposition movement do you see people coming out and take the train lost a lot of its novelty effect right now ok because political change takes leaders in years in years that have to be local this is what happens in political changes with countries that were what they were carrying at one time it takes a long time to get people involved in the process and that is happening very very

strongly there's some people that want to really fast and they don't want to do it through elections they want power because they want power because they believe they deserve it and what about the fact that we're not going to see any presidential elections of course that all led up to being elected a third term this protest and now they're kind of down now oh i would say to people i mean if you want to continue to protest in but you know join a political party there are forty four of them now you have a choice ok get involved see one of the things i saw with a lot of the protesters is that they want someone else to do all the hard work ok they want to go out and wave a flag and say give out a slogan we don't want to do the hard nitty gritty work of political change and that's what we need to do i would be looking at the next parliamentary election for change will know we certainly will be going to be easy to come up as one of the great programs in store but i wish you all the very best to cross talk about the new year on out thank you. twenty thirteen will be

a year of change for iran as the current president steps down with no clear successor in sight we look if the upcoming election will take foreign our eyes off iran's nuclear program also coming up the last two years have seen fierce struggle and death for many in syria and few feel twenty thirteen will bring long awaited peace to the war torn stay. america breathed a sigh of relief going into twenty thirteen as lawmakers in washington strike a deal on the edge of the fiscal cliff the failure would have seen taxes skyrocket for virtually every u.s. worker but it's not all good news the deal is reportedly only temporary setting the stage for another showdown in a few months talks that some say won't go any smoother. nobody is talking about the true issue is the fact that the country in the western world is bankrupt basically this is a classic case of kicking the can down the road they didn't want to address it before the election so they said we'll extend the debt and we'll just wait till

next year and they thought it would go up quite a bit further but the deficit ran up so much faster than anticipated we'll take care of it tomorrow and that's all the politicians in the us are anywhere too they're not proactive they're not problem solvers they don't care about you and all they care about is their own little power and you know let the rest of the world be damned the average american doesn't understand why his country by the world economy is going down the drain all they know is class warfare which is what the administration wants that the banks are getting rich and they're getting poorer they don't understand why any of this is happening so for the average american they're going to pay some more taxes but the average american is in fear of losing his job and losing everything that he's worked this whole life for and he doesn't have a clue why. the

financial. the fiscal cliff is just more of fear from bankers and politicians trying to distract from the underlying root. that is a bunch of. bankers who are manipulating the system. trying the economy let's just go cliff was just more probable more theater because. we're going to see more of this going forward in two thousand and thirteen anything like the tension from the mob with your pitch forks and their torches are coming after these people they want to just delay that day of reckoning for as many months as they can but the day of reckoning twenty third it's. i'm not too happy about the e.u. is also celebrating new year we look back on. and hear what the coming year in store for you are. to be

america's main political event of the year in the presidential election the thrilling race with the run is neck and neck all the way to the finish that's what it looked like with obama snatching victory from mitt romney the very last moment but their competition overshadowed some third party candidates who were left struggling to get their voice heard. again i reflected on the race to the top. there were cheers of relief here when he won i would say because the alternative was thought to be so much worse many voted out of fear that romney could win for them he was another george w. bush so whether americans have fallen out of love with obama the two thousand and eight euphoria was gone that's for sure back then there were these crowds you know in the streets all across the country shedding tears of joy so bad in their view with the eight years of bush presidency obama was greeted as the savior and then he went to save the banks save the auto industry something he took

a special pride in during the election campaign but across the country millions of people remained out of work and are still out of work so this time president obama ran under the banner it could have been so much worse as you imagine it was not a banner for national euphoria it was more like you have no choice but to choose me kind of better something that shocked me while i was covering the election here it was it was the second debate between obama and romney i'm sure you remember you remember that as a presidential nominee from the green party jule styne was arrested right outside the venue where the debate was taking place she was protesting for exclusion from the debate and nobody like no news channel kiran mentioned her arrest none and i was switching channels for hours to see if anything was said about that and. what the reaction would be here in the states if a presidential candidate is the mother of a country was arrested the media there wouldn't even mention it but apparently it

happens in the u.s. no big deal president attended to get arrested all the time right well there was some irony that yes anyway during the election campaign the mainstream media had been focused on nothing else said no one else but these two candidates and we are to you as you remember of course saw the and saw an opportunity there to show what others don't and we've posted the debate. there was one thing that shook the u.s. so badly that it made president obama put the country's treasury second amendment under some heavy fire the sandy hook primary school shooting that left twenty children and six stuff dead so the president for a ban on some firearms tom hartman looks at whether the new game might bring some changes in america's weapons policy my guess is what we're going to see is a cosmetic change we're going to see probably the or the assault weapons ban come back they'll be a fair number of loopholes in it but you know the u.s. is not going to end up going the way that's what's

a longer israel have done or many most european countries have done australia when john howard was president one thousand nine hundred eight when there was a mass slaughter and then they said ok that's it we're going to buy back all the guns and it's not going to happen here there's just too much money being made with guns insane supreme court or at least five right wing crazies out of nine on the supreme court decided that even though the second amendment says in order to maintain a well regulated militia necessary for the for the security of a free state the right to you know you people have the right to own guns that's half of it the other half of it is that the supreme court also said that corporations interest groups lobbying groups billionaires can throw unlimited amounts of money at politicians. the young man was of twenty twelve america's wildly inaccurate drone strikes and the crackdown on online privacy made quite a stir in the past year we ask of the rise of the machine will continue in twenty thirteen and freedom of speech but not of the speaker we report on the world's most

wanted whistleblower during the signage and what he managed to achieve while staying under house arrest and in hiding all of that coming up in a few minutes. was uprisings crises and world wide protests may twenty twelve a turbulent year with not all that much positive news but what if it had been a little bit different artie's lucy careful of explores the headlines that could have been. twenty twelve was certainly full of disappointing headlines hope fueled by the arab spring turned into the turmoil of the arab autumn the war in syria claimed countless lives and the fiscal crisis all the european union torn apart at its very seams and the problems facing our world today certainly don't offer themselves up to an easy fix what if things had turned out differently what if opportunities were actually sees the pawn instead of missed well here's our look at the twenty twelve headlines that could have been. diplomacy

succeeds in syria ending bloody conflict. instead this was the image of syria the world saw increasingly violent clashes between government forces and the opposition had claimed more than forty thousand lives efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution fell flat because divisions ripped apart both the country and the international community hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring states where many have found conditions to be dismal meanwhile syria's war is threatening to spill over its borders as tensions escalate within and in the region. of told me to try and sanction slashed nuclear to accept. going to end game for the us rules to restrict far off. mideast peace with israel links to state park has promised on. it yet this was their reality israel's assault

on palestinian militants in gaza israel's anti-missile shield repelled in most attacks on its territory but a strike claimed the lives of more than one hundred sixty palestinians many of them civilians despite harsh condemnation from many in the international community the war and israel's subsequent decision to construct three thousand new settlements effectively slammed the door shut to any prospect of peace go through people power moment came. step aside and let a democracy. get lost get my notorious kuantan of my prison permanently shot. euro zone cuts the cuts and lifts austerity. but the news of austerity only tightened as deep public sector cuts brought thousands of angry demonstrators to the streets of greece spain italy and portugal. the worst economic crisis of a generation has battered the european union's very foundations exacerbating tensions between member states with some regions now desperately wanting out i grew

up in a europe that was divided from east to west going to europe it is divided from old to self never at any point in the history of this union has there been more discord of rank that we covered. corporate cash banned from the campaign coffers as part of the us political please. know we here for u.k. brits quit the european union. we can expound a duty on the solyndra point to un free speech and. instead a song remains a political refugee at ecuador's london embassy where he's been granted asylum he continues to fight extradition to sweden over alleged sex crimes charges that he says are politically motivated and tied to his work in leaking international government secrets. the power of people speaking up and resisting together terrifies corrupt democratic power so much so that only three people here

in the west and the enemy of governments an enemy to be watched an enemy to be confront and to be impoverished true democracy is not the white house true democracy is not. true democracy is the resistance of people with the truth against lies from top to right here in london. everyday ordinary people teach us that democracy is free speech and dissent. from heretics to hero american whistleblower bradley manning finally free. droning on the nations agree to end iraq of remote controlled war. egypt's arab spring sees democracy defeat hardline islam as. the reality on the ground was anything but egyptian president mohamed morsi is fouled like power grab unleashed fury and frenzied street battles and a fast track to constitutional overhaul referendum left

a bitter opposition eager for change for them two thousand and twelve saw the arab spring transformed into an egyptian nightmare had a revolution to get rid of a tyrant the dictator. in the order to that we made elections the revolution and elections to choose someone to the present us turned out that this guy is also a tyrant himself but he's had lines may have been the stuff of imagination but that sea of twenty thirteen can bring any of them to life with the council of r.t. moscow well despite hopes for a brighter future some experts expressed time that in the case of syria any major breakthroughs will allow people there a reprieve in twenty thirty. it's very sad to say to everybody all over the world that the top geopolitical tragedy of two thousand and thirteen is going to be the top geopolitical tragedy of two thousand and eleven the rape of syria the only

possibility would be that the opposition. in a syrian way this sides not to listen to the saudis the turks their qataris the americans the brits and the french and they sit down with the assad government and they will work out a transitional government or at least a transitional period leading to free and fair elections is this going to happen not likely and there's been no love lost between palestinians and israelis in the aftermath of yet another war between the two today tel aviv plans new settlements on occupied palestinian land while hamas and fattah vowed to rearm and promise no quarter. reports now on what it bodes for the future. if you look at what's happening on the ground israel continues to announce settlement construction and the palestinians continue to say that for as long as these announcements continue they will be no resumption of peace talks it wasn't so long ago that the

palestinians were upgraded status at the united nations but you can have to track the fact that we still have palestinian faction groups hamas and fatah who always seem to be at each other's throats in less than a month the israelis will go to the polls and by all predictions they will reelect the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu for another term of office and it doesn't seem as if he has an olive branch so certainly the prognosis for any kind of peace moves is far back in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine we had a conflict that was twenty two days long by comparison this time around it was eight days four years ago the casualty count was more than a thousand people who were killed most of them palestinians this time around the casualty count was was a lot lower and again four years ago there was a ground offensive this time around there wasn't a ground operation. in june twenty thirty in iran will be holding a presidential election mahmoud ahmadinejad won't be running having served the maximum two terms aside from that there's no certainty as to who will take over at

a tense time when iran's nuclear program continues to be a thorn in some western nations side journalist afshin rattansi you has often shared his insights with us doesn't think the new leader will bend to foreign will . i think whoever we people of iran elects policy foreign policy terms things are going to be much the same terminology of western corporate media or a bizarre image of the islamic extremist in all sorts of different morning because the point is iran is there to stay in terms of forging a very different type of developing nation economy because it has all that oil and has all those resources and it's not going to suddenly start changing things the way the i.m.f. or the way washington wants it to be. dispensed more now website where u.s. war on terror sometimes goes just too far a british olympic hero is held by america's customs on suspicion he's

a terrorist or that just because he happened to be born in the wrong country plus martin dot com he will find the latest bomb the sky fall goes into history as it reaches a staggering one billion dollars box office mark the first time in the franchise's history. now in europe people are making their new year wishes and plenty of them have their fingers crossed that things will be a little less tight in twenty thirteen investment advisor patrick young says greece still doesn't have a functioning government system that will be able to pull the country out from the deep recession that in our faces. what's happened so far has been so when engine cuts on the masses and we really haven't managed to make the world move to state impact upon the whole nation itself greece is still fundamentally in a huge problematic situation it goes not will most likely have

a functioning government system the fiscally is going to manage to organize itself in any which way possible to manage to get through the continuing cuts that need to take place of course then we're looking at the whole issue of the demonstrators are the governments listening well the truth is the governments can't afford to listen because what we're seeing within the european union even if the euro has survived miraculously for twelve months government has run out of money the european union's western socialist model of spending huge amounts of money borrowing even greater amounts of money and hoping to pay everything manyara or indeed thirty years from manion or simply does not work. only three years ago and was bankrupt and receiving a bailout to rescue his failed economy but despite this the very same country has just taken me six month presidency of the european council and as artie's or smith

reports the celtic tiger has some hard graft ahead. it's all changed with the new president say as takes over the six month rotating challenge on the first of january not the obvious choice islands one of the guys in the countries that have the least table economies in europe and sure enough islands the. if the twenty seven nation bloc while being propped up by i.m.f. money so for the next six months the e.u. and its systemic problems will be presided over by one of its weakest and most problematic members so what specific challenges faced in europe over the six months of its presidency first the european economy is slowing and the crisis is nowhere near over secondly it must preside over leaders actually agreeing to an e.u. budget for the year two thousand and fourteen to two thousand and twenty something

they've spectacularly failed to do so far and thirdly there is a problem coming from right here in london increasing british opposition to brussels and the threats to european cohesion that poses the irish government expects the e.u. presidency to coast in excess of seventy million euros money the country can ill afford and what will it be spent on twenty four million on cantering accommodation and transport for example another twenty million extra governments. spend half the year in two thousand and twelve under house arrest and the other half holed up in the ecuadorian embassy in london but he still managed to produce a t.v. series talking to the kenya has shown by the mainstream media correspondent in london sarah ferguson has been following his ups and downs through the years. a lot of you say we did more in

a year media organizations have done in decades we've really had a front of everything that's been going on we've had him at the beginning of the fighting that extradition to sweden we saw his the pill rejected we then saw that dramatic twist in the time when he went into the i could do it embassy seeking asylum. in the. british media we see a lot of the quite viciously especially during the course of this year with these. events happening surrounding. a lot of people would put that down plain and simply to jealousy. twenty twelve saw something of a rise of the machines this drone warfare shot into the headlines american killing civilians abroad and the approval of drone use for keeping tabs on people inside the u.s. those were the topics that from the host of artie's breaking the set she believes things will get worse in twenty thirty really we're talking about drones actually a really serious topic because people are under this notion that drones are somehow

precise they're the good way to fight the war on terror really they completely are counterintuitive big creedon harbor more terrorists they have a ninety eight percent failure rate of surveillance drones are going to happen in this country in two thousand and thirteen congress passed a bill to now authorize surveillance drones all over the united states so this is just not going to stop it's going to get worse decide from the from the deaths and the double tap drones that we have in the middle eastern countries now is going to create a chilling effect we're people aren't going to want to dissent as much and that's the real problem with the online privacy the online erosion of our civil liberties as well as people are going to speak out as much if they feel like they're being watched. well there is some good news in a few minutes time we meet an orthodox priest who built a whole village for his adopted children or seventy of them that's coming up after the break.

the. divine power in action at debate this just cries. i am just so we need these we are under the control of those governing us before we're at the service of a space mafia i found that on that day the magnetic field of the sun will see to it that will create the support that the stuff. after the second coming it will be a futile place it will receive its glory it will be a renewed world and it will be a beautiful place. full of the best. will stop this

type emulation. it's good business for us it's kind of like being a doctor you know if there's a disaster businesses. better unfortunately. download the official location to your cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites. if you're away from your television early it just doesn't do so now with your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere on. the nation and free accreditation free comes for charges free.