economies as we head to one of the country's far east export gate awaits. thank you for joining us broadcasting around the world twenty four hours a day watching our team since the last american troops left iraq and the country is learning to manage its own affairs but 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 as sebastian meyer now reports. 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 entire time. but iraqi journalists trying to cover these protests are all that silenced by the government security forces in today's around journalists

who speak out are routinely imprisoned beaten or just simply killed it seems to be a high level of intolerance for dissent or for public criticism of either government policies or particular leaders use it all 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. country you know grabbed me fast uses 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. myself i don't go there i stopped there 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 ahmed 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 is against that and i think and you can see that there are people in the midst 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 one 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 meier r.t. iraq. on our website we're asking what you think will happen to iraq now that u.s. forces have left and this hour and thirty seven percent think the country is slipping into total chaos while over just a third of all voters believe iraqis will overthrow the u.s. backed government and determine their own future around a quarter think things can't get any worse than they already are just four percent believe a rap will develop into a western style democracy while our entire team dot com to add your voice. a suicide bombing that killed up to twenty six people in the syrian capital has heightened tensions between the government and the opposition they attack apparently targeted a police boss but most of the casualties are said to have been civilians it comes as arab league monitors who are assessing violence in the country are due to give their first report this weekend anti-government protesters rallied after the blast

blaming the syrian government for the violence and calling for international intervention but jordan based political analyst. says the bombing is a sign that armed opposition is actively trying to destabilize the country. right from the start the demonstrations were not truly peaceful but there were many incidents of. gas perpetrating crimes against the army against the security forces against the civilians of course they are denying this so-called opposition denying that for a long time but now everything has become clear these terrorist acts these shameful terror of the stack such a clear indication that there are gangs that are headed it's working in syria to disrupt life in syria they're not aiming the aggression only against that but against the whole city of people the whole city and obviously what we have witnessed in syria is that there have been but there is

a very ugly conflict to dismantle let them do this. it has nothing to do with democracy and freedom and that they're all so the. forces international forces. forces as well which are actually trying to change the situation in the political reasons. to the costs that we actually be imposed on the city of people. so i had for you this hour the man who brings hollywood to moscow to meet the american bringing stars and studios to russia as today's pathfinder explains how he's succeeding in developing moscow's movie magic plus. to fix the economy what should they be doing. more money and. pumping more money they've been pumping billions and billions and trillions to the residence in new york to ask how people there would go about

fixing the struggling global economy. orthodox christians worldwide are celebrating christmas day follow the julian calendar where believers celebrate the birth of christ thirteen days after western worshippers and also marks the end of a forty day fast around two hundred million people follow the eastern tradition it's one of the oldest christian countries georgian worshippers a began the holy day with midnight mass in bosnia serbs carried branches to be burned ass part of their christmas ritual the fires are believed to warm the community with love and remove religious intolerance peter all over was as midnight mass ad christ the savior cathedral in moscow. bracing christmas in 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

it's all of the russian orthodox church attended by the great and the good the dignitaries old russian society president to me to get it in there as well as all the senior figures attending this church service around five thousand people in total crammed into the christ the savior you can see all of them in fact actually taking places around the outskirts of the cathedral to just try and get a view of the church hopefully to hear something what was going on inside it 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 now this is due to the fact that the russian orthodox church as well as some other 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 nine hundred ninety seven the traditional christmas. christ the savior. feeling continues online as we bring you more on the orthodox christmas celebrations here in russia at r.t. that color can see. stranded in space. just a film footage of the russian martian probe that's stuck in orbit and. back to earth. thank you for being with us just ten minutes past the hour more now on the

foreigners who are successfully pioneering business in russia today as pathfinder is bogged down the wrong goal who used to be a restaurant tour in los angeles until deciding one day to leave it all behind he's now hollywood's man in russia and 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 in the us with the how real i didn't know any actors but i started meeting them just to bring them to russia or working on that project the russian comedy that's going to shoot in america steven seagal zola he told me they'll do it a couple days for two hundred fifty thousand dollars bell 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 and we should meet with you hopefully make your 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 of the city and. yet evolution is going to the other one i don't know yet 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 and others for him to go there and it's very frightening dealing and working with chechnyan friends knowing that if something went wrong john clyde 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 it costs more than a lot of other parts of the world because russians have been willing to pay more you know if 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 but 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 you know i was thinking your from your which is a 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. in the u.s. i'll go back i'll start doing movies back but it's just so exciting here every day and so many new things and new deals and new opportunities and that i haven't been able to leave. now from making money until losing it as we ask whether it's time to let the public take over tackling the world's debt troubles our teens lori harf and us 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 bring. you know now not here you know but what would you do to fix the problem in greece. injuries wow. i don't know how did that. because i know i said no no no maybe that's why it's going all around a good word dick fixes each of our problems personally so if we're all out there working hard and spending money to local communities then that's you know our way of part of building up each local small community eventually the whole country gets strong again right yeah isn't it 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. they 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 that's make it also so just do nothing and let people sort it out themselves american people can sort of theirselves 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 they 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 to at least stop the hemorrhaging we don't just keep printing money and that 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 this and government leaders can't because we

don't get paid by the people that are behind the scenes and since i'm not running for campaign i don't get kind of campaign contributions by people that need my help to american politicians or i just. really so what should they be doing better. other probably trying to change its economy from an oil economy to something else with we've got heaps of paper with lots of brains and we need to be . doing something about the environment do you think those people with brains are in positions of power. and so it seems like with the system that's currently in place for how world leaders get elected it might be time for a solution to come from someplace. as the taliban prepares to open up a political office in qatar and the u.s. has indicated it's ready to back the initiative it's seen as

a crucial step towards peace talks between nato and its longtime anomie the taliban also wants high ranking taliban prisoners to be freed from guantanamo bay artie's military contributor believes the moves signal a major american defeat in the decade long conflict uncle sam has just recently authorizes 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 tayla back on the other side so americans it looks like a real elopes a deal it looks like they have accepted demands by the taliban that is to keep cut as a government out of the loop and as for telamon themselves they look like one and only winners in these shadowy 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 and dressed for the us armed forces and second if we are not losing we are waiting for the taliban themselves. oh look at some other main news from around the world now and there have been fresh attacks on christmas in nigeria the latest assaults happening in the rural northeast at least seventeen people died when gunmen opened fire in a town hall during a christian group meeting in there are also reports of a deadly attack on worshippers in the town of yola militant group boko haram which says it carried out the assaults has been behind similar attacks in recent weeks. and all their balloon houses burst into flames after hitting power lines in new zealand killing all eleven people on board two of those who had died had jumped out

of the basket in desperation before the balloon plummeted to the ground its new zealand's worst air disaster in almost fifty years. miles crowds have gathered in yemen's capital as suspicions grow that president saleh will again run a gone his agreement to quit the protesters also want the release of all political prisoners held since anti-government protests began a year ago opposition leaders fear saleh will use the country's unrest to stay in power despite signing a regionally backed deal to hand controlled his wife's president in exchange for legal immunity. time to bring you a more of russia close up as we continue to explore the country's far east. they have our ask the region lies on the chinese border and is russia's main gate away to the pacific and it's also a center of coal and wood exports to

a heavily populated and feel hungry colonies but as our teens town barton discovered keeping industry alive there doesn't have to be a big sponsor tradition at the bar or street in 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 warden 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 we've noticed there's a cool boom of coal consumption worldwide has increased so this ports covers almost all of asia from the come comes from some of russia's largest deposits five hundred

one it is in there and he joins the oil and flowing out of the region in ever greater quantities tugboats maneuver the ships into place through storms and the winter cold and even the most modern tankers once on their way to helped along by a much older technology oh down this coast vast new ship internals are springing up to supply overseas markets and the old see very foundations presented by this like caps which long before 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 manning 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 big has not had a ship run aground since the early one nine hundred ninety s. he's seen bears moose and tigers visit his lighthouse and ses 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 for 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 in the summer this whole field would be bright orange and blue. victory times next year he says he's come to love the spotlight robinson crusoe and silent 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

the main a holiday that came here from britain a basket self is trying to upgrade itself trying to move into the out of the soviet times and into the modern modern age where industry with the also working on a new cosmodrome what you know about the new developments here i know that is very very important to the local area and you know that it's improving transport links all the time people are finally investing in the far east which is obviously going to be very good for the economy i mean i'm here because my fiance is working for an oil refinery and so more investment there and this cousin to join is going to i think any improve putin said it was one of the biggest and most important projects that's happening in russia then and so yes i think it's up and coming this. as someone who's come from a different culture from outside what would you say to what the people who are thinking. there's possibly business which indies but should i come here what would you say to them and i mean it's worth

a try how did during your russian with this important and very few restaurants ok so they have an english menu and and things like that i think when i don't speak russian people find it frustrating rather than think so i'd bet that in mind prices . so high for us is extortionate. even adventure well there we go that's an insight from someone who has made the leap out to the far east so bar off so it's not going to get any warmer here but it seems that with future with the development of the region it is going to get more connected to the outside world. and i'll be back with the headlines shortly.

this is our time. to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we all want that war we breathe we hope. to me the american dream is to live in peace and prosperity and freedom and a government under socialism is not a government of free. you . have very motivated out for us the country who are

activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but the fact is already we're bridge and. we are drowning in property drowning and i think it's threatened by it's cutting off our. it's making goldmark recy. all but impossible. i had a family i lived in a fairly nice community it wasn't rich it was an upscale it was just like you know archie bunker society ok then they started showing up here what happened was my company decided i could get cheap labor and they got rid of.

rosa eaglets line legally we have to get up every morning we have to go to work and you know we have to pay our bills only have to do it and get it that's just the american dream and if you want the american dream you have to go by the last i figure it's here's one of the major trails in the united states. i watch and they run run down my property and something about this noise. bothers a little gap between the cockroaches from coming over the wire is protecting the country i'm the kind of guy who doesn't mind goodness pay and sturdy so i come out here you know we're all immigrants as well know that we all here are some somewhere else. wealthy british style sun it's time to. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on our. thanks for being with us at two thirty here in moscow with american troops now out of iraq concerns are mounting over what's being left behind it's proving deadly for journalists who are being silenced and even to. ortrud by police for speaking out against the government. his suicide was targeting a police boss that killed twenty six people in syria's capital house worsen the tensions between the opposition and the government leaders blame the attack on the terrorists with protesters finding it increasingly hard to claim they aren't just peaceful demonstrators.