new year's danger the u.s. is still stuck on the edge of its fiscal cliff. before. investigators begin ruling out possible causes for the deadly plane crash at a moscow airport. step by step. us from the rest of the middle east and arab world money roller coaster public getting more politically vocal. major events that shaped twenty twenty.

well it is a pleasure to have you with us here today on this new year's eve lots of action coming your way throughout the night. will be here a bit later for now though it's me research i live in the moscow st. now trying to pull the u.s. back from the brink of the fiscal cliff it couldn't get much closer to the wire just a few hours now americans will be hit hard by billions of dollars of tax hikes and spending cuts which will automatically come into effect on tuesday republicans and democrats are now in a last minute effort to avert it as time rapidly runs out here's our washington d.c. correspondent. 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 they came up with this scary word cliff

to create lots of drama around what 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 to 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 deadline 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 of certainty coming from the u.s. oil prices have soared in the asian markets ahead of a last minute effort in washington to read. 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. a gun

a chicken reporting there and while congress has trouble sorting out a deal to prevent americans slipping into a tax black hole some agreements just seem to breeze on through as charlie mcgrath from wide awake news explains what can the united states of america this is where we govern by crisis we don't have representatives in washington d.c. we have political prostitutes that will go before a camera and say that anything that they have to say is you keep this massive government rolling and you can make social interest influence in washington d.c. or that when the cameras are on you know they're on the red team they're going out there saying it's the welfare folks as well it's a people on food stamps or the people in extended unemployment benefits if they're on the blue team they're coming out and trying to get their base fired up that it's all about their corporate interests and that this is why we can't come up with you but isn't it me is it when the cameras are off and it's time to pass a trillion dollar nearly trillion dollars defense bill they have no problem

whatsoever coming to coming together and holding hands to put that kind of a deal together i think ultimately the hammer is going to fall on the people of this country it is called austerity nobody in washington d.c. wants to own up to that austerity but eventually it's coming to this country already watching r.t. now across. crash investigators have ruled out the condition of the runway as a cause for saturday's deadly plane tragedy at one of moscow's busiest airports are the red wings to pull off jet skidded off the runway and plowed into the embankment of a major highway five people who are on board have died there are still three others that are now fighting for their lives and optional looks at exactly how the disaster 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 always 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 all located traffic

jams a common with a song with a die and a song over 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 sack to see anything but no fish. just minutes before that and similar to call for what number ninety six i think is linda said look i told him it was still the czech republic the plane touches down but can stall three kilometer on way they had but still the airline is moving too fast i think fear is true at that moment very slightly nose already they will not make it the jets reaches the end of the runway runs into the fence but still

continues moving it finally sold off 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 stick for four seven the middle paul just bought mrs the way the cockpit 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 for 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 light on the road is a very road they usually drive every friday and everybody sings as that moment was even i'd have call minutes earlier or was eve i'd have been on that airplane people come also their cars and try to help out those in the cockpit told you that.

weather conditions technical failure and pilot error are among investigators main causes of the incident was most likely a combination of reasons behind a fatal crash however a plane hitting a busy highway. one of europe's biggest cities could have a much more devastating trail of destruction there wasn't enough log for everyone on that saturday evening. party moscow region. and for more expert opinion on what may have caused the crash as well as details about the plane itself just head over to our website are two dot com. at the end of the year in britain also means plowing through tax return forms of course before the penalty deadline and many people though are already being penalized in the pocket simply by asking for help in filling out the forms. reports.

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 array 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's spending watchdog says that last year some twenty million phone calls went on the answered 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 experiencing what critics call a shameful level of service 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 that british citizens find it so hard to get their head around and it's the telephone providers that are responsible for the helplines that cashing in on all the tax confusion. well with the new year just around the corner for us right here in moscow we have prepared

a special farewell to two thousand right here on our. special coverage live broadcasts from several countries as well as spectacular images of the festivities and some full costs of what to expect for two thousand and thirteen zero that's to come before midnight here in moscow next we are kept the major events of the outgoing year after the 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 stablished that a legacy he of and constantine should show from faire russia and the commerce prospectively promised for a fee to get

a businessman on to their party's electoral lists getting 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 trust. to make a cycle decision. has changed his life and the world

around. by giving. hope. and love to so many children. the real world. to. live on r.t. on new year's eve welcome to the program it is already two thousand and thirteen in some parts of the world thailand and vietnam have just welcomed the new here as well as a very chilly central siberia in russia let's have

a look at the map now celebrations in full swing in five of russia's nine time zones right now as well as in australia china japan and singapore as the world gradually greets the new year we look now at the events for which twenty twelve will be remembered. my calc one. hundred twelve has reached its and along with the mayan calendar. but it looked more like this. a decade of war is a. good thing years. 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. this time in gaza their world did and when israel launched a short but deadly campaign in response to rockets fired by hamas after one of their leaders was a front the u.s. solidly backed israel but critics claim the use of disproportionate force has become too common a practice for a defense force journalist 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 the region from

a two state solution israel and palestine this is what conflict continues to rage in neighboring syria you know that russia trying to possibly stay running his country. he has to go assad must go. after demands and predictions that syria's president would fall and twenty trial went on for the film 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 what's going on the country i'm sick and i made. i made 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 he's killing his own people this is the same narrative that we 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 libya 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 iran this destabilization. and now the entire arab spring scenario is. it's not disintegrate it's becoming

a nightmare one that spread to western allies in the region like bahrain where 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. us embassies were left in shambles us plaques 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 a song who had a busy year and here he was granted political asylum by ecuador after being

released on bail while the 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 one is on sat down with guests shunned by the mainstream media like has the last house on the throne and internet freedom activists the cyberpunks 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 local health center to the idea of schools cation let alone geo politics still many journalists slam the 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 all tamil late if there are too many protests won't even 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 an arche because government itself may break down but it is. not the case in the us where the occupy movement lost momentum of this year corporate back

media and authorities managed to dull demonstrations demanding economic equality and responsibility is one of a party that there were you know you wait for occupy to expand from its needs and from that. you know usually you write it by as a bunch of anarchist story or students who know how to sing better to you is to organize themselves fully to something the group is promising in 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 what motivated by frustration the demonstrators had the care political goal which was to discredit the the reputation of president putin to be going to russia knowing that those plans could be continued not 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 the least of the ice of the west just before putin's inauguration protests in central moscow turned violent for the first time since three. an opposition movement began to rally against 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. week didn't meet with 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 just sending them over the russian orthodox church was outraged. there is no defense in this case it's simple p.r.

ploy on cooking up on all of their 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 remained in the headlines for weeks on end leaving little room for stories like this one over. likely much the way the 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 the u.s.

networks instead third party candidates only chance to debate live on television here was for marty's washington studio i think our founding fathers would be spinning it in their graves if they could see this. in line with homes and part. actions obama won the election but his work is cut out for 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. it's been a busy year here on two thousand and twelve now of course we always love it when you get involved with our stories we always value your opinion you can tell us what group your attention the most to. post a tweet. before hearing your thoughts and reading some of the. coverage we approach midnight here in moscow. and they will join us for also online

. to take a taste of their own medicine on our web site right now too many medics are piling on the pounds. example by having. junk food. calories. over the king of the french fry. claiming it's their invention. thanks for joining us here on r.t. today one hundred thousand more people could die in syria over the next year if the government and the opposition don't start talking of a chilling prediction came from the un's international peace envoy lakhdar brahimi

also warned of the country would become a failed state ruled by warlords unless diplomacy is given a chance his proposed peace plan involves forming a transitional government based on an agreement between the authorities and the rebels but the opposition is dismissing the initiative saying it won't ceasefire or join any talks unless president assad goes ali mohamed a member of the syrian woman is action believes the rebels position is being instigated from abroad. what should be mixed is. between the birth as we see the powers in the world through the two through pressure of the opposition for dialogue and this mean more morons or. little bit of peril of the. working hours that we have gone there for a long while and it's all been there after the and it's quite clear from the border . in that we're going to live in the borders with jordan are with life it is well

and it's obvious that the international are over there with them for our words are interested. in boxes like turkey or some part of the love and i believe that is the job for them. all right into the arty world of that we go now some other global news for you in brief starting with a series of explosions in iraq that are killed at least ten people and wounded more than forty others seven members of the same family were killed in the largest explosion in the town of moussaoui just south of baghdad two more died in a hill or local police say the attack was aimed at shia muslims in the town lost as also been reported in cook in the kurdish held area to the north of the country. and the u.s. secretary of state. clinton has been admitted to hospital for a blood clot was found during a medical exam spent the next couple of days being treated for the condition of being caused by

a concussion she suffered not long ago after she fell at home the sixty five year old is due to end her tenure of america's chief diplomat next year. and opposition activists have lashed out at the seven year prison terms for police officers convicted of beating a protester to death last year campaigners insist it was torture and the court was too lenient anti-government demonstrations in bahrain started early in two thousand and eleven and at least sixty people have died since. why was i still to come here and not see we made an orthodox priest who built a whole village for his adopted children all seventy of them on a special report in just a second. tucked

in between the russian mainland japan and the suckling island is the island of minute on named off the french seafarer who discovered it it is described as the pride of the sakhalin region we'll take a look what's in store for us here. until two thousand and four the island was part of the borders own and was completely restricted to me as it is now the speak to us place is open to tourists unique plants and animals are its top attraction. really has been exploring the deaths on the world seas for several decades but it's here at more your own island where he has finally found what he'd been looking for those that are supposed to be the most the water here is very clear the visibility is very good and the underwater world here is a extremely rich i've been to many diving locations across the planet including the island.