The network, called the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BNSS), began transmitting yesterday, after 11 years of development. It consists of 10 satellites, with another six slated for deployment in the coming year. The BNSS is run by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a state contractor serving the nation's space program and run by the Chinese military.

Like the GPS system, the BNSS would also make its data available for developers.

The only other GPS alternative is Russia's Glonass. The European Union is building its own, called Galileo, also scheduled to go live by 2020.

Real disposable income has slightly declined this year, official data show, and the difference in income between the bottom 10 percent of the population and the top 10 percent grew by nearly one-fifth between 2000 and 2010.

As in other former Soviet republics, pensioners are among the worst off because they were too old to make the most of the opportunities offered by the free market that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.Moscow is home to 2.65 million retired people and some elderly people have taken part in the recent protests, although many more are young middle-class professionals.

The number of Russians who made the Forbes' list of the world's billionaires jumped from none in 2000 to 101 last year, with Moscow becoming the billionaire capital of the world.The average monthly salary in Russia, however, was only 21,000 roubles ($670) last year.

Dissatisfaction over income distribution played its role in United Russia's performance in the December 4 election. The party had its two-thirds majority cut to a slim majority after winning just under 50 percent of the votes cast.

Russia's Communist Party, which targeted hard-up voters in its election campaign, won almost 20 percent of votes and will have 92 representatives in the 450-seat lower house.

He still appears to have more support in the countryside, where disparities are probably less manifest, than in big cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg where bright lights and luxury boutiques contrast with grim suburban tower block developments."It is obvious that people are very unhappy with the display of wealth they see around them and with the lack of progress to ensure their lives are better

economists at Renaissance Capital investment bank in Moscow say that income inequality in Russia is adequate for gross-domestic-product-per-capita levels."Considering its wealth, the level of income inequality is far from excessive," said Ivan Tchakarov, a Renaissance Capital economist."In the BRIC universe (of emerging countries Brazil, Russia, India and China), Russia is only marginally more income-unequal than China and India, but far better placed than Brazil."China, however, with a population nearly 10 times that of Russia, had only 14 more billionaires last year, according to Forbes.

The poverty rate in Russia stood at 13.1 percent in 2010, according to the World Bank, affecting about 18.6 million people.

John Roemer, a Yale University political science professor, has said that switching from Russia's flat 13 percent rate of income tax to a progressive tax system would raise living standards for the population as a whole.

The high-level source also said Beijing was only notified of Kim's death earlier on Monday, the same day North Korean state television broadcast the news. Kim died on Saturday

Mainly, the prospect of instability on its northeastern border worries China and it sees the younger Kim and his coterie as the best prospect for keeping North Korea on an even keel.

"Jang has played a considerable role during Kim Jong-il's illness of managing the succession problem and even the North's relations with the United States and China," said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies."Jang is in overall charge of the job of making it formal for Kim Jong-un to be the legal and systematic leader by pulling together the party and the military."

Jang had the full backing of his brother-in-law, who named him to the National Defence Commission in 2009, the supreme leadership council Kim Jong-il led as head of the military state.That appointment was part of a flurry of moves Kim Jong-il made following a stroke in 2008 which probably brought home the reality that, unlike his father at his death in 1994, he was unprepared for a trusted son to take over.

The commission has been the pinnacle of power in North Korea and which Kim had used to preach his own version of political teaching called Songun, or "military first."

The naming of Jang as a vice chairman of the commission effectively catapulted him to the second most powerful position in the country.It also put him in line to become caretaker leader of the dynastic state in the event Kim was unable to orchestrate a gradual transition of power and the grooming of Jong-un.

Jang, who also holds the humble title of a department chief in the ruling Workers' Party, disappeared from public for two years before returning in 2006, widely believed to have been purged then rehabilitated as part of a power struggle involving backers of Kim's second and third wives.He is considered a pragmatist who earned Kim Jong-il's trust because of his understanding of domestic politics and economic policy.

Few observers believe either Jang or his wife will try to push the junior Kim out and grab power for themselves."That would kindle a power struggle that will get out of control, and they will know better than to do that," said Yang of the University of North Korean Studies.

With the military already very powerful, there appears to be little risk of a coup or the kind of regime change seen in the Arab world this year.

Ri Yong-ho, the rising star of the North's military and its chief of staff, is ranked fourth on the list of funeral committee officials, an indication of the power he wields not only in the army but as Kim Jong-il's confidante in domestic politics.Ri, despite being on good terms with Jang, provides an ideal balance to the power of Kim's brother-in-law.

Parliament is headed by Kim Yong-nam, a loyal but passive figurehead who analysts say poses no threat to the transition

"The North Korean leadership is united," said Andrei Lankov of Kookmin University in Seoul. "They understand that they should hang together in order not to be hanged separately."

Jang, his wife Kim and Vice Marshal Ri are expected to make sure Jong-un survives as the third generational leader and that North Korea holds together at least through the centenary of Kim Il-Sung's birth in 2012.

As the North's ties with South Korea and much of the outside world have soured, Kim has leaned more on ally Beijing for support, which has cost China both in economic aid and in strains with South Korea and other nations alarmed by North Korea's nuclear weapons development and military brinkmanship.China has sought to draw North Korea closer with incentives, and bilateral trade hit $3.1 billion in the first seven months of 2011, an 87 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Chinese customs statistics. Growth was propelled by a 169.2 percent jump in the value of Chinese imports.

Chung Young-Tae at the Korea Institute of National Unification said there was "a big possibility that a power struggle may happen."

Kim Jong-il also promoted his sister and her husband, Jang Song-thaek, to important political and military posts, creating a powerful triumvirate.Chang is seen as effective regent for the younger Kim. He holds a top position in the powerful Worker's Party providing some balance to the generals who have been seen as more hardline in pushing the North to develop an atomic arsenal.Earlier this decade, Chang was forced into exile for what is believed to have been conflict over his push for economic reforms.

Putin is busy reviving the idea of a remodelled union embracing the former Soviet republics of central Asia, an arrangement that prospectively boosts Russian political and military influence. "Russia will begin this new iteration of a Russian empire by creating a union with former Soviet states based on Moscow's current associations, such as the customs union and the collective security treaty organisation. This will allow the 'EuU' [a Eurasia union] to strategically encompass both the economic and security spheres … Putin is creating a union in which Moscow would influence foreign policy and security but would not be responsible for most of the inner workings of each country," said Lauren Goodrich in a Stratfor paper.

Following last month's Gazprom deal with Belarus, industry analysts suggest up to 50% of Europe's natural gas could be controlled by Russia by 2030.

Saudi or other Arab backing for the increasingly armed opposition could escalate matters further, potentially producing a sectarian civil war lasting years and spilling across borders into neighboring states.

"A proxy Saudi-Iranian war in Iraq represents a very considerable threat to oil supplies," said Alastair Newton, chief political analyst at Japanese bank Nomura.

Some of the increased friction with its neighbors could be a symptom of a power struggle within Iran itself, Newton said."I think one of the reasons you're seeing temperature rising between Iran and others is because you're seeing temperature rising in Tehran itself."Recent events such as the embassy storming, in which Iran seemed willing to tear up the international rulebook, could be a sign of increasing clout of hardline clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders.The attack on Britain's embassy prompted widespread international condemnation and looks to have ushered in a much tighter sanctions. That too may strengthen the hardliners.

Last year's Stuxnet computer worm, which damaged computers used in industrial machinery, was widely believed to have been a U.S.-Israeli attack to cripple Iranian nuclear centrifuges.Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed or disappeared, and Iran blames U.S. or Israeli intelligence services.

Two explosions last month in Iran, one of which killed a Revolutionary Guards gunnery general and around a dozen other officers, prompted widespread speculation in Israel that its intelligence services were involved.

The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes it possible for Israeli jets to pass through its airspace without needing U.S. permission.

Public reluctance has been galvanized by the unusually vocal questioning by Dagan and some other retired security chiefs of Netanyahu and Barak's secret strategizing.

Former Mossad spymaster Meir Dagan has predicted that Syria, Iran's key Arab ally and now beset by a bloody domestic uprising, might also choose to join in the foreign conflict.

These critics have urged U.S.-led sanctions on Tehran be given more time. Israel and its Western partners are also widely believed to have been sabotaging Iran's uranium enrichment and ballistic arms projects, though Barak said any such covert campaign cannot be relied upon to finish the job.

By a ratio of two to one, respondents said they would agree to stripping Israel of its own atomic arsenal as part of a regional disarmament deal. Ninety percent predicted Iran, which says its nuclear project is peaceful, would obtain in time become a nuclear military power.

A December 1 poll by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the U.S. think-tank Brookings found that 43 percent of Israeli Jews backed attacking Iran, while 41 percent would be opposed.

Slowing its progress toward that point, however, may be enough of an objective for Israel, which Barak assessed last month stood to lose "maybe not even 500 dead" to Iranian retaliation.

Israel, he said, should "open lines of dialogue with those who have superior operational abilities than we do" -- effectively, shelving unilateralism in favor of cooperation with the United States and its NATO allies

Should it end up worse, "there are international mechanisms that would curtail the war between Iran and Israel," former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said last month.But Yadlin, who was among the eight F-16 pilots who carried out the 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak reactor, sounded circumspect about Israeli military capabilities against Iranian targets that are numerous, distant, fortified and on the alert for attacks - in contrast to Saddam Hussein's sole installation near Baghdad.

Dan Schueftan, head of the National Security Studies Centre at Haifa University, said Israel's recent hawkish talk could be meant for foreign ears: "Because they (Netanyahu and Barak) fear that if it is believed that there is no possibility of Israel attacking Iran, the United States won't consider taking action."Even Dagan publicly dangled the possibility that he has been playing into a propaganda ruse, telling Israeli television: "If Dagan is arguing against a conflict, then the Iranian conclusion is ... 'Listen, these Jews are crazy. They could attack Iran!'"

But posture can also be self-realizing. Before launching his surprise attack on Israel at Yom Kippur in 1973, Egypt's Anwar Sadat repeatedly issued mobilization orders to his forces while also saying he was willing to consider peace negotiations, lulling Israelis into believing Cairo was not a serious threat.