check check >> six american soldiers have been killed in a black hawk chopper crash in afghanistan. the cause of the accident is under investigation, but is blamed on mechanical failure. >> top tech leaders urge the president to reform the n.s.a.'s controversial programs. executives from google and apple say the n.s.a. undermined the trust of users. >> russia offers ukraine $15 billion in economic assistance. it's not clear what ukraine is giving russia in return. >> a makeover for an ancient monument. a $40 million update for englan

englan englands -- englands stonehenge. >> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm stephanie sy. a developing story out of afghanistan. taliban fighters have attacked an american military base. it happened in the province near the pakistani border. the talibany opened fire on the base and tried to enter the base. no international security forces at the base were hurt. >> six american soldiers were killed in another incident in afghanistan. a black hawk helicopter crashed in a remote part of the county. one soldier was rescued from the crash. it's the single deadliest accident in months. n.a.t.o. says no insurgent

activity was in the area at the time. mechanical failure could be to blame. >> exists from the top tech companies met with president obama, urging the president to rain in surveillance programs. the meeting comes after a ruling that the agencies data collection likely contravened the constitution. >> tech titans were here at the white house - google, microsoft, yahoo, netflix. they are concerned. they feel their businesses are at stake. the privacy of customers is at stake. they want accountability, transparency, restrictions on government spying, internet spying and telephonic spying. the meeting in the roosevelt room lasted two hours.

problems that beset that were on the table. at the top of the agenda was the revelations for spying. at the end of the meeting collectively the tech companies issued a statement saying, "we appreciate the opportunity to... : >> as we know the president received recommendations from the advisory committee that he put in place last august at the height of the snowden controversy, the revelations about the spying, the scope of the spying that caused controversy around the world. jay carney gave the white house version of that meeting. >> he made clear because of the remarkable advancements in technology, that the united states has both led the way and been able to take advantage of, as has other countries.

we need to look at our activities through the lense of making sure we are doing what we can and should, but not just what we should to keep ourselves safe, and not just what we can because we have the technological plan to do to. >> the white house will not make a decision on what to do. he adopted some proposals. some will be ik norred, other put off to another day. in any event the president will not make public his recommendations until next year. >> mike viqueira reporting from the white house. >> edward snowden is hoping to make a move from moscow to brazil. the form area national security agency contract jor published a letter in a leading brazilian newspaper, pleading for sympathy. opinion is divided.

>> appealing to the people edward snowden published an open letter in a leading brazilian newspaper on tuesday. not only did he hint at requesting political asylum, but alluded that he would help investigators uncover information about the united states effort to spy on brazil. they cited examples of the way braz brazil -- the u.s. spied on brazil saying: >> his appeal was met with mixed reaction in sao paulo. >> translation: edward snowden has a very important role in history are and contributed a lot by revealing the information. by considering this brazil could give him asylum. >> translation: no, brazil should not give asylum to edward snowden. he's not a person you can trust.

if his own country cannot trust him, why would ours. >> brazil would be a major target of the n.s.a. spying program. documents leaked by snowden revealed that the n.s.a. spied on the president herself. after the revelations, president dilma rousseff cancelled a visit to washington, and condemned u.s. espionage at the assembly meeting. >> edward snowden has political support. legislators has asked for support in hearings. the only person to grant him asylum is the president. >> and the brazilian government sis it has not received initial request from edward snowden for asylum. the white house appears to send a message to russia, with the official u.s. delegation to the 2014 olympics in socchi. president obama will not travel to russia.

the delegation includes no other high-ranking officials. he is sending two highly gay athletes, billy jean king, and hockey player caitlin cahol. the delegation represents the diversity that is the united states. russia is taking heat over its inacted laws against gay proppa glandsa. ondeuce billy jean king sent out this tweet: >> the u.s. says russia's massive bailout of ukraine will not address the concerns of ukrainian protesters. demonstrators opposed to the deal gathered in the capital kiev, and want ukraine to have closer ties with the european union. russia is providing a financial live line for a country that is trapped for cash. >> it was a public display of affection, an affirmation of

close cultural and economic links between russia and the ukraine. putting the kremlin and vladimir putin and viktor yanukovych - memories of a shared history. >> a landmark agreement by russia promising to reduce the price of sales to natural gas to ukraine by 30%. prices per barrel dropping from $400 to $265. an immediate saving of $10 billion for the hard pressed ukrainian economy. >> let me remind you that russian remains a partner. ukraine's budget is 30%. added to that a $15 billion bail out loan from moscow. russia will provide $15 billion in bonds. the economy is battling lows.

>> we have prepared a plan of action for regulating economic relations. a 2-way roadmap. it will improve the performance, bringing results to sectors of the economy and our governments. >> the visit deepened the political crisis, where protesters demanded closer ties with the e.u. the opposition is blocking the work, asking for government recommendations and elections. the protesters is fearful where a deal could be signed. it will close the door to a trade agreement with europe. that will remain open. the customs union was never signed or discussed. >> president viktor yanukovych will be distrighted with the deal. he got what he wanted without

signing the custom led russian document. a decision that will enrage his opponents in kiev, where tens of thousands mass in the streets. >> german chancellor angela merkel says ukraine's fiscal ties with russia should not prevent the country looking to the european union for help also. . well, before i take you to the united states we have been telling you about a snow storm and rain storm hitting the middle east. this is a picture from nasa. you would think these are clouds, but actually those are snowfields. out here in the mediterranean, yes, those are clouds. you can see across lebanon, israel, jordan. that is the areas that have seen the early winter snow. it will take a while for the snow to end. we'll watch this area carefully. across the united states i said we are going to be ending the

snow across the north-east. it's now moving out across new hampshire, into maine and by the morning we'll see icy roads. be careful, the temperatures will be below freezing. up here to the great lakes. lake affect snow. many places are above 4 feet in the area. rain showers across parts of washington state. we do expect to see snow coming into play across idaho as well as montana and rain for seattle. it will be alternating almost every day from wednesday to friday. we get a couple of brakes. temperatures in the mid 40s. down towards the south, across california, a few showers passing across the islands, no accumulation there. snow coming into parts of nevada. for los angeles, we'll see a rain shower on thursday, dropping the temperatures to 60.

we'll look at a beautiful weekend where temperatures reach 70. texas clear for all. highs in dallas of 66 degrees. and the forecast looks like this. rain showers by the time you get to friday. and the temperature comes down by saturday. >> a major drug maker - the impact that could have on the overall industry. new video raising concerns about the treatment of mentally ill inmates. a step prisoners are making to bring about change. thousands of child abuse cases being ignored. allegations against officials in one u.s. city has residents outraged.

outraged.

>> new claims that china spied on a u.s. agency. reports that china hacked into

the electoral commissions website. the attack took place between the government shutdown last october. the report claims hackers crashed a system which compiles campaign finance information. >> one of the world's biggest drug makers is making a policy change. glaxo smith cline will stop paying doctors to promote its pharmaceuticals. >> glaxo is a big drug maker, making several major changes to its global incentive scheme which critics argued are at odds with best practice. the $10 billion a year company will stop paying doctors, not in cash, but incentives at speaking conference and will no longer pay for other doctors to attend the conferences. its sale force will no longer

have individual sales targets tied to the number of prescriptions written to doctors. sales reps will by paid on the quality of their service. >> it's worth noting sales people for glaxo have been operating on this basis since 2011. stopping the incentives to doctors is brand new. glaxo's boss, here he is. he aims to rollout the plan by a target date of 2016. in a statement he said: >> earlier this year chinese officials accused gsk of transfersing half a billion to travel agencies and other consultants to bribe chinese doctors. today's movement is not related to the investigation. paying doctors to make speeches and attend conferences is common in the pharmaceuticals industry

the world over. lately there has been growing calls for this kind of reform. the british swedish company scrapped payments for doctors in germany to attend conferences. other drug companies, until now have not followed suite. >> meet dr arthur kaplan, the head of bioethics. he said the move by gsk is a game changer. >> it will be a shift in how drugs are marketed. i think for the better. i hope other companies choose to emulate it. glaxo has a big footprint. when they say no more free meals, it's a good thing for patients and it's a sea change in terms of how we pay patients. >> drug firms worked out how to target consumers and crucially by internet. that is why they announced a

deal to role back from a practice of insent vising the doctors. >> john terrett reporting. glaxosmithkline reported third-quarter sales topping $10 billion globally. >> after serving the u.s. and afghanistan, iraq and other places across the globe. young veterans returning to the u.s. find themselves at more risk than when abroad, according to a "the los angeles times" study, finding veterans twice as likely to commit suicide. they were twice as likely to die in car accidents, and 25% more likely to be involved in other incidents. researchers hope the study will bring attention to vulnerable veterans. >> al jazeera's jennifer london reports is a controversial video is shedding light on how prisoners are treated. some of the images may be

disturbing. . >> get down. >> in the california state prison system this is called a forceable extraction. >> help. >> inmate a, as this mentally ill prisoner is called refused medications, naked, is dirty from faecal matter and screams reppedly after being sprayed with pepper spray. this is inmate i. the state says she is extractions fall within their guidelines. >> they are trained to do what they did. that is horrific. no one was disciplined for that. they acted according to the rules. >> those rules must change. the attorney is representing 35,000 mentally ill inmates in a lawsuit against california's department of corrections. we don't have policies and

procedures to use force or discipline the mentally ill. they are punished for things beyond their control and they serve more time, and in harsher ways. >> videos and photos like this, showing in mates in cages are part of the case. it's not just the use of force in the prisons that is challenged in court. >> here at the californian medical facility mentally ilinmates are not getting the treatment they need. doctors testified that here inmates are held in isolation, without group therapy, the use of day rooms or access to prison yards. >> prison officials say this kind of treatment is necessary. >> sometimes things don't go the way we'd like them to go and a mentally ilinmate may turn firnalt. in situations like that, custody staff are allowed to escalate to the point of using pepper spray. the question is not whether we

have a perfect system, but a system that satisfies the constitution. we believe we are there. the aclu of southern california says mentally ill inmates have had rights violated for decades. >> the images are troubling, but there are other issues about not having adequate care or proper suicide procedures and so on. >> there needs to be an attitude change and a commitment by the state to fix the problem. >> the department of corrections say they are making changes, including investing in treatment facilities and staff. when it comes to using force, it's up to the courts to decide how to handle troubled inmates. >> according to a recent study, there are roughly 350,000 mentally ill inmates in the united states. >> phoenix residents are outraged over a report that

65-00 child abuse cases have been ignored. the state launched an investigation to try to find out how this happened. state officials are scrambling to make up for the mistake. >> we see over 100 children every week for therapy sessions. among the kids are children with broken legs. we have a child who will be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. >> child therapist christy murphy has seen more than her fair share, and was stunned when child protective services did not investigate 6,500 cases. >> i was apuxed knowing children die from abuse. there are many cases that are never reported. it's unacceptable. >> if you have people with the ability to override policy or law, you end up with a situation

like this. the situation lawmakers were discussing alt an oversight hearing on monday was how the thousands of cases ended up on a shelf. here is how it's supposed to work. >> call comms in. a worker has to assess the safety. the report is september to a field office, where a supervisor puts eyes on the report. and makes a determination on who that report will be assigned to. >> unless the report was one of the more than 6,000 that went nowhere. those reports were stamped ni for not investigating. nobody knows what happens in thousands of cases. >> the consequences are devastating. what we need to do now is find the 6,000 or more children that have been left - possibly left in a chronically abusive situation. what we need to do now is find out who they are, and assess their symptoms, their level of

trauma. we need to get there and intervene. >> as of yesterday state officials checked in on almost 600 children. so far only one child needed to be moved. the plan is to check in on all of them by the end of january. >> al jazeera's paul beban reporting. nationally the overall number of child neglect cases were down. deaths are up, according to a report tuesday from the department of health and human services. >> an ain sent monument getting a new look. changes at stonehenge. >> critical repairs in outer space. the plan for astronauts to fix the international space station. $636 million up for grabs. the numbers for the jackpot.

>> the crew aboard the international space station is preparing a few space walks to replace a pump which shut down half the space station's cooling system, forcing the crew to turn

off nonessential equipment. >> britain's ancient stonehenge is thousands of years old. there is something new in store for tourists. >> they have watched over this land for thousands of years. stonehenge a neolithic monument deep in this corner of england. around a million people come to see the icon every year. >> what endures about this place is the puzzling that it presents, because no one has said with certainty what stonehenge is. >> some say it was a solar temple. others believe it's an astronomical computer. there's many theories. what is clear is its popularity. after years of wrangling visitors experience stonehenge in a modern way. for the first time it has its own museum.

$40 million has been spent on creating this building made of glass and steel. visitors stopped from accessing the center, can do so virtually. >> there are two things that are important. the first is the ability why to stand inside the stone. the other thing is we have fantastic artefacts here. we have the tools used by the people who actually built the stones in the first place. a new era has not pleased anyone. some have objected to changes to a local road. others expressed anger over the inclusion of human remains. ultimately it's the stones themselves that will be the biggest draw here. >> it's a place of beauty, and a place of wonder. it is a - even for it to have survived in this state for so long, 4,500 years, it's a

testament to the ingenuity and skill of those that built it. i'm full of admiration for them. >> in a few days hundreds of people will gather for one of the purposes that stonehenge was built for - to worship the sun during the winter solstice. >> a great mystery was solved two years ago. geologists discovered the source of the rock used to make the first circle at stonehenge. want to be millionaires? someone won the massive megaball jackpot. one was sold in california, and another matched six numbers. they'll split the jackpot. another two tich et cetera in

san diego matched. you're watching al jazeera, i'm stephanie sy. clsz detroit is not alone. chicago's public pensions are short $28 billion and the city that works is in trouble. our digital producer, ra raj is here, and most people are familiar with detroit's crisis, but chicago's is whooshes. >> people have been