well as state regulations and human rights issues were discussed and it looks like russia is increasing its involvement in had helping the country in all those fears russia years were presented by the country's foreign minister sergei lavrov we're committed to supporting you in efforts on stabilizing afghanistan we will continue to allow transit of international cargo and personnel to afghanistan through our territory so we're working on additional measures to keep afghan forces together with our partners we're also helping restore the afghan economy this year russia wrote off the remainder of ghana stands didn't eight hundred ninety one million u.s. dollars we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance also recently russia has said it's willing to sell over twenty am i seventeen helicopters to nature meant for the afghan army no those helicopters were designed especially to fly over the mountain so as the country's chief of staff has said himself they would be perfect for the afghan army russia has also said that it's willing to give some of

them for free in order to help the country and each of them costs from between thirteen and fifteen million u.s. dollars and that of course will also be very much needed here in afghanistan once the troops start leaving the country out of one hundred thousand people that die because of drugs coming from afghanistan annually and more than a third of them dies in russia and together with the e.u. the e.u. russia consumes about fifty percent of drugs coming from afghanistan so for russia of course it is a big issue during this conference and. of course russia is also willing to cooperate with the partners from the west in order to tackle this problem. of the reporting from the afghan capital one afghan member of parliament told r.t. that the first thing the west needs to scale back on is the help given to heroin production. i think it's true that afghanistan produces

a lot of opium but when you talk about the heroin that the international community for gets the fact that the you know to turn opium to heroin you require chemical precursors that come from huge pharmaceutical companies from europe and far east in other countries so big that never talk about that bad there's not enough money made in bringing precursors to this country to turn our poppies into heroin and if you don't attack that angle of this problem just producing opium for a farmer who wants to buy a plastic pair of shoes for his son once a year is not going to solve the problem in this country for example one thousand tons of opium last year in afghanistan required thirteen thousand pounds of chemicals tons of chemical precursors that came from a major force of the pharmaceutical producers in the world afghans are producing it to survive and i'm not condoning it we should stop producing it but also the consumption should stop and also. the imports of precursors should also be

stemmed in my opinion money laundering and banks and all those issues should be dealt with seriously. eaglehawk who's an expert in afghan politics believes coalition forces made a mistake in afghanistan applying a military solution to a non military problem. americans have failed in nation building in afghanistan and i see that the major problem you know general mcchrystal has now gone to the new commander all for american troops and international troops in afghanistan try to apply lutrell solutions here is that because the nutriment much you know you can apply a solution all new to the problem the problem in afghanistan the problem of the biggest and are not military and those are social economic and political problems smallest of all corruption drug abuse and actually the basic problem the field nation building let's face it the basic problem of those countries and of course we can make no plans for to interfere in. afghanistan expert.

the un is warning that if the world's richest countries cup their spending on aids research the recent progress in fighting the disease will be put in serious jeopardy it sounding the alarm at the international hiv aids conference in vienna where activists are demanding universal treatment for those in austria for. the main topic of the conference today has been on this new treatment gel for women designed to help in the fight to prevent hiv a. bigger she had this prevention as treatment and there's been a lot of research going into that over the last three years to really develop these prevention methods to the conference that they held hits day to present the findings on the speech i was seated around the flows and everyone's been talking about that's a very positive thing to come out of this conference today we all say how to talk about certain basing the phrasing cons of earlier treatments

a starting treatment for hate safety earlier now that's being quite heavily debated not everyone does agree on that but again that's been another fake this conversation it's a day now we see a lot of these issues come up in a lot of the debates and not a lot of good intentions but is the money that because we've also heard a lot of cool save the last couple of days about the funding issue and now monday of course bill clinton or a chance ok they just takes a d.n.a. it's organized ations and also to make sure they're providing value for money and we're delivering the services especially in tough economic times the protests the speakers who are ready reserve be angered by that and what they see as a crossing in funding and commitment the things that really critical time before the official conference started we were posting from the unofficial conference which was a group who held alternative is questioning some of the fundamental assumptions of what we all think about the and aids and they were questioning also that this new

treatment methods they have their own official talks they used were met with widespread criticism skepticism here is the mainstream conference now it's got to be said that these are new arguments since aids and to the public forum and people were aware of it since the one nine hundred eighty s. there have been opposition to these. mainstream we can hear now. is one of the people he has for this attorney to be. in order to pick up this boy from somebody who has you have. souls and sexual contact with somebody who's possibly not counting dates with negative thoughts they don't come stats efficient it is this is hopeless it's biologically hopeless hiv is just another that we know hundreds of them as i said they were not taken for take at least seriously by the mainstream science to say but it's

a lot of the people that we speak to when even really willing to enter into a debate about that they're saying that they're really very focused on their mission here this week and that's pushing forward this idea of universal access making sure that happens that as we say with this funding question marks remaining lots and lots of good intentions people are really going to be looking now to see whether any of this translate into concrete actions once the conference is save. when we have some sort of the new gel which is thought to help prevent women from contracting hiv has been widely publicized at the conference but dr kristen fielder told me a little earlier that he thinks the data obtained during the tests is unreliable. if you look over the last twenty years we have seen a number of hot air studies and this is just another one and i'm back to you within one year no one will talk any more about this study and if you look at the basis of the study it is focusing on african sexuality now this has been

a white man's preoccupation since centuries and i ask myself as a doctor why are we not as my tree or compiled with clean drinking water sufficient food and clean housing of african people as much as we are preoccupied with sexuality of african people and just to give you one small detail about hundred almost hundred participants of this new study they had been enrolled in another study with another jail and they had to lie they had deliberately lie it to the organizers of the study and it was discovered and then they were excluded from that study but to tell you that about one third of the participants deliberately lie eight. doggedness of the study just to give you an image how reliable the stater are. dmitri medvedev is spending a couple of days in finland where alongside a bit of official business there's also a bit of time for some scandinavian sightseeing to start with the finnish president

tell you helen gave me a bit of a tour of her official summer residence known as the golden bank is the second time the leaders of enjoyed a stroll in the sun the two last met in the russian resort of sochi last august because medvedev next due to soak up some baltic history but then it's down to business leaders are set to talk about energy deals and environmental issues the details are in our business update later this hour. israel's attack on the gods about aid flotilla has been holding the headlines for most two months no one is really and people it was a clear provocation and an attempt to gain the world's attention. my point was that we are here are we're fighting and a war of ideas and there is an effort even i would say acquired in a good effort to isolate. to portray it as illegitimate state and we let ships four times them our path and nothing happened because

ultimately it's all about the story and it's back in media and if the media is not interested it disappear had we just let it go through no one in the media the story would have fizzled within a day and it would have fizzled within a day no one would have been interested in israel's blockade a moment later. and you can hear more from israeli m.p. wilf in just over an hour from now. police in southern russia are looking for employees of a ledger firm which forced a donkey to parasail over the sea the incident has caused outrage among animal rights activists and locals who witnessed the ordeal the terrified animal was sent flying for half an hour to promote the sport the donkey which luckily survived was her brain before landing in the water and being dragged for several metres beachgoers some of which were distressed by seeing animal suffering uploaded video of the flying donkey on to the internet the organizers could end up with a two year jail sentence if found guilty on animal cruelty.

and i would just remind you of stories are also updated twenty four hours a day at our t.v. dot com that's our website online all the time let's have a quick look through what is there at the moment for the indian teachers who are hitting children for not doing their homework corporal punishment is illegal but parents want action after a tormented people commit suicide. soaring temperatures are sending people flocking to the city beaches to call for more help muscovites are trying to beat the heat find out. well let's say that age only matters if you're a fine wine but not for one georgia woman who claims to be the world's oldest person alive and to give each other she's now one hundred thirty and shows no signs of slowing down and has the story. as you get older birthdays tend to get less exciting but not for. this georgian woman says she's turning

hundred and thirty years old it's a claim backed up by her passport but she appears to have outlived her birth certificate which would help prove she's the world's oldest living person by sixteen years she spends most of her time in bed with her ten grandchildren eleven great grandchildren and three great great grandchildren keep her entertained year round. now i have. but i don't want to stay in bed all the time i worked a lot i worked on my garden plot and i did to raise my children after my husband died. they say despite her age she still has a sound mind and a sharp eye and enjoys a game of backgammon every now and then. mother worked or even during the war never heard of. a third and last living

son she claims she gave birth to him when she was sixty her two older children died in the one nine hundred forty s. it seems there is something in the air in the mountains of georgia living to over ninety is nothing out of the ordinary here but making it to hundred thirty is still something pretty special the secret could be in the simple rural life or the d.n.a. of the local population or as some have suggested a mix of the documents or maybe it's the combination of all three that keeps people like and going strong for years relatives say and to say used to smoke cigarettes doesn't eat meat but doesn't joy having a drink every now and then to spend all of her life in the village she was born in she didn't have much of an official education and doesn't know how to read or write her passport says she was born in one thousand nine hundred eighty but independently that the communication cannot. be verified without n t says last birth certificate but several other documents and testimonies from her neighbors

say and is definitely over a century old. form. which is prove it were created. this book was issued to it is a future it is creating. a piece of which are. the. documents in order to establish that. this person is the oldest person in the uk but with people who work or not. to lead by example proving that age is a case of mind over matter as long as you know how to make the most of every single moment of life in a. georgia. london's christie's auction house is insisting the painting it sold to a russian billionaire is authentic it's been reportedly sued by businessman victor who claims the artwork he bought is a fake berg allegedly splashed out nearly three million dollars when this painting

called design two thousand and five it's called police so closely by the russian artist. but experts in russia have taken a closer look and they're now convinced it's been forged. cashback damages christie's took another look at the painting and say it is genuine but want more research to be done well now let's talk to james he's a russian collector joining us in london it's an intriguing story what do you think is it a fake. it's always dangerous to put one's reputation on the line in such circumstances my opinion is based purely on the opinion of others who know more about the subject than i do mr and mrs who clearly know more about this that i do so i can only say that i would agree with their opinion but how long but how come it's taken so long apparently he tried to cancel this contract back in two thousand and six and yet they've been investigating whether it's real or not for

about four years what would it take that sort of time. i mean in theory it really shouldn't take that long i don't to be honest with you know why it's taken so long normally if you give a document to. you're looking at three months to establish its authenticity or not i think there's more to this than meets the eye i think that it was presented to the experts probably later than two thousand and six because i think that there wasn't actually that much doubt as to its authenticity when it was actually at auction but how often do forgeries manage to slip past the experts of particularly renowned auctioneers such as christie's. very very seldom the russian market tends to be something of a bet you are but i have to say that in the last five years or so the level of expertise at the auction houses has become a great deal better and very very seldom now do you see fakes on the market saying

russia is a victim of being forged more than any other form of art then is that what you're saying i think there's a danger that it has been i think it's also a danger to overestimate it because you know you have got a thriving market where there are a number of extremely competent and successful dealers the difficulty of course was that so much art was hidden for such an extraordinary length of time i'd like to just go back to that question of the study if that went for one and a half million because i don't think we should forget the fact that its estimate was one hundred eighty to two hundred twenty thousand pounds and it went for a million and a half which means that an awful lot of people were after that picture so the general consensus of opinion i think at the time of the auction would have been that it was a genuine picture all right if it wasn't. what happens then the impact what would it have on somebody like christie's if they are seen to be sending a painting with such a high value that has actually been proven to be fake. or an auction house. first

of all i'm going to die i tend to defend the auction houses because i don't think they've got an easy task at all firstly this was a picture from a reasonably well known collector called le. think it was called from the baltics and he had other pictures in his collection which was sold through christie's which were entirely genuine so i think the likelihood is that christie's thought it was genuine and i don't think it's going to affect their reputation i think if you look at the auction results over the last four to five years they're very very strong especially kristie can i just can i just quickly ask you briefly before we finish do you think there will be definitely a result to prove. we get that result always be a mystery and i think it will remain a mystery. i think it will remain very interesting james but it thanks very much indeed for joining us here live on r.t. rushnell collector there in london very interesting to hear we have to say. the british prime minister david cameron says afghanistan will be the main topic of

discussion when he meets president obama on tuesday during his first official visit to the white house cameron would also have to answer claims that the british based oil company b.p. successfully lobbied the u.k. government for the release of the libyan lockerbie bomber to secure an energy deal almost a hundred ninety americans were killed in the tragedy over twenty years ago relations between london and washington are also under strain because of b.p.'s oil spill in the gulf of mexico and. instead with a slick u.s. officials say the amount of oil seeping from the blown out b.p. operated well is insignificant they also believe seepage discovered near the well at the weekend could be a natural occurrence as a result b.p.'s been told to carry on with its plan to seal the hole in the ocean floor for good the firm feared it would have to remove the cap which was fitted last week because of concerns over the weeks the plug of stem the flow of oil for the first time in three months and it's now being allowed to remain in place. the syrian government has banned women from wearing face covering islamic veils in the country's universities education ministry says that the the decision aims to

protect the nation's secular identity the ban doesn't cover the head scarf which a growing number of women are wearing similar laws are pending in france and belgium and there are calls in other european countries for the public wearing a full veils to be made illegal. in our world update this hour the most severe flooding to have hit china and years now some one hundred fifty lives dozens of people are still missing roads and rail lines a block due to landslides triggered by a downpour which many people have had to flee their homes officials say that water levels of china's longest river that's the yangtze have reached dangerous times and are still rising. to bring it up to date for the moment just imagine ten minutes from now we'll be looking at some of the marine life in the seas around russia and also here in the countries aquariums now before that so we have the latest from the world of business with.

welcome to business several of those from the most important officials missed a board meeting on tuesday over a controversial new resource extraction tax on monday reported that the gas giant was firmly opposed to the government's plans a fifteen percent increase in duty could cost gazprom as much as twelve billion dollars a year money which would be lost to its investment program absentees from tuesday's meeting included chief executive alexei miller as well as economy minister. and energy minister sergey schmitz co. president medvedev is in finland for a two day visit to discuss trade another mutual interest our correspondent going off is in the finnish city of turkey for business r.t. . russia is a more influence over eating trade partners so the trade turnover between the two nations has already reached five billion u.s. dollars in the first quarter of this year alone which is quite an impressive figure compared to last year when the economic crisis was in full swing and the total tree

turnover between russia and finland was around thirteen billion dollars for the whole year and a lot of other issues are also going to be discussed the possible cancellation of visas between russia and the e.u. in the future of innovation and modernization support of the russia e.u. dialogue the true leaders are going to exchange the other countries' experiences in using innovative technologies in their economies the baltic sea is also going to be discussed definitely since this is where the north stream pipeline project is currently being conducted. shares in moscow ended the day on the down notes of a strong start in the morning energy majors fell away after the price of crude went down the seventy six dollars a barrel. from have shared around one percent today. to get to trend to prevail in the markets and the results of the stress tests on european banks may add pressure

on stocks. we expect that this friday. report on ninety six banks in your own and things that number of large institution will not pass trust us and me. president. negative pressure on stock markets tomorrow or we should forget about spain or finance and. deal with this friday next friday and over all its thirty two billion euros. that spain just don't have. spain will have to ask. european bailout was able to counter market was significant amount of money. that is now russian but make a bit lee has signed a contract with the country's football premier league to start taking bets that stadium before a match accompli will invest up to five million dollars in the project and expects

the first return in three years but in a culture never has more. one to wager some money while into sports event but tired of the track now you can risk your surely down at the football stanny i'm asked to play resp repaired to kick off their one surefire win now will be the football association and its deal with back league it will receive half of all the earnings and made by the bookmakers inside the stadium the money will be put towards the development of football in russia. fifty percent of what is made will be given to the russian football league and then we will decide whether to invest into football clubs or children's football the amount of money wagered on sports last here in russia and mounted to just one point two billion dollars if a very meager sound for situ law each country with a long sporting tradition the recent ban on casinos has not helped the situation from the bookmaker ace point of view. there's been

a three fold decline in the market in two thousand and nine the volume of the market was one point two billion dollars and this year i can say is just around four hundred million dollars which i'm sure the market will grow and that's why we are ready to invest capital in new projects i lived off ski also has a cunning plan to close the image of sports betting he has set his heart on winning the services of town tical fortune teller paul the octopus dad has offered to pay around one thousand euros for the psychic cephalopods who correctly predicted the outcome of games at the world cup. to go into an office i think we will find a compromise of this octopus to help make an officer to predict the winners we are ready to provide everything he needs we just need him. paul has been getting many offers but if he does come to russia he will find everything and oracle octopus could need to show off his talents his sponsors could take him to the page on match

day so he could pick the winner and encourage the spectators to play system ten as that might him a question of business are today. so for now you can always find more stories on our web site that's all three don't call such business. to look at it.

ensure sailors call it and see canary due to its high pitched twister. this may sound this only communicated. what she's trying to say and don't communicate to time when she. could still be in the altie. fifty. five.

from the russian capital this is the team here in moscow twenty four hours a day top stories now afghan president hamid karzai says he's determined his country will take responsibility for its own security by twenty four team representatives from seventeen nations and organizations have been meeting in kabul to discuss how to bring about stability and the transfer of power. aids activist to more universal treatment and more funding at an international conference in vienna

and the un once cuts could undermine the recent progress in percentage some scientists also gathering in the austrian capital of challenging conventional views on the causes and effects of the disease. and a georgia woman claims she's one hundred thirty which would make the oldest person alive but she's struggling to prove it possible saying she was born in one thousand nine hundred but she's lost her birth certificate needed to help the phone. and. will be back with more of those stories and other developments in less than half an hour from now in the meantime here on our t.v. russia's northern seas are rich in life from sea lions to. one next we bring you closer to the world's marine mammals in our special report. dolphins in. the undisputed stars of russia's aquarium and while spectators are by the marine mammals elaborate carefully practiced performances if you know about their long journey from the sea to the show how.