out of sight out of mind u.s. vets who say they've been abandoned by the country they fought for as they claim the government is failing its promises to take care of. religious drug rehab centers are on the rise in russia. these facilities are simply some dangerous seconds. to save. one of these ships from russia's black sea fleet to be submerged. in the ecosystem. also coming up in the business update to russian tycoon head to head control a mining giant. would have a lot more about twenty minutes time. i

know you're watching news twenty four hours a day welcome to the program the war is over the mission is complete that was the message from u.s. vice president joe biden as he addressed american troops withdrawing from iraq his words raised eyebrows wherever those who believe the whole campaign was a failure any veteran say to us in a straight the current rate case to cover up a lost they feel that praise the country heroes would be found and forgotten. by the government but still more. i don't think. they show enough respect to the local brian little was that u.s. navy veteran who has been suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome since.

charge he was unable to find work after leaving the military and hasn't been able to get the proper treatment for his condition little has been suicidal at times his pleas for help have been ignored it's a common theme at stand down an annual nonprofit event that helps homeless vets get off the streets volunteers are helping these veterans become better adjusted to civilian life something the military isn't doing enough of a lot of people really don't know exactly what to expect or where to go to get the help that they need pamela brisson served in afghanistan and has been homeless for two years the largest growing population of homeless women in san diego is veterans returning from current combat according to catholic charities which operate shelters around the city while on the street britain has been taking care of her nine year old son chris he's been able to maintain straight a's even while they bounced around from shelter to shelter or slept on a sidewalk. i know. many veterans

want help but prison admits it's easy to get discouraged when the government doesn't want to help it only takes one or two people to say i don't know or know we can't help you for them to walk away and think that there's no hope for them. you know drugs alcohol. and they just they're not aware to take advantage of the programs that are made available to the last couple years i think the number of persian gulf veterans has increased greatly outnumbering the vietnam veterans dr john that just in is very familiar with san diego's homeless population he started stand down twenty three years ago because he saw a huge number of homeless veterans that no one was talking about the problem will likely get worse for current service members before then and frequent ones. still in this crowd patriotism is very much alive. you know what actually i really

would go back despite her troubles pamela brisson says she would still go back and fight for the country that has led her down a sentiment echoed by many of these veterans who still have an undying loyalty to the military and country when america was great as a whole who started it you know it was a bunch of politically correct people living you know wherever you know high society you know this bunch of people who still want to pay tax anymore. and that's going to happen again in san diego ramon the lindo r t. biden's optimistic remarks about troop withdrawal are ridiculous according to radio host and iraq war veteran adam kokesh he believes the american public is starting to see through the vice president's words as number of u.s. private contractors in iraq is now at its highest level. there's two big problems with what he said and about the violence going down because this withdrawal first

of all wasn't a real withdrawal that was the one last brigade that had not been labeled a non combat brigade and there are still depending on whose numbers you trust a little over fifty thousand troops there and there are more private contractors now than there have ever been and the violence in terms of what you will see on the headlines in the united states media about how many soldiers have died every day yes that will go down generally when there are less troops less of them get killed but what you're not going to see is the number of contractors that are killed that are still performing the basic tasks of pression and exploitation that are the basis of our presence in iraq remember the first time the government told us the war was over was may first two thousand and three with the so-called mission accomplished speech on the aircraft carrier by president bush and that was the only real war there wasn't at that point turned into an occupation even when i was there

in two thousand and four inclusion where there was intense fighting it was not a force on force battle it was an occupation there was a resistance to the occupation and you see it continued today and what's sad is that the true nature of the presence there really has not changed to dramatically in six years the basic premise is the same we are pissing incredible amount of money into the sand that is coming out of the american economy and people here i think are starting to wake up to that and it's very exciting to see that when joe biden does this kind of ridiculous cheerleading well i the success is because the troops have done so well oh and that's why we have to replace them with more state department officials and private contractors than there were troops here people see through that it's kind of it's getting kind of ridiculous what veterans are facing today is a simple lack of resources in the v.a. system in the people who work at the v.a. take a pay cut to were. there they do a very good job and they bust their butts to help veterans and

a lot of them you know the american people are still have those yellow ribbons on their cars and there's still that attitude but there's also the assumption that all the government is taking care of everything and that the presidential commission on fiscal responsibility which is currently convening is actually considering cutting veterans' benefits to meet fiscal responsibility standards before cutting the cost of our foreign empire cutting the cost of these wars in these occupations and that's really sad but that's sort of the attitude of those in power well you know taking care of the vets is something that can kind of go keeping the money going to our political sponsors on the other hand that can't be question and that kind of spending is kind of a say i haven't really seen it fall now but it's exciting to see that people are challenging that. you know with as much more coming your way into the program including. putting to all the agreements between kiev and moscow the russian black sea fleet ships will stay in ukraine's crimea until twenty forty two but some in this black sea resort area are now willing to sink them. and the backing out

qaida media reports suggest pakistan is using u.s. intelligence for trysts more details in just a few. russia's drugs agency is planning to increase the number of rehab centers in the country but as the government works to combat dependency critics say some facilities for recovering addicts as dangerous as drug abuse itself. how do you through the my spread of drug and alcohol addiction took me nearly a decade he's twenty nine year old on a collision course with crime and with death diagnosed with hepatitis b. and c. making out says god saved and changed his life. when i came here last year for the first time i'm eighty years i realize the grass was green birds were singing and everything was beautiful i used to take drugs and alcohol at the same time i was

literally a vegetable understanding of what was going on around. here is a rehab center run by cornerstone church days include group chores meant to teach responsibility and bible and prayer sessions. with prayer is a fellowship and we are more likely to become like those we communicate with if someone talks to fishermen he's likely to become one too when someone talks to god and that's what a prayer is he becomes a believer and his life changes and not on the schedule here is time with a trained professional the belief is that the spirit is what needs mending and that this only comes through god drug use is on the rise in russia the official numbers indicate that there are six hundred thousand addicts but the federal agency charged with combat in this problem puts it at millions more but there is also an increase in the number of religious rehab centers like this one that are offering nontraditional treatments but some are referring to them as little more than

recruiting centers for religious sex the pentecostal community in russia is small but run several of the nation's growing number of religious rehabs critics insist those who seek treatment through these are simply trading one crutch for another. we're losing people now not because of drugs but because of destructive cults chemical addiction to drugs or alcohol is substituted by group psychological addiction instead this kind of addiction is stronger and much. we're serious some experts claim recovering addicts become able to function outside the church and sequestered felt later electing to spread the message to others in new centers answer me now he doesn't believe he's part of a cult. contrary i realized i had been brainwashed all my previous life and people around me had a consumer attitude but here you were feeling i mean you version and the desire to run a clinic of his own something stupid r.t.

. american states must fend for themselves even if this means bypassing federal government rulings according to former arizona sheriff richard mack he says it's the only way the u.s. can be kept in tact as a constitution abiding country and shared some of his views and you can watch the full interview in about twenty minutes from now. state sovereignty the only solution that we have left is state sovereignty local control the sheriff of this country getting together with county commissioners county attorneys and stand in fighting and he wrecked in the barriers against the encroachments of the national government the federal government it will lead to lawful consideration and lawful it here it's to the constitution if we follow the constitution we're going to be fine we're destroying the constitution and our own federal government is the greatest threat to our god given constitutional american republic if we make sure they stay within their parameters and their limitations then we're going to survive

this. ukrainian activists are asking russia to allow out of use of black sea fleet ships to be sunk to create artificial reefs in the crimea they say this will help protect the region's ecosystems and minimize the effects of pollution feet combine this considering the suggestion which has been approved by local authorities. professional diver alex a has been exploring the deaths of the black sea in ukraine's crimea for more than three decades he says the underwater world here is absolutely unique from a scientific point of view but he is concerned about the danger that every year is getting worse to peak to or season brings large scale pollution to young to bay on the water fails to clean itself every year we see fewer fish caught in this part of the black sea i believe you will to blaze ecosystem is in grave danger alexey has

considered many different solutions to the problem but his friend a deputy in the city council came up with a simple yet hopefully highly effective idea so. we will ask the russian black sea fleet stations here to give us several of the rule ships we will sink them and create an artificial reef which will greatly improve your toby's ecosystem this is nothing new in many countries to the city and for the russian fleet to this would be good from a financial point of view instead of paying for the use of old very souls it would simply hand them over to ours zordon says the idea came to him after what was seen as a major policy shift in the presidents of russia and ukraine signed an agreement to prolong the stay of the russian black sea fleet in the crimea until twenty forty two where the previous administration and key of these ships of the russian black sea fleet were unwanted guests in ukraine's crimea and were to leave the area by the year twenty seventeen but after the hype of agreement was signed local

authorities here are saying they're trying to do everything they can so that these ships remain here for years to come straight after the route if you get a shot of the back to the russian leader the need to remediate have said the fleet needed serious modernization and now the crimea is ready to help more school with that the head of several stoppers administration says the russian naval presence here brings in massive investment for the city's infrastructure. calls for a fitting of the ships may create jobs for the locals. we have an excellent shipyard in the crimea which has been abandoned for almost two decades if moscow decides to repair its fleet here we're ready to offer our facilities and specialists this would be much cheaper for the russians and we revive our factory which was one of the best in the country just several decades ago april sark of agreement sparked mass opposition protests in kiev they described it as a sellout of the country in crimea the mood is very much the opposite the russian

black sea fleet command is yet to respond to the divers and officials proposals for an artificial reef but there will be glad to see few here can imagine life without these ships anchored on the surface in several stoppers docks. see reporting from ukraine's crimea. for militants have been killed in a special operation in the southern russian republic of english the men opened fire after being stopped at a police checkpoint one of them yes got down off is believed to be the leader of a local terrorist cell suspected of carrying out a series of car bomb attacks in the caucasus the operational comes just days after special forces shot another high profile militant to have been directly involved in the moscow metro bombings in march. pakistani intelligence is backing a town about an al-qaeda militants using the u.s. for its own interests that's according to a new york times report the authors quote a pakistani official who says that

taliban leaders have been enjoying support from some powers in is not a bad thing is reports also says pakistan used the cia to capture one of the they are quite a number two in january he was thought to be bypassing is on a bad by conducting secret talks with the afghan government and military blogger jim hansen says despite these claims the u.s. has no option but to work with pakistani intelligence. you know process the. and we have and it's the cia's biggest weak spot is they don't do human intelligence very well so we don't have agents we don't have people on the ground you can tell us what's going on so we rely on the pakistanis to go ahead and give us the human intelligence that we use our electronic intelligence capabilities which is our strength you know we can track anybody's cell phone which they did in this case the pakistanis found out that he was coming back to town they found out his cell phone number and they told us so we go ahead and pinpoint it and help them scarf him up but i mean they run all those taliban leaders they always have they helped form the

taliban they've always been their support so occasionally you know we hand of satchels of cash to be our friends and then occasionally they'll throw us a bone by pretending you know that it was to our advantage when in most cases it's their internal power plays more than an actual alibi activity for us i think the problem is there's very little ability to see through what's happening on the surface you know because there are so many plays in motion because there's so many because the pakistanis don't have one policy you've got i.s.i. they're intel who are the ones who are involved with this you've got their military and you've got their government those guys aren't acting in concert so there's no one pakistani policy there are a collection of different plays going in different directions and we've got to kind of ride the wave of the american public really has no clue you know what that actually means to that. well washington is asking thailand to drop her fresh charges against the russian businessman big to boot to speed up his extradition to the u.s. he's wanted in america for alleged arms dealing with fresh charges of money laundering

and fraud were brought against his extradition was approved last friday or now repricing to stay tied and to the proceedings are over countries of criminal court or head of case to the north was arrested in bangkok two and a half years ago in a sting operation by this point forces he has been in prison ever since. now let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world this hour fourteen the people of good. passenger plane heading for everest crashed south in the polls capital katmandu besides the death of these crew and passengers the five americans and one japanese tourist on board an eyewitness said that there were no survivors although there have been no official reports of casualties the crew was thought to have been trying to turn back to katmandu in heavy rain. a man in northern california has been sentenced to twenty years in prison for sending troops anthrax

letters to barack obama sixty three year old timothy crowd has pleaded guilty to threaten the president and several social security offices letters which contained a white powder cloud called barack obama a lying whole attention was claimed social security had stolen his money. had also been convicted of a sex offense in texas the failed to register as a sex offender in california. thirty three miners trapped underground in chile and had some new surance of a sprinkling that by a microphone country's top mining officials minister says will help provided this the rescue operation continues the men have been trapped i think depth of some seven hundred meters two weeks just started receiving food water and oxygen. it's paid for the rescue operation could take months. now what are the economic austerity measures in greece really about and who are they actually helping well analysts max keiser and stacy herbert share some revelations on the true nature of

the financial cuts the food costs reporters coming up next hour but here's a preview. rising greece as austerity measures backfire unemployment is up to seventy percent in some regions and in athens up to seventeen percent of all shops i've closed so this is the result of the economic death spiral so us terry therefore it was not a good idea andres it's not a good idea probably anywhere in the world in this type of environment which has been victimized by banking fraud and predatory bankers who ripped the guts up stole the money so in response they're going to impose austerity on the people actually just to pay for the banker bonuses not to help the people. where you can find what i website that's r.t. dot com and charlotte's head. if you go for secession oh well global retailer

wal-mart could soon be finding its way on to the russian market to get talks to buy russian company compare seat what have the details later in the program but first this hour if russia's biggest miner nicholas carr in the subject of a fierce fight for control tycoons all the dairy past. both twenty five percent of the group each wants to buy the other two though neither wants to sell but what's at stake in this battle of the billionaire is our correspondent tasha how close this is. the wald's richest nickel comparable lariam set of months deposited here and then. the production facilities of neurons comical stretch out the mountains dominating the town and provides a much of the local employment this may be the birthplace of norilsk but the conglomerate has spread from its era roots with interests across the world and

countries such as australia south africa and federal and like many other commodity producers morose was hit by the financial crisis however this region suffered few cuts for all. of the punters they've become the crisis quite successfully it was a constant demand for oil production in the global market that's why we didn't decrease volume of production juvie the hard times not all nor nickels factories was so fortunate last year the company reported to twenty seven percent drop in revenue to top point two billion dollars still the group retains its leadership on the world market accounting for more than twenty percent of global nickel output more than ten percent of cobalt production at three percent of call part of my

life that my that the c.e.o. of neurochemical is keen to modernize and just promising to spend nearly hoth a billion dollars next year on cleaning up operations but drug costs are worried about how the shareholder battle for control of the company will impact capital expenditure whether it's our legs or that's a bit about dying in the ultimately comes out on top drug called ski says should not. be used as a cash cow. the situation is quite difficult as you know there are several ways shareholders and managers view it something that you should take all you can now without thinking of the company's future the shareholders who are in for the long term think that such a policy would slow down the company's development and would have pushed negative impact in the future i believe we may also face a negative impact of the money spent on dividends i support the idea of actions the

dividends should be paid but in that it would not impede the company's for the development allocations of mismanagement of the company are somewhat hard to substantiate as production costs of profitability are comparable with international competitors but it does face a challenging future its resource base is shrinking and the price of extraction rising the chief of the rules wants the company to focus on what he calls investment into the mound however that's unlikely to happen until the conflict between b. orders is resolved. business r.t. . you know the news russian corporate profits soared sixty three percent in the first half of two thousand and ten year on year the combined britax profit of big. enterprises reached ninety billion dollars the biggest growth as reported by companies in the real estate sector profits increases in the mining industry were

not far behind fifty six percent meanwhile the number of businesses reporting a loss of thirty four. there's not the same picture for russia's agricultural sector it's lost around one billion dollars due to the drought the minister of agriculture says more than a quarter of. the sixteen thousand farmed reporting no we follow is themselves or the government who apparently bet a vast majority of the cost of the drought the insurance industry will be making some payouts russia's largest insurer struck coralie estimates its liabilities at twenty million dollars a likely to grow. we'll be in two thousand. in this segment we're going to go to insurance was to enter million so it's already percent loss ratio. and.

so by the end of this year probably three share would be much more higher than one hundred percent and that is that means that it is a loss to the business. time to have a look at stock markets now here in russia the answer yes they are pretty low down low point eight percent of the trade comes off to a slow day yesterday's many investors are taking a break for the last week of the holiday season due to all goth. leading to the price a fall on his day. in asian stock markets also weighed by a lawful move through overnight as well as concerns over the pace of global economic growth in japan the nikkei strong fifteen month low school to start for the club are fighting against rather. than finally russian retailer ppaca is in talks with wal-mart's and russia x five over tendril sale of the business if the talks fail the company will press ahead with their initial public offering the

final decision we may know tell you that the pay is price hovers about one point six billion u.s. dollars according to the company's own calculations and in two thousand and nine the retailers net debt raise of three hundred twenty nine million dollars so far we want is no presence in the russian markets evolve contrast to pick up just right six hundred shops only two hundred towns across the country. that's the latest is out but you can always find more stories on our website.

some. muck above muck. the beyond the mud coming up. this history still keeps its secrets but now it's time to move feel up to some field farms and onto some.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to cope for a shelter on the day. prone. to. ski.