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u.s. borders billions into afghanistan but experts say there's no way to tell what the massive war bill is paying for and it's huge corruption and a lack of transparency. top secrets online israel's military fights to keep its own soldiers from the face of the generation of leaking sensitive information on the web. and a russian man of the forest has his isolation rudely interrupted after becoming an internet sensation we pay a visit to his handmade home in the woods outside moscow. now

i am in the russian capital you're watching r t with me rena josh welcome to the program afghanistan is turning into a black hole for america's finances experts say it's sucking in billions of dollars the u.s. simply can't afford and what's worse it's not clear exactly where it's all going our jesus is here if you're going to reports. money money money money money money money money money money money money money coming up with money must be the easiest thing for the u.s. says washington is the fuse we ok with it feeds flushed down the drain. one big drain it's been washing down is that get a stamp about three hundred seventy five billion dollars has already been spent on the afghan war this doesn't include basic things like like care for soldiers and the future of what this amount of also doesn't include is the cash that simply goes missing into the abyss from never completed ghost construction projects to arms

that end up in the wrong hands billions of dollars pumped by the u.s. into afghanistan don't end up where intended there's a significant portion of since reconstruction money that actually comes back doesn't ever make it to afghanistan it goes into the pockets of the experts corruption is one of the mead you reasons for the u.s. dollar not finding its way to where it's actually headed according to transparency international afghanistan comes second only to somalia as the most corrupt country in the world i mean the relatives of karzai traveling with unspeakable billion millions of dollars in cash which is of course not not that i know any details but not the stuff that makes people not wonder about corruption the wall street journal the other day had a piece they figured out about ten million dollars a day was simply leaving from kabul airport d f k and g.d.p. gross domestic product is only about thirteen billion dollars that's

a quarter of the g.d.p. going out a year just out of kabul airport with the war not going away any time soon but it looks likely to last for at least three to four more years where we'll billions more of taxpayer dollars and up and i think we're going to see them at the gambling tables of abu dhabi by the sound of it i mean this is not situation where the money is going to be traceable the cash fraud mis man. and sheedy recordkeeping have been going on for quite a while to see the least the u.s. has already been fighting in afghanistan longer than it was involved in the second world war accidentally losing a few boxes here or there can happen to anyone. with consistently sending enormous amounts down the dream takes real effort and persistence. moreover this is far from the only war that has seen billions of dollars gone missing simply

swallowed up by the shadows the united states had nine billion and then a little bit later another nine billion that simply went missing in iraq so you know this is old stuff that money disappears and it's old stuff the money that's put into the pentagon in this country can become part of a so-called black budget that we never really get to see much about there is no one more upset about the situation than those americans that are flat out broke and jobless one out of millions of people to ask is larry heels who has been unemployed for over a year and a half it's infuriating because we're the ones are always left out in the cold while we're bombing and murdering people afghanistan the poorest country in the world this is also upsetting to countless experts who see that the u.s. afghan strategy has been flawed all together what we need is not a surge of money of troops we need a surge of diplomacy in the region because to begin with i think it's a misguided war i think we need a quick and responsible exit from that country but until that happens the question

of why the u.s. can afford to waste so much money abroad when so many have nothing but a hole may never be answered and r.t. new york. afghan and pakistani officials are urging the u.s. president to appoint a replacement for richard holbrooke who passed away last month he was washington special envoy to the war stricken region which is also the world's main supplier of opium artie's military contributor says it's high time obama listened to his secretary of state and address the root of afghanistan's troubles. after yet another review and all review of the us policy in afghanistan the issue of the drug cancer has been completely ignored and relegated to the benefit of political expediency despite the consistent efforts and pressure from the russian federation their night it states has done it best to ignore the most and crucial

issue for afghanistan and its neighbors that is there no aggression that comes from the southern part of this country and now we have the afghan drug being special envoy to the better world and this question and responsibility should be squarely placed on the u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton because it was hillary clinton who was the first openly admitted and recognized afghanistan officially as a narco state in effect implying that that's where the main challenge to the world security comes from now the u.s. secretary of state has two options first she could descend big your previous statement that afghanistan is a narco state or she could finally pass this information through this secretary of defense and encourage him to take

a drastic and decisive action the sooner the better then you all kim harvest this coming there is no time for vacillation and leap service but it's high time to act better later than never. as archie's military contributor colonel again a question of the air and all of the way under reported crisis find why some experts things the world health organization is downplaying the magnitude of india's malaria problem. the work is still going on to fully restore electricity supplies across the moscow region after a new year blackouts an emergency situation was declared on sunday after power was lost in hundreds of homes massive blackouts began before the new year after an ice storm brought down power cables extreme weather forced more than seven hundred villages to welcome in two thousand and eleven in darkness authorities managed to restore the supply in most areas but fresh snow and gales are still causing

problems. a massive leaks of classified information was a phenomenon of two thousand and ten well these really are me among the worst affected and some of the nation's secrets are finding their way online through its own soldiers looks at israel's struggle to keep its skeletons in the closet in a world of social media. the israeli army showing off its cyber unit telling the world's media how it connects the nation by phone radio and internet during war time their phrases very it will be an occasion in the hours is that we are preparing ourselves. for those threads but perhaps the i.d.f. should look closer to home israeli army secrets are beaming around the world some deliberate some unwittingly and they're coming from the inside now it's just one click anything and everything that a few years ago might have been off limits is available to millions of people some of the israeli could not been see group received this trait in the post it accuses

him of killing children in gaza his name is on a website listing the phone numbers and other personal details of his radio soldiers involved in the last gaza war he's worried they're now floating around cyberspace as they have in the. in this moment although i don't think that this is for facebook or from my pov like this i think this is insane a form of them but it's not just deliberately the connected generation finds it hard not to cross the line and that's a major military headache we're a high tech internet service society and of course a generation of people who are serving in the military or young people they are the most high tech internet of all just like former israeli soldier even our visual who updated her facebook profile with pictures of herself in uniform posing in front of blindfolded palestinians and emirates tell us too much and i did nothing i have nothing to be sorry about the whole thing's been blown out of proportion you

journalists take pictures of the same people in handcuffs like in her way through israeli army was quick to condemn but the damage was done tens of thousands around the world saw the pictures before the i.d.f. could react as an officer and commander i am disgusted by such acts but as a. i.d.f. spokesperson i can assure you that this act in no way shape or form reflects the spirit of the idea of our ethical code to which we all aspire these soldiers spend their army service keeping track of what's happening online but keeping a lid on the own colleagues is proving to be a cyber battle too far people are expected to. behave with common sense and they're also not supposed to use their facebook to you know themselves their army or not it was supposed to have pictures of yourself up in uniform especially not on the base secrecy has always been a top priority for military forces but when i was in the past it might have meant

hiding documents or photographs today the challenge is that much bigger. israel later this hour our exclusive interview with a serbian president who talks about the situation two years after cost of a self-proclaimed independence for started told r.t. tension is still in the air. people are now thinking that of course always they're not the problem anymore of course always existing on the problem not only between sort of single being is but also in the regional policy globally thinking because of having in the mind the real possible press of the can create many many turmoil sold around the world that is the reason the. only sixty countries recognize corso independence until today we have more than one hundred ninety countries so that the member states are united nations and it is this is also fate that we have to take into consideration. and more thoughts from boris

tadic chance here because relations with the e.u. russia and the us are coming your way just over an hour's time. new statistics suggest malaria is a much bigger problem in india than first thought a study calculates the number of people killed by the disease could be over ten times higher than official figures and many blame the country's health care system for failing to rural poor are most at risk are current seen reports. in india's eastern state of bihar one more victim succumbs to malaria it's a treatable infection yet it still dicks more lives in india than in each i.v. this family's loss is just another statistic in the country's battle against the disease. malaria has spread everywhere near our village no medical teams come to help us and hospitals are far away poor people like us a dying at this hospital and many patients believe they have the parasite to infection. and then for so thank him i have

a very high temperature and i think i have malaria i've come to the doctor for treatment because many people in my neighborhood have malaria i suspect i've got it to a new study has found that malaria kills more than. the number of people currently estimated by the world health organization since many malaria deaths occurred at home and noodle areas they don't get recorded so researchers with did families and asked them to describe what had happened to the victims a method known as topsy we estimated that something like four percent of the deaths between one and sixty nine years of age were due to malaria and if you multiply that percentage by the national number of deaths and those you get two hundred thousand deaths before age seventy in india it's a staggering number is specially compared to the world health organization's estimate of just fifteen thousand then more for galaxies it disputes the studies

saying the responders could mistake muti is commonly from symptoms. it is true that you can confused with other causes of fever and that is a problem with. however. when we look at the where the malaria deaths occurred they were the same places where malaya transmission occurred i would also. accept the use of verbal autopsy and for us to mating childhood deaths from malaria in africa so a bit puzzled why they would think a method would work in one continent and not. miles away in another most medical stuff and indeed hospitals agreed the number of malaria deaths is far more than the w.h.o. figure they had also seen a sharp rise in the cases of drug resistant. brandy hill centers and the baby food is not that much to handle this the friends who put in because the treatment needs

to be hones the delays do create many and. costly injections and we just sometimes not to do them because of that of them want to be becomes high as in their face is this killer disease it's important for the government than the w. we a true knowledge the scale of the problem only then can they upgrade their disease control strategies and resources to fight malaria effectively in all its forms got in seeing our d. . and watching r.t. live from moscow stay with us because there's more coming up including four is now cast with me a man whose toes in an isolated life and a russian forest find out how the outside world is taking a welcome interest that's had shortly. this article has some of the stories from around the world in australia's military supplying medical aid and food supplies to queensland as major floods continue to devastate the country's northeast roads and airports up close marooning more than twenty towns and affecting over two hundred

thousand people hundreds of homes are being aback. in a way that had been expected peak and flooding later this week prime minister julie gilbert says the damage will cost the economy billions of dollars. and a senior european diplomat says iran is invited for an ambassador is to tour its nuclear sites ahead of talks with world powers over the country's atomic program and boys from russia china and the e.u. are included in the offer but not the u.s. there is international concern over iran's nuclear ambitions which the country insists are peaceful to iran is yet to confirm the invitation. and eighty african migrants including women and children are feared to have drowned after their boat capsized off the yemeni coast the first vessel carrying mostly overturned in the red sea while another went down in the gulf of aden rescuers have found three survivors believed to be from somalia thousands of africans try to

reach heaven every year and shabby and overcrowded boats run by smugglers. and they have egypt coptic church has urged for calm among your small oars after days of protests against religious discrimination in the country thousands of demonstrators took to the streets demanding more protection from the government riots were sparked by a car bombing outside a church in alexandria on saturday which killed twenty one people. in a van branch in iraq warned of an increase in attacks against christians in egypt. a real life russian man of the forest has become an internet sensation but that wasn't what the tour was hoping for when he decided to make a home for himself and woods close to moscow after failing to settle in the city he chose to live in isolation preferring to stay away from people are just their first went to see for herself. we've come to

a freezing forest in the musk a region it can be a treacherous place. but one man has taken on the elements we've tracked down victor his secret shelter here has made him an internet sensation but if you're walking about fifteen minutes from the main road through the forest we can see where victor staying just up ahead in the clearing so we're going to going if in the water that we bought for him that was. a troubled upbringing caused him to feel his home on the other side of russia. community was just born you bring out since the age of seven i felt i had to run away from hard life and bad luck so i came to moscow but i lost my documents and i couldn't work or travel anywhere else because of this i choose to live in the woods and build a shelter. inside the shelter is surprisingly k.z.

it's a simple life here and also perhaps a bit of a lonely one. i'm not a sociable person i never drink and i don't like noisy parties when you put on this way of life suits me better than you will in. an impressive craftsman it is even built his own generator to power electrical equipment i have good hands and i love to build and create these things. so when viral after pictures of his handiwork were posted online since then he's had trouble from people who've come to track down his cabin themselves. the people who are sometimes rude and threatening that they go through my things and take photos of themselves that they post them on the internet and write off nasty things about me. when you pull of the

look you know came across victims story she tried to help. the house which here except at first nobody thought was a warm gas he did house with a power supply and then return he did help out with manual labor but he decided not to stay because i think he just had been urged to be back again before a. conventional living just doesn't see he's clearly extremely self-sufficient but he does rely on help to feed and equipment supplies. you know for the first time in my life i have a home my own home i feel happy here i'm a lone wolf if you like. amongst the trees and the victims found a way of life that he enjoyed. the ne else that now other people respect that. surface. region and we're also online for you twenty four hours

a day with plenty more stories for you to explore here are some what you'll find there right now dot com. dreadfully appealing to churn novels zero is to be officially open to tourists in twenty you haven't before you plan a trip gather details about the city's past and present our website. blob's if you're feeling lonely this holiday season and in need of a brand now simply hire one find out more about the drinking buddy service on our website r.t.e. dot com. and the business update is coming your way in just a few moments. hello

this is our business update welcome to the program here census launch that trilateral customs union proved a success according to all its members it also had some unexpected effects it stirred up the long lasting russia's entry to the w t o off to russia said it would seek the exception together with better routes and because of stunt but as a fairly high school reports that still has been a fly in the ointment. russia belarus and kazakstan are speeding up the next phase of their customs union the single economic space with a free trade area and a common external policy the trilateral union was launched at the beginning of twenty ten just simplify the movement of goods and capital between its members.

we are creating new terms for fair competition for all the member countries to help the producers be competitive on the external markets the single economics piece one of unified regulation rules and single economic policy. russia belarus and kazakhstan with a combined population of one hundred seventy million account for more than eighty percent of the former soviet union's economic output the combined g.d.p. is worth two trillion dollars annually according to the prime minister of kazakhstan together the three countries may gain a prominent position on the global market i think that gives the possibility to set up a new enterprise system to go for the brambles of customs good in kazakhstan and there what it is through the internet from the. rest of the first year of the customs union has revealed some teething problems that arose imports russian oil of

preferential dries exports the most of it to europe at a high price in response russia introduced export duties and that almost brought the countries to an oil war only after belarus ratified the agreement on the single economic space russia agreed on a duty free oil delivery this will eventually benefit all of the union members and provide the springboard for the next stage of integration the political over business r.t. . and and russia the markets close till the eleventh of january for the question you hear holiday break but let's take a quick look at some asian stocks trading on tuesday japanese shares feat a seven month high on tokyo's first trading session of the new year the nikkei jumped by more than one and a half percent but by resource companies as oil and commodity prices rose on the strong economic growth outlook this year. one of the most significant margin and acquisition deals in russia in twenty ten was retail giant x

five purchase and their walmart target supermarket chain to pick up that's really pushing the u.s. retailer out of russia mark rubenstein from metropole told r.t. how this will help to boost demand for stocks in the retail sector twenty eleven. x. five just acquired the compared retail chain which is just calling to retail chain and that gave x five much more clout x five as it is a very well established retailer on the market leaders and this segment operates in is slightly above the economy segment when we come out of the crisis and early in post crisis environment i think there are mid-level retailers are going to do really well there the next one in the line to show strong growth. of the ruble has hit a two and a half month high last december and continue to grow analysts predict the strengthening of the currency as oil prices remain high with market watch just

confident in the global stock exchanges reports. the russian ruble strengthened two point eight percent against the us dollar and nine point four percent against the euro between january and a vendor twenty ten december has drugget more games rising oil prices and returning confidence in russia after the crisis are fueling the rally of the forecast for the ruble remains flat even though it's hard to make predictions i believe the ruble will strengthen in twenty eleven and remain stable the central bank of russia says it may relax controls on the ruble further next year as it aims to make the currency free floating. this is key in realize the the government's ambition to promote it as an international reserve currency the importance of the ruble has also recently been giving a boost by the start of trading against the chinese yuan on the my six given all those factors you know slightly several of the chief economist from deutsche bank

thinks the ruble has chances to strengthen in twenty eleven do not foresee a complete. free float for the full in the next several years i think given the dependency on oil prices given the volatility that we see in the markets the central bank is likely to be cautious although i have to say the flexibility of the volatility of horribles movements will certainly increase in the coming year but when it gets down to it the ruble is still have really depended on commodity prices to diversify the economy are slow in bearing fruit that so many analysts expect commodity price inflation in twenty eleven particularly as u.s. authorities print more dollars and that bodes well for the ruble my dinner which no business r.t. . update for that sour but there's always more in our website r.t. it up.