and of course my guest james howard kunstler you want to send me an e-mail please do so have guys reported r t t v dot ru until next time this is max kaiser said by off to the.

a facebook wall. leaks. with classified contacts. to a russian. rescue some five hundred people trapped the country's far east. and entire fleet is waiting to be rescued from the icy prison. of money down the drain. into the.

two thousand to two thousand and eleven to see what's in store. this is. massive leaks of secret files have been recently shaking up many governments and israel is no exception but for the nations the problem appears to come from its own ranks with soldiers posting secrets on social networks. looks at the israeli defense forces struggle to keep its skeletons in the closet. 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 they're facing a lot of. it will be an occasion in the hours is this who we are for 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 with just one click anything and everything that a few years ago knowledge has been off limits is available to millions of people some of the israeli colonel been sea group received this threat 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 the in this moment although i don't think that this is for facebook or for my love of 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 the 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 it's tell us that much as 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 why can't i. the israeli army was quick to condemn a visual but the damage was done tens of thousands around the world saw the pictures before the i.d.f. could react as an officer in command are disgusted by such acts but as an i.d.f. spokesperson i can assure you that this in no way shape or form reflects the spirit

of the idea 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 their 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 show themselves they're only. supposed to have pictures of yourself up for especially not on a base secrecy has always been a top priority for military forces but we was in the past it might have meant hiding documents or photographs today the challenge is that much bigger. r t israel. russian icebreakers are rushing to save a fleet of vessels stranded off the country's far east coast several ships have been locked in ice for days and then. with some five hundred people on board for more on this one i'm joined by also used. to get all the latest details on this and

the top of the what can only imagine the rescuers have a very tough job ahead of them tell me what stage is the rescue operation now. well first of all our team has just contacted russia's ministry of transport and they have said that in fact there are four vessels that are stocks there are stuck in the ice. earlier there was information that they were five of them currently do icebreakers are heading to rescue them to told them back first. russian prime minister vladimir putin has just said i asked the sailors to be patient for one more day as their rescue mission is on its way first icebreakers are going to tow back the vessel that is in most danger right now as it's being dragged towards the coast by the ice then in the other three will also be towed back now to give you an idea how difficult the weather conditions are right there right there at the moment the ice is about two meters thick and initially a nice break of thirteen thousand horsepower were sent down to rescue them but it's

couldn't get through so a more powerful had to be sent down now three vessels were stuck in the ice of the hole at six c. on friday and another one got stuck in on monday and they have been there since then and the rescue mission began as the russian ministry of transport found out that the vessels got stuck on one side they must be a very tense time for all of those stranded on board those launch vessels that time with all their lives in any immediate danger at this point. well worth the lives of none of the crew members were in danger from the start they have about seventy five days worth of food and energy supplies but. experts are saying that the rescue operation could take longer possibly because right now there is assured break in heavy winds in the area which will ease the mission the rescue mission for the icebreakers but the site clone might be back in the couple of days nonetheless in

the worst case scenario russian emergency service helicopters their four of them their own standby to evacuate the people from the vessels if necessary. live in moscow thank you where you are with r.t. it's good to have you with us today still ahead for you this hour a much bigger problem some say the world is under estimating the death rate from malaria in india claiming the real figure could be ten times higher. revisit a russian man who chooses to live wild in the forest braving the elements alone. over ten years america's war in afghanistan has swallowed billions of dollars critics say washington can't afford the funds abroad very much needed at home but it seems the problem is even deeper with reports that much of the money spent on

the afghan campaign does not even reach its proper destination. reports. 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. since washington is apparently ok with that feed 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 in the future of what this amount 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 talked to us 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 major 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 media relatives of karzai traveling with unspeakable 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 t 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 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 in 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. new york. i want to you is coming to you live from the heart of the russian capital serbia about to start bridging relations with calls over after the region's unilateral break away two years ago but as so

being president told us here at all the tension in the balkans is still a problem. people are not thinking of course always are not the problem anymore of course always existing on the problem not only between sort of single being is but also in the original policy globally thinking because of caring 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 in the pen this until today. more than one hundred ninety countries so the member states you know the nation it is this is also fate that we have to take into consideration. and the full interview with the serbian president is on air in about fifteen minutes time well new research shows malaria could be a much bigger problem than the world health organization currently says in india

the death rate is thought to be massively underestimated many also blame the country's health care system for failing the rural poor who are most at risk artie's accounts saying investigates. he named his eastern state of bihar one more victim succumbs to malaria it's a treatable infection yet it's dudek small knives i mean dia than each i.v. this family's loss is just another statistic in the country's battle against the disease. that malaria has spread everywhere around village no medical teams come to help us and hospitals are far away poor people like us a dying at this hospital and but many patients believe they have the but a psychic infection. and then for so thinking my have a very high temperature and i think i have no larry and 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 thirteen dimes the number of people

caught in the estimated by the world health organization since many malaria deaths occurred at home and he moved in areas they don't get recorded so researchers with good families and asked them to describe what had happened to the victims a method known as autopsy we estimated that something like four percent of the deaths between one life and sixty nine years of age were due to malaria and if you multiply that percentage by the national number of deaths at those you get two hundred thousand deaths before age seventy in india it's a staggering number it's specially compared to the world health organization's estimate of just fifteen thousand then more fatalities it disputes the studies saying the responders could mistake muti is commonly shown symptoms it is true that you can confuse malaria deaths with other causes of fever and that is

a problem with the burble autopsy however. when we looked at the where the malaria deaths occurred they were the same places where malaya transmission occurred i would also. except the use of verbal autopsy and for estimating childhood deaths from malaria in africa so big puzzled why they would think a method would work in one continent and two thousand miles away in another most medical staff and indeed hospitals the number of malaria deaths is far more than. they had also seen a sharp rise in the cases of drug resistant. brandy. before he is not of that much to handle this. because the treatment needs to be hones the delays to treatment and also there are costly injections and we just sometimes not to. because of. them want to be becomes as in their face is this killer disease

it's important for the government down the w e 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 and seeing. new delhi it's just after quarter past the hour here in the russian capital you with our team and to bear in mind that our website is just a click away to keep you up to date twenty four hours a day a taste of what's online for you right now dot com georgia sends over one hundred policemen to disperse some twenty veterans on a hunger strike and what they claim is neglect by think of. and not rock n roll the u.s. army is under fire for choosing the soldiers music for them as commanders make troops attend a christian concert and punish those who do something. now let's get to some other international stories making headlines this hour the

governor of pakistan's punjab province has been shot dead in the country's capital islamabad police say solomon was killed by his own body guard near a market as he was getting out of a car the governor was a senior member of the ruling pakistan people's party and was close to president asif ali zardari several other people were wounded during the attack and the suspected assailant was taken into custody. iran has confirmed it has invited foreign powers to tour its nuclear sites ahead of talks over its atomic program envoys from russia china and the e.u. are included in the offer but it's not yet clear whether officials from the u.s. have been asked there are international concerns over iran's nuclear ambitions which tehran insists are peaceful. demonstrators military is sending food supplies to queensland as massive floods continue to cause chaos in the north east of the country hundreds of homes are being evacuated ahead of an expected peak in the

deluge later this week roads and airports have been closed over two hundred thousand people affected. almost forty thousand people across central russia are still without electricity after new year blackouts an emergency situation was declared on sunday in the moscow region the massive cutouts began before the new year after an ice storm brought down power cables the extreme weather forced hundreds of villages to welcome in two thousand and eleven in total darkness authorities managed to restore supply in most areas but fresh snow and gales still causing problems. for the electricity cuts may be causing stress for many in the moscow region but one russian isn't worried about blackouts viktor lives in the woods and has built his own power generator and even allows him to keep an internet blog that has made him an unwitting web sensation artie's sarah firth went to meet

him. we've come to a freezing forest in the musky 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 will be 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. a troubled upbringing caused him to flee his home on the other side of russia. he was arrested when you bring up 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 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. accordingly i'm not a sociable person i never drink and i don't like noisy policies this way of life suits me better than your. and 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. that victor went viral after pictures of his handiwork were posted online since then he's had trouble from people he's come to track down his cabin themselves we're going the people who come are sometimes rude and threatening to go through my things and take photos of themselves then they post them on the internet and write nasty things about me. when you pull of the

look you know came across victor's story she tried to help pen. we offered victor a house which here accepted at first it was a warm gas he did house with a power supply and then returned he did help out with manual labor but he decided not to stay i think he just had been urged to be back in the forest. conventional living just doesn't see he's clearly extremely self-sufficient but he does rely on healthy and equipment supplies and you 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. your lungs the trees in the snow you think he's found a way of life that he and julie. here only ask that now other people respect. so if they are to. america's most popular mountain resort of aspen could

soon be welcoming a high profile pair of skiers president dmitri medvedev has agreed to hit the slopes with now former california governor arnold schwarzenegger the two exchanged messages on the social networking site twitter and decided to fix the time to go skiing together dimitri medvedev is known as a lover of the sport he's often been spotted on the piece with prime minister vladimir putin among his favorite ski spots in the site of the two thousand and fourteen winter olympics russia's a black sea resort of sochi. and time now for the business news with sharona. welcome to our business program. a year since its launch the trilateral customs union proved a success according to all of its members though it also had some unexpected effects it stirred up the long lasting negotiations on russia's entry to the world

trade organization after russia said it would seek the a session together with belarus and kazakhstan but as. reports there may still be some problems ahead. 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 the terms for fair competition for all the member countries to help the producers be competitive on the external markets the simple economics piece one of unified regulation rules and single economic policy russia belarus and kazakstan 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 q has the possibility to set up a new enterprise system. for. good in kazakhstan and will what it is through the interest from the. rest of the first year of the customs union has revealed some teething problems that arose imports russian oil at a preferential prize we exporting 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 agreements on the single economic space russia agreed on a duty free oil delivery this will eventually benefit all the union members and provide the springboard for the next stage of integration the political over business r.t. . now let's take a look at the markets in russia the markets are close to the tenth of january for

the russian new year holiday break but let's take a quick look at some european stocks trading today thirty has surged over two and a quarter percent on its first day of trading after being closed yesterday for a bank holiday that's led by b.p. we're. over five and a half percent its highest gain since july on reports that show is still interested in a merger and in frankfurt the dax is rising just over a quarter percent bucking the trend the seaman's down point six four percent despite news that it plans to invest three hundred million dollars in their factory in turkey over the next five years. meanwhile asian markets closed up on the day on tuesday continuing their new year's gains as dealers welcomed further data pointing to a recovery in the u.s. as well as manufacturing strength around the world automotive stocks were the big winners as tokyo's nikkei added one point six five percent and hong kong's hang seng was up almost one percent. one of the most significant merger and acquisition deals in russia in two thousand and ten was retail giant x five purchasing the

walmart target super super market change called make up effectively pushing the u.s. retailer out of russia mark rubenstein from metropole told r.t. how this will help boost demand for the stocks in the retail sector in two thousand and eleven x. four of just acquired the. retail chain which is just. that gave x four of much more clout far as it is a very well established retailer on the market leaders and this segment operates and is slightly above the economy segment when we come in all of the crisis and early imports crisis environment i think there are mid-level retailers are going to really world they're the next one in the law and to show strong growth. and the ruble has hit a two and a half month high last december and continues to grow analysts predict further strengthening of the currency as all prices remain high with market watchers

confident in the global stock exchange medina coach evolve reports. the russian ruble strengthened two point eight percent against the us dollar and nine point four percent against the euro between january and twenty ten december has dragged yet 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 sex given all this.