russian racing to rescue some five hundred people trapped in an icy prison off the country's far east coast. cyber attacks from within the israeli army is struggling to. internet wise young soldiers post classified contacts and damaging pictures on social networking sites. and pouring billions down the drain as washington keeps up the cash flow for the afghan war experts say the money desperately needed at home is being wasted.

with news from russia and around the world this is all in moscow. russian icebreakers hurrying to save a fleet of vessels stranded off the country's far east coast several ships have been locked in ice for days in the bay of second with some five hundred people on board and enough of a brings us now the latest. three vessels were stuck in the ice on thursday and after that there was the country's transport ministry has warned the sailors about the weather conditions in the area nonetheless another vessel still had it in the direction over the icy waters and was also stuck and that is why the ice breakers that were initially had things release the three stuck on thursday had to change their direction to the one stuck on monday as it was in the most dangerous situation as it was being dragged by the ice towards the coast meanwhile prime minister vladimir putin is monitoring the situation and its promise to help the

sailors he's spoken to the country's transport minister who reported on the situation from minister pushing over the phone has spoken to both captains over the trapped vessels and the ice breakers that are heading to release them just to give you an idea how difficult weather conditions in the area are at the moment ice is about two meters thick and initially a smaller icebreaker of thirteen thousand horsepower was santa to release a three vessels but it couldn't get through the icy water so another one three times more powerful one had to be sent down to help them and according to the russian transport ministry the vessels will be released on wednesday morning g.m.t. the crew members were in no danger from the start as they have about seventy five days worth of food and energy supplies they have water they have everything they need but experts are saying that said the rescue mission might take a little bit longer as another very strong cycling is heading towards those waters

and it's going to bring strong and heavy winds in the area so it might slow down the rescue mission a little bit but in the worst scenario for how the copters of the russia's emergency ministry are on standby to evacuate the people from the vessels if that is needed. massive leaks of secret files have recently been shaking many governments and israel is no exception but for the nation's army the problem appears to come from its own ranks with soldiers posting secrets on social networks fall asleep looks at the israeli defense forces struggle to keep it 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 there's a lot of threat in the communication in our system and we are very. good for those threats 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. is ready could not been see bluebell 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 he's ready soldiers involved in the last gaza war he's worried they're now floating around cyberspace they have been doing the listening in the site. i don't think that this is for facebook or from my space or stuff like this i think this is inside information but it's not just deliberately likes to connect a 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 savvy

of all just like for me israeli soldier even who updated his facebook profiles with pictures of herself in uniform posing in front of blindfolded palestinians and them it's tell us to much sure look i did nothing i have nothing to be sorry about but little things been blown out of proportion to not only was likely true as are the same people in handcuffs like in iowa because these really 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 the night. yes spokesperson i can assure you that this act 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 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 show themselves their army or not it was supposed to have pictures of yourself up for especially not on a base secrecy has always been a top priority for military forces but whereas in the past it might have meant hiding documents or photographs today the challenge is that much bigger. is wrong. we live here in moscow twenty four hours a day still ahead for a much bigger problem some experts say the world health organization is underestimating the death rate from malaria in india is a real figure could be ten times higher. and later we visit a russian man who chooses to live a while in the forest braving the elements on his own. those stories still to come but first over ten years america's war in afghanistan has swallowed billions of dollars critics say washington can't afford the funds abroad when their very much needed at home but it seems the problem is even deeper

with reports of much of the money spent on the afghan campaign did not even reach its proper destination or has more. 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 physically ok with it being flushed down the drain. one big drain it's been washing down is that got to stand 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 i intended there's a significant portion of christmas 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 you have 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 the afghan 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 that 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 this man. and she the record keeping have been going on for quite a while 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. but consistently sending enormous amounts down the dream takes real effort and persistence. moreover this is far from the only war that has 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 but money disappears and it's old stuff that 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 in the cold while we're bombing and murdering people and afghanistan the poorest country in the world this is also setting to countless experts who say that the u.s. afghan strategy flawed altogether 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 quick and responsible and exit from that country but until that happens the question of why the west can afford to waste so much money abroad when so many have nothing but hold may never be. and. new york. so has vowed to stall bridging relations with kosovo off to the regions unilaterally breakaway two years ago but a serbian president boris tadic told r.t.

the tension in the balkans is still a problem. people are now thinking of course always the north pole. many more course always existing on the problem not only between serbs and albanians but those with regional policy globally thinking because of carrying in the mind the real possible press of the can create many many turmoil solo around the world that is the reason that only sixty countries recognize kosovo independence until today we have more than one hundred ninety countries so that the member states of the united nations and it is this is also fate that we have to take into consideration . and the full interview with the seven president is on it. from now. the 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 almost at risk charan singh reports. in india's eastern state of bihar one more victim succumbs to malaria it's a treatable infection yet it still takes more lives i mean india than h. i've seen this family's loss is just another statistic in the country's battle against the disease. that malaria has spread everywhere near our village no medical teams come to help us and hospitals are far away for people like us a dying at this hospital in many patients believe they have the parasite to infection from delhi kind of a south taken by having a very high temperature and i think i have no larry i've come to the doctor for treatment because many people in my neighborhood have a malaria i suspect they've got it to you. a study has found that malaria kills more than thirteen dinars the number of people currently estimated by the world health organization since many millennia deaths occurred at home and unity as they

don't get recorded so research as was did families and asked them to describe what happened to the victims a method known as global or faulty we estimated 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 eight if you get two hundred thousand deaths before age seventy in india it's a staggering number especially compared to the world health organization's estimate of just fifteen houses and work for down to teens if disputes the study saying she responded to good will stick mood he was on the phone with symptoms it is true that you can because. it's with other causes and that is a problem with. however the w.h.o.

accepts the use of verbal autopsy and for estimating childhood deaths from malaria in africa so big puzzled why they were big method would work in one continent and not three thousand miles away in another most medical stuff and in good hospitals. they had also seen a shop right in the cases of drug resistant. tb hill centers that baby food is not that much good to handle this. because the treatment needs to be. treatment and also there are costly injections and we just sometimes not to. because of. them want to do becomes tight as india faces this killer disease it's important for the government and the. 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 thing. we're not some other international stories this hour in the world. the military sending food supplies to queensland massive floods continue to cause chaos in the northeast 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 and two hundred thousand people affected. the governor of pakistan's put province is being short in the country's capital is someone to see who was killed by his own bodyguard near market as he was getting out of a car the government was a sunni member of the ruling pakistan people's party and was close to president assad from the zaatari the polls say that god was angry and to see his opposition to the country's blaspheme in the three days. mourning have been declared. iran has confirmed it's invited foreign powers to towards nuclear sites ahead of talks everett's atomic program and voice from russia china and the e.u.

are included in the offer is not yet clear whether officials from the u.s. have been asked for international concerns over iran's nuclear ambitions which iran insists are peaceful. sky watchers across the globe are being treated to the sight of a partial solar eclipse that was first seen over algeria before spreading across the middle eastern europe and the pyramids were built for lucky tourists and the moon shadow here between two thirds of the sun's surface a yellow or red crescent skins of petersburg are among the city's treated to a spectacular. almost forty thousand people across central russia are still without electricity after new year blackouts and 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 extreme weather forced hundreds of villages to work two thousand and eleven in darkness authorities managed to

restore supply in most areas of fresh snow and gales are still causing problems. well the electricity cuts may be causing stress for many in the moscow region but one russian isn't worried about the blackouts victor lives in the words and has even built his own power generator brought him internet fame although that wasn't what he was hoping for. went to meet him. 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 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 truth that we've bought for him. it's. a

tribute upbringing caused him to flee his home on the other side of russia. she knew he was just born your brain yet 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 and build a shelter. inside the shelter is surprisingly k.z. it's the simple life here in little safer hands a bit of a lonely one. i'm not a social because i never drink communion and i don't like noisy policy this way of life suits me better than you're. an impressive craftsman it is even built as a generator how electrical equipment. i have good hands and i love to build and create the same. physics so went viral the pictures of his handiwork

were posted online since then he's had trouble from people that come to track down his cabin and. mortgage the people who call them sometimes rude and threatening that they go through many things don't take them all of. them they never thought in writing falsely that there was i got to. love the kid now came across victims story she tried to help and. already i think her house which was the body was a warm gas heater of house with a power supply and an attorney should know how loud with manual labor he does or did not do his day job is i think he just had been urged to be back again before the. conventional living just doesn't see he's clearly extremely self-sufficient but he does rely on help feed 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. that we. think just found a way of life to be enjoying. the any of that now other people respect. so after seeing. what is from on your website it's just a click away to keep you up to date here's a taste of what's online right now what. giorgio deployed several hundred policemen for his person twenty veteran. on hunger strike what they claim is a new connect the government's. emotional moment with rock n roll the u.s. army is under fire for choosing the soldiers music for them that's come out to make troops attend christian concerts upon his face you decide to all times those stories and plenty of other stories and features available on. america's most popular mountain resort of aspen could soon be welcoming

a high profile pair of skis president dmitry medvedev has agreed to hit the slopes with no former california governor arnold schwarzenegger the two exchanged messages on the social networking site twitter decided to fix a time to go skiing together and he did it was known as the love of the sport he's often been spotted on a piece with prime minister that. among his favorite sports is the size of the twenty eight fourteen winter olympics russia's black sea that's what it's such a. one hour and ten minutes from now report on how sometimes soldiers are facing a tough decision decision to disobey a direct order that's all special report coming up we've seen but first sure on a joins us with all the business news.

hello welcome to our business program i'm sure on a key on a year since its launch the trilateral customs union proved a success according to all that service though it also had some unexpected effects it's sort of the long lasting negotiations on russia's entry to the world trade organization after russia said it was simply a session together with bellows and kazakhstan but as natalia hostile over reports there may still be some problems ahead. christabel a recent 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 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 that gives the possibility to set up a new enterprise system to go over but of course to now because of time and what it is through the interest from the. rest of the first year of the customs union has revealed some teething problems imports russian oil and a preferential prize we export 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 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. . and one of the most significant merger and acquisition deals in russia in two thousand and ten was ritual giant x. five purchasing the walmart target supermarket chain called pick up effectively pushing the u.s. retailer out of russia mark rubenstein for metropol told r.t. how this will help to boost demand for the stocks in the retail sector in two thousand and eleven x. five just acquired the compared to retail chain which is just. that you gave x five much more clout far as it is a very well established retailer while the market leaders and this segment operates and is slightly above the economy segment when we're coming out of the crisis and early imports 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.

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 exchanges but in a cochon of reports. the russian ruble strength in two point eight percent against the us dollar and nine point four percent against the euro between january and twenty ten december has drugget more games rising oil prices and returning confidence in russia after the crisis fuelling the rally. for the rupee remains flat even though it's hard to make predictions i believe the ruble be strengthening twenty level 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 those factors you know slightly sub or luke a chief economist from deutsche bank thinks the ruble has chances to strengthen in twenty eleven do not foresee a complete. free float for the ball in the next several years i think given the dependency on oil prices given the volatility that we see on the markets the central bank is likely to be cautious although i have to say the flexibility of the will ball the volatility of horribles movements will certainly increase in the coming year but when it gets down to it the ruble is still haven't he 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. . and that's all the business update for this hour but you can always find more stories on our web site that's r t dot com slash business stay with us.