seventh two thousand and one the war in afghanistan began after the ruling taliban refused to hand over the nine eleven mastermind. but retired army general stanley mcchrystal said the u.s. began the occupation with a frighteningly simplistic view and still have no idea how to end the conflict successfully meantime in the war zone american bases are still expanding providing it's full time personnel with all the comforts of home jason has visited bob graham for are today. if the united states is withdrawing its troops from afghanistan why is its largest base getting bigger the u.s. led forces over in the taliban of late two thousand and one. little more than a flight to correct runway since then the former soviet base in the plains north of the afghan capital has grown into a small city itself over twenty five thousand full time personal fleets of military cargo aircraft and enough vehicles to cause traffic jams in that expansion is no way it is by scores of contractors u.s.

military engineers are constructing new housing and storage facilities to make room for even more million workers where after sending an extra thirty thousand troops to afghanistan last year president obama started bringing them home this summer but with afghan forces struggling to stand alone it's likely that less will leave than planned and bases like this one aren't going to shrink anytime soon. at least there are plenty of home comforts from soldiers staying on for tough year long deployments they can shop for everything from flat screen t.v.'s to fine jewelry enjoy a cappuccino to grab some takeout the new pizza hut for insurance and if they're tired of working out in the gym they're free to go to the salon for a haircut inside which although some officials have tried to limit such amenities calling them a distraction from the war the troops are happy to have them and these are extremely well you know if they have no need to leave this planet then we have a case that the right. local afghan merchants are also glad to have the extra

business both inside and outside the wire without agreement a soldier's my business would be nothing we like having them here but not everyone agrees deadly taliban rocket attacks are on the rise and as the base becomes more and more crowded the threat to those living inside multiplies no matter how high its most become everyone gets a close call when you this can just get this much equipment personnel consolidated into one tight spot get close it's going to destroy something or someone. easy as it may be to forget the times this is still a war zone jason embark from. general john allen one of the military stop brass said u.s. troops will still be in the country even after the twenty fourteen pullout deadline that has had been announced by nato and the white house ruthless insurgent attacks have been increasing in recent months with several high profile assassinations and shoot out in the heart of the capital kabul civilian casualties are also on the

rise the u.s. led campaign in afghanistan failed to meet most of its original goals because according to our team's military contributor there are shifting as the want drags on. the initial intent was crystal clear to catch or kill osama bin laden no strings attached period but from the outset of the operation has gotten the wrong turn and today ten years later it's painfully obvious bad it has diggin aerated into their mission creep be that open ended commitment and no graceful exit inside for the united states forces or peace and security for the afghan people or the w. bush administration. has ignored the key principle keep it simple stupid advocated by the u.s. special operations command and undermined. their

efforts in their pakistani afghan. tribal belt otherwise. today we would have celebrated the tenth anniversary of the mission accomplished. it was artie's military contributor colonel chris shell with his assessment of the war's progress from the afghan capital. they're. still. here let's. be sure to bring peace and stability to the. last ten years or so don't be left to. the echo of occupy wall street protest has reached the american capital chanting the movement's message crowds march through downtown washington d.c.

demonstrations started as a simple sit out in front of the new york stock exchange but quickly gained support all over the country when rallies followed in chicago san francisco and los angeles activists say they're fed up with breaking their backs at work while bonuses flow into the pockets of already wealthy wall street bankers on wednesday police used pepper spray and with tongs to disperse tens of thousands of people walking from manhattan to wall street an independent reporter who's been covering the unfolding events says police action went far beyond just walking the crowds. as an independent journalist i actually had my own sort of run in with the players i was arrested on the brooklyn bridge last weekend with seven hundred other people as i was filming and so were our live stream critters i was also knocked down by a police officer on the front lines of me in the union square protests and i think it's raised a lot of interesting questions about what the role of independent journalism is you

know as we sort of move forward. i mean i know that on the brooklyn bridge there were a couple times reporters that were arrested as well but you know it's it's a little frustrating that we aren't of afforded any of the protection that the mainstream media would it would be given because ultimately we are they are documented something that is happening. well the movement has gained support from labor unions celebrities and was even heard on capitol hill president obama said the wall street protests expressed the frustrations of the american people and as the editor of a financial online magazine told us from san francisco not even the heavy police response will stop those people pushing forward with their agenda. one thing that protesters that i've interviewed here at occupy san francisco as you mentioned is a nationwide movement have mentioned is that police over response is actually very good for their so-called public relations outreach you know when the police when

these images of police pepper spraying women right in their faces or arresting hundreds of people on the brooklyn bridge i think that inspired a lot more people to go down and actually join the group and so ironically it does it does perhaps advance the protesters though i've seen a lot of people with a great deal of results it's also important to understand that there's a lot of different kinds of people at these protests i think that there is a hard core group of very dedicated activists who are seeing this as a long term movement that they're it's that they're not going to give up there are certainly people who are coming in for a day or two i think that they're you know their dedication maybe maybe less and less strong but the protesters i've talked to are not going anywhere soon and some of them are extremely poor and have no other prospects i mean i've talked to people who say look it doesn't matter if the police arrest me tonight you've got no place

else to treat you well the occupy wall street chance of no jobs for aflac the reality of many american cities a little later we're in detroit once the epicenter of america's big cars and big profits today it couldn't be further from the glory. and libyan finers launched a major assault on the japanese home town of syria while nato is humanitarian bombing campaign is the countries in the country is raising concerns for the civilians it claims to be protecting that's coming. but first russian prosecutors are set to hand out fresh charges to key suspects in the murder of a prominent journalist on the page it cost five. years ago she was gunned down in her apartment block in moscow but while the case has drawn a worldwide attention no one has yet been convicted for the murder because i mean they're going to put it off because family who still lives is waiting to see justice done. for police who worked on this day five years ago it was a murder of

a woman huff way through their shift at around four pm for a very political it was hard way through her pregnancy when she got a call her mother had been shelled outside her apartment it was a watershed moment in vera's life before and after. when you might have seen you i was well aware what kind of journalism my mother was into she would ok janelle they say if something happens to me documents are the money's here here are all the numbers to call but we never really took it seriously i was four months pregnant the family was full of hope and my mother promised that after her first grandchild was born she would still go into chechnya and take up quite a gentle istic work order. but quiet journalistic work is not something you would associate on the political scale with best a gated corrupt security officials and exposed to human rights violations she help

people when there are cases in the highest courts in russia and in strasbourg but the irony is that five years later your own murder still remains unpunished. there have been different periods in the process both busy winton people were arrested almost simultaneously in two thousand and seven and passive when nothing was happening however the events of recent months give us certain optimism for a successful ending successful in terms of finding the mastermind of the murder i can tell you if the investigation was as active five years ago as it is now by this time we would have had more evidence. or the twenty leaven has indeed been a turning point in may prosecutors named a man who is believed to have pulled the trigger. mood of was arrested in chechnya after years on the run in belgium and shortly afterwards investigators announced they were close just solving one of the most high profile slayings in ricin brushed . mammary. a former high ranking police official dimitri publishing co was

a middleman for money agreed to organize a criminal mob consisting of four people to carry out the assassination he kept. provided the perpetrator with a gun and would organize other members of the group we also have other information about the alleged mastermind of the killing but it's too premature to release that information. i'm not very good as yet aware on the political worked up until her death has been carrying out its own investigation into the journalists man to the newspapers deputy agita says it's good that interest in the case is so high both in russia and abroad but it's bad when it turns into pressure on prosecutors but it's much more with your friends period before we still believe that the four people my brothers and their friends who were in. his in two thousand and nine would know or in some way linked to this murder but you cannot really mccord's theory for the

record it was a lack of solid evidence presented in court and always happened because there was a public pressure on the prosecution to rush to judgment we think that even their races were too premature dominico. the russians supreme court unknown to the verdict of two thousand and nine and ordered every opening of the investigation it's a significant part of the johnny but it's certainly not be end one of the biggest challenges for investigators at this point is to find other suspects who are now on the run outside the country but just like on the political square herself her family and colleagues will never give up as they strive to find the truth it takes very little to describe someone's death in case of on the political just a dozen words on a piece of stone but these journalists life and her legacy could never feet and a forty by forty marble plates it's in the direction of art.

libyan fighters are launching a final attack on colonel gadhafi is home town of syria hundreds of vehicles pouring into the outskirts of the city is pounded with heavy shelling though thousands of civilians have left many more are thought to have remained because what comes after one of the daphne in an audio message is earthly libyans to resist the in term leader the civil war which has claimed thousands of lives was joined by nato under a u.n. mandate to protect civilians but as the arab oil president told r.t. the mounting death toll proves nato is intentions were not peaceful. you have to remember the resolution of the u.n. was only confined to a no fly zones to imposing a no fly zones it was there to protect civilians and the end of the day we end up with nato actually going to war against the people of libya obviously the dictatorship which prevailed there is no reason to declare war on the people off

libya by nato i think the usa britain france and the western powers hiding behind nato so that no one can point a finger but the figures of the casualties caused by nato bombing is really my own team i think nato is continuing its war against the libyan people albeit that they got rid of the dictatorship but we seem to be heading to the same exercise they have done in iraq and i think russia was right in taking the position vis a vis syria because we don't want a repeat performance whereby the un took the position in iraq and then took the position in the u.k. and is not there to change regimes it's made protect humanitarian purposes it might protect civilians it might stop wars but it is definitely not to change regimes. meanwhile president medvedev has again stated that russia will not support any u.n.

resolution to impose sanctions on syria he said it's not up to the u.n. to decide the political course of any country overmedicated said that if the current regime was unable to bring the country under control soon it would need to step down we'll have more details on those latest statements for you next hour. president obama is pushing his four hundred forty seven billion dollars jobs bill by taxing wealthy americans the country is racked by soaring unemployment but people feel the government is linked to the full extent of the pump problem and i have traveled to a want might be industrial city which is now all but closed with many on the poverty line. these are difficult years for our country but we are americans we are tougher than the times we live in the u.s. great recession began as a real estate crisis in two thousand and seven today it's expanded into

a national job emergency impossible to ignore the purpose of the american jobs act is simple. to put more people back to work according to the u.s. government nine point one percent of americans are unemployed yet experts say deceptive measures and statistical shenanigans are being used to mask a jobless epidemic that's far worse they do not challenge or time workers who are working full time or and they also don't count long term unemployed people people who've been unemployed for over six months back in time those people would have been considered unemployed but the government constantly changes the definition of who's unemployed and they do that so that the unemployment number looks lower than it otherwise would have bad when part time workers and the unemployed who have given up hope are factored in the real u.s. unemployment rate increases to more than sixteen percent

a more telling but often ignored statistic if they were included then you know the government would have to acknowledge that they truly have a major crisis on and on they have you so you know this is part of their problem and the campaign it'll last them to continue the status quo and society starts clearly breaking down broken down and in ruins the city of detroit is feeling the full force of america's economic decline one in three residents live below the poverty line half of the city's public schools are closing and crime is skyrocketing the capital of the country's motor industry now has an official unemployment rate of just under thirty percent but city officials and residents legs and opiate jeffries say the real figure is clue. fifty how do you describe it it is. at think it's. indicative of what's going on in the rest of the country and they're just now feeling it to heal america's economic suffering experts say

u.s. leaders need to abandon exaggerated optimism for the ugly truth unemployment is going to continue to get higher inflation is really going to get higher and rather than trying to pretend that the situation isn't as bad as it is we need to accept how bad it is because then we have a better chance of recognizing that the mistakes that were made us president barack obama has proposed a four hundred forty seven billion dollars plan for help for sesa tape america's workforce but just like any life saving procedure recovery can only begin to take place when the condition is fully understood are enough r.t. new york. was much more on all of our stories at our two dot com addicted to crime ross i consider selling drug users to curb the number of narcotic driven felonies artsy reports review online. and lost in translation a russian flash mob on twitter celebrating prime minister putin's birthday has

thrown the online community into a state of confusion see for yourself at r.t. dot com. time now for our russia close up series where we take in some of the most fascinating places in the world's largest country. today our exploration reaches the penza region six hundred kilometers south east of moscow the capital also called pens i was founded in the seventeenth century and lines on seven hills on the banks of the verse are wrong but there is a surprisingly high tech hub hiding in the middle of its heritage as it is home to a unique and lifesaving heart valve factory that supplies our vital products both in russia and abroad ours is a gravel road it has been to see it in action his report includes pictures of

surgery. life saving surgery the doctors are sodium and artificial valve that will allow this man's heart to function again the construction of the deceptively simple mechanism will determine how he lives the rest of his life and if he survives at all twenty years ago all these valves had to be imported until this company opened in pens originally this was meant to be a huge blow producing this soviet made bases but then when the u.s.s.r. collapsed of course there was no demand for russian made computers so the empty shell of a building and turned it into something else life for russia's biggest producer of all the special heart. started by a single russian physicist emitting sprung up without government support none of the small team of inventors that worked with the medical equipment manufacturer before now seven and ten above implanted in russia come from here it may look like

an over expanded workshop but the quality of its products has allowed this company to supply them to over twenty countries so here they know that success can be fleeting. and we knew we've had our successful invention but technology. moves on we are small compared to her international rivals and so we know we have to keep making new models just to survive. unusually for russia every new model was developed together with pensions locals. but doctors here admit that at first there was skepticism about the russian made piece of medical equipment. so doctors are very conservative by nature and the first day and the patients were very mistrustful of devolves to make people try something new in themselves it was difficult but i'll tell you this twenty years ago up to two thousand and five used to die during the surgery now to figures around one percent of. the surgery was

successful said again a retired army officer will be discharged within a week. i look forward to the rest of my life i can feel the cuts but i feel my heart working better as to the volves i researched everywhere in the internet about it and it's fine i trust evolve that is inside my heart. either party. but just a few minutes we show you around the best of the theaters and museums in the russian capital but first let's check the business with to me. thanks any solo in a warm welcome to the program the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis is causing problems far beyond the borders of the countries directly involved rochelle which has a balanced budget and healthy reserves has been hit hard and its latest report the

international monetary fund says the best way to get rid of this vulnerability is to diversify. we would recommend as we have always recommend that every effort be made to be less dependent on the oil and gas sectors so policy priority to emphasize all other industries in particular the manufacturing sector a return to competitive industry at fortune so forth russia has plenty of access to technology educated labor force all the ingredients necessary to relaunch its manufacturing sector like all other advanced economies so that that would be a first for a second we think that russia might want to continue emphasizing a stronger people public finances the government has set a target of four point seven percent oil. that is a very valid target which would make the russian economy a lot more resilient you know if you. look at the markets now it's not where

commodity while is on a decline trimming its first weekly gain in three sessions brant is trading at one hundred and five dollars per barrel losing around sixty nine cents light sweet is down thirty eight cents per barrel this hour. gold has lived into negative territory investors wait for key jobs data from the u.s. and then just around five minutes gold is trading at over sixteen and a half thousand dollars for troy ounce silver is a just under thirty two. the stock markets now european stocks flat to negative this hour on friday as investors headed for the sidelines out of the u.s. jobless data later today resources stocks are higher however on the footsie with be be up one percent real to interrogate one point three percent on a stronger metals prices however banking stocks are sharply lower that's after moody's downgraded the credit rating of twelve u.k.

financial firms including lloyds royal bank of scotland and santander u.k. . now the secular got what's happening in russia here it's all rosy because russia apparently was correcting earlier in the week while other markets were gaining the r.t.s. is up two and a half percent my stocks are more than two percent of this so if we look at some of the main individual movers on the my six you'll see that metal stocks on the rise metro is that the more than three and a half percent producer while carly is among the main again as this hour it's up six point six percent that's on news of a two and a half billion dollar buyback lukoil is also gaining the company plans to invest almost twenty billion dollars on refinery upgrades in around ten years. when israel is inviting russia to jointly create a new oil cartel president hugo chavez says the new organization could protect the interests of the world's biggest crude producers but it would not be rival to opec

then as well as grand ambitions for oil production in january it said it had thrown saudi arabia is the country with a largest proven oil reserves has been pushing foreign partners to increase investment into its a resource rich orinoco belt russia as part of their projects and the joint venture is expected to start production in may. the russian energy giant gazprom as obtained a license to explore one of the country's largest undeveloped gas fields the reserves of coal victor field estimated that up to two trillion cubic meters enough to meet world gas demand for eight months earlier this year gazprom bought the siberian deposit from russian british joint venture to b.p. a nearly nine hundred million dollars. all right i'll be back in around fifty five minutes time with an update the headlines are next with a nice on r.t. .

a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the wall street center they have to. leave the sentence a good chance the chief says it's

a good move for example the status of the human experiment is exploding with. business rap music or what it knows movies alertly trying to make sense of global economy and its arcane things as financial templates the research clambering to maintain our confidence in markets and think you don't want to be seen trade imbalances recession to keep emotions close to collapsing a subprime loan foreclosed homes. to fail simple a banks again feel level like thing is us crash and seven and smash the ceiling thing seems it's like ultimate in the clutch isn't enough in st the i remember what strikes me i'm just programmed to increase the total economy. culture is that so much given to each musician on the market what is the distance between the arab spring and arab democracy some people of the air. middle east have demonstrated they can rid themselves of.

fire from moscow you're with r t r top stories america's former top commander in afghanistan says they're only half way to reaching their goals and have no idea how to end their mission successfully the comments come exactly ten years after washington long since bloody war in the country. growing out of my wall street protests hit the u.s. capitol as thousands expressed fury over tax dollars being used to bolster big business and activists say they're fed up with breaking their backs at work while bonuses flow into the pockets of the already wealthy bankers. and russian prosecutors prepare to hand out more charges for the murder of a journalist. who was shot dead in a mall scalp five years ago no one.