welcome it's nine pm here in moscow my name's kevin though in bringing you the top stories from r.t. tonight and first a decade ago on october the seventh two thousand and one the war in afghanistan began as a counter strike for the nine eleven atrocities masterminded from the country by osama bin ladden a 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 mattera reports from baghdad. if the united states is drawing its troops from afghanistan why is its largest base getting bigger the u.s. led forces over in the taleban 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

hardware and enough equals 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 were 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 even planned and bases like this one aren't going to shrink anytime soon. at least there are plenty of home comforts for soldiers staying on for tell a few moment appointments they can shop for everything from flat screen t.v.'s to fine jewelry enjoy a cappuccino to grab some take at the new pizza hut for insurance and if they're tired of working out in june 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. useful if enough do you feel this planet can 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 run and as the base becomes more and more crowded the threat to those living inside multiplies no matter how high its walls become everyone gets a close call when you're this congested you get this much equipment personnel consolidate 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 worse jason month loan from. john allen one of the military's top brass said u.s. troops will still be in the country even after the twenty four twenty fourteen deadline of been announced by nato in the white house insurgent attacks have been increasing in recent months with several high profile assassinations and in the

hearts of the capital kabul as we've been reporting civilian casualties also as we've been reporting are on the rise the u.s. led campaign in afghanistan has failed to meet most of its original goals because according to our military contributed they are shifting and as the war drags on the initial intent was crystal clear to catch or kill osama bin laden no strings attached period but from the outset 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 very open ended commitment and no graceful exit. for the united states forces or peace and security for the afghan people 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 back is standing afghan. tribal belt otherwise. today we would have celebrated the tenth anniversary of the mission accomplished. contribute colonel is going to khrushchev with his assessment of the walls progress from the afghan capital. american. target. should feel the full u.s. . mission to bring peace and stability to the world. but. only after the.

libyan fighters have launched a final attack on colonel gadhafi hometown of sirte reports say the interim government troops have now largely taken the city but they are still meeting pockets of heavy resistance hundreds of vehicles are pouring into the outskirts of the city is pounded with heavy shelling though thousands of civilians have left many more thought to have remained the assault comes after dark in an ordeal message libyans to resist the interim leaders of more now assist in the situation the region let's go to london i'll talk to sue country and activist job is joining us on the program very good evening chief thanks for being with us again as a final push is under way to take said is a good time i guess to stand back and recall that nato joined a campaign under a u.n. mandate to protect civilians already of course thousands of lives have been lost do you think the intervention was justified. intervention was justified if you are part of the elites of the west if you're part of the energy companies and financial

institutions and the intelligence services all of which by the way who swap seats in terms of the executive positions in the different respective companies but from the part of the global south africa in particular this has been an absolute disaster and i think when now china in this last few days china and russia have vetoed the un resolution which is a similar program by nato which they cannot from libya but they want to conduct now in syria i think china and russia have admitted that they were fooled over the resolution one hundred seventy three on on libya and they're not going to be fooled again so the know is this would be a disaster for the global south including russia and china and i'm reading some of the marines book called beyond us that germany print in two thousand and six and he makes clear back in two thousand and six that the war in iraq now the war in libya and the trial in syria is actually targeted really at china russia and india. some people who fled the ongoing violence we've reported by claiming that nato has been

hitting homes and hospitals it's not a new accusation but will the alliance you think ever find itself answering directly for any of those claims. well actually. some of the best news while on the civilian situation and certain of course of this is completely i mean to call it hypocrisy is to give too much credit to nato this is this is outright state terror through conduct domination and monopolization of libya's wealth but actually now it's really clear to the world and unfortunate again the western mainstream press is not reporting this but civilians are clearly targeted there and you can read it on the news wire and it's it's very clear that this is this that this is this is a town which is basically empty of civilians so much so much so has the nato bombing and the offensive by the rebels taken such a toll on the civilians there nevertheless they're still resisting and also the media stop talking about ben who will lead basically the rebels in libya have given up and taking over ben you will eat and also just about sixty four which is east of

tripoli i think there's another town that's going over to gadhafi side so the battle is far from over so you say they're given a full but i believe you say we're going to have more about the in the coming weeks coming months maybe as this drags on meantime nato is maintaining it will continue its attacks in libya until the fighting ends how capable libya's new really new rulers be of leading the country after nato leaves whenever that is. there's no sign whatsoever that nato is going to leave nato has just said that it will intervene even further if the factional amongst the rebels continues to this is the relationship continues to worsen and it's very clear that for the west and for nato there man on the ground is people like jabril. and although they've been in alliance with from the libyan islamic fighting group up to very recently they much prefer jabril and they will intend to give bell hard and his

fighters the choice whether that's possible is another situation altogether and also now with president assad who is doing the right thing for for any leader of the global south to say if you touch me nato well i'm going to i'm going to start bombing israel i get hizbollah to stop bombing israel and iran will target western interests in the gulf this is the only way to face the world bullies which is which is nato yeah i mean i'm more on the. you know the u.n. resolution against syria might open the door now to military action do you think we're going to see a repeat in syria of what we've seen in libya. we have to be that's the global south has to be again very vigilant because i think now i mean the financial times admitted a few weeks ago that their choice ally in the region now is actually turkey and the transitional council so-called in syria which is modeling itself on the pro nato council in libya are calling openly for a no fly zone fly zone implemented on syria through the turks and the turkish government is conducting

a military exercise in the coming days on the border with syria so turkey is the weak link in the global south and i think russia and china and iran will be looking to put turkey under managed to stop turkey from being the trojan horse of nato currently and an activist journalists thank you bring on the program live from london tonight. thank you and still to come in the program here on r.t. international the u.k. may be facing its worst economic crisis in history the bank of england warning comes as the country feels the bite of recession with buying stuff graded and the government implementing desperate measures to boost growth to go for like having a. bust russian prosecutors prepare to bring new charges for the murder of journalist anna politkovskaya shot dead in moscow exactly five years ago. and it goes from the occupy wall street protests have reached the american capital chanting the movement's message crowds march through downtown washington d.c. the demonstration started as a simple sit in in front of the new york stock exchange would quickly gain support

all over the country more rallies then followed in chicago boston san francisco and los angeles i do say they're fed up with breaking their backs to work while bonuses flow into the pockets of already wealthy wall street bankers on wednesday police used pepper spray and button to disperse tens of thousands of people. to do street . wall street activist who gave his experience of being beaten by police he also told us that lack of definite demands of the movements in fact its strength. i think. actually it's an int there's an interesting contrast in the police response i've been around since i've had friends. over the head with. a three because. it's it's intense. like this i have a staring like this. all. i think. i think it was less fear there's an incredible stress of not having

a clear it was the right answer. this moment is a little bit different i don't really think this one has to come up with its own demands this occupation we are foundation on top of which those through the grassroots organizations and movements. with service added witness i think that's a very credible strength and i think we have enormous potential to really build a movement capable of both creating an alternative structure and cycle to carve out the space for that stuff. will cross the atlantic the u.k. has now become the latest nation to feel the pinch of the global financial crisis ratings john moody has downgraded twelve of britain's financial firms and banks including royal bank of scotland and lloyds t.s.b. it comes off to the bank of england chief said the country's economy is at his lowest point since the one nine hundred thirty s. if not ever its grim picture let's talk more about that with littlewood he's director general of the u.k.'s free market think tank institute of economic affairs very good evening thanks for being with us so what do you read into this latest

ratings downgrade how grave a warning is it. it is a great warning but it's also a welcome warning what we've got to get away from in the united kingdom and actually right across the western world more generally is this idea that every single bank is copper bottomed because if they get into trouble the taxpayer will buy all them out and one of the key things that the u.k. government is struggling with is how do we allow our banks to go through the wall and to fail without actually describing the wider economy and i think that these these downgrades. actually reflect the fact that we are beginning to move away from what was a hopeless and helpless situation nein which basically every bank you that if you crashed then the taxpayer in the government would come to the right so it's a grim warning but in the same why you would wish to have an almost toy notice from your doctor about your state of health i think it is a welcome one ok well i'm on thursday the bank of england announced today the cash

injection of seventy five billion pounds into the british economy is going to put it back on track that the gold palace a year no i don't think so actually i'm pretty skeptical that it will do any good at all apart from possibly fuel inflation we already have inflation of around about five percent in the united kingdom which compared to recent years is is hardly putting more money into the economy risks actually increasing that inflation is supposed to be the bank of england's central key task to actually keep inflation under control so a half percent or less my concern is that quantitative easing throwing another seventy five billion pounds into the economy is actually a distraction from what the u.k. government needs which is a very aggressive and radical growth strategy one that i think they lack of the moment because i guess the history books show that it doesn't play out well just throwing money at the problem just in two thousand and nine after the lehmann crisis to the bank of england jetted in it two hundred million pounds into the

economy didn't work there either. didn't work very well i'm not confident that it would work there's one reason why you might want to throw money into the economy and that see if you think that your money supply isn't churning around enough in the technical poll on the velocity of the money supply is too low but there's no evidence to suggest that that's the case in the united kingdom what's really needed is the u.k. government to make the united kingdom a better place to do business we've got to actually crawl back and read the government's record in terms of business regulation over its first eighteen months in office use of us we've actually got to make it easier for enterprises the government's only taken a few timid steps in that direction there's only going to be a long slow path back to recovery in the united kingdom but we've got to start taking the first few decisive steps by making it easier not harder to do business here when we talk about reading the signs reading the tea leaves talk about short memories to a lot of this week when the u.k. charge of the exchequer george osborne was grilled over the very policy of

quantitative easing the effectively denied it was the act of a desperate government now i know why the clock back that's a criticism he leveled while he was in a position so i mean read into this that all options are now exhausted. i don't think all options are exhausted this is quite a desperate may show you don't want to be falling back on these thing and throwing another seventy five billion at the money supply but we shouldn't we shouldn't be overstating things too much listen the u.k. economy is about flat lining it's not growing but it's not as if you're obviously going backwards it's going to be difficult to get out of this mess the government is right to stop to try and get the public finances under control to stop spending more than it's bringing in in tax it's going to be a long slow road to recovery but i don't think that the u.k. government yet has shown much imagination or merely your ideas in how you actually build on that recovery there's no magic wand there's nothing that can be done to suddenly get the u.k.

economy booming again within twelve months but you've actually got to put some real structural changes in place to make sure that over the next four or five years we actually do start to see economic growth back at around two or three percent that's about what the u.k. has been used to roll over than flatlining at the same or worse still going backwards and i don't think that the u.k. government's growth plan actually amounts to a scratch yet is actually fiddling around with various very small measures in the labor market rather than being sufficiently decisive so yes this is a textbook measure but i think that there are more things the government could do you could actually just found the political will and the courage to do that marvel were directed journal of the free market think tank the institute of economic affairs really good to get your expert opinion on r.t. thank you. here russian prosecutors are fresh charges to key suspects in the murder of a prominent journalist anna politkovskaya five years ago she was gunned down in her apartment block here in moscow but while the case is drawing worldwide attention no

one's yet been convicted of the murder occurred to a good show the met politkovskaya as family who is still saying they're waiting to see justice done. for police who worked on this day five years ago it was a model 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 out side her apartment it was a watershed moment in vera's life before and after. when you might seem to you that i was well aware what kind of journalism my mother was into she would ok janelle if say if something happens to me documents are the money's here here are all the numbers to call it all 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 journalistic work. but quiet journalistic work is not something you would

associate on the political scale with best to 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 and punished will get us. 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 your body that investigation was after five years ago as it is now or at this time would have had more evidence. for the twenty eleven 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 and belgium and shortly afterwards investigators announced they were close just solving one of the most high profile slayings in misimpression memory. a former high ranking police official dimitri publishing co that was a middleman for money agreed to organize a criminal mob consisting of four people use a card 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. not with the new dean you know virgie as yet aware on the political worked up until her death has been carrying out its own investigation into the journalists the newspapers deputy editor 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 more than your friends people who do we still believe that the

four people were brothers and their friends. were acquitted in two thousand and nine would you know or in some way going to this murder but you cannot really mccord's sharif for the record it was a lack of solid evidence presented in the court and always happens because there was a public pressure on the prosecution to rush to judgment we think that even their races were too premature. because. 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 joint 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 the dozen

words on a piece of stone but these journalists life and her legacy could never fit in a forty by forty marble plates. it's even though there are children r t. let's quickly check out our website r t dot com the place for much more of the stories we're covering there tonight addicted to crime russia considers jailing drug users to curb the number of narcotics felonies but a full report for you at r.t. dot com also lost in translation a russian flash mob on twitter celebrating probably and putting the online community a huge and why loosely from us. give it twenty four minutes past nine o'clock moscow time very good have a company tonight in a few minutes time we report on life in the west bank town of hebron where palestinians are losing their homes to israeli settlers thirty minutes that shortly after tonight's business update.

hello and welcome to the program the euro zone's the sovereign debt crisis is causing problems far beyond the borders of the countries directly involved russia which has a balanced budget and healthy reserves has been hit hard in its latest report the international monetary fund says the best way to get rid of this vulnerability is to diversify away from energy. 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 force and 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 priority 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 non oil deficit that is a very valid target which would make the russian economy a lot more resilient in our view. russia's burbank is considering buying the turkish unit of troubled french belgian group dexia now it's struggling to cope with its exposure to greek debt and is considering an asset sale so that burbank say the deciding factor will be the price of the asset but the acquisition would be consistent with the bank's well publicized plan to expand into central and eastern europe. and other news russia's top diamond producer al gore also plans to hold an i.p.o. at the end of twenty twelve or soon after vice president of our aussie good police chief says the state plans to privatized seven to ten percent of the company he also says restructuring in preparation for listing. now in these pre-crisis

volatile time we only in the ideal situation we are sitting on a big stack of money are capitalize ation is better than before the two thousand and eight crisis and all sales volumes should champions performance in the coming days we will publish our two thousand and eleven first half report and we will post such figures as the company has never seen in its history because. now a quick look at the stock markets in russia the r.t.s. m i six continued their bounce back on friday gaining three and a two and a half percent respectively but overall the week was negative to look at some individual share moves on the my sex metal stocks were on the rise with metro adding almost six percent attached producer wild card is among the main again is in the session that's up more than six percent on news of a two and a half billion dollar buyback lukoil is also gaining the company plans to invest almost twenty billion dollars in refinery upgrades in ten years and it's on that if

didn't add i have seen the triple wraps up there straight. were close on the little bit of off of the opening of the week while. for last three days we see significant let's say let's try to call the trolley we see like three percent growth of a day and still it seems that so the market sentiment remains cautious we see a little itty bitty still in place we see it to school probably be in place for the next two weeks while still markets reacting quite well to consolidate its. efforts over new year's bank of england and other european authorities to get through the crisis everybody's who can avoid. and that's all the business for now coming up next i'll see the headlines.

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this is our team moscow is coming up in a tonight with the top stories for you america's former top commander in afghanistan says that only halfway to reaching those goals and have no idea how to end the mission successfully the comments coming sadly ten years up to washington launched its bloody war in the country. nato forces launch the biggest of. civilians flee in panic saying conditions are desperate for those inside the colonel's last remaining strongholds. and growing on to wall street protests in the u.s. capitol as thousands expressed fury over tax dollars being used to bolster big businesses activists say they're fed up with breaking the. flow into the pockets of already wealthy bankers.