oh. if that's a nice piece of material and so easy to handle. qualities of primary importance in our business what you think of intentionally messed it up so you'll fall out of the sky. never absolutely not great job was very well done religiously and. the company repairs the existing believes as well as making new ones it receives several damaged envelopes a month this part of the balloon is subjected to wear and tear more often than others after the envelope is repaired and the new one is ready to test start. because i own my door is the main believe tester of the to law in office factory none of the balloons made by the company will be launched unless he gives the go ahead. are going to include us federal our best gets met european

standards. they were not as good in the old days but now they're russia's best course yes is true i can't afford to pay the price but it's. better than i would buy one if they were not so expensive that. michele knight golf is a veteran russian air and all that he's been involved with aviation for fifty four years mikhail is a boon designer by training he's built seven of them with his own hands. first to go ballooning when he was fifty three years old he looks forward to celebrating his seventy fifth birthday in flight the contest balloons at any time under any conditions one hundred flights a year is a minimum. if you could shoot a flying years old weazened blissful whatever the conditions. were up a move a lot of noise all vision normal position. and the balloon is in working order as

it should be. that hopefully we'll get no complaints from the guys in about us. to look at the ils this is not what i call flying it would in general i don't see being tethered is the definition of florida only with the out there who while we truly flying. a hot air balloon can only be in preflight during the daytime it's a common role for all balloonists in the world the busk it has to touch down before sunset. unlike balloons in free flight tethered balloons are allowed to be launched even in the dock in that case the burner illuminates the balloon from the inside.

pilot's refer to this phenomena. known as the good organizers of the patagonia festival of blueness came up with the idea for this spectacle to attract tourists. bear current simpatico such that early morning is the best time for taking to the skies the convoy of balloonists normally starts out at five o'clock in the morning to head towards the starting line. the success of the flight primarily depends on the wind no matter how skillful the pilot might be balloonists get weather forecasts and reports about the force and direction of the wind from ground control safety services but then there is a simpler way of determining the winds direction the whole crew takes part in

preparations for a flight normally it includes four people a technician carries out checks to satisfy himself that the balloon is in working order. have a good flight. balloons are raised into the sky by the pilot and the navigator but whether the crew will get home depends on those who stay on the ground. once a balloon lands the crew has to be retrieved from the spot. sometimes inexperienced

teams responsible for retrieval can't find crews landing at dusk therefore those unfortunate balloonists have to spend a night out in the open not shock me as is another ex air force pilot. during competitions he is often charged with the task of ensuring the crew safe return to earth his job is retrieving crews of balloonists from wherever they might land. rainbow rainbow pickup is calling do you read pickup i can hear you. wonderful. nial has had special training to learn how to get his bearings in different conditions whether in the woods or mountains but tracking a balloon through the streets of a town is a skill in its own right the. problem with tracking a balloon flying over a city or another population center is that there is a mass of people. you need to have a good knowledge of the city's top dog or free and the flood zone. what invariably

ends up happening. is you get stuck in traffic. which is just great. you know and i mean. you know this is a very convenient place. from here we can see where balloons are going from where they are likely to touch down. of the prophet. and you see our balloon rising over this town it's over by the hill. how far a balloon can fly depends on the wind what's most important is to make sure that it lands in such ways to make it easy for the retrieval truck to get it. bring the rainbow pick up calling are you coming in turning toward your thank you for. that pickup head down right away ok we're coming.

to. pick up can you see us we can see you very well. but. of the. nile loses three or four kilograms of weight in a week of intense retrievals the crew puts the billing together and takes it apart several times the envelope weighs one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty kilograms . i think about what we entrust our very lives to this envelope higher than what we make sure that no stones get in the way of the cup which might damage it but if the authorities doing. each gas tank weighs fifty kilograms if you add that to the burger in the basket the retrieval people will be hard put to collect it all.

pylon kudo my lawn. tribute to. them now we're all. on face value ballooning is a simple affair behind the scenes it is a vigorous combination of efforts by a crew an escort truck and those who help build the balloon these people define rain snow bitter cold and scorching heat truly they're afraid of only one thing to sing the ability to take to the skies. the sky does not

misunderstand the sky does not judge the sky very simply it's.

this is a consistent pattern of lack of concern for the environment and for human life in the burbs that's something that's part of the imperial mindset leave it to the u.s. military to leave blue marks all over the world or in this case its carbon footprint while americans can breathe easy with airtight security we'll show you how the environment is being smothered by pentagon pollution. and it's the report u.s. officials don't want you to see the state of the taliban in two thousand and twelve so as the u.s. military admitting defeat in afghanistan a new report sure seems to suggest it will explain.

the republican primary rollercoaster sure how did you see lines and drops but one candidate has remained consistent through it all will show you why ron paul is in it for the long haul. it's wednesday february eighth four pm in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well as u.s. troops prepare to leave afghanistan a recently leaked report suggest what america fears most not only is the u.s. pulling out of afghanistan without a clear victory but the taliban is poised to rise back to power this proves that a decade long war may have had little impact and actually defeating the taliban at least not enough to have a real lasting impact now this report called state of the taliban two thousand and

twelve was produced by a secretive u.s. military special operations unit it was with leaked to a couple of news outlets and reportedly is based on the twenty seven thousand interrogations of four thousand taliban and. al qaeda prisoners despite this u.s. and nato officials are dismissing it so what does this all mean for relations between the u.s. and afghanistan and why isn't it being taken seriously want to talk more about this i'm joined now by matthew eight intelligence specialist and author of the book the secret century the untold history of the national security agency matthew thank you for coming on the show my pleasure so this report it's being dismissed by u.s. and nato officials i mean why you have they deemed it to be irrelevant it's not that it's irrelevant it's that the report we're certain significant parts of it directly contradict the pentagon's official position that progress is being made in

the war the report in fact suggests and this is based strictly on what the taliban are telling their interrogators at the airfield north of kabul they think they're winning the war they're not defeated they have every intention of fighting through to victory they have absolutely no desire for can you any conciliatory measures no negotiations nothing i mean this is not the attitude you would find from a enemy and talk a little bit more about what this report has revealed that may make washington uncomfortable. well i mean the top if i was writing a lead for an article the lead would be. taliban and feisty still strong and expect to win. the the of the vast majority of the taliban prisoners who were interrogated and made that they took terrible losses in two thousand and eleven but that's nothing new they've taken terrible losses for the last ten years and yet

they keep coming back their one of the most resilient insurgencies the us military has ever faced and maybe we haven't given them the credit that they deserve for being that tough and the report bears out the fact that they are in fact resilient that they are and they really really believe this by losing thousands of people they expect eventually to win. and certainly resilient seems to be the word after a decade long war over there and still no clear victory there apart also reveals taliban prisoners and their collaboration with the pakistani military talk about what this means with for u.s. relations with pakistan well our relations with pakistan are so bad right now it doesn't really harm. our diplomatic relations with the pakistanis any more than it already stands the pakistani foreign minister has already said this is basically

old wine in a new bottle to paraphrase her comments so the pakistanis are doing what they have done for the last ten years when confronted with evidence of complicity with the afghan taliban which is basically to deny deny and then throw blame elsewhere. you know the report does contain some new details. one is that every one of the prisoners interrogated knew about the the collaboration with the pakistanis. but what came as a bit of a surprise the fact that the. taliban did not like their pockets dunny handlers very much they thought they were very patronizing and bossy which is against your client relationship gone sour so i don't know what that means for the future but i i think the relationship is now pretty well defined i think everyone in washington knows that pakistan has been covertly so supporting the taliban just that the white

house refuses to say it publicly although certainly as more proof of that another thing the report shows kind of suggesting that all terrorists at least in their eyes are not created equal the taliban that they they don't like working with al qaeda and so i mean what how does this shake up some perceptions that the u.s. has about relations between these two groups well it's again this is not so much a secret. back in two thousand and eight when i went to afghanistan and pakistan for the first time i was told by a book called them cutouts for the taliban that they viewed it as anathema meaning basically that. they said look al qaeda had its day in court it had their time they drove us from power by their presence in afghanistan they brought the u.s. troops in force this you know into hiding and we've never forgiven them for that

fact this is what i was being told now it was four years ago it was clear from my interviews four years ago that there is there was deep tension between the two the taliban thought they were better fighters with the al qaeda they they termed to be sort of weekend soldiers they didn't really do a lot of fighting this for most of their time hiding out in villages in the northern pakistan but you know this report basically confirms what has already been known that which by the way you know the import of this is that remember president obama justified the doubling of the size of u.s. forces. in afghanistan back in two thousand and nine on the presumption that you know we're going to keep afghanistan from going you know falling back into the hands of al qaeda well al qaeda is an image again a stand in the taliban confirm that. some parts of this report have been leaked to a couple of media outlets want to point out a specific quote here that is quite telling quote many afghans are already bracing

themselves for an eventual return of the taliban the afghan government continues to declare its willingness to fight yet many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents seeking long term options in the event of a possible taliban victory so this shows that the taliban may be working with our allies and i can imagine that these arguments going behind the scenes is something that the u.s. isn't very happy about no this is the one part of the report i've been told by friends of mine at the pentagon this is the one part of what has leaked out about this report that has the u.s. government especially the pentagon absolutely furious. at any suggestion that our karzai government and the millet and the afghan military and police are covertly working with the taliban is a diplomatic disaster but again this is one of those it's an open secret if you go

to afghanistan and talk to any u.s. soldier they will tell you they know that the afghan their afghan army and police partners they know there's a secret agreement with the local taliban unit a report came out in may of last year by a man named dr jeffrey boyd in which nobody has picked up on where he lists all the sort of like the top ten peeves of u.s. soldiers in afghanistan and at the very top of the list is the fact that in the soldier said we're fighting and dying. and we're dying in part because our af. allies are feeding the taliban with information to facilitate the attacks and this does not bode well for the fact that these are the soldiers this is the government and these are the solutions we are going to turn the country over to when we start withdrawing our troops later on this year. certainly i can see why that would be very unsettling for americans that have been fighting there for

a decade and it also shows that many afghans are bracing themselves for the return of the taliban so just looking at the bigger picture here does this prove that it's the taliban that can declare victory after a decade long war in the middle east it's that would be premature i think the the taliban mullah omar the leader of the taliban has a famous saying which is the americans have the responses and we have the the implication being all we have to do is stay the course and just survive until we know that finally the americans will run out of steam and leave the country and then we will take over this is the strategy they followed for ten years and they they've been very good at it i have to say whether you like them or not the fact that the afghan government and military recognize the americans are leaving starting this year secretary of defense panetta has told us last week u.s.

troops are going to start withdrawing and may have the withdrawal completed next year so we're in trouble and so as we are planning this drawdown of troops we see not a clear victory what then is the legacy that the u.s. is leaving behind there. you know what worries my worry my fear for the legacy that we're leaving is that we're going to the analogy is vietnam remember we we went through a process called vietnam ization as american troops withdrew from vietnam in the night in one nine hundred seventy three we left behind what we thought was a capable south vietnamese military and a strong government which everyone knew was corrupt and systemically incapable of defending the country i suspect we're doing exactly the same thing i mean that's my fear i hope i'm wrong but i think it's my fear i think that's a fear that a lot of americans have especially ones that have been fighting there abroad

matthew thank you so much for coming on the show that was matthew eight intelligence specialist and author of the book the secret century the untold history of the national security agency. and afghanistan is not the only place the us has left a mess around the globe but where america has waged wars and set up bases even here on u.s. soil the actions of the military have left a dirty and even toxic mess for a local community isn't as it turns out the united states department of defense is the biggest polluter on the planet and as you'll see the mess may just be too expensive for the pentagon to clean up. the united states department of defense the planet's biggest polluter with hundreds of military bases around the world the department is responsible for more ways than any other company or country this is a consistent pattern of a lack of concern for the environment and for human life and of course that's

something that's part of an imperial mindset the problem has persisted throughout history from nuclear testing in the pacific in the fifty's fire. to nato attacks dropping depleted uranium in libya it gets into the water table and it does damage to the kidneys and the liver is very very highly dangerous some countries say they've had enough like japan which is pushing for the ouster of u.s. troops stationed in okinawa what looks like ninety thousand people in okinawa and thousands others across japan seems to represent people saying as they have been for quite some time that they have just had enough others suffer in silence it tends to be connected at least conceptually to environmental racism countries are being occupied and just leveled or destroyed afghanistan and iraq now libya and if you look at history in the late twentieth century i mentioned vietnam earlier. is another place where you're going to see the sad thing this was going on

a vehicle with naval bombing in puerto rico and it happens in our own backyard i can't lose you north carolina where for three decades people bathed and drank contaminated water. oh. veteran gerry adams mayor believes he lost his nine year old daughter to cancer causing radioactive toxins he and his family were exposed to while base there they were told they have these minutes and they're getting more or have years. very. well and he's not alone one in ten americans live near a military site or something superfund site because military bases extreme approaching not only radioactive pollution also you know jet fuel how is this able to happen the entire politics is controlled by fossil fuel interests wall street

interests and military interests and though the contamination is costing lives the cost of clean up the mast may be too big for the pentagon an estimated three hundred twenty billion dollars that's almost half the pentagon's budget instead the money is being spent here on wars in afghanistan and iraq and military operations elsewhere. and in today's climate in congress the environment is not at the top of the agenda this is the most. house of representatives in history so for this congress the house of representatives has voted again and again to block action to address climate change to hold their fruits to reduce air and water pollution well president obama recently announced his plan to boost military presence in australia a military buildup also happening and a province in south korea with the pentagon splurging on expanding their military

reach there seems to be a little funding left to clean up existing basses around the globe and washington was wall r.t. . well the race to be the next republican presidential candidate has shaken up those up there rick santorum swept all three states in last night's primaries now mitt romney's cozy spot as front runner isn't so certain anymore they're at the race various candidates enjoyed their time in the limelight limelight only to be taken over by a new g.o.p. flavor of the way. but one candidate's popularity has remained consistent ron paul and there are signs now that he is gaining momentum especially after coming in second in minnesota where he beat romney and gingrich ad take a look at this poll and according to the latest telephone polls coming out front runner mitt romney lost some ground in recent days dropping from thirty to twenty percent ron paul is now in second nationally his support group by five percent

putting him at twenty one percent and rounding out the bunch is newt gingrich's support who which fell by one percent and rick santorum support grows by five to eighteen percent so what support for the other candidates slipping is that ron paul's time to shine but is it deeper into this volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter mary willison joins me now from our los angeles studio welcome so last night's results really shook things up for the republican race mitt romney front runner status isn't so certain anymore is it correct it's not. you know we're really happy with how ron paul is steadily pulling forward and we have a lot of faith in the strategy of his campaign and that as he gains ground in each one of these caucuses and moves into the primary states we are gaining momentum we're.