only as 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 on actually defeating the taliban at least enough to have a real lasting impact now this report called save the taliban two thousand and twelve was produced by a secretive u.s. military operations unit it was 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 is an appeal to being taken seriously now to talk more about this i spoke to matthew aid intelligence specialist and author of the box you see on your screen there the secret sentry the untold history of the national security agency and i asked him why u.s. and nato officials have deemed this reports of be irrelevant take a listen. it's not that it's irrelevant it's that he's the report we're certain so

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 a bit but they are peeled north of kabul they think they're winning the war they're not defeated they have every intention applied in 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 the top if i was writing a lead for an article the lead would be. taliban vice the still strong and expect to win. the vast majority of the 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 care of the losses for the last ten years and yet they keep coming back they're one of the most resilient insurgencies of 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 despite losing thousands of people they expect eventually to win. and certainly a resilient seems to be the word after a decade long war over there and still no clear victory there report 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 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 pakistani handlers very much they thought they were very patronising and bossy which is i guess you know a 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 shows that the white house refuses the say it publicly well there certainly is 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 don't like working with al-qaeda and so i mean what i had is that 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 an cutouts for the taliban that they viewed al qaeda 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 of those four years ago it was clear from my interviews four years ago that there was there was deep tension between the two the taliban thought they were better fighters with the al qaeda they term to be sort of weekend soldiers they didn't really do a lot of fighting this and most of their time hiding out in diligence in 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 qaida isn't him again a stand in the taliban confirmed 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 and many of its personnel have secretly reached out to insurgents seeking long term options in the of that 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 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. furious. any suggestion that our karzai government and the millet in 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 to they know that the afghan their afghan army or 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 like the talk in peeves of u.s. soldiers in afghanistan and at the very top of the list is the fact that the soldier said we're fighting them dying. and we're dying in part because our ass. our eyes 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 soldiers we are going to turn the country over to when

we start withdrawing our troops later on this year. matthew eight intelligence specialist and author of the book the secret sentry the untold history of the national security agency. well washington is sending a top official to egypt to tackle cairo's crackdown on u.s. non profit groups the groups played a pivotal role in the uprising that toppled president hosni mubarak last year but are now falling victim to egypt's new leadership artie's maria for notional looks at the new strained relations between cairo and washington. egypt's new government crackdown on and you know this has raised many questions and you may want to is why now the groups many which funded by washington have been on the ground here for wow they were at the vanguard of the uprising against the baraka that eventually brought the supreme council. to power last february and no one has ever seems to care about their sources of income that is until they don't know for their

criticism to the new military leadership lehmann scaff for the slow pace of reform some of them are used by this. they are quoting people they are working. and if they want to disrupt the revolution they have doctors and there when the radicals live there this is very much a dangerous war the rhetoric this is fishy led to prosecutors really seventeen offices of advocacy groups forty three activists including americans germans and egyptians are now facing trial for illegally using foreign funds to promote and run in the post mubarak country activists how would claim they are the victim of scarves reluctance to give up power with dreaming the people about with the brights but the scaf looking for enjoy. some agent against the regime and all the mind the round up of activists has also noted the son of you asked mr taishi secretary.

for the fueling tension between cairo in washington. wasn't simply because. of them in a sort of plans for. i don't think that he has any leading at all in the thing at all so this is a game and there it was military aid to egypt reaches one point three billion dollars annually has been very serious though has been weak to condemn this car when in the days of blank checks are over or they condemned mubarak tons of times but at the end of the day the continued on flowing that the provided support also continued on flowing. or in washington's so-called support for democracy here in the middle east and washington wants to step in laws the situation as much as possible in order to guarantee its interests they don't care about democracy meanwhile even those on the streets protesting against car share the council's concerns about the engineers motives the usa has had a hand into its policy making for years but the whole n.t.

and your campaign has become the first serious disagreement between america and the countries your story takes cairo wanted to send washington and message that it's no longer the silent dog it was under mubarak but an independent state which will last celebrate any outside interference some doubts though they really minute the end to military movement growing have a bigger you can see it over there the supreme council of the armed forces or scaf now running egypt is in a very vulnerable position and this nationalistic pronouncement may just be and nationalist show put on to calm the people down and to win back a shred of credibility here if you. kyra. well that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered you can head on over to r.t. dot com slash usa there you will find my interview with policy director of the national iranian american council jamal abdi he told me why the u.s.

shouldn't be so eager to come to israel israel's aid when it comes to tensions with iran and don't forget to check out our user paid to you tube dot com slash r.t. america and to find out what i'm not what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news you can follow me on twitter at liz wahl see what a half hour. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harkin welcomes the big picture. wealthy british scientists are. trying to.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. world with. technology innovation and all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. people couldn't fly for a long time i don't think because they didn't think it was possible we can learn how to do that without machines anywhere if we want to. destroy your arm while people here are

a man ticks but they have generous souls like sunni's is something out of this world and in chanting experience disease in the skies would brings these people together they come here from all over russia and the world are. always people stick together because of both the love of ballooning and that none of them will be able to do it singlehanded each person is a zone of responsibility those on the ground are responsible for the ones in the sky together they are a close knit team. it all started in the late eighteenth century a balloon with two passengers in the basket was launched from a paris suburb one pm and fifty four minutes on november the twenty first seventeen eighty three was piloted by panetta. and marquis de long after flying across the french capital they landed safely in another suburb twenty minutes later the king

of france bestowed them the title of count for being the first humans to fly in the air and granted them the right to hand it down to successive generations of balloonists. since then anyone going up in a balloon for the first time has to pass an initiation ritual to be awarded the title of count by the pilots. that she was killed which elements do you know count using really earth water to fire. what else in the. the air. was gone through all of them to take off from earth and filling the air. of it on the ground and in the air and of course taken off without fire. fire is the main driving force of any hot air balloons the first timers have their

hair ends burnt as a sign of respect for fire champagne then comes into play as a symbol of water that is used to extinguish the flaming has finally the initiated have their heads sprinkled with earth as a good luck charm for future flights. the first balloon launch in russia came exactly twenty years after the french debut in eighteen zero three a balloonist from paris flew a russian balloon passenger over moscow according to one theory emperor alexander the first but ordered the launch he wanted to know what such aircraft putting those designed for warfare were capable of doing in the mid twentieth century ballooning

was no longer popular in russia almost no military balloons have been in use after world war two get ballooning today remains a recreational activity for hundreds of thousands of people around the world. passing gorse russia's oldest spa resort today it is popular among both russian and foreign balloonists hey you find both mountains and lowlands the city is just over one thousand five hundred kilometers south of moscow mt elbrus europe's highest point is only seventy kilometers away the mountain stands nearly five thousand five hundred meters above sea level. the first ballooning competitions in the caucasus were held here russia's southern most region that was in the mid one nine hundred ninety s. a pilot had to be a professional to stay. balloon and keep it at the right altitude you can never

tell how the air currents are going to behave. only nine pilots turned up for the inaugural event thirteen years ago nowadays it is an international festival that attracts both russian and foreign balloonists the aim is to restore the to former glory. vitale. is a former air force pilot on the first balloonist in the caucasus the crew holds him in high respect he was the first russian take the risk of launching the balloon in the antarctic. were made a sectional bosco's and a balloon that featured the colors of the russian flag for most k. we went to paris. from there on to santiago. finally we reached our destination and preparedness in chile was a well southernmost city with. the usual pollution as the cell phone was host to

a number of stations belonging to the united states but very many people in high places outside our country from the presence of russian blueness there extremely objectionable we paid before we arrived in chile. we were able to fly to king george oil and only after two failed attempts. to get in the end with winds of eighty meters a second we did manage to launch a balloon but not before everything that could be broken was broken. and all of you know about. as far as i know only four men in the world including myself have ever launched balloons in the antarctic. vitale was trained by alexandre talan of one of the first balloonists in the former soviet union he has been chief referee at every balloon competition in russia found he. and to the country's first pollution on a factoring company russia has

a total of forty professional balloonists that make frequent flights. about yours each exercise is performed within a radius of two hundred fifty meters other balloons start trailing behind the hair a minute later. before each launch the referee tells contestants what they're supposed to do just like with passenger aircraft balloons a check for any technical folks project taking off alexander's wife vera shares his passion for flying she was six years old when she first saw a balloon since then her cherished dream has been to pilot one. addressing the team come on everyone can purchase the payson critically gifted with no matter how old you are better and how welcome to come here with children very many men bring their wives along they don't come here is simply to look around and go for right now they help a lot. now there are a lot of

a monitor's the ballooning competitions she recalls them a new visit wind speeds and alternative flight paths and schools them accordingly. the admission the first balloon to go up for stub or pole it is a heads as soon as it touches down the pilot will allow to cross and the ground the job of other pilots is to keep in mark as precisely as possible. the first building to go up is called the heading balloonist lingo it is piloted by the judge then the other contestants need to mimic kids maneuvers by approaching it all moving away. only few pilots can cope with such difficult competition the professionalism of the talan also has earned the couple the title of aero good. rumors of russia but

aloneness founded russia's first company money fracturing balloons aleksandr to launch off made his first balloon in the late one nine hundred eighty s. it's lining born inscription saying the first soviet made mungo feel. ballooning has gained enormous popularity in russia in the past two years this can be seen from the growing number of orders for balloons placed with our company. and so i don't think the shape of balloons or even the wicker baskets is going to change the balloons of the future will offer a more comfort to in-flight pilots. things like better navigation smoother knobs and delicate thin cords instead of course ropes tools void getting entangled . sensors will give way to radio signals reporting temperatures inside the envelope

with dust and all that will be mainly intended for the spectators the balloons are most likely to look like the ones built by the brothers montgolfier for a long time to come. all it had was a basket and a burner. one tank costs full two minutes after that it should be changed i mean you should be two tanks at all times one of them an active duty and the other as a backup. to just wind up with this right here is where the baskets are born these tubs are filled with water and about the liquid is used to soak willow. canes are here.

but we are using rattan pam to make of this particular basket today on the gumball dream us a call fused to give school children physical education classes he was a teacher by calling and dre even held a scientific degree for fun one day he decided to weave a small wicker basket today he's head of a company which makes much larger baskets. in the old days we used to make balloon baskets in russia today the firm stalks of the tropical rattan poly used it's more popular because it's more practical it's imported from europe and southeast asia. because so king process takes three or four hours the material is not put to any particular test to see whether it is ready for processing but then i don't need any i just bend it to see whether breaks or not if. it's

a simple as that doesn't if you've just ok your bullets get down to work with your work as a handy craft with a long history it was all the rage in nineteenth century russia where was used to make all sorts of things from furniture prams and suitcases to hunt bags and toys the traditional craft somewhat faded in the twentieth century but it is being revived today although this is a slow process only a few workshops can handle major deals involving wicker work. family but a human nowadays basket wickerwork barely differs from its french origins yet the same technique has been used for hundreds of years i have seen how they do it in the czech republic and in germany which their methods are very much alike. and gracious his team's motto there is no place for an important things in aviation bus gets a made in strict conformity with blueprints the job takes three days on average

every small detail that is important from the ropes to the framework few women and found in this trade men's hands a stronger. lashley our products retain the warmth of our hands. the. i'm sure that if you are in a good mood while waving a basket the result is a good product. culture

is that so much the same in a commercial comes on it comes up here in a facebook submission public offering is being called a very big deal and many hope the i.p.o. will lift the entire tech sector but is the. download the official t. application joe i phone oh i pod touch from the i.q. jumps to. lunch on life on the go. video on demand ati's minefield costs and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the dot com.

world. science technology innovation all the list of elements from around russia we've got the future covered wealthy british science. the tireless. the. market. can go find out what's really happening to the global economy with max conjure for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. mission free accreditation free transport charges free. range month free risk free studio time free. download free broadcast quality video for

your media projects and free media oh don the r.t. dot com. the envelope is the most important part of a balloon the safety of all those on board depends on its quality design is make a computer model of the balloon. once the blueprint is finished they use it to cut out the palm of material these are used to make cuts to live. as a seamstress by trade twenty years ago she worked as a tailors making dresses and overcoats when ballooning got a new lease of life she switched to the ambitious task of making balloon envelopes elaine has ballooned several times including flights aboard balloons of her own making. last balloons during a festival and. it was a very long time ago.