the pentagon reacts to accusations that washington has routinely lie about america's longest war made by the top u.s. official overseeing afghanistan's reconstruction. russian programmer alexander remake arrested in greece on washington's were press writes if he for help saying he has been tortured and refused the most basic rights. in dramatic scenes the french president is rushed out of the paris theater under a hail of boos as furious protesters chanting resign try to confront him. and russia marks 77 years since the breaking of the siege of leningrad one of the world war 2 years of the most appalling humanitarian disaster.

you're watching our 2 international coming to you live from the russian capital where it's just turned 8 am welcome to the program. the pentagon insists it's been honest after washington's own watchdog excuse me for afghan reconstruction accuse the military leadership of routine lies over progress and america's longest war. and reports. common cynicism aside most people would prefer that those responsible for leading the country tell the truth and this is most especially true when it comes to situations like war where the lives of the men and women in the armed forces are on the line well according to the special inspector for afghan reconstruction the pentagon has been lying for years the problem is there's

a disincentive really to tell the truth we have created an incentive to almost require or for people to la there's an odor of mendacity throughout the afghanistan issue and i know congressman connelly has heard me talk about this years ago mendacity and who bruce now the department of defense was quick to chime in and dispute this congressional testimony here is the response the idea that there was some efforts to hide the truth the reality on the ground just doesn't hold water this idea that they were somehow missed statements i don't think that really shows it has been roughly a month since the washington post published the afghanistan papers this is a trove of documents from the office of the special inspector general showing a sensually among many revelations that the efforts of the usa against the taliban

have been completely ineffective america's top military brass were clueless about afghanistan and had no real understanding of what was happening on the ground and no real strategy this is how one of the top military generals under the administrations of both bush and obama explained it would trying to do here we didn't have the new would ruin the taking there is a fundamental get up and distancing of the front and the stated objectives. in the military and the lack of understanding of the resources. internally the pentagon knew that the situation was bleak however that is not what was told. u.s. public bring years americans have gotten a steady stream of information claiming that there was progress being made in afghanistan we helped liberate an oppressed people. and we will continue helping them secure their country rebuild their society and educate all their children boys and girls. that i set to defeat al qaeda and tonight

a chance to rebuild is within reach and we're doing a tremendous job. and as you know a big part of the job is. certainly the biggest. and we. we've got him down very low numbers wise lies and more lives the usa has been in afghanistan for 17 years now making it the longest military engagement in all of us history and despite the new revelations showing how bleak the situation is and that deception was part of the modus operandi for the pentagon it seems like top voices in washington still don't have an exit strategy. r.t. new york. experts told us the want sagas revelations come as no surprise we've been told so many times. that we earned or there everything is going to get

better and are understand that we've actually done it in a circle. so that explains why. people are. informal and say sure oh responsible we're. for progress center stare they don't want to jeopardize their theory. it's not going well and we're not in progress i think it is definitely time for the united states to remove its troops we've been there 18 years we have killed over 150000 afghans some of whom are colophon some of whom are you know various militia groups in the great majority are afghan civilians who only want peace here and there for free something they really haven't cared and so while the inspector general is speaking out after documents he tried to keep secrets were leaked those words leaked after year after year after year of this same nonsense being repeated so it's possible for these things to build and steamrolled but that the united states

has a has a president who campaigned on ending this war and is now repeating the tired old lies that he's about to win it in a day which are not unique to this war they say they come with every war every occupation and there's not even been a requirement that a victory be defined nobody has any idea what it would be a victory is to continue losing for another year. a russian programmer arrested on washington's requests warns that authorities are resorting to torture and an effort to break him i'm sorry nic is being held in greece on u.s. cyber crime and money laundering charges he has now written a plea for help. they're trying to use torture and psychological pressure to break me they do not allow me to breathe fresh air the last time they let me out for a walk for a few minutes was on new year's eve i'm a man without rights illegally imprisoned in greece for 30 months without charges

they want to destroy me for my knowledge they want my head on a block just because of what i know and my technological abilities the case of alexander vinick is a case of blatant violations of human rights it's an international disgrace this man is been imprisoned for 13 months without a charge in greece he's not being prosecuted in greece without a sanction without a penalty without a trial alexander is not a criminal alexander is someone who has extremely high skills technological skills in blocked chain technology has not targeted for any kind of criminal behavior because it's very clear that what he has done is not criminal however what he has done is very very annoying to those who wish to control the economic. exchanges of the people what is worse is that

during the last days the conditions of detention of alexander didn't make amount to cruel and inhuman treatment which is a form of torture as we all know alexander is being denied the right to go outside his. hospital room he's been hospitalized during the last 12 months more than 12 months actually and today his mother who came to visit him from russia was the 9 the right to see her son. nick was arrested in 2017 the u.s. accuses him of laundering billions of dollars through. digital currency exchange he's also wanted by france which claims really carried out cyber fraud from his prison cell and russia wants to question him as well now athens has already approved his extradition to all 3 of those countries russia's acting foreign

minister has criticised the procedures warning that greece has completely failed to examine the evidence presented by moscow and being slow to famous songs of tell us why he should be extradited to russia. i greece has not only decided to extradite alexander simultaneously to 3 countries but has also specified the order by which alexander should go to these countries the point is that the extradition of alexander to the united states cannot be fair as he has never been there and hasn't committed the crimes that the usa attributes to him work with new technologies cannot be a crime especially if at the time of the activity the legislation regulating these actions simply did not exist. concerning france they used only american evidence and investigators have never concealed it but today we know that france is not going to conduct any prosecution against him on its territory so the decision about

the extradition of alexander vinick to france and then to the united states is purely technical the so-called greek trick is this to send him to france where he's going to be rejected and then sent him to the usa. the best ending for both alexander vinick and for every other party to this case will be of course his extradition to russia because russia is the place of the alleged crimes and because russia has all the information it is capable of creating a joint inquiry commissions for conducting an investigation in any field. exactly 77 years ago the red army broke the nazi siege of leningrad with the blockade being fully lifted toward the end of the month of us majority of victims and the city died not from bombing but from hunger and hypothermia undergrads they may have changed to st petersburg but the horrific memories still run deep. was was.

just as when it was me and my friend went to a store with food stamps there was a huge field and suddenly we sort of plane it dropped a bomb we were taught that if we see a bomb flying towards us you have to run in the direction of the bomb because that way it'll pass over you but we ran away we got away and kept walking suddenly i realized i'd left her behind she walked towards a fence i came up to check on her and realised she was hanging on the fence already dead my friend what could i do i was barely alive myself some people helped me carry her home a good thing we weren't too far away from home. i. got bucket and you know when my father died of hunger and we were going to bury him the

weather was extremely cold it was about minus 36 or 38 degrees we owed thanks to our neighbor who constructed the casket for him and helped us to carry my father to the cemetery and the cemetery there was a chapel next to the chapel there was a pile of dead bodies higher than the chapel itself and every time i come to that place i still can see this pile of dead bodies in my head i still have this picture in my head. was. that i knew after i buried my father i signed up as a nurse at the military field hospital once in january i came home from the hospital and my mother was lying on the bed hall for life but she said to me zoya i think i'm about to pass away i bought meat patties at the market and i think they're made out of human don't leave the girls alone don't marry to. and don't cut your head off to an hour she died.

they always said the russians will win a pilot cool ship was shot down i remember they carried him in sheets she was all around his skin was brown from bruising and we compared to him with medicine they know it's him into it and he exclaimed please save me i have to keep flying i have to keep fighting. group. many lives in the city or state by the tx of a metronome. and i did that it was.

the metronome followed by sirens were broadcast on 1500 speakers throughout leningrad a slow beat retreat by fast one that warned that german bombers were on their way and became a symbol of resistance to the nazi air raids and resistance to attempts to starve people to death row if a national reports from the northern capital. leningrad known today as st petersburg was a main strategic targets for nazi germany and the fates they prepared for this beautiful city were still laid to waste by bohrman 8 and also starred in its almost 3000000 population to death the horror of the siege was how desperate came routine when you walk down the street when you remember it or rather try to forget you come across dead bodies carried on sledges all the time or dead bodies lying on the streets and at some point there was a lawyer they simply stopped paying any attention to these horrific sides the

appearance really do i remember the 1st time i saw a corpse on the street wrapped in some rags at 1st it was scary but then people got used to it and just walked by i can't say the bodies were just randomly dumped in the streets eventually they took them away with the kids their childhood was stolen by a merciless war bombs and hunger there was already too much for them but there was something maybe even more terrifying as lack of food became too dramatic children as well as many adults often became a target for enough to germany for hungry people so still the worst thing was the hunger it was unimaginable at the factory they gave us just 200 grams of bread it was made from strange ingredients some a drop in the cabbage others burned sugar i don't know how i survived through i

think god saved my life of more. people struggled but even metal couldn't bear it anymore the water supply system froze and collaged bombed people hungry people freezing people they now became thirsty people searching for war to everywhere including syria system move could you please we went to get water on. it was very cold there was a severe frost the river had rose in over but there was a hole and people were queuing to get water to drink people still wonder how we didn't die in this water citizens during 2 or 3 shelling this side of the street is the most dangerous says they saw in one of many similar across the city these warnings became a symbol of the dangers faced by residents during the siege and still today they stayed as silent reminders of those terrible days. later on

saturday russian president vladimir putin will visit commemoration of marking the end of the siege and r.t. house launched the hash tag victory pages documentary part form on social media here's a quick look. the

french president has been rushed out of a paris theater under a hail of boos as furious protesters chanting mccrone resign tried to confront him some demonstrators against manual micron's pension reforms got passed placed into the hall to deliver their angry message. was. was. was was was.

was. was meanwhile more than a 100 protesters in the french capital block the entrance to the iconic will have was museo people have joined union calls to demand the complete withdrawal of macross proposals that's despite the government's promise to compromise agreeing to drop some of the pension reforms the most controversial aspects of french parliament is due to debate the bill next month but there are mixed public feelings about the protests. going to come to filmmaker to whom i'm happy that they're defending culture i left at 7 in the morning from to shown where i'm from to see the an artist of each exam patient but it's not a big deal because if they do not strike there won't really be a liver as we know it so i don't mind the strike i'm actually happy i supported

them. cops. show if someone would lend my hand to i'm ready to break through the picket lines because the situation is unacceptable i don't care about their pension issues the story and he's there uniting and supporting each other reinforcing each other so that's why i'm here please also quote we are against it they should not be here picked in for an hour to strike to express their opinion very good but to piss off everyone all day long who comes to visit he comes from far away that's shameful while. we understand the anger of the business is what this anger should be directed at the government who wants to feel suits pension reform called. extrude we're not the ones that are standing in the way we're not blocking the public cultural service we're fighting for a strong public cultural service when you look at the support of the population of the strikers we're very surprised to see the government maintains its position is

of extremism that is unacceptable for democrats like me who voted for manual micro in the 2nd round of the presidential election against. a u.k. university is facing backlash after announcing it will pay students to snoop on their classmates who make racist microaggression university is planning to deploy $20.00 students to report so-called micro aggressions made by fellow students the race equality champions as they will be known are to receive more than 9 pounds per hour to report comments which are not explicitly racist but can nevertheless offend groups among the examples of such microaggression is are questions like why are you searching for things to be offended about or where you really from the initiative has divided public opinion. sometimes like you do you don't realize that you're like maybe being mean with someone and you don't even realize and i think it's

important to tell them about it i think it is an air of ignorance really. just not really being aware that someone might be offended by something or people often ask . where they're from so if i say for example based. on. a lot of people stopping you know your talent your terrorist by the law i do get away you from because i know that i have a little accent and there was a oh i'm so sorry and i why are you apologizing because i didn't take a i was like a bad thing the regime of the shuttled university have decided to police incidents of perceived rudeness with an army of made student my group gresham to talk to for police jobs at the new those. how is this not illegal what the hell have i just read the also problematize is even benign curiosity is a micro aggression and therefore as racist this is a recipe to create a climate of distrust and a breakdown of social relations these people do not speak for me university for its

part has to find that the move saying its main objection are to facilitate healthy and open discussion and give students the tools to think critically about race issues the statement goes on to claim that micro aggressions have a real impact on minority groups talk radio host and columnist on got told us whatever the intentions the program could end up doing more harm than good. we need to obviously condemn the racism but recruiting students to do it like is if they're undercover i think it's horrible i think it's the sin and of a very very big wage and also will be very concerned about who does so it's what he is not allowed to he said is another attack on freedom of speech and universities should be could see groups of free speech each kids eventually going to go out into the real world if they would get a factory if they would kill him off if they're going to hear the news they don't

like. it's about challenging that of course and i just think they seized not going to prepare them for the real world and tackle racism tackle six's tackle missal ji and tackle homophobia of course and make sure you institution is inclusive but this is not the way to do it this is a great step this you just some idiotic academic who's never lived in the real world themselves you need to get a life and get out of students' lives. and now to some news across the world in brief in greece tensions are high as dozens of protesters took to the streets on the stabbing every 28 year old migrant from yemen according to authorities they suspect is another migrant from the same camp. thousands have gathered in this lame capital for a 13th week of protests rallies began over metro fare increases weeks on friday deployed water cannons to disperse crowds as demonstrations turned violent.

and this is footage showing an ash cloud above a filipino volcano that's been active for a week now it 1st erupted on sunday covering the nearby area with ash and the danger of another eruption is still imminent alert level in the region is at its highest at the moment around 20000 people have left their homes. are now in evacuation centers. in this age of social media it's not only regular people who indulge in online fans but government institutions as well sometimes their attempts being witty on twitter have a tendency to backfire. x. x. . x.

x. . x. x. . he already said court approved. if your visa application process did not make people feel less than human it might have been funny but it does so this is gloating in your discretionary power laughing at people who are subjected to it not cool and quite out of touch this is not funny playing on people's feelings is inappropriate there are thousands of people who are waiting for their visas that simply the real face of you guys period . being funny is apparently not always our strong suit we deleted this we've been there and apologized to all who were offended by this we know that the surprise is complex and these are

decisions can deep effect people's lives our colleagues take the decision it's very serious. you shouldn't apologize the joke is actually. good now i am offended that you deleted the tweet because apparently offended someone with no sense of humor obviously. that's a global news update for this hour but don't forget you can always had to our website our to dot com for the details on all those stories.

good food descriptions. even for the owners so how to choose his pet food industry is telling us what to feed our pets really more based on what they want to sell us than was necessarily good for the pet turns out may not be as healthy as people believe and we have animals that have you know diabetes in arthritis they have auto immune disorders allergies we are actually creating these problems it's a huge epidemic of problems all of them i believe can be linked to fairy simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their pets streets a larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving the value of their food because they're already making a $1000000000.00 on it and there's no reason to do that research. in the united states presidential candidates debate the future of the u.s.

and the world max kaiser and stacy herbert dig into the burning questions of this election cycle. every week. x. student debt trade was corporate money universal basic ingo and more catch up with what's front running this sunday exclusively on r.t. . must needs to explain why it's ok if you the slimed you force me to do the focus on the best abuse the least the place you want to get what. you see in the film was not budgeted for the most good movie and. for the believers in the. young. boy. you know the scene when you

don't let him. know what is. right he comes to there it's all. worth. it so have a seat at these 2 like cars the green and the blue and then we'll do a quick sound check with them so you'll wear these headphones but they're just a couple here the size still writes make sure that i'm going to make sure that your hair is ok and open tomorrow. it's. all right can you hear in there. you know minute change of all you. can hear anything in there oh she can oh she can yes. do you hear me well you hear me land.