his non-profit organization, the central asia institute, is dedicated to promoting education, especiallyn remote parts of pakistan and afghanistan, and, according to its web site, has established more than 140 schools there. president obama donated $100,000 to the group from the proceeds of his nobel prize. mortenson's book, "three cups of tea," has sold more than four million copies and has been required reading for u.s. servicemen bound for afghanistan. but last fall, we began investigating complaints from former donors, board members, staffers and charity watchdogs about mortenson and the way he is running his non-profit organization. the story you're about to see, which first aired in april, was the product of a seven-month investigation and caused quite a stir, because we raised serious questions about how millions of dollars have been spent, whether mortenson has been personally benefiting, and whether some of the most dramatic and inspiring stories in his books are even true. greg mortenson's books have made him a publishing phenomenon and a sought-after speaker on the lecture cir

next the south special report that looks at life in the soviet republic of to dick a stunning central asia twenty years after the collapse of the u.s. soil. tragic is done a former soviet republic became independent in one thousand nine hundred ninety one . that were an independent state is important but it's only good as long as it's backed by economic performance. unemployment is the greatest issue in this independent central asian country meaning one and a half million migrant workers flock to russia from tragic to stand alone they have left their country to feed their families. after the breakup of the soviet union we had a very hard time but then we somehow learned to take things in stride. the situation got even worse following the devastating civil war that broke out during the first years of independence the nation still healing its wounds even a decade on the problems are numerous from drug trafficking from neighboring afghanistan to acute shortages of electricity and drinking water. each morning a camel appears on this road running through the hills drive his paws beside the anim

the republic of tragic is dan is situated in the foothills of the pami range in central asia and is a landlocked country bordering afghanistan in the south as biggest on kyrgyzstan in the north and west and china to the east the country significantly lacks major transport routes due to its vast distance from the sea. cover ninety three percent of the country's terrain. has done is regarded as one of the world's poorest countries according to the international monetary fund half of its population subsists on less than two dollars a day the country's difficult economic situation is largely the result of a civil war which lasted from one nine hundred ninety two to ninety ninety seven. the standoff began here on the square. it was called freedom square at the time. we lost our political identity it was a time when we were seen as wild savages fighting one another would have been. for several years after the collapse of the soviet union various political clans interjected stan were locked in a bitter power struggle according to official figures the armed conflict cost one hundred thousand

so sort of a related issue in terms of dams in central asia. >> hi. um, thank you for this book. i think it's a good addition to what we need to hear. my question is could you talk a little about the issue of fear versus education? what i mean by that is we still don't have leadership that's educating, certainly, americans as to what we face in terms of catastrophic climate change, tipping points and so on. we don't have leadership that says if we don't do this by a certain date, it may be too late. so americans in general -- not this room, but in general are pretty complacent about the danger that we face. so there's been an argument lately among the environmental groups about how much do you inform people of the dangers that are coming versus educate them because you don't want them to be afraid and give up? my point is that while we humans don't deal very well with anticipating crisis, we sort of react afterwards -- katrina, tsunamis, we could use all kinds of examples where we didn't prepare well enough -- this is one we may not get a second chance, is what you're saying. so

central asia.

patel of energy and effort in a standard in one thousand ninety's for unocal pipeline deal through central asia and of course the taliban wasn't privy to that they didn't really understand what exactly the west was doing because we were both condemning the regime and then through a sort of covert channels trying to operate with them and trying to sort of secure a very spoiled and natural gas arrangements with the regime and this is sort of again what we see now in libya so this is a recurring theme and it sort of exposes the united states to ocracy and i don't question the notion that president obama and u.s. officials do genuinely care about human rights around the world it's a problem when we suspend that criticism toward the regimes that we do sort of have a favor with such as the saudis such as yours and yemen where we have a specific strategic interest involved and we don't ever criticize what they do and this is definitely the case when you see the appraising now in bahrain where we actually sort of have a week in and out of the saudis to crack a lot of schools even though of course there

it's our special report and it looks at life in the form was soviet republic of to decus on a central asia twenty years after the collapse of the u.s.s.r. .

central asia, will be impacted by what is going on in the arab spring? i am no good at predictions. i grew up as a lawyer. i do not cancel -- answer a hypothetical questions. one thing that bill brought this up before. this is an exhilarating time. i do not know if you noticed. exhilaration, passion, joye, those kinds of things catch john oliver. people feel it and get carried away with it. could it? yap. will it? i have no clue. it is definitely something that is inspiring. that is what exhilaration does for you. i would say my feeling about that are they are two things around which this kind of movement can call us. this is one i talked about communities. these are easy things to do that around. can they play an important role? yes. must it be ethnicity and religion that calls for revolt and peaceful or violent revolt? i do not think that is required. i would not call that at this need. i would call that a sense of this is my home with that. >> let me jump in on the question of the extent to which an international power can inhibit the work of a movement or campaign. in general, t

the also apply to central asia. >> and then looking at the other logistics' it is anybody's game but the serbian economist working at the world bank come about what he did is trying to look at what in the quality was about. the statistic he finally came up with which is now widely debated, it is two-thirds of the planet live class well off and the bottom 5% of americans. now that says something about the nature of the world, the billions of people that we have to deal with. and i often wonder on human rights this will resume what it is about, in when the pictures came out, it was horrifying. you could have an immediate visceral response to make you know, when it first appeared? [laughter] >> the chicago sun times. >> on the other hand,, trying to get people to respond to the b-52 bombings in the same way, if human rights lives in a world where people responded to both the same way, it is not the human rights fall, then we have a different sense of human rights. sometimes we think if the floor is turned into glass and we could see beneath us, everybody who is poor than us and we have

the country is as you probably know located in central asia between china and russia.might not know the rest of this. it gained its independence from china in 1921. more than 2.7 million people call mongolia home. nearly half of the population live in urban areas, including the capital. about half of mongolians are buddhists and christians and muslims make up mother 10 perce10 -- another 10%. agriculture is key in mongolia. mining is getting much attention particularly from the international national community. mongolia is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of international resources. the known deposits of minerals and precious metals alone said to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. 80% of the country is unsurveyed and mines are playing a role in changing the face of this nation. >> three, two, one -- >> reporter: mongolia's desert is stirring. preparing to give up untold riches to a country still mired in poverty. it's inspiring a whole new language. mongolia, a mining mania. >> when you talk about mania, actually, it's excitement. >> reporter:

some are finished and some are new but a book by robert kaplan of the whole issue of central asia where most politics of the next 25 years will occur and i have read chapters but i have traveled to indonesia a note i want to read the whole book and i have not finished shipper cry started in february. another book that was given to me buy a fellow in my office who worked with me on the question of water. i said, i tell me what are the problems with water over the next 20 or 30 years? and in this book he said i want you to read it. it is a good book to read about the whole question of water and an issue that we do need to think about in the future. george friedman wrote a book called the next 100 years which is a fascinating book that looks out 100 years who the major allies will be and those who have trouble with. so when they came out with the next decade, i figured i'd better get that red and see what will happen at least from the perspective of looking at trends. one of the fascinating things in the first book was the countries involved with the turkey and poland and i never thought a

>> well, let me just narrow it to the thrust of the foreign-policy in central asia. and as i just said, i think that we are fighting a world war ii type take and hold real estate war against an adversary who is largely left the real estate which we are fighting and bad that it is going to take a geographic diversification of our efforts and a change in our military tax dix to excellent intelligence supported by superbly trained quick strike operations that are able to carry out the series of attacks that will be necessary to cut the head off the snake will we be moving in that direction though? >> we are lowering the number of troops modestly in afghanistan this year and will do so again in 12, 13 and 14. i think what is needed is more than just the question of how many troops we have got to play. it is how do we define the mission that we are attempting to accomplish and what is the right form of our military intelligence and other assets to the carry out. >> yes, sir? >> in your opinion could 9/11 have been avoided with a certain degree of negligence and it is easy

then on top of this drought and this power rationing comes a brutally cold winter in central asia. and cattle herds are just freezing to death and dying in the field. pipes are bursting in apartments. pensioners are freezing to death. there's further power rationing justice an increase in power demand. they shut down schools and most public institutions for two months. very serious crisis that ultimately results in more poverty, more anger, more unemployment and increasing population of unemployed young men who spend their time in casinos drinking and getting into trouble. then, the government decides that they are going to reengage with a previously stalled out privatization programs and they're going to privatize the utility company. so to make the assets more attractive, they doubled the terrorist that people pay for power with a promise to double it again. at that point people hit the street and protest about the standard of living and economic crisis due to this population of angry, frequently drunken young men come in those protests have all been to the ethnic violence and an

. >> let me narrow is to the thrust of the foreign policy in central asia. it's as i said just. i think that we are fighting a world war ii type take and hold real estate war against an adversary that has left the real estate which we are fighting. and that it's going to take a geographic diversification of our efforts and our change in our military tactics to excellent intelligence, supported by superbly trained quick strike operations that are able to carry out the s of attacks that's going to be necessary to cut the head off of the snake of al qaeda. >> do you think the united states is moving in that direction? >> we're lowering the number of troops in afghanistan this year and we'll do so again in '12, '13, and '14. i think it's more than just the question of troops, how do we define the mission that we are attempting to accomplish? and what is the right form of our military intelligence and other assets to carry out that mission? >> yes, sir? >> could in your opinion 9/11 have been avoided? was there a certain degree of negligence that you think? it's easy to speak after t

central asia, will be impacted by what is going on in the arab spring? i am no good at predictions. i grew up as a lawyer. i do not cancel -- answer a hypothetical questions. one thing that bill brought this up before. this is an exhilarating time. i do not know if you noticed. exhilaration, passion, joye, those kinds of things catch john oliver. -- on all over. people feel it and get carried away with it. could it? yap. will it? i have no clue. it is definitely something that is inspiring. that is what exhilaration does for you. i would say my feeling about that are they are two things around which this kind of movement can call us. this is one i talked about communities. these are easy things to do that around. can they play an important role? yes. must it be ethnicity and religion that calls for revolt and peaceful or violent revolt? i do not think that is required. i would not call that at this need. i would call that a sense of this is my home with that. >> let me jump in on the question of the extent to which an international power can inhibit the work of a movement or campaig

without naming other locations in the world, be they located in central asia or the middle east, but i will name nine, we have a very different set of realities that we must deal with in this complicated situation. it does require an approach that is almost unprecedented among governments, international organizations, and ngo's. fourth principle -- these are regional threats. they affect the entire central america region. the solution must be a regional as well. this becomes complicated as i will explain in a moment because the world for the last 60 or 70 years has been set up on the basis bilateral relationships. if you have a problem, government work together to solve the problem. is rare that government a works with b, c, d, e, and f to solve the problem at the same time. principal number five but -- the threats emanate from central america bank the leadership in the process must come from central america. it cannot be an imposed solution. that does not work. it does not work when you are dealing with a limited resource base. fortunately, we have an institution established by the

the region stretches from kazakhstan in central asia and down to the southern temp of the arabian peninsula, yemen, egypt, lebanon, over to pakistan in the indian ocean. it includes the persian gulf, iraq, kuwait, afghanistan, saudi arabia, jordan, syria, the gulf states, and of course iran. in 30 years of service in this region, i've never seen it so tumultuous, full of promise, and also full of danger. and as the military commander, i am the sentineled. i am supposed to watch out for the dangers while recognizing and seizing opportunities for keeping peace wherever possible for one more year, one more month, one more week, one more day. sometimes you are just looking to keep peace for one more hour. there is not peace everywhere. we are heavily committed in parts of the theater, but there are other parts matriculate on. i would like to speak first about the arab awakening. i would call it that instead of the arab spring and how we crack policy and adapt to these changes right now, keep hold of our values, our american values, consistent policy to match those values, but balance with pragm

and without naming any other locations in the world, be they located in central asia or the middle east, but i will name non, we have a very different set of realities that we must deal with in this comp a catered situation, and it does require an approach that is almost unprecedented among governments, international organizations and even if you would permit me to suggest an opinion, ngos. fourth principle, our starting point is that these are regional threats. they are not country specific. they affect the entire central american region. therefore the solution must be regional as well. this becomes complicated as i will explain in a moment because again, the world for the last 60 or 70 years has been set up on the basis of bilateral relationships for the most part. if you have got a problem and government a works with government b to solve a problem. it is rare, not unprecedented, but where the government a works with government b. c. d. e. f. g. and h. collectively together to solve the problem at the same time. principle number five. the threats emanate from central america. the lea

the region stretches from cassocks than out in central asia -- from kazakhstan in central asia, egypt and lebanon in the mediterranean over to pakistan on the indian ocean. it includes the persian gulf and in the northern part, iraq and kuwait, afghanistan, saudi arabia, jordan, the gulf states and of course, there is iran. in over 30 years of service in this region, i have never seen it so tumultuous, full promise and yet also full of danger. as the military commander, i am the sentinel. i'm supposed to watch out for the dangers while watchinrecogng and seizing opportunities for keeping the peace wherever possible, keeping the peace for one more year, one more month, one more day. sometimes you're just looking to keep peace for one more hour. there is not peace everywhere. you know we are heavily committed in parts of the theater, but there are other parts that we try to keep a lid on. i would like to speak first about the arab awakening. i would call it the arab awakening, not the arab spring, and how we craft a policy, how do we adapt to these changes right now, adapt to changing t