before the coup, usaid was the largest donor supporting leches in mali. programs trained poll workers and improved elections monitoring systems, strengthened political parties and provided voter education. when the electoral support activities resumed, providing the consent of congress, it will help support free an fair elections in mali and a peaceful political exit from the current situation. a key issue will be ensuring the inclusion and participation of the internally displaced personals and refugees in the political process. we plan to expand our elections assistance programming to include broader civic engagement activities, to support national reconciliation as part of the return to an inclusive democratic maliian society. the only usaid supported economic growth activities that are continuing in mali are those that address food security under the feed the future initiative. agricultural assistance has focused on supporting farmers and herders to support -- to increase their productivity, strengthen market linkages and increase resilience to drough

so, it was an educational process of how to move forces and yet support usaid and the role of the country team and port au prince. so, it was very informative there. and to back up when we had the first no fooling hurricane that worked its way up the entire gulf coast, the principal committee calls that were generated during the haiti response were then turned around and then bringing all of the governors into a conference call with the president to make sure that all their needs were being met in the advance of a hurricane arrival. so, we really had all of government, from local all the way up to the white house, fully included in that response. but the haiti response was certainly informative in bringing all these disparate entities together to provide unity of effort during a response. >>

>> reporter: has been challenged by the wildlife conner is sags society and usaid to capture and collarmythical. legendary. you can't look at one and appreciate for what it is, the terrain and environment it survives in, you're missing something. >> reporter: they are highly endangered predators, targeted by poachers for their pelts and killed by farmers for attacking their livestock. they're now believed to be between 100 and 200 in afghanistan, so, finding one is not an easy task. especially in a war-torn country, where roves packs of taliban fighters are always a threat. >> so, this would be the volley up here. >> reporter: welcome to the mountainous border region in northeastern afghanistan. this is snow leopard country. among those on boone's experienced team? tracker hussein ali and fellow trapper john goodrich. >> trapping is a game of odds. we're trying to predict the exact spot. >> reporter: to catch their big cat, they must set a series of snares. >> and now we camouflage the loop and the pit. >> reporter: then, there's the transmitter, which will alert the team when a cat is

he walked out of the chart .ouse with a few items today usaid and worked for has done extensive work in egypt. he has traveled around the world. he will be missed. >> crews came back today to out smoke detectors. the cause of the fire was . one neighbor says she saw him outside before the blaze. he was outside with us and then he went back in. kaboom.e went you can see crews trying to secure the home. they will put up boards. quite a bit of debris from the is now all inea .he front yard stillsta gators are trying to pin down -- inv are still time to pin .own what happened reporting live in northwest, jennifer donelan, abc 7 news. they're handling this case. investigators will be back in the neighborhood tomorrow. a 14-year-old prince george's county boy is dead tonight. gang violence is to blame. he was killed on sheridan street in lewisdale. it was possible retaliation. brad bell has the latest on the investigation. brad? >> neighbors noticed a large young people hanging out just after midnight. i saw a whole group of latinos sitting there. a gathering included members lamer heard -

before the coup usaid was the largest supporting elections in mali. poll workers and include elections monitoring systems, strengthening political parties and providing further education. win the electoral support activities resume, provided the consent of congress, assistance will help support a foundation for free and fair elections in mali and a peaceful political exit from the current situation. .. strengthen market linkages and increased resilience. some health sector activities have been approved to continue including programs aimed at preventing maternal and child mortality. through the provision of basic services, support of malaria testing and treatment and other critically community-based health interventions. our approach to development programming is affected by the current political and security situation and how it develops. usa office of transition initiatives conducted an assessment to determine the feasibility and appropriateness of a transition program. if initiated this would allow the government to respond to any opportunities and

then usaid administrator, and then last deputy assistant secretary of defense. we are grateful for your presence. on our second panel we will hear from senior associate regional director for west africa and then senior researcher in the africa division of the human rights watch. and then independent policy researcher. and vice president of lobbying network for peace. testifying via web cast. i look forward to hearing the testimony of all our witnesses on these two panels and will turn to the senator for his opening remarks. >> thank you, chairman coons and i commend you on calling this hearing on what is a very important and pressing issue in the area in west africa where you and i traveled about a year-and-a-half ago in the area and there's a lot of fledging democracies. we ended up with free democratic elections and a transition of power out of a very difficult situation. and our interests here today is to explore ways which the united states can be of help to bring about free and fair elections in 2013 in return all mali back to a democratically represented c

usaid, the other banks are so involved and supportive of credit reporting that they are involved in spreading this good news around the world. i serve on an international task force to advance credit reporting and other parts of the world. the system is big. the report laid out very well, 200 million plus consumers have a credit report in this country, about 10,000 lenders are supplying data and there are about 1.3 billion accounts and the system and about 3 billion updates every month are members are confident of the accuracy of the system they have and they should be. they work and accuracy seven days per week and we provided the ftc with information so they can release their report. we did not wait for them to measure the question of accuracy. we want to answer the question that consumers most ask which is -- is there an inaccuracy in my credit report that is consequential? i think there is some good news in all of that. we contracted with an outside group. they controlled the data and the results and the press releases. it was a very powerful study and p [eer-reviewed. as a consumer, abou

a global agency and usaid, which which is the u.s. american aid in development.kenya, ethiopia and other africa countries, we are with these small companies, helping them get bet are with what they do. as they grow and improve and their products get better they are sourcing more of their inputs, grain, wheat, from local growers and it is a fabulous virtuous cycle and so we are very involved this that right now. and our technologists are on the kbrund and heground and helping. it makes a difference for the food economy there. >> fantastic work. good for you. and good in other parts of the emerging world as well. thank you very much, ken pal. >> thank you. >> once again, top stock story right now is herbalife. trading down 11%. here is the news, noted investor bill ackman, broken by kate kelly here at cnbc, is short hern herbalife. he is betting the stock will fall. he essentially called it a pyramid scheme. which has been raised by others. the company denies that claim. bit way, the ceo came on with mandy and jim and herb and myself in july. i've posted the video

there was a senior position next to you who looked at usaid really, you don't know anyone? but what about the culture do you think has led us to this point where we actually said -- where we no harm is occurring or we have a sense of it that we have gotten to this point where people are afraid to speak up and afraid to criticize their peers or the institution? you make a point a number of times in the book that, and actually in your opening chapter, where you talk about the fact that you know, go to where the people in health care, the nurses and the doctors and administrators at that hospital, where they would be. how is the culture proliferate what you have been talking about, or the public, how did they seek that information out? >> guest: you know i once told a friend the best way to find out about the quality of a hospital is to ask an er nurse who works there. a nurse knows more about the quality of the hospital than probably anyone else there, and for that matter any industry, front-line worker, providing the services be it creating products probably knows more than

he's not a hippy traveler, but he's an official american aid work, usaid worker. he's been hostage, this american, basically, of this dictate iraniansship 90 miles from shore for three years, very, very little attention. it is a puzzling and painful phenomena. quick word about china, i think henry kissinger said the chinese communism party and the chinese state they are like mexico and the pri, the p-r-i. that may be. i'm reminded often, serge what -- certainly what i receive in e-mail, still, for all its changes, it's a one party dictatorship with a giew log. i think they made the word famous, and bigan is an acronym. used to be spelled with capital letters, than capital g" b and then lower letters. there are people, particularly fallen gone practitioners tortured to death in the system, certainly every week, if not every day. in china, there are serious allegations, and i believe them, of organ harvesting. this is a huge story, and the world is relatively indifferent, and i recall something that robert said, you people find out about these things later and say h

it cut 67% of the foreign aid budget in three titles: usaid. those of you who have been to afghanistan and other places, usaid projects are designed to make sure that once the military is withdrawn from that area that we can hold. those of you who are tired of war, like all of us, i just want to go back to charlie wilson's war. the last scene in the movie was mr. wilson wanted $1 million to build some schoolhouses in afghanistan, and the reply was, "man, i've got broken schools in my state, in my district." and that's true in south carolina. it's true in kentucky. it's true in west virginia. but we had no soldiers in afghanistan and no aid to afghanistan during the taliban reign. that model did not work. if you think you can withdraw from the world and if you think america has no leadership role, then this is a good amendment. if you think the best thing america can do is invest in aid programs that help us as a nation be safer, then i would vote "no" to this amendment. president bush, one of his great legacies is that he invested in aids and m

>> we can provide you with a full answer to this, but usaid conducts routine audits of all of its assistance programs. i cannot tell you when they did the last ones with respect to these programs, but they conduct routine audits to insure that there's accountability. again, that's not at issue here. >> and how do you get the attention of a country like rwanda and uganda from supporting m23 by not stopping aid to the country whether it's for humanitarian needs or not? how do you get their attention? >> by engaging them continuously, diplomatically at a high level and by doing such things as indicating that, as we have done, that we will cut off their foreign military financing if they persist in carrying on. >> i don't mean to be if see shus -- facetious, but, you know, this may be more rhetorical than a question you have to answer, but, you know, how's that negotiating going? >> it's like any set of negotiations, sometimes much longer than any of us would like, but we know that per persistence over the long run pays off. >> so is it your position that u.s. keep the plan that they have in ope

$88 billion this year in afghanistan and not including the security for the state department or the usaid. that's on the military side. we need to shift resources around. with regard to climate change, this is a real issue. we need to deal with that with regard to out reach to countries on the aide side and the humanitarian side. it is extremely important. we need to tell our story and be there to help people. all of these are parts of the total package. it is being the world's greatest country. >> quickly, congress -- coming man. i don't mean to interrupt, but we are running out of time. do you think secretary clinton should testify? >> she said she wanted to. i'm sure she will. it is getting down toward the end of her term. whether there will be a hearing or not given the time that is available, we don't know. but, yes, she said she would testify. she did have a concussion and that delayed it. i suspect she will testify, but we have to get yond the -- beyond the blame game and we have to get past those things that really will protect our embassies and consulates and americans around the

what i heard from our experts, from the department of defense, from the state department, from usaid as well as a range of outside experts and one witness who testified from bamaco, the capital of mali, is was of concern to me. this is the largest controlled area in the world. in the north, extremists have imposed a harsh and strict version of sharia, or islamic law, and gross human rights violations. many people have heard of timbuktu but don't know it's a city in northern mali. in a site where extremists have behaved much like the taliban did in afghanistan before 9/11, destroying sacred and religious historic artifacts, imposing a harsh version of sharia that has meant amputations, stoning, violation of women's rights and free speech and religious free exercise rights, fundamentalling changing the tolerance and inclusive history of mali and creating with it a humanitarian crisis as more than 400,000 malians have fled, either internally displaced within mali or going to neighboring countries with refugees. with growing ties between these terrorists and nigeria, libya and throughout

the provincial reconstruction team, the usaid, ngos, they ngos, they're working the same battle states, operational lines that we are with the afghan national cicada force. so you have to train your task force to kind of shift your force. human and physical geography and all the baggage that comes with it. and so that was, that was a necessary step we had to take the and every battalion like mine or brigade is doing the same thing. there's a lot of differences between iraq and afghanistan. i was fortunate to have served in both countries and go back to afghanistan against on your a little bit. you asked the question what is no slack. again, that ethos describes whose those soldiers are and to embrace that mission, understands what has to happen, and knowing they're going to try to do some good. talk about at a lot of iraq veterans, people who are working together to do better for the afghans. >> tell me about kunar province, which is the area that you ended up in. what's it like out there? give us some of the first impressions that you had as a battalion commander. >> sure, i'll start

them in very dangerous areas where diplomatic security are not only protecting our bass at her and at usaidand like-minded folks all over the world. your point is taken, which is we are having to deal with budgetary constraints but it no time do any of us believe the quality of those men and women protecting us and anyways in anyways diminished. >> you know i mean, we do have the opportunity to travel and frankly provider protection as well. so i'm just wondering how you managed without? do we send funds one to the other white? .. i would see the diplomatic security is working with every law enforcement agency in the world to make sure we're on the cutting edge any think we are achieving that. can we do better? i think every security agency can do better. but i fundamentally believe in my poor that they are the top of the heat as they relate to quality of technology and ability to protect us. >> is attrition a diplomatic security problem? if so, what are you doing to address that are >> i think attrition at the state department generally gets quite low. it came out were the third most likel

usaid and other civilian arms of government could do a world of good towards solving the aids crisis with a fraction of that money. why does the pentagon get a blank check while agencies that dispense aid to have to fight for every single nickel that they receive? why do we send and spend without restraint on wars and weapons and destroy life but we squeeze those programs that saved lives? for many years now, and you all heard me, this is my 443rd five-minute speech on this issue, for many years now i've been promoting the idea of smart security. smart security means protecting our interests, not with military force or by maintaining a massive nuclear arsenal, but by investing in development and diplomacy, through humanitarian assistance and partnerships around the world. at the aids conference in washington this past summer, there was a panel discussion on how in the struggle against hiv-aids we can do more with less. and what i want to know is, why do we have to settle for less when it comes to hiv-aids? this is a humanitarian crisis. our sense of moral deansency should be -- shoul