tonight on "worldfocus" -- in afghanistan, two american outposts are overrun by the taliban, and american weapons fall into enemy hands. in pakistan, a new terroris the security of that country's nuclear weapons. a grieving mother takes on the prime minister for failing to adequately protect her son and other british troops. >> it was an insult to my child. >> part one of a new "signature" series on gay hate around the world. tonight our story comes from jamaica. and "sesame street" turns 40, an event noted all the way from the middle ea to china. from the world's leading reporters and analysts, here's what's happening from around the world. this is "worldfocus." major support has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future. and additional funding is provided by the following supporters -- hello and good evening. i'm daljit dhaliwal. president obama is reportedly nearing a decision to add tens of thousands of troops to the american force in afghanistan, though military officials tell the associated press that the number will fall short of the 40,000 requested by the american commander in afghanistan. officials say that the deployment will probably begin in january to strengthen the defense of ten key cities and towns. meanwhile, in southern afghanistan, u.s. soldiers and afghan police have discovered a huge supply of ammonium nitrate. half a million pounds of the fertilizer used in bombs targeting nato troops. and in a remote part of stern afghanistan, taliban insurgents have apparently gotten hold of a cache of american weapons. the arms may have been left behind when american forces were driven out of two combat outposts in the kamdesh district of nuristan province last month in a battle that killed eight u.s. soldiers. that is our "lead focus" tonight. and we begin with this report by jonah hull of al jazeera english. >> reporter: high in the mountains of eastern afghanistan, taliban fighters display what appear to be american arms and ammunition apparently seized at a u.s. outpost. this is kamdesh district, precisely the area where u.s. troops suffered heavy losses on october 3rd when two military outposts were overrun by 300 taliban fighters. nato forces resecured the bases, saying they killed 100 taliban fighters in the process. onhe 9th of october, just days ternational security o's assistance force announced a repositioning of its forces from the two combat outposts in the kamdesh. four others in the region were also evacuated. the u.s. retreat from remote bases in eastern afghanistan following such heavy losses in defending them was said to have been preplanned and in accordance with the revised war strategy of nato's top commander in afghanistan to refocus efforts in more populated areas. a statement at the time read, in line with general stanley mcchrystal's counterinsurgency guidance to pursue a population centric strategy, isef commanders decided last month to reposition forces from remote areas with smaller population densities to population centers within the region. and isef spokesman says no military eipment was left behind in the withdrawal and that none is unaccounted for now. what is clear, though, is that the mcchrystal plan means there is no longer a full-time coalition military presence in the kamdesh district, a strategic border area that now lies squarely under taliban control. jonah hull, al jazeera, kabul. for a small town in southwest england, the war came home once again today. hundreds gathered on the streets of wootton bassett to pay tribute to six soldiers killed in afghanistan. they included five who were shot to death last week by an afghan police officer at a checkpoint. the sixth was killed by a roadside bomb. the town is on the route to an air force base where the dead are taken on their return home. a letter of condolence from the british prime minister gordon brown has become the latest symbol of growing anger in britain about the war. the note was written to jacqui janes about the loss of her son, jamie. in it the prime minister appears to have written "mrs. james" with an "m" instead of janes with an "n" and also appears to have misspelled her son, jamie's, name. is outraged the mother. not only did she let the prime minister know about it when he called her the other night, s also recorded their conversation about the letter and the way that she says her son was treated on the battlefield. here's how rags martel covered the story for our british partner itn. >> reporter: first, a letter filled with errors. now a phone call where the prime minister was drawn into an embarrassing argument with the mother of a dead soldier. >> the last thing on my mind was to cause any offense to jacqui janes, and i think people know me well enough to know that it would never be my intention by carelessness or by a failure to cause any grief to a grieving mother. >> reporter: gordon brown rang jacqui janes on sunday night to apologize about his handwritten condolence message. >> and then i receive this one of gordon brown, which started "dear mrs. james." my name is actually janes. >> reporter: the recording of that phone call has now been released by the "sun" newspaper. >> the letter that you wrote to me, mr. brown -- i don't want to sound disrespectful here, but was an insult to my child. there was 25 spelling mistakes. 25! >> reporter: gordon brown replies, there wasn't. >> mr. brown, i've got the letter in front of me. >> reporter: mr. brown replies, "i've got the letter in front of me, and if you feel that my writing was not right, then i'm sorry about that." later mrs. janes interrupts the prime minister. >> i beg to differ. i've got the letter in front of me. so i do beg to differ. you know, i cannot believe that i am now being brought to the level of having an argument with the prime minister. >> reporter: jamie janes was killed by an improvised bomb in afghanistan. he was 20. his mother believes more helicopters and equipment would have saved his life. >> no. mr. brown -- mr. brown, listen to me. i know every injury that my child sustained that day. i know that my son could have survived, but my son bled to death. how would you like it if one of your children, god forbid, went to a war doing something that he thought where he was helping protect his queen and country and because of a lack -- lack of helicopters, lack of equipment, your child bled to death and then you had the coroner have to tell you his every injury? my son had no legs from the knees down. my son lost his right hand. my son had to have his face reconstructed. do you understand, mr. brown? lack of equipment! >> well, i'd asked for a full report on althe circumstances surrounding guardsman janes' death. i'm assured thatn normal circumstances, there is always helicopter capability. >> reporter: gordon brown blames the mistakes in his condolence letter on his handwriting. today he extended his apology to other families that may have received messages that are difficult to read. >> that report from our british partner itn. across the border in pakistan, it was another deadly day. a car bomb exploded outside a market, killing at least 24 people in the northwest of the country. it happened in the city of charsadda, about 25 miles north of peshawar. officials said the blast was caused by 90 pounds of explosives packed into a van. beyond the two dozen killed, more than 100 people were wounded. it was the third bombing in as many days by suspected insurgents. one of the biggest concerns about pakistan is the safety of its nuclear arsenal. it's estimated pakistan has 80 to 100 nuclear war heads, making it the world's sixth or seventh leading nuclear power. in this week's "new yorker magazine," seymour hersh, the well known national security correspondent, writes about a secret plan by the obama administration to use american troops, if necessary, to protect kistan's nuclear assets. in his article he says the taliban overrunning islamabad isn't the only or even the greatest concern. the principal fear is mutiny, that extremists inside the pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets or even divert a warhead. seymour hersh joins us now from washington. thank you very much for joining us. >> sure. >> and just how real is the threat of such an inside job? >> well, one has to prepare all sorts of -- for any kind of a consequence. who knows how real it is? there's certainly no question that if you look at what's going on in pakistan today, you can see an awful lot of bombings and other sorts of incidents, some of which indicate the attack on the military headquarters in rawalpindi, and their equivalent of a pentagon, and the assassination of a general on the streets, clearly there's some inside information being give on the the various jihadists or dissident elements. so it's not irrational to be worried about something happening to the arsenal. >> what evidence is there of sympathy inside the pakistani military for extremism? are there, for example, hard core islamic fundamentalists within the military's ranks? >> well, that's the issue. the issue is we really don't know. the indian intelligence service will, of course, tell us that they can calibrate and count and they estimate 10% to 15% of the pakistani army has gone over to the caliphates. but we really don't know. when you're talking about the possibility of a war head being diverted, loose nuke, if you will, in the united states, that's just something that's not an acceptable fear. so we're taking a rational, it seems to me, precaution. >> and you write in your piece that u.s. special forces could be used to take control of parts of pakistan's nuclear arsenal in case there was an emergency. just tell us the bare essentials of that plan. how would it work? >> well, as i understand it, in case of a loss of control in a remote area or in me facility, we have offered to the chief of staff of the army through our chairman of the joint chiefs, admiral mullen, we've offered a team that's already in place, a special operations team that's already doing some operations in other areas, helping the pakistanis train and work in afghanistan, we've offered them as a backup. in other words, it's all comity, we're all there to help, we're all big friends together. the only problem, of course, is that the americans are, as you know, as i wrote, are held -- the united states is not very popular in pakistan. and this kind of an agreement, if it became known, as it s become known, it would and did set off, as we're seeing this week, all kinds of horrib sort of recriminations and denials and anger at america. the problem with making an agreement like we made is that the consequences of it being known are just so damaging. >> and for your story you also spoke to pakistan's president asif zardari. what did he have to say when you put it to him that pakistan's nuclear arsenal needs to be watched over in this manner possibly by the americans? >> he said we always have to make you happy, in essence. i don't have the exact words. but his message was, oh, we always have to play along with you americans. that's our role. pakistan is always a sort of mollify the americans and, you know, you need reassurance and we'll give you reassurance. if you need the reassurance, we'll give it to you. i talked to other senior u.s. officials who would not be named who had insight into the nuclear arsenal in pakistan who said to me, look, of course we don't tell you the truth and of course you're not going to know everything. why should you think we'd tell you the truth about our arsenal? it is not clear that our motive is pure also. we may be wanting as much information as possible so we can, in case of a problem, go in and take out your bombs. that's something else we've talked about repeatedly inside america. >> seymour hersh, thank you very much for joining us from washington, d.c. >> okay. we turn our attention to the middle east now where relations between the united states and israel have been tense over the controversial issue of jewish settlements in the west bank. the latest sign of tension may have been the difficulty arranging a meeting between president obama and prime minister benjamin netanyahu. that meeting finally happened last night after weeks of discussion. even before the meeting, the israeli newspaper "haaretz" called it a semi-snub against netanyahu and ran a cartoon suggesting it would be brief. in fact, they met for just over an hour and a half. later this week, president obama leaves for his first trip to asia. today in china an unusual demonstration in advance of his arrival in that country. about 30 people called for more respect for human rights, including men to crack down on dissidents who often precede visits by foreign leaders. but police broke up the protest up shortly after it started and took away a number of people. another item tonight about human rights in this part of the world. the u.s. state department has deployed several assaults on bloggers who have been critical of cuba's government including one that we told you about not that long ago. yoani sanchez is one acclaimed for her blog, generation y, said that two agents stopped her and another blogger last friday, ordered them into a car and kicked her and pulled her hair. and that takes us to tonight's "how you see it" question. as the obama administration begins talking to repressive countries around the world like cuba, is the administration doing enough to hold them accountable on human rights? you can tell us what you think by going to the "how you see it" page of our website, and that's at worldfocus.org. and about last night's question asking who was most responsible for the fall of the berlin wall, many chose mikhail gorbachev or ronald reagan. but several of you suggested someone else. one wrote, pope john paul ii was monumentally influential. he supported the people of the east to peacefully yet determinedly accept no less than justice for themselves and their children. and now to our "signature" segment, part one of our look this week at gay hate in some parts of the world. tonight we return to the island nation of jamaica in the caribbean where many homosexuals are forced to live in the ometi deadly assaults. "worldfocus" producer lisa biagiotti traveled there earlier this year and, with the help of the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, she filed this report. >> reporter: friday afternoon, four men dressed as females narrowly escaped a mobbing in downtown kingston. just last week a male was beaten in farmouth trelawney because he was dressed as a female. >> the issue of violence against gay men, especially mob violence is definitely a reality. >> reporter: stacy anne jarrett is the executive director of support for life whether she works closely with jamaica's embattled gay community. >> as an individual you have verbal attacks, physical attacks or one on one. but if it's a group, i tell you most definitely they're going to be attacked. >> reporter: while photos like these showing a mob attack on a cross-dresng gay man are rare, individual reports of violence are common. >> two weeks ago, two guys with machetes nearly killed me. >> reporter: these gay men agreed to appear on camera as long as their identities are concealed. >> once they find out that you are gay, battyman, they use the word battyman, they want to kill you. >> these people have been beaten, people are being shot. people are being forced from their communities, people's homes have been burned down. >> i've had to respond to calls late at night, early in the morning, throughout the day when i'm at my job. >> reporter: karlene, who asked that her last name and face not be revealed, runs the hot line at j-flag, the main kay rights advocacy group in jamaica. >> j-flag was formed because we're going to be the organization to stand up and let people, let the world know how gay people have been treated. if you are gay, you have no place in this country. we shouldn't be here, we shouldn't exist. >> reporter: for representative ernest smith, a representative of jamaica's ruling labor party, the very existence of j-flag is an offense to his country's laws and moral codes. >> i am very concerned that homosexuals in jamaica have founded themselves organizations, they're on the streets. in fact, they're abusive. they're violent. and something that the minister of national security must look into. we're not saying that gay people should be obliterated from the face of the earth. we're not saying that. my government has never said that. my government has never said that. nor am i saying that! but because your behavioral pattern is in breach of all decency, guess what? keep yourself to yourself. do not try to impose your filth on others. don't force others to accept you and your filth. >> gay people in jamaica always have to hide. because once you're discovered to be gay, that could be the end of your life. >> that's not true. they're lying. they're just seeking bsh they're just seeking publicity. >> reporter: representative smith, like many people here, believe that most reports of anti-gay violence are simply lse. >> persons in jamaica are not attacked and beaten and, as you say, killed by reason of being homosexuals. most homosexuals are killed by other homosexuals because of jealousy. >> ernest smith saying that there's no violence in a gay to gay community, that's just a way of escaping the reality of what is happening. >> a very convenient excuse for doing nothing. and not only for doing nothing but carrying on and stigmatizing the very group that's being attacked in the first place. >> reporter: dr. robert carr, the executive director of the caribbean vulnerable communities coalition, says that many jamaicans believe that gay life should be violently suppressed. >> for some reason they decided that it is acceptable to be abusive towards gay people. >> reporter: this video shot at a gay birthday party two years ago triggered widespread violence when released on the street and appeared on the nightly news. >> this next report shows just how disturbing the trends have become. >> believe it or not, these are all males. this footage has been circulating on the internet. aape of men cross-dressed at a party. but is it a case where these individuals are now becoming too brazen? >> one concern is that their mode of dress is deliberate and they are now flaunting it as a normal way of living. >> this was enough to trigger a level of violence in that part of the country that was really astonishing to watch. >> reporter: we were told that several gay men who appeared in the video were killed and others, like this young man, had to flee their homes. >> my friends called me and told me that they're coming to where i lived to gang upon me one day and kill me. >> this society has gotten to that point where people are astonished that onlookers would say this is inappropriate or this is extreme behavior. >> a lot of gay men and lesbians who are attacked are afraid and reluctant to seek services or to report it to the police for fear of victimization at that end. >> if you allow yourself to direct such venom and hatred against a particular population that people feel it's acceptable to beat them and kill them, you're ope up a pandora's box that you really don't want to open up. >> when hiv was killing us, it was okay, use a condom. what has that done? you are killing us. >> if you don't believe that a population has a right to exist, then you could care less if they've got a deadly infection. doesn't matter if they live or die, they have no business existing in the first place. >> reporter: for "worldfocus" i'm lisa biagiotti in kingston, jamaica. tomorrow on "worldfocus," we're going to explore the role that some say the church plays in fanning anti-gay sentiments on the caribbean island of jamaica. finally tonight, a story about sunny days around the world. the children's program "sesame street" is now 40 years old. in an appreciation today, one television critic said that the show remains peerlessly multicultural and multicolored in its content and its cast. what he didn't say was that "sesame street" has now become multinational with spin-offs in well over 100 countries. here's cath turner of al jazeera english. >> reporter: sesame street" is sin on nus with new york city. it's here where the wildly popular and successful children's show has just chalked up its 40th year on tv. >> the first lady. >> reporter: to celebrate the milestone, the u.s. first lady joined famous characters like elmo and big bird on set. >> she was awesome. michelle obama was the best. nice lady. ♪ the teacher is a person in your neighborhood ♪ >> reporter: bob mcgwire is one of the original human cast members and says the program survived an onslaught of tv characters vying for children's attention. >> there's an old saying in the world of children's tv that it's a bunny eat bunny world out there. there is tremendous competition. it's really hard, i think, it's challenging to stay focused on what your mission is. >> reporter: the show has expanded well beyond the united states and is a genuine international hit. now broadcast in more than 140 countries. and while learning to count and spell is a core part of "sesame street," its day-to-day lessons can literally mean the difference between life and death. >> a child washes their hands, then a child will be protected from diseases. "sesame street" is teaching them to do that. if a child can read, then they have such a greater shot at success in life. >> can you imagine what the world would look like as a better place? >> reporter: the show has rarely shied away from culturally sensitive or taboo subjects. they meet with each leaders in each country and find out what they see as problems, then their characters talk about them on the program. in egypt, they talk about education for girls. or the south african version of the show created a muppet with hiv/aids. >> i also talk to them about hiv and aids. >> reporter: the creator of "sesame stre" says respect and understanding differences is one of the show's key goals, but -- >> we're doing a show with the palestinians and we've done shows with the israelis, and our goal is to try to get them to work together at some point. we'll see. that's down the road. >> reporter: the show's creators believe the reason it's been so successful is because its characters and its formula have stayed the same ensuring the show could be around for another 40 years. cath turner -- >> and elmo, coming to you from new york, baby. >> and that's "worldfocus" for tonight. we will see u tomorrow. good-bye. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com major support for "worldfocus" has been provided by rosalind p. walter and the peter g. peterson foundation, dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing key economic challenges facing america's future. and additional funding is provided by the following supporters --