We begin with a developing story out of afghanistan, where the taliban is attacking an american base along the pakistan border. We are told the fighting is going on at this moment. This is the same base that was attacked by the taliban in september. Joining us now is douglas oliver, a Senior Security fellow at the north american foundation. He served as an army officer in afghanistan. I believe you have been to the base. Tell us about it. The base that we are talking about is an american farm, 500m back from the afghan, pakistani border. The pakistanis call it the khyber pass, an historic base. There has been other attacks on the base. Is it vulnerable . I dont think so. Its been attacked twice in the past three or four years. Not vulnerable, just in an interesting place sure to make news and more importantly disrupting commerce between pakistan and afghanistan. We saw a u. S. Black hawk helicopter go down. Six americans were killed, sadly. I believe we were told this is not too far from the base. Of course, we dont know if theres a connection. Clearly some increased activity by the taliban in this area. Any speculation as to why . I dont want to connect the black hawk downing. We dont know theres a connection. It may be an isolated attack that we look at in and of itself, that this local group of taliban may have its own reasons for attacking the base. It could be about increasing tempo, if someone is not paying them what needs to be paid. We dont know. As america winds down its involvement in afghanistan, are troops more vulnerable . Any time you are withdrawing tore transitioning, you are inherently more vulnerable. Thats just a fact of military operations. When you are not fixed in a defensive posture or actively moving on the attack, when you transition to the next thing you are more vulnerable. Thank you very much. Thank you. In washington new developments about the n. S. A. s controversial surveillance program. It was the main focus of president obamas meeting with Tech Industry leaders, many whom believe the snooping must stop. Mike viqueira reports from the white house. Technology companies are speaking with a voice. A grouch of text titans were here, google. Microsoft, netflix they are concerned. They feel their businesses are at stake, and want the government to ease off. The privacy of customers is at stake. They want act ability, transparency and restrictions on government spying, internet spying and telephonic spying. The meeting in the roovt veldt west wing lasted two hours. Longer than expect. And also the healthcare. Gov problems were on the table. At the top of the agenda was the revelations of n. S. A. Spying. Collectively the Tech Companies issued a statement reading in part as we know the president received recommendations from the policy committee and Advisory Committee that he put in place, the revelations about the widespread spying, the scope of the spying that caused controversy around the world. The white house spokesman gave the white house version of that meeting. He made clear that because of the remarkable advancements in technology, that the United States has both led the way and been able to take advantage of, but as have other countries, we need to look at our activities through the lense of making sure that we are doing what we can and should. But not just what we should do to keep ourselves safe, but we have the technological capacity do it. The white house has the report. Is says it will adopt some of the proposals. Some will be ignored. Others put off to another day. In any event the president will not make public his recommendation, what he decided until next year. Tomorrow night on Al Jazeera America, my conversation with the journalist who broke the story of the National Security agency leaks earlier this year. Tonight interesting news about the official u. S. Delegation going to the 2014 sochi winter olympics. President barack obama will not attend the games. Selected to represent america are several notable people, including tennis legend billy jean king, and hockey player caitlin cahol. Both openly gay, which may be telling considering russias antigay laws. Billy jean king tweeted this today china says its true, the countrys Defense Ministry issued a statement confirming one of its naval ships met a u. S. Missile cruiser. The incident happened in the china sea. Chinas admission confirmed the earlier statement from washington d. C. China is accused of spying on a u. S. Agency. A new report says china hacked into the federal election commissions website. According to the center for Public Integrity the attack took place during the government shutdown. I spoke to the author. Hes a senior political reporter and an al jazeera commit call contributor. The fce was the only agency in the government to have every one of its employees furloughed. It didnt have a skeleton staff available to rappell or fend off an attack. Most agencies had some aboard to prevent loss of life or property or something of that effect. It was a major issue when you went to access Public Information that was available. That information was not there. It was a major issue. What were the chinese hackers trying to do . We dont know what theyll do. I would be speculating, trying to get in the heads of the hackers, but at the same time this is something you see a lot of. You hear about china, syria, russia, hackers all over the world trying to get the United States a black eye. We asked the sce about the report, they declined to comment. Ukrainians president Viktor Yanukovych is adding fuel to the fire, meeting with Vladimir Putin and the kremlin, enraging protesters in kiev. He accepted Vladimir Putins offer to buy 15 billion in ukrainians bonds, a life line for key eve. Moscow agreed to slash the price of gas and reduce trade barriers. The u. S. Warns that todays deal will not satisfy the protesters in kiev. We earn the Ukrainian Government to listen to its people and find a way to restore a path to the peaceful, just and economic prosperous future to which ukrainion citizens aspire. Leaders of the group say they want to know what the country offered moscow in exchange for the deal. Fire and smoke. An unusual scene in december. Airtankers and helicopters are assisting firefighters who have been working around the clock to battle a wildfire in the big sur. 100 residents have evacuated. Houses have been destroyed. The fire is under investigation. Kevin corriveau is here to talk about the weather. Well talk about the big sur fire. On google earth you can see where its located. Ill take you in and show you how it looks. The area is fairly rural. Of course, you see the ridges and the valleys in the area. Here is a passive coast highway. All the fires are between that and the ocean. What well see over the next couple of days is one, it will be dry. The whole area is in the droulent. Let me give you an example. San francisco sees 20 inches of rain, by this time of year. So far, middecember, all of 2013, they have seen three. Thats a big problem there. Winds are calm. Temperatures are going to be low. That is good news. Its 5 contained. We think this will be contained because of weather event happening in the area. Now to the megamillions jackpot, the chances of being struck by lightening and attacked by a shark at the same time are higher than the chances of winning. They are not stopping people buying the tickets. Winning numbers were announced a short time ago. They are 8, 20, 14, 17, 29, and 7. Lets go at where the money traill is in the lotto. Tis the season for hope. Belief in mythical figures. Half a billion. 1 285 million. Not all the money goes to the winners. Whats when they are paid out. Im assumed most goes to funding for Childrens Health care or medicade. Not actually. Here is a breakdown of 43 states selling mega million ticket. 60 of the proceeds to the winners. 15 to the retailers, marketing and operations. The final 25 to the states of which about 27 of them earmark lottery revenue for education. Theres criticism of lottery in terms of it being a voluntary type of source of revenue for the states. The argument against it is typically that it is regressive. Lower income, more lower income people play the lottery. Here in georgia the lottery protected much of its revenue from the states general fund, keeping it specifically for a college program. The state of georgia looked at it as a state of funding for a sector. For students in georgia with a b average, theres a hope scholarship, which helps thousands pay for college. Theres shortfalls. The lottery funded the welcome to, a 20 drop in the revenue suggested. It has to do with the costs of tuition in the system of georgia. College and University Cost of tuition has gone up faster than inflation and other products and services. As a result of that, and as a result of the recession, people losing jobs and income. In response to the need the Georgia Legislature passed a bill this year, which they expected to georgia. A problem that is stopping the funding here is the fact that tuition, for example, university of georgia has gone up 200 in the last 10 years alone. Amazing price increase for kids across the country. We should know in the next couple of hours if theres a winner around the country as officials look at the tickets. And if there is not a winner, on friday therell be another drawing, approaching nearly a billion. If no winner on maybe you get a friday. I hope so. Coming up critical space walk. Why nasa astronauts have to leave the International Space station. Outrage over arizonas Child Welfare system. There are reports more than 6500 abuse cases have been ignored. The Welfare Agency set aside accusations of neglect and abuse for the past four years, mark the ni, meaning not investigated. The state is launching how coul latest scandal possibly happen. We see over 100 children every week for therapy. Among the kids are children with broken legs. We have a child in a wheelchair for the rest of her life when it comes to children in harms way, child tlerpist Kristi Murphy has seen therpist Kristi Murphy has seen more than her fair share and was stunned when Child Services chose not to investigate 6,500 cases. I was appalled. Its unacceptable, knowing that more children die from abuse and there are cases that are not reported. Its unacceptable. If you have people to override policy or law, you end up with a situation like this. The situation lawmakers were discussing was just how those thousand of cases ended up on a shelf. Here is how the system is supposed to work. The call comes in, the hotline operator comes in and assesses safety. After the Safety Assessment is set to a field officer who puts eyes on it. Unless the report was one of more than 6,000 that went nowhere. They were stamped ni for not investigated. That means nobody knows what happened in thousands of cases. The consequences, i think, are devastating. What we need to do now is find these 6,000 or more children that have been left, possibly left in a chronically abusive situation. What we need to do now is find out who they are and assess their symptoms and trauma. As of yesterday state officials checked in on 600 children. So far one child needed to be moved. That process works. Paul beban out of phoenix. Thank you. Now to the series veterans forces. They serve their country in iraq and afghanistan. Their Toughest Mission may be in the United States. According to the la times the death rate for california vets under 45 is higher than active Duty Service Members and others of the same ages. The the Los Angeles Times says veterans are twice as likely as others to commit suicide and die in a car crash. These are disturbing numbers raising numbers about veterans and what is being done to help them. Joining us is andrew obrian. He attempted suicide in 2010 and now encourages others to see yo i joined the army. I didnt have much of a family. That was the whole reason of joining. I joined and then i ended up being stationed in hawaii in 2008, and later in 2008 we deployed to iraq from october 2008 to october 2009. As soon as i got back the first year, on average we gave ourselves 365 days subconsciously to fix ourselves from what we saw in iraq. It had been overa year, and nothing had changed. I had a lot of nightmares. Whilst in iraq i saw a blown up vehicles with soldiers inside of it, and it stuck with me and will stick with me for the rest of my life. After seeing that i couldnt g handle it. I had a lot of paranoia and nightmares. That was done, i wanted to take my own life. You made it back. How did you do that . Well, after mermission al jazeeras Investigative Unit has tonights exclusive report. Stories that have impact. That make a difference. That open your world. This is what we do. America tonight next only on Al Jazeera America night with the combatants in their training base. A bailout for ukraine with russia. Youve got some other examples too, right. I have other ones. I will the u. S. Led space walks were put on hold in july because there were problems with an italian astronaut. How dangerous is the something that the ministry of health is trying to deal with, certainly in october when there was another scare of booub bonnics plague endemics. Now, certainly the recent the recent case had to do with the nooum onic plague, but the bubonic plague has been the breeding ground. So we talked about the fact that it is treatable with antibiotics, but how much access do the people have to the treatment. Madagascar is a spiritual place, it has a strong presence in the culture. There are a lot of people who tend to go to, i suppose you would call them i guess you call them witch doctors. Its what they have been doing for many years. In terms of access to basic services in rural areas, that is what is used. Thank you for helping tell the story in madagascar. We appreciate it. Suicide has become an issue in professional sport. There has been highprofile deaths, and doctors are linking them to brain injuries caused by concussions. Mark morgan takes a look at the Science Behind the damage. Theres Disturbing Trends especially where football is concerned. The body of a football was exhumed so tests could be run on his play. Belcher, wh the denver city chiefs shot and killed his girlfriend and himself. His body requested his brain be tested for c. T. E. I asked a dr about this research. I dont know if we know for sure. It may be a stretch. It depends on how much it is preserved, and a lot of the conditions that his body has been under. I guess we will find out. Now, once the results are in, what, if anything, do you think can be cleaned regarding his condition, affecting his state of mind at the time he killed himself . Its hard for science to explain Human Behaviour in your opinion, is the number of concussions and severity of each a big factor in developing c. T. E. Its an emerging science, what is it, who gets it, why. We think that certainly the number of concussions is not good, but it may be, in my opinion, the years of exposure, not only to concussion, but multiple impacts, subconcuesive blows. Explain to the viewers what c. T. E. Is, and what it does to a persons brain. It is believed to be a milder form of what was originally diagnosed in 1929. It was believed to be in about 20 of retired former boxers. In Football Players and icehockey players, in some other sports, its been seen that they can have these changes, these collections of protein, its a breakdown of the major structural protein in the brain. So concussions have become a concern with football and Contact Sports hockey. What about baseball . They have joined the sports. Ryan frooel was a player who committed suicide. Hes the first to be diagnose with c. T. E. He retired after reportedly sustaining five or 10 concussions, freel ran into balls, collided with teammates. Dr bales told me it was unusual and unexpected for a baseball player to show signs, but 18 Major League Players were placement on the disabled lift last year. 10 were catchers. To that end baseball owners in january will vote on new rules that would eliminate homeplate conditions lessening concussions. Thank you. Interesting story. One of the biggest drug makers makes a sweeping policy shift. Its called a game changer. Glaxosmithcline will stop paying doctors. Glaxo are a big firm. The 10 billion a year company is soon to stop paying doctors in incentives to promote drugs at speaking conferencers. Its no longer going pay for other doctors to attend the doctors. Crucially, the big one, is that in future the sales force will no longer have individual sales targets tied to prescriptions written by doctors. Instead theyll be paid based on the quality of service and Overall Company profits. Its worth noting that sales people for glaxo have been operating since 2011 on this basis. Stopping the incentives to doctors is brand new. Here is and your witty, the boss. He aims to roll out the plan by around the world by a target date of 2016. In a statement he said, we recognise we have an Important Role to play in privating doctors with in fact. It mu be done clearly, transparently and without perception of conflict of interest. Earlier chinese officials accused them of transferring money to travel agencies to bribe chinese doctors. They said its not related to that. Paying doctors to attend conferences and make speeches is common. Lately there has been growing calls for this kind of reform. The britishswedish company scrapped payments for doctors. That was back in 2011. Other drug com