are not sure to go in themselves and there are other countries of this to solve this problem but you worry that this conflict could erupt into a problem right open towards the city journal security sure the people who paid the price creating the right top can put it is setting the stage for a serious debate up front at this time on al-jazeera. where. i know i'm maryam namazie in london harry had lines on al-jazeera the man in charge of myanmar military crackdown against their hand has denied that religious

discrimination exists in his country senior general men are lying made the comments in a facebook post after holding a last minute meeting with pope francis is on his first visit to man catholic leader is known to be sympathetic to the red joe but has been advised to avoid using the sky high lies more from young. word coming out late on monday here the first day of the pope's visit to myanmar that he met with the commander in chief gentlemen now this is a meeting that was supposed to take place on thursday caught some people off guard because this word came out late on monday that was originally described as a rest day for the pope now. the general posted a statement on his facebook page say they met for about fifteen minutes now he said also in that meeting he got across the idea he said to the pope that there wasn't religious discrimination in the country but that it in press office said that the discussed several issues and that the pope got across to the general that there is great responsibility for the authorities here in myanmar during this transition

period no there's no word from either side if the issue was brought up now obviously that's a very sensitive topic during the pope's visit here now on tuesday the pope will travel to the capital where he'll meet with the civilian leader and other members of the government and other members of the religious affiliations now it'll be interesting to see how those meetings go and if they'll be any mention of but this first high level meeting that the pope had unexpected high level meeting the pope had with the commander in chief of the military no mention of we'll see if that changes when the pope goes the neighborhood or on tuesday well father thomas reese is the sultan like catholic media foundation was closely with the vatican as was his assessment of how pope francis will handle the issue. he goes as a peace maker and is a bridge builder he never goes to burn bridges he's been well informed advised by those on the scene by cardinal boll by the bishops by other people not to use

language that would provoke and burn bridges he is certainly aware of the refugee crisis he's referred to it several times over the past year and i think it would be unfair for you were for anyone to simply reduce the visit to myanmar as whether or not he's going to save the r word he's going to build peace he's going to encourage people to change the schedule already this morning rather than meeting with the military leaders later on he chose to do that right in the beginning it's also important to realize that he will be meeting when he gets to bangladesh with some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and so he's listening he's coming as a peacemaker he's coming to build bridges he is certainly not coming to provoke indonesia has raised its alert for bodies mount i go into the highest level one hundred thousand people have been ordered to leave the area around the volcano ali international air force has also been close stranding tens of thousands of travel is. to some of the. protest leaders and

is all about have called off a citizen of thousands of demonstrations after the resignation of pakistan's law minister supporters of a religious party accuse ahead honeyed of bassa me after he left prophet muhammad's name out of an oath meant to be taken by elected officials nineteen people have been killed by russian ass strikes in the east and gooch a suburb of the syrian capital damascus earlier russia denied responsibility for the deaths of dozens of civilians in strikes targeting eisel over the weekend attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict of stalled because the syrian government delegation has yet to arrive in geneva for talks. early results have early results have given holders his opposition even a short lead in the presidential election. celebrating after the announcement from the electoral court with more than half of the votes counted he leads president one arlanda hernandez by five percent. top stories coming up next

a special program on how minute private military companies recruit former child soldiers operations in iraq and afghanistan that's child soldiers reloaded coming up very shortly and of course i'll be back in about twenty five minutes with around up of all of your top stories but much more news and details on our programs are to be found on our website al-jazeera dot com. we will maintain the finest fighting force of the world has ever known the world has ever known the world has ever known the world has ever known it's over and i don't personally have any difficulty with most of it i just don't like the image that it conjures up in most people's mind. like any other thing in global finance

it's just the military trade. contractors don't like our time around. like i hate to go to. mr kenyon government perspective the iraqi crude and was considered a good deal. not be the article you were on yeah it's more like thirty years quickly. we have a mismatch between the way we are magic war to be and the reality of the twenty first century can we do a little or can we find someone as we do it for boardroom don't you get what you pay for.

b.b.c. world service the us troops have left iraq and it continues to maintain a high places in the country with the largest u.s. embassy in the world the situation in afghanistan was unsure crucial for the international troops to go under control over to the afghan forces fish if you're just attrition really critical in the country. says without america today we are stuck by my father and son in iraq. this is a job as one commander says he wants. so yeah i know but if i was this other funds. friends most of them they are already out there on that stuff.

right now down there tonight yeah. how many of the persons that you're sending out to. your child soldiers and the like on seven i can't i can tell you that i mean if you think i can't i can't. i can tell you dealing with the many people i'm going to . this and this this. new president you inspecting you know. if you can be recruits to our yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. ok. but what's. the well. enough look at your. in

a bathing pool for eleven i would too if it is a traditional if you don't know fight with a stick from the spear with arrows that's the tradition so if you are trying to simulate this from a disoriented them say well it could and so on but that isn't the case so maybe critical of people who used to be fighting when they were very young that they all go to war you don't think that's a problem not us not a problem for us mother from. the verdict not from a but says yes it must have. and even if they had started when they would fulfill it another thirty that that's not a problem wasn't a problem just does the job as they are his power yeah yeah.

let me send guys whatever yes we fasted for him and they got the school fees got physical training. i mean i never got my summit on resorted to using a gun i because of the ideas being that people go isn't what you tell me this is what they do i need to understand english. gun to shoot those who won five gun right. will get companies respawn come on contract as we suck my money on to them. or example i'm dealing with it is for someone time.

the private military industry is a part of how the country is in fights wars today. u.s. government doesn't track the number of contractors it uses in places iraq or afghanistan we know it's a lot we don't really know exactly how many. i spent several years working within the industry i have

a military background and one of the differences between being a soldier i found and being a private military contractor is that when you work for the u.s. military or any military you take a sacred oath that you're going to serve and fight for your country and necessary die to protect a way of life one that you believe in i am an american soldier i'm a warrior and a member of a team. that will never accept defeat. at least i will never win i will never leave a fallen comrade it's the complete opposite in a private military world you look at the budget first the loyalty of these companies and these business men and change depending on market forces. we operate in the world's challenging complex emerging markets the middle east is absolutely the core for a business today. the sooner we can. here in palin we perform eighteen right in.

this industry is not just what you see is what you get. when you see a company you don't know exactly who's working for them they hire and they sometimes create what we call subs sub contractors. there's been commanders in afghanistan who just simply say we don't know who the subs of the subs subs are. so you have all these like layers of a contract. a

level of forty control starts to fade quickly the deeper you go from the top to the bottom. united states army and the military in general is so reliant on the private sector i would call it a dependency but we don't know who's the on the ground presence of these companies overseas we just don't know. crazy or not surely it's really crazy in iraq. because since the feds the ice that my fits in iraq every did that was a bomb and they bombed the village that is the rockets. every day we have rockets

fired. every day i had gunshots every day a bomb in income and income and all my good it bomb went you know what's you damage . four of our guards four of the civil union guys well trained guys soon i say original rock i called my mom i said mom i'm in iraq she said oh what i said i'm in iraq no no you're kidding i said no moment not kidding i'm in iraq i say mon just watch the number what's the number and she watched the number. she was she was just she was yelling oh that is what i said no mom there is no problem here we are saved we are not using weapons we are you here is does our i convinced my mom i said we are doing just domestic work in iraq she told all the neighbors around so my son he's in iraq you know he's doing. cooking

job not sneaking that weapon. just after the war and see well you know i couldn't make it up because there was no job i didn't. and my friend calls me it's all me that's a. very civic and see they were recruiting guys so-called so it's also iraq if you just use weapons and we are well trained and it come from comply on. the first time i arrived to to this training camp compliant iraq together with that to white men found from the security company.

with driving out in this small truck and swats towards the camp through this forest a landscape not so far away from from the airport and when we enter the camp and get out of the car the first thing we see is this a gun an instructor who isn't shouts of the training out there making the recruits lined up in order to receive these guys from the past security company. came from iraq. with not came from iraq you said he needed. a way shallow fighter or supposed to go to iraq. you know. what weapon this is only people that. are fighting between iraq.

from his young government is the iraqi crude and was considered a quite good deal in the sense that they could actually take you know good troublemakers something away to iraq for a couple of years. and then returning them after two years with money and from the overseas deployment this could surf to stabilize you. in the beginning of the training cost of another real weapons presence so they're using wooden sticks. first after a couple of days and so the training that the weapons and their well being lined up

with and sables with in the middle of the big camp. it was this tension and excitement those attention mainly because now it's actually getting into something very real. for many of the recruits isn't the first time holding a weapon since the ending of the civil war. many were starting to shake and some were even starting to cry when the when the su got the weapons not being able to to handle a. compliant

backing for iraq. as the. source of the know when i'm seeing this and. most notable for now. my device. so they're supposed to whip on again i said this is not my idea. what. i survive and i live where point. this young on what has been what made by young converts and.

if you're looking for young men to perform military jobs the chance of a quite good that they have also been. i was it's a thirteen. but you never can mean i think like that actually. it took my fight i remember when putting on the. ground. to. day. it was me. give you a they fed. us you know i don't know what's right what's he talking about.

need to. show you how he might become the best if not member. you know i've he my father you might want that week next year i would get. this it's little i'm going to. go. i said no i don't want a tree so i start to i go to this that's a used in this stuff you put it in my boat sets of mock me and my boat is

on the board in my body it's in your truck and drop. this in your stick cried for water but the commission forgets about you or your motor so i start says. call my house. when i was young. at a lot of things that i've been seeing there. a lot of. which is not good for human being. what we pay to use because. of the job you have your command on when does it go the people you have to do it by denny don't you two have been killed.

when we think of war and the war you're right so we have this image. of a man in uniform. and uniform means they're fighting as part of a military serving a nation because of they fight for their force political patriotism. and yet when you look at the wars of the twenty first century they don't match those assumptions anymore now we have outsourced a lot of hard work fare to private military companies. the background of this changing nature of war and fights that dates back to the very start of the private military industry itself.

up until the early ninety's the private security industry is a duck a mucky industry. outright mercenaries who were bringing down governments for the cash can you explain what exactly sound fine internationally is and what you do in a. certain line. is a company that provides military consultancy services for governments. large corporations. at the time the idea was to get very posh english officers on top of these private military companies and tim spicer was an officer in the military the british military he got out and was asked to come help with a company called sandline. to spices

a rival gave an almost instant sense of respectability to what had previously been a mess in the world and i don't personally have any difficulty who must know i just don't like the image that it comes out in most people's mind the first time i met tim's face i was interviewing him for a newspaper he ditching in charming public school educated god's office and that mean he wasn't massively a feature of the construe before and it changed the agenda of the global agenda and what the problem is your company was. tim spicer was considered the respectable head of a mercenary organization but at first his business affairs didn't go too well he was dogged by failure for example he got a phone call from a fellow indian with a thai passport who was under house arrest for a financial scandal and he contacted tim spicer and wanted him to

restore the president of syria well. once the president surely it was back in power this guy would then get his contracts for diamonds and be able to make money . but it didn't work out that way. the company sandline run by tip spicer's the army colonel hundred fifty patients by customs and excise that is accused of smuggling weapons illegally. when a private firm gets involved in foreign politics for the benefit of a criminal and you have to stop and ask ok this really happened or is this a fictitious you know james bond type story but it was a true story. these things tended to happen systems the government runs that he'd always somehow managed to get signed the recently retired british cannot do that a band of ministers is safely back in this country so has this put him up his new

career as a hired gun going to continue with this new new business of rose sandline international well i think we've got to a number of lessons to learn from this particular. episode i think that we will continue to try and develop our business as long as we can do it in a. sensible way. sandline eventually collapsed under the weight of bad publicity. was that his idea in the short term you can say that was not a successful company in terms of delivering enormous amounts of money to the shelves and so forth to firstly. it known to spice on a career where he was able to found what would then become one of the most significant for the movie companies in the world. he just. good luck thank god.

the new era in television news. it doesn't say that it's a toss to do things in secret that are on the list we had actual victims who had survived torture detention and saying this was the cause of my arrest if you could . just stay with what we do have still. got this conviction that everyone has a deep reservoir of time i'm going to have you give them the opportunity and wonderful things start to look at the actual distance there's at least twenty thousand for him to refugees who live here we badly need at this moment leadership until president hosni mubarak has resigned donald trump is going to be the next president retaliation with how they got. back she finally canisters of gas i seem

to believe that western media getting anywhere there's a good record thank. god. he achieved something that never happened before. it's only. defying my disability. hello i'm maryanne demasi in london he had lines now a man in charge of myanmar's military crackdown against the rangers deny that

religious discrimination exists in his country senior general men ally made the comments in a facebook post after holding a last minute meeting with pope francis is on his first visit to myanmar catholic the leader is known to be sympathetic to the renda but has been advised to avoid using the tongue scott has more from. in that meeting he got across the idea he said to the pope that there wasn't religious discrimination in the country the vatican press office said that the discussed several issues and that the pope got across to the general that there is great responsibility for the authorities here in myanmar during this transition period you know there's no word from either side if the range issue was brought up now obviously it's a very sensitive topic during the pope's visit here protest leaders in islamabad of called office said tens of thousands of demonstrators after the resignation of pakistan's role minister. supporters of a little known religious party had made of blasphemy after he left prophet

muhammad's name out of an oath meant to be taken by elected officials he's been under increasing pressure to step down after a weekend of protests across pakistan. indonesia has raised its. going to the highest level one hundred thousand people have been ordered to leave the area around the volcano international airport has also been closed even tens of thousands of travelers stranded. nineteen people have been killed by russian as strikes in the eastern suburb of the syrian capital damascus russia deny responsibility for the deaths of dozens of civilians in strikes targeting i sell over the weekend attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict of stalled because the syrian government delegation has yet to arrive in geneva for the talks early results have given honduras says opposition leader a shop aide in the presidential election supporters of salvadoran a stroller a celebrating after the announcement from the electoral court with more than half

of the votes counted he leads president juan orlando hernandez by five percent we're up to date with all of our top stories child soldiers reloaded now continues but i'll be back with the news hour in about twenty five minutes time i'll see you a bit later bye for now. when i live in a kurd everything changed. the contractor content of the armed forces went up astronomically at this hour american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq

. ideologically republicans my party wanted every single public function to be scrutinized analyzed evaluated and if possible privatized general shinseki the head of the us army at the time testified to congress and said if we're going to do iraq it's going to take several hundred thousand u.s. troops and very quickly the rest of the bush administration reacted negatively and he's absurd that's crazy it's not going to require those amount of troops and they actually simply drummed him out of the military it turned out he was right we did deploy several hundred thousand forces it was just through private military.

so in the early days of iraq it was a gold rush you had companies coming out of nowhere including blackwater who was really like a cowboy a wild wild west where nobody had any control anybody doing anything with firearms in this country to say their private military company. was an a.t.m. for these companies the basic idea of a contractor versus recruiting. training in supporting military vets is that there is room hiring a prostitute or getting married. so instead of a soldier who has an x. cost of a year now being a contractor who's being paid eight times ten. well what has happened is that america has basically married a prostitute and has been active in them for a very long period of time as long as you do we want. you to keep what you need something better country than it did

a few things. but none of you know right you just go to run ok i'm working with you on this and we will go run the movies or it's a. contractors offer some grey area benefits to politicians everybody's concerned like we have a thousand boots the ground nobody ever asks how many contractors there there's don't like our boots on the ground. here so if the u.s. military wanted to put one thousand boots on the ground and there's four thousand contractors it's a way of you know having a force of five thousand but without politically risk. trying to meet. you're shooting at you next to you yes yeah

it was. you. know bang bang so you did did you get a skirt shoot first of a bad shot in front of. a ricochet to his car. and that's exactly. what i might do something right. the security companies had the sensitivity of something as civilians would often if not always. get caught in the crossfire. what governments have always done is they would do two things at once. you fight and you we need hawks and mines. private and she took it didn't do to. try this comes on the ground opening fire they were very very noticeable they would play rock music that in this was not there was no subtlety to this this is not

a even the military with more discreet than the private security companies and so they were as they were very very public slap in the face for the average iraqi on a daily basis. to a real problem for the military so we sell the contractor presence in iraq in particular but afghanistan too was becoming contrary to what the mission was for the armed forces there for their presence was more danger than it was help. oh yeah. every turn around the traffic circle. they're probably trying to get away. from the problem was that we had all of these different private military companies

running around we outsourced too quickly and they weren't coordinated both in contract terms but also in on the ground operational terms so what is your answer to a problem of outsourcing. outsource more we outsourced it to a private military company to coordinate. these use of contracts in iraq and was to oversee the communication coordination for all of the privacy of your companies on the ground. in effect it meant that they were the general in charge of all of the private contractors. now that point the us military was the largest machine presence in iraq but if you added together all of the private military contractors spies was

effectively in charge of the second largest on force in iraq. the presence in iraq was relatively standard for years one. video which was posted on you tube from a contractor who is. following a gun while playing rock music. on its way. but no legal actions were taken. very rapidly each is such a machine huge company. and it made to spy certain extremely healthy now and.

the majority of americans now think it was a mistake to go to war in iraq public support for the war is falling war americans want the troops to come home. in a brief ceremony on a base on the edge of baghdad the united states took down the flag of its command here to mark the end of the military mission. the u.s. money was starting to be pulled out of the iraqi. field operations and the industry had to go through a very complicated reset. those companies had to realize that they weren't going to get that level of money again and so they had to offer different. deals. that meant they would have to hire cheap the soldiers.

let me. know when the loophole to war. i'm. so mad. and.

i'm gonna need. of my. angst what you mean. in the initial story could see. it be it long sleeve who could see. them. the.

people how. innocent people. sometimes they were given just a march off which is not shot well by even if you can breathe. a little whatsoever depressing can feel it more than the experts here know that. destroy the life. that's right for when i was just.

work undertaken by you just is carried out to the highest standards of fresh milk competence and integrity when we first started into theater we were briefed on peruvian and colombian guards and the natural question you ask is so what do you pay for these folks and you know at the time and i'm playing off memory cells but

i'm pretty good at that that was about a thousand to twelve hundred dollars and them oh i don't know six months a year ago it became. god and guards at about eight hundred dollars a month and we douse the question of security companies because of those lowest price technically acceptable rushed to the bottom that's what some call. white while gone it's now versus proving some colombians i so we don't have chance to get the award unless we use of condoms because there are two to four hundred dollars less him out on this most recent trip the company that is winning all the awards that had this let's first start herd of well we've got a good strategy we're using sierra leonean so you ask the question so so what are we paying for that two hundred fifty dollars a month. you know i guess rhetorically i don't expect to be answered you know can we go lower could we find someone it's like we'll do it for boardroom you know that has such a terrible country that maybe they'll just go out of the country and be

a free security guard i mean that's pretty inexpensive i say that it sounds facetious but it's real. no you get what you pay for. the original goal was not to bring soldiers or exogenous from the poorest countries on earth but the u.s. military system requires that you pick the lowest bidder so that became the status quo in iraq to have multiple layers of foreigners as long as you're in the army and you meet certain criteria and sometimes you don't have to be in the army to meet this criteria. companies self interest is different than national self

interest companies are profit maximizes what they do that's natural. right now. what do you do if you know you have somebody from the philippines working for an american private all try company in afghanistan who kills somebody what jurisdiction does that person fall under we don't know. and about fifteen countries i've been involved in programs to reintegrate children

who have served in armed forces. it's a contradiction in terms on the one hand western countries have pumped large sums of money into the reintegration of former child soldiers but now we have governments like us supporting these so-called security companies that recruit people and continue their exposure to violence and cement their identities as perpetrators of violence and as soldiers that make it impossible to ever reintegrate into civilian life. at one time when the came into account kill a lot of. hours on top of the time. looking down we had to explain. i think about doing when people are dying on the street. explosions all over the city and i. had a gunshot had

a bomb all wachovia explosion i think about my going to watch happens every four. when he brought you back. the first team for. iraqi. and intended to become. full force. the the. shots and i remember. to walk and this is what's happened in sudan you see. you. know. people running in to come you can't do. that fighting for what's our lights or what have you fighting

for you that. i feel is that you often don't use you know it's not good but because the one. justice you don't have to. it may seem like an act of free well it is not young people in sierra leone have no jobs they're desperate to feed themselves and their families and result is that it becomes harder and harder to ever find their way back into civilian life and they may plant seeds of violence wherever they go. it is well known that young people who have extensive histories of violence and being fed drugs and manipulated over time they develop problems of impulsivity high levels of aggression. you know we pride ourselves on being

a moral people trying to do the right thing what we're doing is we're exploiting people using young people who have been child soldiers deliberately sending them into the jaws of combat and further violence nothing could be worse for these young people nothing could be worse for security. there's a close connection between this industry and policy makers. these private military firms really poach retired general officers and from the armed forces. because they have connections.

i say that it sounds facetious it's real. you know you get what you pay. for the security industry will continue to act. you're going to see private companies. that.

people care a lot when and if a dead soldier or dead marine shows up in this country and we start asking ourselves why did they die why did what were they fighting for nobody bothers to ask about that contractors. every american who serves joins an unbroken line of heroes i am awed by their

sacrifice. when in good time and not allow anything i'm going i lie i'm going to i'm not i'm not you when you bag you in kind of men have thermal coming down you. know who to be got in on me what they need a guide. there's no one going to go out and protest in the streets of a contractor's kill. country still exercises its foreign policy the use of force and violence in these four regions but is using proxies contractors third country nationals and in obscurity their role.

you think it is that you're getting that right i distinguish here we'll end up in afghanistan it's really your money it's your tax money doing it but make sure that politicians don't get in trouble. private military contractors makes a decision to go to war a lot easier. as part of ending a war responsibly is standing by those will fund it.

welcome back it's looking pretty warm in parts of australia at the moment of late

that thirty one melbourne at twenty nine was quite a contrast from a couple of days ago and temperatures are struggling at twenty degrees sydney stuck at twenty five twenty six and has been for several days now in the twenty eight hours we had gone through into wednesday start temperatures in melbourne coming up now to thirty three thirty four cooler in western australia perth at just twenty one degrees celsius so across into new zealand the weather remains fairly quiet at the moment high pressure sitting across much of the country from at a cloud across parts of the north atlantic by the was very pleasant christchurch light winds twenty degrees celsius and fine weather continues ahead on through into wednesday so let's head up into northeastern parts of asia not a great deal of difference here is looking largely draw and fine obviously so far north it's cooler but sapporo seeing temperatures recover in recent days maximum of seven degrees celsius tokyo just a chance of the old shower so it could be rather cloudy highs of twelve degrees slightly monitor across the korean peninsula than it has been now as they head out

and on into wednesday we've got a front moving in across colorado and into the western side of honshu cold air taking down across the korean peninsula temperatures struggling to freezing in pyongyang. from mother to daughter an ancient craft kept alive by a bustling matriarchy. from start to finish. all traditions intertwined with new designs making this family's place unique into uneasy as a rich tapestry of the threads at this time on a. you stand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across that.

al-jazeera. when the power goes out. there's only one man to turn into. local heroes to many he steals electricity. but keeping the lights on is dangerous to watch. as your forces cracked spock's begin to fly off powerless a witness documentary at this time on al-jazeera that. this is al-jazeera.