♪ what coming up on rt, in washington, d.c., dozens of people shot at the navy yard. it is the largest of the navy's five system commands. more on this breaking news ahead. and the u.s. and russia have struck a deal to have syria remove its chemical weapons by 2014. at the same time, the report about chemical weapons has been released. details, coming up. and it has been five years of the last of the new lehman

brothers bailout, and that caused the government bailouts of the big banks and helped to create the "too big to fail" phrase that we have come to know. we will take a look at the debate later in the show. it is monday, september 16, 5:00 p.m. in washington, d.c., and you are watching rt. gunshots rang out at the d.c. navy yard in washington, d.c., with at least urging people killed at the systems command headquarters, including adc police officer and another law enforcement officer plus alleged shooter aaron alexis. the navy yard was established back in 1799 and is the oldest operation. it is responsible for weapons

development, among other functions. there are about 16,000 civilian and military employees that work in the complex, with 3000 employees in that specific building, and it is about 2.2 million square feet of office space in total. president obama addressed the tragedy in his speech today. >> we have had another mass shooting, and today, it happened in a military installation in our nation's capital, targeting our military and civilian personnel. these are men and women who are going to work, doing their job of protecting all of us. >> so what happened today at the navy yard? we are there with the latest. sam, we have a picture of one of the alleged shooters, aaron alexis. what do we know about the gunmen who has perpetrated this?

>> well, we do not know much. police are still trying to get information on the suspected gunman, a 34-year-old from fort worth, texas, a reservist and contractor. we are on m street, a few blocks down from the navy yard, where roughly nine hours ago, there was a mass shooting. the death toll has risen to 13 people, and that includes the suspected shooter. they are still trying to determine if he acted alone. there were reports earlier today that there could have been to other suspects, a light-skinned male and a dark skinned male, and they have identified the light-skinned male, and he is no longer a suspect, but the other is not found, and they are telling people to remain indoors as this is still an active investigation. >> are they able to leave, or are they still on law down at

this point? >> well, a few hours ago, probably about one point five hours ago, we saw a stream of people leaving the navy yard, walking this way. these were the people stuck inside. a lot were able to flee the building, and others had to stay and shelter in place, and they were there for about eight hours, and we caught up with someone who was inside the building where the shooting took place, and this is what he had to say. >> i was coming in a little late through the entrance, and as i was going into the office area, i heard what sounded like a locker falling to the ground, and then i thought couple of friends, it kind of spooked them, and then after that, 10, 15 seconds, i heard another couple of birth that i did not inc. were gunshots, but i was not expecting to hear that kind of thing. >> so, really, we heard from

people coming out. there was a lot of confusion. people were not sure of what was going on, but there were a lot of people that are tired leaving the navy yard after being there for up to eight hours, long after the shooting has ended. >> and, sam, you have been there all day since the morning, the attack taking place around 8:30. and you tell us about some of the other eye witness accounts you have been able to gather while you have been there? >> sure. like i said, this is a very large building, and 3000 people work here. he caught up with people who were here when the shooting took lace, and one was a commander, tim, in a nearby building when he heard the shots ring out. he fled with someone else, and here is what he had to say. >> i am a military general in the navy. we are trained for combat operations away from here.

we go out on operations. we do not do it here, so seeing somebody die in front of you here where you work is more a relationship of you talking to god or you realizing just how fragile life is and how random it is and how quickly you are not here. it could have just as easily been me as the guy next to me. >> so we also talked to more witnesses. we talked to a woman who was in the cafeteria at the time of the shooting. she said she heard four loud shots, and then she fled to a secure area. you can imagine the way this a giant atrium, and there are several floors. it is believed the shooter was on the heard floor shooting down into the atrium area. there were also some other eyewitnesses i spoke to about the security of the building, and they all said they thought this building was very secure.

you need special clearance cards to get into the building, but if you have this card, you do not need to go through a magnetometer or any other metal detector to determine if you have weapons. they do random checks to make sure you are not carrying weapons, but other than that, you can enter the building if you have this card, and it is believed that the gunmen acquired one of these cards from someone who works here and was able to gain access that way, but still, a lot of questions to be answered. >> about motive, there had been thought this man was disgruntled. is there a belief that there is a larger motive at hand? >> yes, i think it is certainly too early to tell about a motive here. the last police briefing, they said they had no idea what the motive is. they are going to be going back and see what sort of behavior he had engaged in in the last few

weeks, but as for this location, this is the navy yard that has been around since 17 99, the oldest establishment of the navy. this is part of the naval command. mostly, it is about ship acquisitions and ship contracts. you see a lot of ship contractors as well as military personnel, but, really, trying to figure out what sort of motive would have influenced this guy to go in and do these terrific killings would be speculation at this point. >> that was our rt reporter, sam. now, turning to theory up. the united states and russia reached a diplomatic agreement for syrian chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed the middle of 2014. the announcement came on the third day of talks between secretary of day john kerry and the russian minister sergey lavrov, and it was to rid syria

of its chemical weapons. >> the united states and russia are committed to the elimination of syrian chemical weapons in the soonest and safest manner. we agree that syria must submit within a week, not in 30 days, but in one week a comprehensive listing and an additional details will be addressed regarding that in the coming days. >> the framework mandates that a list must be available in one week that includes the kinds and quantities of the syrian chemical weapons munitions as well as their storage and production sites. as part of the agreement, russia has been pushing for the united states to take military action off of the table. however, the obama administration has refused, saying they would move unilaterally if serious fails to complete the deal. >> we will maintain our syrian presence in the region to keep the pressure on the assad

regime, and if this fails, the u.s. and the international community must remain prepared to act. >> to talk about this with the latest developments, i was joined earlier by our reporter who began with explaining the timeline that has been set. >> well, as you already mentioned, this deal brokered by russia and the u.s. requires the fury and government to hand over a complete list of its chemical arsenal within one week and have the entire arsenal destroyed by the middle of next year, the middle of 2014. in the meantime, they are trying to bring both parties to the negotiating table for the geneva meeting. that is for the peace talks, where there is supposed to be a transitional government formed that would then help and the crisis, the civil war in syria. up until this point, the rebels in syria have not agreed to come to the negotiating table.

they are hoping with this deal brokered, maybe we will now see members of the syrian government and syrian members of the opposition discuss a transition, so they can discuss a way to lead syria eventually back to peace. >> this being one of the most challenging undertakings in the history of arms control, does it seem like this timeline might be a bit ambitious? >> to some, it seems ambitious. critiques say this is not going to be possible. many skeptics believe that, first, the government of bashar al-assad will not disclose all of the areas where they have chemical weapons, will not be upfront about it or you others say, listen, this is the best agreement we have seen thus far in this ongoing civil war in syria that has gone on more than two point five years. remember, just one point five weeks ago, we were discussing potential u.s. military strikes against the syrian government,

that many believed could have led to a wider, wider conflict, a conflict that would be beyond the borders of syria. many believe this deal that was brokered clearly averted a military strike that seems so imminent, so it does seem in many ways that at this point, you have the syrian government complying with the international community in a way that they hoped it would comply for quite a while. >> talk about the actual role of the u.n., what role they are going to play in the removal of weapons from syria. >> the un security council is expected to draft a resolution for this syrian day -- deal in the coming days. they are all seeking a strong text. what they mean is a resolution under chapter seven. a resolution under chapter seven could allow for military intervention in this case if

serious fails to hand over its chemical weapons or if the international community believes that syria is not compiling with the deal that the u.s. and russia have brokered. this is a sticking point. while some thought the u.s. would not be spearheading a military strike against syria, it seems like that option has not been completely taken off the table. >> and we are running out of time. i do understand their weapons report today. can you talk very briefly about what that report held? >> very important, this report from you and in factors -- inspectors say there is evidence that chemical weapons were used on a relatively large scale in syria on august 21, but the report does not answer the question as to who launched the attack. the inspector says the chemical and other tests show there is clear evidence that surface to surface rockets containing sarin

gas were used in syria to kill hundreds of people. secretary-general ban ki-moon says the unequivocal evidence amounts to a war crime, and perpetrators must be held accountable. the u.n. chief says this is the most significantly confirm the use of chemical weapons against civilians since saddam hussein used them in 1988, so at this point, leaders in the united nations say the perpetrators must be held accountable, but this report does not point the finger of who is responsible or launching that chemical attack on august 21. >> lots of new and very significant developments. thank you for coming and breaking it down. our correspondence. well, u.s. military strikes on syria may have been averted, at least for the time being, but the civil war on the ground continues, with the conflict only escalating in recent days.

case in point, a suburb of damascus which has been completely abandoned by its residents. now, the only people remaining our soldiers and rebel fighters. we are on the ground in syria, and our reporter brings us this report. >> this used to be a nice and beautiful, very picturesque town, with a population of a to 300,000 people, and it has been torn i clashes between the government forces and the rebels for almost two years, and the only people we can meet here are either the army or the militants there fighting against them. now we are going with you. the operations. >> south of the capital, part of the powerful militant else around the masses -- around damascus, a situation of fears

clashes. it is also where a chemical attack brought the international community. weapons suffered came through here. this provides militants with a secure supply line. this is what the syrian war looks like today. the urban battlefield combines dense cover and a network of underground cover that shields them. you do not know when your enemy is watching. they say there could be snipers there, and they pull curtains like this one to prevent snipers from seeing what is going on here. the simple system helps save many lives every day. where does not work, shoulders

-- soldiers. in minutes, we travel from one district to another. we follow the army through the buildings, through the holes in the walls, like this one or this one. they are everywhere. an apartment, a family used to live here, and now, it is destroyed. lives destroyed. >> in this war, snipers are from both sides of the front line. waiting is what they do most of the time, waiting for the enemy. an officer shows on the map they update every day. >> this is where we are. the militants are in this building. >> the army liberates the town

street by street, building by building, very slowly and very carefully. >> sometimes they leave their weapons and tried to escape, that sometimes they refuse, and we have no other choice but to fight them. >> an american strike seems to be on the back burner, at least for now, but the syrian civil war goes on and on. the domestic suburbs -- damascus suburbs, syria. >> marking the anniversary of the collapse of the lehman brothers bank, which followed for bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of its clients and a major downgrading of its assets by credit rating agencies. it marks the largest then proceed filing in u.s. history and its demise again the catalyst of a major global financial meltdown in which the

government shelled out $700 billion to save the big banks. today marks five years since the federal reserve had the bailout loan to aig, an insurance company, and president obama observe the anniversary while speaking to the american people. even he had to it knowledge there is an economic and the quality gap. >> even though our businesses are creating new jobs and have brokered record profits, the top one percent of americans took home 20% of the nation's income while the average worker is not seeing a raise at all. >> we are here to talk about some of the lessons learned and why that cap persists, an associate professor at the university of missouri, kansas city, also the author of "the best way to rob a bank used to own one." thank you for joining me.

you are a white-collar criminologist. what is the mindset on wall street that created this crisis in the first place? >> making money. the key thing about accounting control fraud is, in the words of the nobel prize winner in economics, it is a sure thing. you're mathematically guaranteed to report record profits. they are fictional, but you will report record profits in the near-term with modern executive compensation, the senior officers instantly made wealthy. the bank will suffer catastrophic losses, but the controlling officers will walk away wealthy, as they did at lehman brothers, where they walked away with hundreds of millions or even billionaires. >> recently, a new york times interview laid out the inside talks of the security exchange commission deliberations on whether to charge the executive of lehman brothers, and after some back and forth, he

concluded that suing the bank executive would be legally unjustified. do you agree with that? >> know, and i have done a couple of columns on that. the commission did not decide that. a particular enforcement lawyer decided that, and he did not decide according to the report that there was not fraud. he decided a more technical fraud, that it is not material, except he is not the expert on that, and the experts in the agency this agreed with him, and the others were clearly right, and he was wrong, so it is an outrageous abuse, and it is symptomatic of what has happened under the bush and obama administration, where we have the largest frauds in history making them wealthier than ever in history, and not a single unique banker -- elite banker is even being tried for the frauds

that drove the crisis. >> and, of course, we know that no senior executives at any bank were charged, and this september marks the statute of limitations for any of the crimes they could have been charged with. do you think this will have a long-term effect on the economy or on the way executives conduct business? >> yes, one clarification. there is another law that if the victim is an insured institution, like a bank or a savings or loan, so we actually could, for another five years, bring many of these cases, because the banks did suffer losses, but there is no clear effort to bring those cases, and what this has all meant is we have just shown that you can get wealthy through fraud with absolute immunity. think what that would do in the blue-collar-sphere. if we said, hey, if you rob

holmes, no one will prosecute you, and you will keep all of the money. you will rob a lot of homes, and that will produce terrible things. that is exactly what it would cause in the white-collar- sphere, and as soon as we get a strong recovery, but as you pointed out, we have not had a strong recovery at any time since the lehman failure. >> you are a financial investigator, and you did work on the savings and loan crisis, which did result in about 1000 cases. how is this different? >> completely different. first, the key thing you have to recognize is that banks will not make a criminal referral against their own ceo. that will only come from the government. we recognized that back in the savings and loan crisis, so one division made over 30,000 criminal referrals, and as you said, this led not just to

prosecutions, it led to over 1000 felony convictions, just in cases designated as major, and we hyper prioritized cases for the top 100 fraud schemes, the 600 worst individuals. we had a 90% conviction rate against them. in the current crisis, which is over 70 times larger, both in terms of losses and fraud, the same agency, the offer see -- the office made zero referrals. the office of the currency made zero criminal referrals. we believe that the federal reserve made zero federal referrals. one was smart enough to refuse to answer journalist questions as to how many referrals they have made. >> i did want to jump in very quickly because we are running out of time, and i want to get one last question in there. if you look at wall street now,

it is clearly doing very well, and so it's a healthy wall street is supposed to mean a healthy economy, why have we not seem to translate yet into more housing, more jobs, more opportunities, and less foreclosures? >> because a healthy wall street does not mean a healthy economy. wall street is back to where it was at the peak of the bubble. about 40% of corporate profits. it is an incredible parasite. >> wells said. bill black, thank you so much for coming on, associate professor of economics at the university of missouri, kansas city. thank you. >> thank you. >> yesterday, president obama spoke about the upcoming debt ceiling talks. he made it clear that he did not negotiate with congressional republicans over the borrowing limit. however, the u.s. technically already met its borrowing limit in may, causing extraordinary

measures to pay the government's bills. we have a full breakdown on what those extraordinary measures are. >> as congress prepares itself for a big debate on the debt ceiling, there is one thing to keep in mind. the u.s. already hit the limit on may 19 of this year. the u.s. treasury is only legally allowed to racked up 16.7 trillion dollars in debt, but the house finagled a way to legally spend another 200 200 $60 billion using what is called extraordinary measures. -- another $260 billion. the g fund is a retirement account for federal employees, with 40% of all thrift savings plan balances. there are 4.6 million employees and uniform service members who have accounts, and congress had

granted the treasury the statutory authority to suspend investment of all or part of the balance of that refund. they are borrowing money from the accounts of servicemen and women. it also states that after the debt limit impact has ended, this is made whole. congress has the sole authority to raise the debt ceiling, and they have done so 78 times since 1960, but since 2011, it has become much more difficult. congress is not obligated to raise the debt ceiling, and if they do not, will this fund be paid back? this is just one example of extraordinary measures the fed is using to continue to fund the government after hitting the debt limit. other extraordinary measures include the civil service retirement and disabilities find and the postal service to tyree's benefit fund. there is more to say about these

extraordinary measures. >> nobody wants the debt to fall, but the treasury can pay the debts. they can pay the interest and principal on the debt and just not pay all of their things. this notion that there is a hard ceiling is false. the white house and the treasury are putting that out there. it is simply not true. you can pay the debt and perhaps not pay other things until you resolve the issue with congress. it is pretty lousy cash management, but the treasury does have that flexibility. >> so while the debt ceiling is a false construct, the disability and retirement funds he ain't used for these are very real. in washington, d.c., rt. >> there may be a solution for the video gaming addicts out there. there is a new york city man who was starting to become a little wary that his massive video game collection was sending the wrong

message. he said when people came over, it started looking like an eyesore. at left an impression that they were not growing up and did not have any ambition, that instead of cutting down the collection, he just decided to camouflage the collection with phony book covers. that is right. he replaced every video k's with a plastic, book like one, and it quickly turned into a business. he now sells these businesses online for others seeking the same fix, so just like that, instead of looking like an avid video gamer, you can look like an avid reader. it is a small change to do wonders for men in the dating world. that does it for more. for more information, go to youtube, and check out our website, rt.com/usa. i will see you right back here at 8:00. thanks for watching. captioned by the national captioning institute

--www.ncicap.org-- hello and welcome to nhk "newsline." it's tuesday, september 17th. i'm catherine kobayashi in tokyo. the united nations inspectors handed in a long-awaited report on the use of chemical weapons in syria and found what they called clear and convincing evidence that such weapons were used to attack civilians. secretary general moon says the report makes for chilling reading.