in the old story so actually. it's. a little worse if you're going to go right out to the. radio guy for a minute. what we're about to give you never seen anything like this i'm telling. you guys i'm having martin and this is breaking the set well the president one tunnel baze been coming back in the news after being ignored for the last five years the recent press conference obama was finally forced to address the torture house due to a growing hunger strike within the facility right now there are still one hundred sixty six people being held indefinitely without trial or getting out of those prisoners over one hundred are starving themselves to death to send a message to the world don't forget about us and all the obama's acknowledge them

are the prisoners had america's human rights record he's approach fighting terrorism by expanding it drone wars across the muslim world murdering thousands of people in order to kill those suspected militants or alleged terrorists well i spoke to the former chief prosecutor colonel morris davis about the rationale for the evolution of obama's drone policy check it out and because things are so politically bad for bush and obama even though people seem to have forgotten that he said that he was in a closet and it seems like the u.s. is now opting to just kill suspected militants abroad instead of capturing that i mean is this just the new policy because of how bad this detention facility has kind of been a scar on the administration well it's been a hopefully that's not the policy i mean if the u.s. has gotten to the point where killing people is easier than confining it as i said commentary what a sad commentary indeed if it were true and guess what it is quite. in the guardian

the lawyer who drafted the policy on drone assassinations john bellinger claims that the obama administration is ramping up the use of killer robots for this very reason he says the administration's unwilling to deal with the consequences of capturing these terror suspects alive and having them end up in the limbo of getting out at a press conference the bipartisan policy center bellenger said quote this government has decided that instead of detaining members of al qaeda. they're going to kill them so basically obama's drone architect admits that five thousand human beings have died just so bomb i can avoid bad press because heaven forbid we'll deal we deal with the antiquated concept of the rule of law you know capturing suspects alive and actually charging them with a crime before blowing them and everyone around them up wow how far you've strayed from the very constitutional laws that you once used to teach don't break the set.

look for yourself or see them if you like. i often talk about the horrors of war on the show the sad reality of innocent civilians were always caught in the crossfire and often under reported aspect of wars small arms trafficking an annual global industry worth billions of dollars in the black market well one woman has been tracking the dangerous network of illegal weapons for over twenty years and her findings were featured in a recently released movie entitled a short film about guns persona to the u.n. during a discussion about the recent international arms trade treaty check out. every gun without thinking of the gun runners who are responsible for the floods. you need to destroy. no it's going to do so to. this. story. now woman is named kathy lynn austin she's a former u.n.

arms trafficking expert and is the founder and executive director of the conflict awareness project nonprofit organization that investigates major arms traffickers war profiteers and transnational criminal networks that few armed conflicts around the world earlier i had the chance to speak to kathy about her work i first asked her what the craziest things she's seen in her experience hunting down arms traffickers and here's what she had to say. well you know often i'm flying in crazy airplanes and have had to survive crash landings just in order to document a certain weapons flow going to an illegal rogue group in the congo for example i've come around like corners and met with a lot somalia militiamen had to bargain my way out of those situations ultimately being asked to be married with a camel that would be presented to my father so there's just been

a lot of crazy things that i've experienced just to truck the way international weapons from exporting countries go to these wars and it's really one of the highest profile cases you've worked on as victor viewers might know through the film board of war characters played by nicolas cage talk about this case and what players have replaced him since his imprisonment and well i think victor boot is kind of the poster child or poster man for the illegal arms merchant the merchant of death so he is one of them he had been one of the most prominent arms traffickers and he had been working in places everywhere from colombia to congo liberia to afghanistan he took off in the early ninety's after the cold war and he worked with a lot of western groups and so there wasn't any ideology this was all about war profiteering i first came across picked to be ninety four in. five in the congo

when he was providing weapons and so forth since ninety four ninety five i've been tracking him from one war zone to another trying to get different authorities around the world to take action finally the u.s. government undertook a sting operation to basically get victor boot he was convicted last year and after he was convicted the big question on everyone's mind is who was next who will fill his shoes and so right after victory it was convicted i set out to see who might be taking his place i came across two other traffickers who had been in this network says former lieutenant one of them with his major financial. assistance sergei dennis and go i know there was a lot both who had been active in africa different parts and looked at their activities where they were providing weapons everywhere from congo sudan into

syria via iran. and i want to show you a visualization of a graph by pitch interactive it kind of shows the globe warms creed of course the u.s. is number one our exporters arms give us a sense of where these guns go where they end up and are there any figures on hand of how many guns in the hands of drug lords child armies i mean is this just kind of an unknown figure i mean that's a major concern it's really hard to quantify the arms trade but what we know is that every minute about fifteen hundred people are killed from armed violence around the globe and within that minute fifteen weapons are being produced so you're talking about a big market you're talking about at minimum a six billion dollar market and the five permanent members of the u.n. security council that's the u.s. russia china france and britain are the main suppliers they make up seventy five percent of the weapons supplier so that's the main concern i think. here in terms

of who's providing the governments of these conflict areas exactly and talking about syria you mentioned syria before it's obviously a point of contention that's a very difficult situation we're looking at it saying what do we do is the u.s. sending weapons to the rebels the right move well basically what we know is that the weapon the rebels are getting weapons on the black market right now and they're getting some weapons from what we call the illicit trade and that's weapons that are coming from qatar saudi arabia but these are also countries that have been receiving u.s. weapons and often there is a diversion so we don't see u.s. government weapons going to the rebels at this point in time but there's a lot of discussion around whether that would be whether that's a good policy decision i think the biggest fear right now is will those weapons in up in the wrong hands there's a lot of the opposition that is more extremists that the u.s. government is very concerned about so there's been a hazard taishan but you're right recently there's been

a lot of talk of whether the u.s. government should be a front player just in order to build allies that would take over in a post assad scenario there's a lot of reports about the opposition doing really extreme things so you know the question is is this a good thing to be arming people that we don't really know how they're going to use these arms your position focuses on raising awareness about multiple conflicts that are dealing with the arms trade we hear about syria news quite often but how many conflicts are going on right now that are being armed by proxy by these world powers well i mean almost. every conflict you see the day the weapons are coming from the outside you don't really see weapons manufactured in those countries and so just take a look at the number of u.n. peacekeeping force forces that are out there look at the number of the major conflicts and as i mentioned the five permanent members of the u.n. security council are responsible for seventy five percent of the weaponry around the world. and let's talk about the un's international arms treaty proposed

a recent article in the economist titled a killer deal poses the following question which i want to relate to what is the and of course the biggest gun lobby in this country got in common with syria iran and north korea the answer all or those of the global arms created treaty so there seems to be consensus that a treaty needs to be set and avoid weapons being used for mass atrocities one of the arguments from the n.r.a. to not pass the street into the hole in the water well it's a bit embarrassing as an american to know that we have this major pro-gun lobby in the united states that's trying to influence congress not to pass the arms trade treaty the arms trade treaty even though it's been voted on by the world powers at the u.n. security council it still has to be implemented within countries or so has to be a domestic vote in order to empower the treaty to move forward and so the n.r.a. is opposed to the u.s. government being

a signatory being ultimately implementing the arms trade treaty what they say is basically they've opposed a lot of treaties they've opposed a lot of united nations treaties basically so they are an organization that typically feels more nationalistic and that often opposes any sort of international regulatory controls but in the case of the arms trade treaty they are pounding the hallways of congress the u.s. senate and they're basically saying if you vote for the arms trade treaty for that to be implemented then we will basically try to run a campaign against you so that you're not voted next time you come up for election what the n.r.a. basically its position against the arms trade treaty is that they're saying through project it means through lies through deception that the treaty would actually end up disempowering americans and would take away their guns that is not what the arms . the treaty is about the arms trade treaty is really about the international

transfer of weapons going outside of the united states it has nothing to do with domestic american gun control sure just track in regulating these guns as you said the most unregulated commodity in the world that alone or should be startling to anyone who's concerned about this issue but nano water you know most of the daily commodities we consume are regulated but not weapons weapons make sense you know previous treaties of em to stop the use of landmines cluster bombs other dirty weapons what are the weapons being banned why are they so dangerous and i know that your film actually focuses on the a k forty seven coalition a cough why is this particular weapon so deadly well they kate forty seven is the most ubiquitous weapon around the world so if you look at most conflict areas it's the weapon of choice it's durable it's efficient it's easy to use ammunition is pretty ubiquitous so that's the weapon of choice the arms trade treaty is meant to

regulate conventional weapons but and that is everything from an a k forty seven to a grenade to combat helicopters and combat aircraft so those are the types of weaponry that the arms trade treaty would serve to control and to sum it up you know obviously people are watching and saying what can we do we feel so hopeless this is a horrible thing going on the world completely unregulated what can people find out more that they can do as individuals we have about thirty seconds well in. june you're going to have the countries of the world come together in sign the arms trade treaty that's an important time for members of different countries around the world to actually pressure their local governments or to pressure their government their national governments to actually say sign it template meant it and let's enforce this treaty that's the way we're going to stop weapons getting into the wrong hands that's the way we're going to see greater peace and security around the world well thank you for risking your life to spread this information to. two

people kathy lynn austin executive director and founder of the conflict awareness project happy things like you see so far how do our youtube channel youtube dot com and i'll say it be sure to subscribe so you not miss a single episode we also have all of our interview segments tab out if you want to catch those separately i'm going to check our interview with a and it's the funny and agag laws of america and also look at every segment we've done another tab section on the top of the page from big brother watch to weapons of mass distraction check out all of those individual segments and more on you tube dot com breaking a sweat and right now i take a break from my preaching but stay tuned to hear about calls from teachers and parents nationwide to re-evaluate the role of standardized testing in our education system. welcome to teal one a here you can feel it. there

are three choices you like first used to work in a cooler door to live on a miserable way like a slave. the second is to jump the wall and catch the american dream through most of their cars and lose their. the other choice is to see come on the number of an organisation and get inside the growing trade. you did was something i will never forget. that. we. did it by paid for what i've done i would never stop a. my

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imagine having the opportunity to learn in a school system that evaluates you more on your strengths and weaknesses imagine having a curriculum that caters more to you and to the government this is seem like too much to ask but indeed it's a far cry from reality most of us learn in schools that function by putting emphasis on grades midterms and of course. standardized tests during this presidential election and the last has been a huge push to implement more tools of standardisation no child left behind and race at the top but many say it's just not working high stakes testing is now on the minds of thousands of parents and educators across the country who are calling on states to re-evaluate their valuation system in seattle teachers are leading the revolt by boycotting against a number focused format and last week hundreds of students in chicago organized a walkout of a statewide standardized test and in new york

a community of resistance is growing stronger by the day with countless students deciding to opt out of exams course in the state to use other methods of measurement so could the tide be turning or talk about why it may be time to change the way students are evaluated i'm joined now by cynthia copeland an educator and parent of a fourth grade fourth grader in new york city's public school systems and they had so much thanks so much for coming on tonight thank you for having me so you've been a strong voice of opposition to this rigid kind of student evaluation and specifically in new york what did you get involved and what is the evidence show either statistically or anecdotally about the effect energized testing is having on students. well i got involved because i have a fourth grader and nine year old who is that a school and in seeing how the tests these high stakes tests have are tied there's so much riding on these exams in terms of promotion and graduation

rates and teacher evaluation and school closings and report card grades i just felt that there was just too much tied to this one test and so my family decided that our son needed to be to refuse to take the examination because we feel that there should be other forms of measurement other forms of assessment to really learn what it is that he knows and where he needs perhaps more instruction in certain areas and i wanted to bring up this interesting aspect last month the city of d.c. found that eighteen different teachers had cheated by manipulating scores of their students are you surprised that they're kind of taking these drastic measures absolutely not because i think in this atmosphere of high stakes testing what's happening is that we are creating. this atmosphere where people just feel that they need to cheat in order to raise their grades because so much again is riding on these grades and how the children do so there's

a lot of pressure on teachers there's a lot of pressure on the children to do really really well in order to make their schools look good and so when that happens that the natural inclination is to be able to alter the results of. that actually have been made more difficult they've been made to be more difficult and the process for implementation of a lot of these really hasn't been established for a number of school districts across the country and of course teachers are also falling victim to the system and catering their curriculum so tests can be passed i mean how. well how does this kind of learning environment affect kids well we believe that about one third of the school year nationwide is is devoted to test preparation and to administering practice exams and then of course the administering the exams on the designated days and that's just entirely too much

time for test preparation and so it's also narrowing the curriculum so that you're only focusing on items in content that you believe will be tested on the exam rather than having children go through a more meaningful real world experience of learning learning should be about discovery it should be about curiosity it should be about mastering content and new skills and it should be about it should be pleasurable and we feel that all of that is being removed from the lives of both the teachers and the children so that teaching is now difficulty and teachers don't want to go into teaching anymore and children are being just bored and they find teaching to be their curriculum to be very inspiring so therefore they are uninspired to learn and i want to bring up something that senator rand paul recently said which is school choice is the

civil rights issue of our time talking about having the option of charter schools and public schools do you agree with this is sussman and how does this issue fit into standardization the issue of charter schools well it seems to me that first of all i'm a real advocate for a public school education because i do feel that that is the one area where hopefully we can have somewhat of a level playing field and children can be sort of treated on an equal basis as equal as possible but of course that's also a very complicated conversation however when you narrow it down to charters there is this belief that the charter schools are so. it's better and parents become very very anxious their children become extremely anxious and wanting to go to these charter schools because there's this belief that they're doing a much better job but there are all kinds of problems that come along with charter schools and and though there are some charter schools that are indeed doing quite

well and in offering parents and families and communities choice the majority of the charter schools really aren't doing that well because there's they're rife with all types of problems in terms of long hours for teaching in terms of there are no unions to protect teachers and there's just a lot of problems and so the evidence that we've seen suggests that the charter schools really are not the answer and of course the push for standardization causes this increased demand for charter schools when you're looking at just test and public schools failing then and of course that's also the lobby to push in these privatized schools that's kind of linked together but certainly you're not alone there is a massive protests going on everywhere popping up all across the country how effective have this has the strategy been and how likely is that we're going to see some real reform on this issue you have about a minute left thanks we hope that we're able to the through the parents getting

involved in making demands we're hoping that we can come to the table to meet with school officials as well as the teachers to see if we can come about with different types of assessment particularly these real world assessments were testing to children to see what it is that they're learning that it's tied to the curriculum that it's age and grade appropriate these are the ways that we can assess how children are doing and the money that's going into the privatization of creating these tests and all this testing should go back into education like the personalities that they are personalizing student learning thank you so much copeland parent an educator and you're welcome thank you for having. guys today's an important day for journalists everywhere because may third is world press freedom day to day designated to recognize the vital role of journalists and

to encourage freedom of the press sadly press freedom is not guaranteed and journalists everywhere are finding it harder to tell a story without first having to risk their lives to do so that's right in many parts of the world simply having a camera on your person is the equivalent of wearing a target on your back that says shoot here one last look at the infamous collateral murder video during the iraq war two reuters journalists were killed by a u.s. gunship for simply holding a camera or about the tower in gaza city where israeli forces deliberately shelled the press building housing several palestinian international media outlets including our team on the ground reporting in global conflicts is crucial in providing transparency unfortunately it's more dangerous than ever to do so just last year record one hundred forty one journalists were killed worldwide and according to a recent amnesty international report the top four most dangerous countries to be a journalist right now are the philippines iraq somalia and syria at the top of

that list syria since the bloody uprising began in march of two thousand and eleven at least forty six reporters have been murdered but with syria dominating the media it's easy to overlook other countries that are subject to silence beach the east african country of somalia still struggling to shake off the stigma of being a failed state as host of the deaths of sixteen journalists over the last year alone four of which were killed just the seer and then there's iraq for withdrawal of u.s. troops after a decade long brutal military occupation has left the country in deep despair and rampant instability taking the last ten years into account a shocking total of ninety three journalists have been killed there however even more troubling is that there is zero initiative to investigate their deaths. according the committee to protect journalists and moving on to the philippines where fifty five journalists and tragically died in the last decade those deaths

largely remain a mystery. but the truth is that every world power is cracking down on press freedom and as a result we're seeing less and less transparency less accountability it's a very disturbing trend that has grave implications for troops. as an american citizen i worry i worry about the truth getting buried here in my country the current war of whistleblowers and legislation in effect like the n.b.a. the very principles of the for the state seem to be being undermined every day so let's take a moment to appreciate those who put their lives on the line to shine a light into the darkness because when journalists are targeted the truth is what dies with them.

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. u.s. officials say israel has bombed syria for a second time this following a similar strike in january. and while the syrian opposition has accused the regime of carrying out. the claims coinciding with washington's announcement it's now openly considering. the u.k. independence party makes a breakthrough in local elections. the conservatives are already admitting they now have to win back the voters they've lost to the e.u. movement.