coming up on our t.v. the fighting in syria appears to have reached a new turning point the white house claims that the syrian government has used chemical weapons against rebels what does this mean going forward find out in just a moment. the people of iran how did the ballot box in a new successor to president ahmadinejad will be picked between six people with three of them considered serious contenders more on the selection later on in the show. in the nation's capital protests gather in response to the n.s.a. surveillance but take a look at that rally that's demanding an end to the u.s. government spying on their own citizens. it's friday june fourteenth four pm in washington d.c.

i'm margaret howell you're watching r t the white house announced yesterday that the obama administration house concluded that the syrian president bashar al assad's regime has used chemical weapons in their fight against rebels remember when last summer president obama said that evidence of this would change the calculus of u.s. involvement take a listen. we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people. we have been very clear to the outside regime but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start saying a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized well this red line may have been crossed the white house released an official statement yesterday about syrians use of chemical weapons stating following a deliberate ever view our intelligence community assesses that the assad regime

has used chemical weapons including the nerve agent sarin on a small scale against the opposition multiple times last year our intelligence community has high confidence and that assessment given multiple independent streams of information the intelligence community estimates that one hundred to one hundred fifty people have died from detected chemical weapon attacks in syria today the white house did say that it would increase the scale and scope of its military support for the rebels a position to what extent though that's still unconfirmed to discuss the obama administration's latest stance i'm joined now by ray mcgovern a former cia analyst hi there ray so this conflict in syria it's been going on for two years now the u.n. has reported its death toll is now over ninety three thousand why are we just now responding well we've been responding covertly for a long time the ninety three thousand figure is just just atrocious what needs to

happen now is we need to bring people to the table get a cease fire we don't need is to from your small weaponry to people who we don't even really know very well so the conflict needs to be tamp down not stoked up. the most dangerous aspect of this of course is you have shia against sunni within syria and within the whole middle east now and this has a real danger of becoming a conflagration where the sunni countries and this is an issue my trees will be a each other's throats for a very long time to come ok so you are not advocating a stronger response from the u.s. to put an end to this violence and take well you know it kind of doesn't pass the smell test we've gone from no confidence in these reports to high confidence in these reports the only thing that i've seen happen in the interim is that we're losing you know we the rebels ok the folks that lost out on that town just

north of lebanon so the coincidence of timing. makes me shake me and smell of a bit closer what's going on here you know there's possibly provocation you know a year ago when those five turks were killed in turkey from a shell fired from syria if you know that that was a nato show i want to get to the weaponry sir but you first mentioned that syrians were there in town the city of aleppo quickly tell me with the help of iran and hezbollah they've been able to sort of take that back from the rebels as i understand it do you think that that's played any well and the u.s. response and the timing actually is now you let go it's to sell qusayr country city up there. they'll try to take back but you know it looks to me is though if russia and we and everybody else is funneling weapons to these people you know only real result is one of suffering by the syrian people and that should be put borders in talk to me about that weapon or a service of the u.s.

as it were expected to offer small arms and to take anti-tank weapons to these rebels but the groups have repeatedly asked for anti aircraft missiles why do you make of that well this will keep the war going you see you have to ask who's profiting from all this it's the arms merchants. it's the israelis who like to have a lot of things going on between shia and sunni and what they'd love to have hizbollah take it on the chin but just the opposite is happening so with these with these vested interests the real interest sorry to say seems to be to keep conflict going at a level that you know won't get out of hand hate to cut you off but i want to take you now our g.m. stock has been following this story and let's take a listen in just a couple of minutes. the president ited states will be announcing that it is now conclusive that bashar assad and the syrian butchers

have used chemical weapons senator john mccain speaking on the senate floor at four fifty nine pm on thursday he just scooped the white house which should schedule a press call with reporters at five pm to make a big announcement one regarding the united states his role in the ongoing syrian civil war and mccain made clear see what the announcement was going to be the president also. and now will announce that we will be assisting the syrian rebels in. in syria by providing them with weapons and other assistance senator mccain has long called for direct military assistance to the syrian opposition in fact he spearheaded an effort in the senate foreign relations committee last month to pass legislation to arm the syrian rebels and at the end of may he secretly dropped into syria to meet with top rebel commanders becoming the

highest ranking u.s. official to visit that country since the civil war broke out there more than two years ago and so when the white house officially announced on thursday that the president has authorized new military assistance to the syrian opposition senator mccain knew it was a big victory in jenin bold and he took to the floor place purged the white house to do even more to help the rebels including taking direct military action to present high stakes and better understand that just supplying weapons is not going to change the equation on the ground at the balance of power. these people of the free syrian army need weapons and heavy weapons to counter tanks and aircraft they need a no fly zone and there and by sure assad's air assets have to be taken out and neutralized and the white house says announcement comes just as mccain and fellow senators are putting the finishing touches on next year's national defense authorization act to give them an opportunity to have a say in just how much the united states intervenes in syria and some of senator

mccain's colleagues aren't ready to give the white house a blank check when it comes to arming the rebels senator chris murphy responded saying there are many actions that the united states can take to increase our humanitarian assistance to refugee population and opposition groups short of injecting more weapons into the conflict i urge the president to exercise restraint and to consult closely with congress before undertaking any course of action to commit american military resources to syrian opposition forces and speaker of the house john boehner weighed in saying as president obama examines his options it is our hope he will properly consult with congress before taking any action but it's likely the white house has already assented to senator mccain's demands without going to congress first the white house's deputy national security adviser ben rhodes made this comment during a conference call with reporters on thursday the assad regime should know that its actions have already let us increase both the scope and scale of the assistance

that we are providing to the opposition including direct support to b.s.m. see the military option on the ground in other words increased military support for the rebels is already taking place on the ground and so the united states is once again jumping into a war on the other side of the world and picking an ally only it's not the one nine hundred eighty s. and it's not an afghanistan this time we have senator john mccain at the helm not congressman charlie wilson the savior of the afghan mujahideen in the 1980's to her men but it's the. same sort of story that's been repeated often throughout history whenever the united states thinks that a steady stream of deadly weapons will somehow bring about peace quicker or set up a stable political solution it hasn't worked yet and so as the president at the behest of john mccain commits the united states to arming the syrian rebels today you can only hope that we're not fighting them tomorrow in washington same sex arts

it so mr mcgovern we heard him say that john mccain has been one of the strongest proponents of military action in syria to date calling for that no fly zone and heavy weaponry given to these rebels do you expect the administration to follow suit now well i don't think that president obama is here to take directions from senator mccain you could have changed the bashir to saddam hussein and he had at the same speech several years ago. you know it really is quite remarkable that the people who whose interests served here the syrian people the american people the people who could become more and more involved those people are really not consulted on any of this it's a it's a forewarn hope that the president will consult with congress on this he's made it clear he doesn't intend to not on libya not on this either so what happens here well mccain not incidentally is the most pro israel senator around ok and so

the interests of israel here weighing very heavily in this balance and the president feels a lot of a lot of pressure from the israeli lobby to do something even if it's just to keep the sunni and shia at each as throats that is seen in israel as if they doing for them ok that really speaks to the heart of his motivation there but. another possible aspect of his motivation there are a lot of big stories on the table right now that have left the obama administration on edge the n.d.a. a bill that's before them the n.s.a. scandal even the turkey protests do you think that this stance that he's taking in syria on the syrian position how is that fitting into his overall agenda at wind that al well i think the why no proximately is the fall of that city just north of lebanon and the turn in fortunes of these rebels that we've been supporting and a more general sense one could argue that the president sees some need to assert some leadership here it's

a cheap cheap gesture to say i'm going to prove more arms one arms already flowing in there so maybe it could be part of it that he wants to say well i'm rising above all these scandals and i'm doing something on the foreign area that everyone will see is as a good thing ok well the u.s. is certainly not the first to say that there are chemical for chemical weapons being used in syria britain's thought it francis said it we're following suit behind them you know they made those announcements similar to ours previously so we all agree that sarin gas being you know i don't agree ok well we're not going to comment you're no good to question these are the same thing about iraq that's right a low that was twenty years ago that was ten years ago ok twelve years ago i want to get back quickly sir that u.s. support network what does it look like the support network yes well the cia is contracting the the shiploads out through air to turkey to jordan and will keep the

conflict going the arms merchants will keep making more money israel will cede to so many sunni and shia at the each other's throats prolonged period of time and the people of syria ninety six thousand of them already perished will continue to perish and nobody of them mentions them and i find that kind of income principle stand again we have to leave it there i really appreciate your time most welcome it was former cia analyst rima govern. well today in iran citizens of the islamic republic head to the polls and elect a new president president on the dennis shot successor no doubt has some big shoes to fill there are six men up for the job but only three are considered serious contenders and all have been vetted by iran's for a legislator ship r.t.s. maria maria is in toronto and brings us the latest on these elections. iran's supreme leader if among the first protests today the country chooses its next president i hope you have to see

a company has just cost him his ballot and of course no one knows who he voted for you can see many journalists are clued in foreign reporters have come to iran to cover the event and most of them are reporting on the show that the supreme leader has cost over the country's politics and today's events and that's by. choice for days voters will unlikely to bring a new radical change to the country all together the rustics candidates in today's race but of course no one can say a pig's point who's likely to wean opinion polls predict iran will but as it sat there where you sleep we found distribute on the streets of tehran the future president of iran should believe in god be able to protect the country from its enemies have high moral standards and have a good plan to improve the country's economic situation. well that was our ts maria for notion of reporting today protesters hit the streets of washington d.c.

telling the n.s.a. we have got your number two they took to the streets to protest the n.s.a.'s surveillance of phone records and e-mail accounts saying on their facebook announcement that the n.s.a. his actions are not only a gross violation of privacy but also a breach of the fourth amendment in the constitution among these groups taking a stand the bill of rights defense council r t it was the wall was there and brings us more. i am here at a protest rally against n.s.a. spying just across the street from the capitol building we heard from a number of speakers from civil rights activist groups there were a couple dozen protesters here but it didn't go on for very long until capitol police arrived and broke up the demonstration you don't really know one of those lieutenant michael don't you know it's a struggle police certainly who are demonstrating without a permit the. use of the cooler his music that is what we are entitled to move to because you're right there with you devoted to two groups that were not more than

twenty people in either group because apparently more than twenty people in the country are angry you can't have a demonstration without a permit so we're going to hamil over into the park maybe we'll just have our cells are moving press conference we're supposed to have the ability to congregate to address grievances to our government this is the one of the biggest scandals ever and we're not allowed to do that what does that say protestors here voiced their support for edward snowden the man with mid to being the source of we can classified documents to the guardian he exposed widespread government surveillance being conducted by the n.s.a. and that these revelations protesters here voicing their concerns about unchecked government powers i think these discussions about snowden are really a distraction what we need to be focusing on isn't whether or not what he did was lawful it's whether or not what the agency did was lawful and what we do or don't do. as a society about this massive accumulation of power to the contrary i think if the

most information about those personal guards was was there simply won't if a motion gathered every didn't look through the gadget was that american while protesters here celebrate snowden back calling him a whistleblower some calling him a hero government officials have gathered his actions including some members of congress know it it is believed to be in hong kong right now. here at the capitol this was our team well how would you feel about a mouthful of nitrates take a sip of monterey county california is drinking water and that may be just what you get the county on the pacific coast is just one of many of california's that have the dodgy drinking water and the areas water problem boiling over back in two thousand and eleven the county issued an advisory if you want safe water to drink bottled only and two years later the residents faucets continued to pump out polluted water nitrates with the oxygen carrying capacity in the blood so excessive

levels of this drinking water can cause serious illness and even death an incidence agricultural runoff has been considered the main contributor as farms in the area use nitrates as a fertilizer research has been conducted to find another water source but two years later there's been little progress progress so what to residents do well with me to discuss this i'm joined now by art he's ramona koval and hi there ramon what's causing the problem this nitrate problem. sure monterey county is one of the largest agricultural centers the united states and it provides billions of dollars worth of food for the entire world really i mean if you eat packaged salary you look on the back it could be sourced back to monterey county most likely but it's the same. money driven business that is also causing some of these lot of problems in monterey county years ing years of heavy has aside in fertilizer use has seeped into the groundwater supply and unfortunately it's some of the more low income

communities which are living and working on these farms who are suffering the most from these effects of nitrates in the water ok well how widespread is this problem in california or is it just and monterey sure i mean this is a huge problem not just a moderate but in california and really isn't rural farm community is a cross the u.s. now looking at california's water problems the university of berkeley law school did a study and found that there are some twenty one million californians dealing with some sort of water contamination throughout the state and the problem is much worse in these agricultural communities such as monterey county and all up and down the central valley of california where the united nations found that nearly three hundred thousand people have water quality that is so bad that they're forced to get drinking water from bottled water i mean the water that's coming out of the tap

is just too contaminated for them to drink well remote as i understand it california was visited by the un a couple of years ago and they documented these conditions of thousands of california communities last year the u.n. wrote a letter urging california to pass a water as a human rights bill they're calling it a human rights issue that the water is so bad there the u.n. is stepping in and what do you make of that. that's right a couple years ago the u.n. came to california to study though a water problem and while they're open to or on human rights and safe water found that for the most part of the united states we do have access to safe water there are so many impoverished communities here in california especially in the agricultural areas who do not have that right as i mentioned before nearly three hundred thousand people are forced to give bottled water and in many cases people are suffering side effects and from this nitrates in the water such as skin issues hair issues health problems with their small children and unfortunately what she

found is that in some of these communities the average income can be as low as fourteen thousand dollars for a whole year and one fifth of their income is going towards just getting clean water so that they can drink and clean themselves so definitely a huge huge issue especially for impoverished community which unfortunately does not have their voice heard many times ok well that's a great that's a great point ramon if you can afford the bottled water what are you supposed to do with the county as i understand it has not found a bible solution to this yet what do you make of that why can't they why can't they figure it out over there well there are a couple issues here but mainly it boils down to money and politics trying to clean up these water systems build new wells or some sort of new infrastructure to hook up to another water system is extremely costly something that most of these small communities would not be able to afford and we have to remember that you know

a lot of the source of this contamination is coming from these large farms which are also the livelihood of these people who are suffering from these side effects from the contamination so these big farms are the livelihood of these residents and they're also very influential at the state and federal level when it comes to creating laws and loopholes which impede some of these municipalities from making improvements ok and that's certainly a lot of issues there are men we have to leave it there that was our team correspondent. well ever been solicited at a checkout counter in your local grocery store or drugstore to donate a dollar to a cause just how much of that dollar given to the us based charity actually goes to the person it's intended to help america's worst charities have reportedly raked in more than one billion in the past decade and just how much of those dollars went to administrative costs salaries of the n.g.o.s lawyers or other operators well the tampa bay times in conjunction with the center for investigative reporting are

tracking down those dollars artie's mega lopez takes a closer look at the nonprofit industry and its worst offenders she brings with the story. we have at least six people come in you can see some of the people fabulous first there's been a shooting at a school in newtown this is the sandy hook elementary school where twenty children were shot dead along with six adults tornadoes touched down across the plains and midwest knocking out power to tens of thousands of people this will be the fourth day of strong violent storms that moved through the same part of the country this is the most disturbing picture to me though jake where this is a school and the school had took a direct hit it truly did when the u.s. has experienced one tragedy after another in the past year that has rocked the country to its core but it has also united the public in support of those who are suffering from the newtown school shootings to the oklahoma tornadoes ordinary citizens are finding ways to reach out and help those in need get back on their

feet but with the tens of thousands of charities across the country the question always becomes which one should i donate to and what is the best way to make sure my money gets into the right hands after all we've heard a few too many stories like this people were actually attempting to capitalize on the tragedy fraudulent lee trying to raise money in the victims' names oh why are you miserable you've set up you say donations on behalf of one of the victims of the detail changes you know. your name and address on the e-mail and unfortunately that narrative only gets worse the tampa bay times and the center for investigative reporting have just released a report detailing the rampant abuse of thousands of charities now in those documents the tampa bay times found eight thousand violations and more than twenty states they recently published a list of the fifty worst charities in the u.s. so let's take a look now at who they are and why they are so bad well first of all it isn't only

shakespeare who should be asking what's in a name americans want to give their money to an organization with the safety. sounding name of the top fifty worst offenders thirteen of those charities had the word kids or children in the name names like the kids wish network the children's cancer fund of america and the committee for missing children ten charities also had the word cancer and it's now another eighteen names had the words of fallen officers police firefighters and military veterans in them in one form or another so what makes these charities so bad well when it comes to the total money raised by the charity versus the total amount of spending actually given directly in monetary aid to these people in need for most of these charities only a few pennies of each dollar donated actually makes it to the victims the majority of these charities listed devote less than four percent of donations raised to aid

take a look at this here are the top five worst charities topping the list is the kids wish network of the one hundred twenty seven point eight million dollars raised only two point five percent was spent on direct cash aid the cancer fund of america is even worse only devoting points nine per cent on cash aid and the list goes on and on like this so by now you're probably wondering where does all of that money go well these groups pay for profit companies to raise their donations for them essentially they pay telemarketers and door knockers so while the charity may claim to be nonprofit the people they pay to advertise for it certainly are not and the majority of the money that these for profit companies help raise and of going right back into their pockets collectively of the fifty worst charities raise one point three billion dollars over the past decade and they paid one billion of that money

back to the companies that helped raise those donations and it gets worse of the money that's left after paying back the solicitors that cash is divided eat. and further to pay for things like the founder salary so-called some consulting fees and more so why even more being done to stop these groups so that answer is a little more complicated first of all the government is drowning in documents from the tens of thousands of operating charities they have all the paperwork they need to prove the fraud but they don't have the resources to go through it all and when the government does find violations they usually slap the company with a small fee perhaps most importantly the i.r.s. says it's simply too hard to win these cases against charities and court after all who wants to sue a charity in the end donating to charities might be a nice notion but we can't always guarantee that the organizations collecting the money are as charitable themselves in washington meghan lopez r.t.

that does it for now stay tuned prime interest is next. when the president does it it means it's not illegal these are the words of richard nixon barack obama appears to be saying same defending mass appeal with chronic surveillance of citizens all over the world defenders of prism involved with some form and claim these programs protect lives but who is looking out to protecting our rights. a little worse journalist a lonely old white house of a day and a radio guy and claudio minestrone cricket because they all want to watch quote we're about to go did you ever seen anything like this on cold.

wealthy british style. that's not on the president's chrysler. market why not ground them find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars or for a no holds barred look at the lobel financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. me is eat eat eat eat. eat eat eat eat. eat meat.

and good afternoon to welcome the prime interest coming to you live from washington d.c. i'm harry i'm boring let's get to today's top story. now prices are rising according to the latest consumer price inflation so to stick released this morning both headline and core are up two percent year over year and monthly price inflation was up point seven percent after no change in january no need to worry because the fed defines these prices as stable and speaking of the fed and burning . john hilson around came to the markets rescued yesterday causing a late day rally on wall street journal correspondent said that we've taken the fed's recent tapering comments too harshly so to speak.