i'm going to you're. coming up on r t the u.s. has been pressuring foreign governments to not help in essay was a lower edward snowden but how does the u.s. react to extradition requests from other countries we'll tell you the answer to that up ahead and years after the end of the u.s. invasion of iraq the nation still carries scars from that time one of those scars is the increase in iraqi birth defects and cancer cases a report on the toxic legacy left behind and thanks to goldman sachs the cost of aluminum is on the rise the investment group was costing consumers by forging piles of aluminum we'll tell you how that works later in today show. it's monday july twenty second four pm in washington d.c.

i make a lopez and you are watching r t well in the weeks since the world has learned about the unprecedented scale of surveillance programs that the national security administration has engaged in over the years we've heard of the public outcry and we've seen n.s.a. officials scramble to justify or clarify these programs the national security administration pride that they need to do this it is an absolute must to prevent future nine eleventh's and lawmakers for the most part have sat on the sidelines and agree to all of these claims with a few notable exceptions like congressman justin amicia of michigan and rush holt of new jersey regardless none of this criticism has seemed to slow the surveillance gathering if anything it is growing the obama administration has just quietly renewed the minute that allows government agencies to collect phone records of millions of americans as that. it's of this collection was the very first was

primarily seen and disclosed by the guardian thanks to edward snowden the foreign intelligence surveillance act must be renewed by the files of court every ninety days it compels the nation's telecommunication providers to hand over the metadata pertaining to millions of u.s. citizens deputy attorney general james cole says that spotting terrorism is like pulling a needle out of a haystack and he insists that these programs create that haystack for agencies to sort through but out of the end of the day it is nearly impossible for us to speculate as to how successful this program really is. meanwhile the u.s. continues to try to block travel plans of the man who leaked the information about the n.s.a. surveillance tactics that being outworked snowden american officials have demanded for his extradition threatening any country that offers the former government contractor asylum but the u.s. has a long history of refusing to extradite people to other countries so it is

a case of do as i say and not as i do political commentator sam sacks shows us some examples. early pending before the united states senate is a bipartisan resolution calling on the russian government to hand edward snowden over to u.s. authorities the resolution says that russia's willingness to provide shelter to edward snowden is quote negatively impacting the u.s. russia relationship they were committed to taking actions including recommending a different location for the september twenty third team g twenty summit in st petersburg russia if edward snowden is handed over in a statement one of the co-sponsors of the resolution senator lindsey graham says on multiple fronts russia is becoming one of the bad actors in the world and then here was senator john mccain talking recently about russian president putin. he is a person who feels so involved in these days that he doesn't mind sticking to some right and i which is what he's doing in this no. pace you see lawmakers in

washington just can't understand what the heck is going on here they're absolutely enraged by the fact that russia now why is it doing them a favor in handing over snowden a man who some in congress believe is some sort of terrorist traitor or something i mean to senators like john mccain and lindsey graham it would sort of be like if the united states was harboring a man who russia calls a terrorist ignoring calls for his extradition and ultimately granting him political asylum in the united states wouldn't do that right rights for a while into two thousand and four read the headline u.s. asylum for chechen draws protests from russia the russian government will protest the u.s. decision to grant asylum to an exiled chechen leader considered a terrorist by the russian government. yep this is. a man who russia alleges was involved in chechen terrorism he took refuge and applied for asylum in the united states in two thousand and two russia demanded he be

turned over but a slew of top american government officials and members of congress ran to his defense including one man in particular senator john mccain in a two thousand and three letter to then homeland security secretary tom ridge mccain wrote i have met with mr on three occasions i have found him to be a proponent of peace and human rights in chechnya. was given asylum he was put up in an apartment here in downtown washington d.c. next to the national zoo today nine years later as the snowden saga unfolds a spokesperson for the russian interior ministry reminded the united states of the case of. same quote law agencies asked the u.s. on many occasions to extradite wanted criminals through interpol channels but those requests were neither met nor even responded to the nation of ecuador can say the same thing they've been trying to get to baker brothers extradited back after being convicted of investment but the u.s. . as it can pardon the two brothers are living

a cushy life in south florida and it remains to be seen whether or not the u.s. will hand over recently arrested former cia agent robert seldon lacy over to italy where he's wanted to serve prison time on kidnapping conviction. now whether the united states should or shouldn't have ignored extradition requests or granted asylum isn't the issue the issue is they did this recognizing the extradition requests go beyond the confines of cultural relativism so as the united states pressures china russia could organise weyland other nations on snowden it should be remembered that a precedent has already been set on this issue of extradition it is the united states. and washington. are two. we are just learning this week about an internal pakistani government assessment there were raises serious questions about u.s. drone strikes in the country a secret document obtained by the bureau of investigative journalism shows that

hundreds of pakistani civilians have died in the drone strikes between two thousand and six in two thousand and nine a confidential twelve page summary paper was prepared by government officials in pakistan's federally administered tribal areas and here's what it discovered the cia conducted seventy five separate drone strikes between those three years killing seven hundred and forty secs six people in the process one hundred forty seven of them were confirmed civilian casualties and of those civilians ninety four were children this document clearly goes against the obama administration narrative that only fifty to sixty civilians have died over the years and this document is as damning to pakistan as it is to the u.s. that's because the country's government and its military have both privately supported these strikes and they knew about the high number of civilian casualties over the years now it isn't worth bringing up that anyone who is considered.

military age is considered to be an enemy combatant whether or not they really are one arguably the civilian casualty rate could be much higher than this report indicates as a result of that now despite all of this the majority of the american public supports the use of drone strikes fifty six percent approve and only twenty six percent disapprove. let's head over to iraq now a country that is still dealing with the aftermath of a decade long war violence and bombings are still on occur on a near daily basis in that country a suicide bomber killed at least twenty five just today when it attacked an iraqi army convoy in the northern city of mosul and beyond the bloodshed a new generation of children are being born with major birth defects the families say that it is a result of the toxic chemicals used during operation iraqi freedom to correspondent lucy caffein off in iraq and she brings us the story of one of those families. hundred sixty kilometers south of baghdad the secret shiite

city is known for its holy shrines and is surrounded by one of the largest cemeteries in the world some of the heaviest fighting of the iraq war took place amid these graves its legacy still haunts the residents it was born with severe birth defects he's only eight months old but the doctors don't expect him to live pounce to first birthday. the terms of the taxi. but for his mother there's no escaping the reality. her son has a nervous system disorder and his muscles are slowly wasting away. it's a recurring nightmare for leila and her husband three of their children were also born with congenital deformity as none of them survived and while they don't have proof they believe the radioactive ammunition used by american forces during the

war is to blame the rule isn't over their markings are grown with suffering from the consequences. spiralling numbers of birth defects and high miscarriage rates have also been reported in fallujah and basra where american and british forces used heavy munitions at the start of the war but our visit to knowledge off revealed that the phenomenon may be far more widespread in iraq than previously known dr sundin's and as one of the few scientists who's been documenting cancer and birth defects here and she says as in the midst of a growing health catastrophe. after the iraq war rates of cancer leukemia and birth defects rose dramatically the areas affected by fighting so the biggest increases we believe it's because of weapons like depleted uranium and hospitals here cancer is more common than the flu. depleted uranium or d. you cuts through armor like a hot knife through butter more than four hundred tons of it is estimated to have

been used in the two iraq wars the vast majority by u.s. forces the pentagon did not respond to our request for comment but the military generally denies any link between exposure and cancer or birth defects it also says deal weapons are only used to penetrate enemy tanks but a new report funded by the norwegian government found that it was used against civilian targets in populated areas including not jobs in two thousand and three it notes a lack of transparency by coalition forces over the use of depleted uranium but describes one incident in najaf where a bradley armored fighting vehicle fired three hundred five d.-u. rounds in a singer. and gage meant. the heavy fighting may be over but in nearly as we st we visited in this neighborhood multiple cases of cancer and children with deformities no one knows what's making people here sick the families want answers and they want to help. is old enough for school but has to be cared for as if he's

a toddler he can't walk he can't speak he can't even go to the bathroom on his own use of brother is healthy but the family has two other children one severely deformed the other with a hole in her spine like many of the couples in this city are simply too afraid to have another baby and they're left feeling totally abandoned no one cares about what's happening to us or the other families in the serious even our own government doesn't do anything to help what can we do this is our feet it's a fate that many and not just suffer in silence. help with the rockies lost their lives in the decades since the u.s. led invasion all across the country their memories are honored in cemeteries like this one the dead may be the most visible reminder of the human cost of the war but if we're living victims of that war is toxic like to see we're still paying the price. of partying iraq while summer is in full story swaying with states

across the country crushing heat records on a near daily basis perhaps no sound is more welcome to someone caught in hundred degree temperatures and this. but while you slow down that one dollar salad of big bags are profiting in a major way get ready for this number and try not to spit out the contents about can that everywhere goldman sachs has collected five billion dollars over the past three years for simply storing the aluminum cans used to be a woman and used to make these cans and other products why is this such a big deal while in new york time investigation has discovered that goldman sachs is creating an artificial shortage of aluminum. by buying warehouses that store the commodity and then delaying the shipping process up to sixteen months here tell me how is the host of prime interest bob english thank you so much for joining me first of all here thank you i think you need one of your own what about this open i do not at all tell me a little bit more about how goldman sachs has been able to manipulate the aluminum

problem first i'm glad the old gray lady is covering the story but it's been around for years and here's how it basically works we have futures markets and some of those are based in london some of those are based in chicago where you can bet on the price the future price of a commodity in the case of aluminum the biggest market is in london so that's why we're talking about the london metal exchange here goldman sachs has to decided to be become a big player and they actually take physical delivery and supply of this aluminum so they've created twenty seven warehouses in detroit whereby they can just shuffle those aluminum around now here's where it gets really shifty is that by these exchange laws so london metal metal association they have to ship a certain amount out every day three thousand tons ok instead of doing that because there isn't the demand for that they just move it around their warehouse literally on forklifts and then they charge a storage fee on top of that so that's how they're making their five billion dollars as physics so it's only a tenth of a cent penny on every call can but you know there's nothing like that i can but

it's almost like high frequency trading and i hope i don't get to a board here but in stocks trading you know you have computers that are just shaving off one tenth of a penny at a time from stock prices that you were you know in our four one k.'s my take and it adds up of over time it's like superman to the money laundering scheme the head so how long has this been going on for and is it really that unique to aluminum or even to goldman sachs you know goldman sachs was an early player in the commodity field and this happened through a company they acquired called aaron and they got special exemptions from the government from the futures regulators in the us to avoid speculation was another. words they were not bonafide hedgers they were speculators and they got exemptions that said they could just control as much as they wanted and goldman was an early player they didn't actually become become a bank until we had the financial panic of two thousand and eight so magically overnight their bank know they have access to all this free federal reserve money and they become an even bigger player and that's when j.p.

morgan really started getting big into the commodities market too and they get they did it in crude at one point during the financial panic crude had gone from one hundred forty five dollars per barrel all the way down to thirty barrels thirty dollars per barrel so j.p. morgan bought up a bunch of ships dumped all this crude oil they just said it in the ocean and waited for the price to rise very interesting so it's obviously not unique to alone or to goldman sachs but another player that is involved in this is the london metal exchange that we talked about and it's so interesting because they are regulating the detroit industry where this is happening and as i understand it they also have they get part of the pie when it comes to the money can you explain this a little more detail and why they are the ones regulating it well first there is a distinction made between london and the city of london the city of london is a square mile blog where all the big financial deals are done in london and that's where the elem a resides and it's actually not even known didn't let the in the city of london anymore it was sold off to

a group in hong kong so we have the usual players on the board of directors from j.p. morgan goldman sachs but to answer your question the london metal exchange gets about one percent of these storage costs and that's how they're profiting in this goldman sachs game so if goldman sachs is making money london metal exchange's making money and so is hong kong and technically none of this is a legal right even if it is considered stacking the cards in your favor or some would call it overreaching no it's technically legal but it gets down to a concept called regulatory arbitrage we have rules and regulations in the us and a lot of those rules and regulations do not exist in london or the city of london or even hong kong so there is. an arbitrage game to be played definitely goldman sachs is playing that out right now so it is a conflict of interest is what you are arguing i think it's a conflict of interest because we're i have no problem with speculators per se it's when these speculators are financed by the federal reserve they're given free money to play with basically we had

a near zero interest rate policy by brint ben bernanke in for five years so they get all this money to play with and then they go to the federal reserve and they demand exemptions to play with this money in the commodities markets it's a recipe for disaster. prime interest host bob english thank you so much for coming on sorry you know shares shares. are well over the weekend civil rights leaders rallied alongside demonstrators in more than one hundred cities across the u.s. demanding for justice for the family of trayvon martin from new york to los angeles to chant no justice no peace filled the summer air many are demanding for a civil lawsuit as well as the end to the so-called stand your ground laws and similar legislations that are practiced in twenty two states even president obama has jumped into the debate saying trayvon martin could have been him thirty five years ago r.t. correspondent guy any chance you can attend of the rallies in d.c. and she brings us more. people took to the streets all across america and here

in d.c. it's a black and white they had trayvon martin been white he would have been a white even president obama the civil rights activist here it's obvious that george zimmerman followed trayvon martin because it was the president america's first black president spoke from the heart on friday when you recall some of the instances when he had been looked upon with suspicion for no apparent reason just because the law maybe americans were following the zimmerman trial it's obvious that racial disparities in the application of criminal laws in america remain under stand your ground law the defense doesn't even have to prove that their client is an angel that's enough to. reasonable doubt that the defendant acted in self-defense and they are free to go so in this case in the case of george zimmerman you have a clash of different issues great civil rights vigilantism guns and self-defense laws these people see a clash between the law and justice a very recent example also in the state of florida black woman

a mother of three was sentenced to twenty years in jail because she fired a bullet at a wall to scare off for use it was but nobody was injured and the woman is in jail for twenty years while george zimmerman walks free so you see the basis of the people outraged we've seen protests in dozens of cities in because it was throughout the week following the verdict in the george zimmerman case people took to the streets demonstrating at courthouses and police stations throughout the country demanding justice for trayvon martin dozens of people were arrested most of the arrests were made on charges of a lawful assembly in some places like in san bernardino protests turned violent on friday the president tried to put out the fire of protest by basically saying as much as you don't like the verdict don't blame the judge and the jury blame the existing law although president obama called for the nation not to politicize the conflict but his opponents as well as his supporters have done exactly that and from just the black and white issue it is now left and right in through democrats

versus republicans and it is once again divided and. that was our teams going. well what animal has no natural predators and is currently in the process of throwing an entire ecosystem into chaos i'm not talking about humans of course but the line of fish is an invasive species that crowds coral reefs and preys on the native fish there this intimidating looking creature has venomous spines and has already wreaked havoc along the atlanta and no one seems to know where they got how they got here they are native to the warm tropical waters of the. c.n.n. south pacific oceans nearly ten thousand miles away from the florida shore experts say that hurricane andrew could have brought them to the shores now the fishing industry is threatened as a result of all of this there is they these fish are such a huge a threat to that marine services are offering will rewards for divers who actually

killed these fish florida's pensacola navy hospital is even hosting a lion fish barbecue with the fish that are caught in this two month round up so what should be done about this fishy problem well for more i'm joined by dr james morris he is a marine ecologist at you know a hi there james thank you so much for joining us now the invasiveness of the lion fish it has affected the fishing and the torah as an industry is can you put a number on the cost that is actually affecting these industries. for sure or. if you know your. own. billions of dollars of what it shows. you the ocean. or is over a thousand so the range is north carolina all the way to solve. or to. all of the. it would be.

and as i alluded to earlier the scientific community hasn't reached a consensus about how the lion fish ended up in the atlantic in the caribbean but there are some hypotheses ranging from the hurricane andrew to carolus pet owners what do you think brought the line fish to our shores. well we're we're pretty sure that her entry was not. in fact we. live on the whole this is going to be an aids you know there aren't any rooms if you're only. associated with our. border mills. we found along the southeast coast. we believe that introduced. by a korean release is either intentional or unintentional. and it's all those quiet

and the away and say yeah reproduced. so let's talk about what should it be done about this issue humans seem to be at the top of the food chain is eating this fish the best solution and does it taste good to. well certainly the challenge here is. is this in the bush or that has a very it's about we have had. to go out of all the while as a resource to do so here. is figuring out where to begin trying. to determine your management area so we're our secretary of managers all over the region including the caribbean southeast actually developed. one of the best resources that there is this is creating fish. and the pictures that you're looking at right now are actually pictures that i had

taken while i was on a snorkeling expedition out in the grand cayman and it's one that was just forty five feet down but i understand that this east coast kind of fish can go really really deep as you mentioned a thousand feet or more so obviously recreational divers aren't helping or aren't able to help kind of stop this problem talk about how it is affecting some of the deeper ecosystems well that's one of the reasons that first lawyer who study. for a while is that these are having some of these deep breeds but location the question really comes back to where can we troll it and we have to remember data there is a virus patient we have resources really we know we can make. our case of range we just resource. and finally we have just about thirty seconds left but are there any other pets that have become invasive species

. well there's a number of examples of releases of. oh there's no orbital so just. order and i understand that those animals those pythons that you're looking at have no natural land based predators so it's very interesting and also could be very damaging to the ecosystem overall dr james morris marine ecologist in zero eight thank you so much thank you . and now to cars where it seems that the he said she said typical can now be replaced by something else it's recorded that's right the same kind of black boxes an airplane cockpits are now recording all of the details of a car's movement from location to speed to whether other passengers were actually buckled up a new report from the boston globe shows that a staggering ninety six percent of new cars sold in the u.s.

how the block black box inside of them and many drivers don't know it the national highway traffic safety administration wants that number to be at one hundred percent data from the cars are being used more and more to discover the truth in accidents and criminal cases but it's leaving some privacy advocates asking who owns that data and how can we rely on it it's just another reminder to make you sure that you read the manual before you get behind the wheel you never know what kinds of recording devices are stored within and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t.m. erica and don't forget to check out our web site for the latest and greatest stories that we cover today and a few that we just did not have time to get to that addresses r.t. dot com forward slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter to find out what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news you can follow me at meghan underscore lopez stay tuned prime interest is up next.

many americans still have the almost cult like believe that america is the greatest nation on earth for the past thirty years the us has been in decline relative to other countries yet during this time washington continues to fight wars abroad in egypt as a nation building is america becoming a third world country wealthy british style. sometimes. markets why not canada. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report on r g. worst journalists a flight out of

a day radio guy and plot a veiled minute for a quick profit. watch quote for a budget deal because you've never seen anything like this on khaled.

good afternoon and welcome to prime interest i'm harry i'm boring and i'm barbara bush and here's the story that we're tracking today. markets are being manipulated you already knew that when it makes the top fold of the old gray lady emerson really be egregious an investigation by the new york times reveals that goldman sachs have been manipulating the aluminum market for years coca-cola and other and used users have complained that waiting times for shipments have gone from weeks to months in the meantime are goldman friend charged needless storage fees in the same shenanigans exist in the copper in crude oil thinks of jamie diamond to be from or dead.