video for your media project free media r t dot com. coming up on r t the international community works on a deal to dispose of syrian chemical weapons and the fight in syria rages on opposition rebels have captured a christian village near the capital of damascus we'll give you the latest details ahead and it's been five years since the financial meltdown that started the recession today the top richest one percent continue to floor it while the rest flounder will take a deeper look at that with the director of inequality for all coming up and the government of course back is pushing for a secular change all of this in a new proposal to ban people from wearing overt religious symbols we'll tell you more about that later in the show.

it's friday september twenty eighth piano in washington d.c. i'm lynn neary david and you're watching our t.v. . we begin tonight with syria the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons said today it had received an initial declaration from syria outlining the country's chemical weapons program a spokesman for the organization told the associated press that the defamation is quote being reviewed by our verification division the organization has not released details of what is in the declaration though they have made it clear that they are looking for ways to expedite the process of removing and destroying syria's chemical weapons stockpile this week members of the u.n. security council have been discussing the framework of a resolution aimed at detailing the way in which syria should transfer those weapons to international control they are also negotiating what disciplinary measures if any the syrian regime will face if they fail to abide by those terms yesterday kerry reiterated the administration's belief that assad was behind the

chemical weapons attack that took place on august twenty first approach to this week's long awaited u.n. report the facts in syria only grew clearer in the case only grew bored compelling every single data point the types of munitions and launchers that were used their origins their trajectory their market and the confirmation of sarin every single bit of it confirms what we already knew what we told america the world. the syrian government still maintains that the chemical warfare was employed by the opposition meanwhile on the ground in syria the battle for control continues and it's specifically playing out in one small christian village just north of damascus called ma lula the town is considered a symbol of christianity and is one of few places where the ancient language of

aramaic is still spoken artie's maria for notion is in syria and has more. of the syrian village of mar luna is where the aramaic language believed to have been spoken by jesus christ was in daily use but not so much these days. of today harvests attacked this mostly christian village in syria more than two weeks ago local residents were forced to flee the battlefield that was once the native land and calm organized life. many of them to graph huge with christian families in all damascus we try to meet them only the clergy house vocal music stores for us so that. to. many refused to talk because their relatives remain missing they say is the best kidnap people and they fear the scared put them in even more danger and these people know well about danger three members of on two on its family were killed on the first days of the violence siege. in the morning by the shards of

a knock on the doors and all gathered in one area i told on the run there and we won't harm you and one may call and shyly went there and surrendered as they pointed their guns at them and started shooting i was intending my chest and. one of them off but i ignored him another one said let the men die. hundreds gathered for the funerals of the three men who they now called walters those muslims and christians the attack on malala village syrians say was an attack on their country and its way of life. for the family was going to be there a mother then in that area that i would live and christians live in la luna but it's surrounded by one of five muslim villages my the maybe they see their beloved optical and absaroka stone with here on two on it's father in law is eighty eight years old he says nothing like this has happened in his lifetime you know we were

living in peace and now it seems they want to throw all the christians out of the country who prayed to god that would defeat them and kick them out another relative who's afraid to show her face says it's hard to say how many people were killed in the lula because militants holed in the village often keep bodies for further rennison and to instill fear their goal is not assad their idea is to establish an islamic emirate in all of the middle east however find countries are helping them with weapons money whatever they need helping them destroy the country and people of this region special sweet sanctified bread he serves in the family to commemorate the dead. in church they held special ceremonies for several days. and again all the syrians equally shocked prayed together for the dead and the law of the ancient language in my lula united people for thousands of years they have now is that it can sustain them for

a little longer and old over the country the two and a half year loan conflict is taken lives language and shattering people's hope. from damascus in syria this week marks five years since the collapse of lehman brothers investment bank triggering the largest financial crisis since the great depression this week also mark the second anniversary of occupy wall street an uprising that sought to channel the grievances of the financial class collapse into a movement for change and while the protests in the street have subsided the message behind occupy has not particularly as we learn about the growing economic inequality in this country while the u.s. income inequality has been growing for nearly three decades last year the gap between the richest one percent and the rest of america reached the widest point since the one nine hundred twenty s. this according to global economist who analyzed i.r.s. data going back to one nine hundred thirteen what they found is that the top one

percent of u.s. earners collected about twenty percent of household income these staggering numbers are graphic what's explored in a new documentary called inequality for all featuring former labor secretary robert reich take a look. all developed the united states has the most money in distribution of income were surging toward even greater inequality. between twenty eight and two thousand and seven become the peak years for income concentration it looks like the suspension brings. us here we need thirty six thousand government to make it work seventy hours a week. earlier i spoke with the director of the film jacob kornbluth i first asked him why all americans should care about the growing economic inequality gap. when the economy is so out of balance when the structural foundation of how the economy is organized is so out of whack this isn't just a moral question it's not just not fair that the rich have so much of the income it

also affects our economy overall our economy is stagnant now at the same time the incomes are so disproportionately divided and that's because of this income inequality and secondly it's because it also affects our democracy so our economy and our democracy are both in shambles because as partially as a result of this widening income inequality that we're seeing today absolutely well this week marks cue years since the rise of occupy wall street a movement that tried to tell the story of inequality for all the criticism of course was that occupy wasn't able to elicit real political change so how do you channel this important dialogue into action well i think occupy did a lot of wonderful things i mean we certainly it certainly put this issue of income inequality on the national radar in a way it wasn't before but it sort of but i think we didn't get past the headlines the ninety nine percent of the one percent to sort of get

a deeper understanding of what this income inequality really means for us when all of us are worried that our that our economy is stagnant that we can't get ahead in our jobs that we have such economic insecurity on an individual basis and we're also worried that our politics are too partisan and that it feels like we might have another government shutdown next month so if we understand that income inequality is one of the root causes of these major problems that we're all concerned about then i think that's a different understanding than maybe the occupy movement brought us to as far as what all this stuff means to share and a for a lot of people that the subject of economics is not the easiest to understand yet ironically it's one of the most important subjects to understand as it crosses paths with with nearly every decision that's made how challenging challenging was it for you to tell a story about the economy in a way that was compelling that can gauge a lot of people. well. i have no economic background and i'm not particularly political person when i started making this film so it was important to me that the

film be not only true but also entertaining and my wife is a schoolteacher she hates politics and economics too and she loves this movie and not just because her husband made it either but because she says it's for the first time she really gets it when you see the movie it not only talks about income inequality but it connects the dots for how it affects our economy in a democracy in a way that i think makes it sort of does have a sort of like you sort of understand it maybe for the first time past sort of the headlines of the rich have all this and the poor have all that or the republicans think this and the democrats think that this is a big picture understanding of why income inequality does affect us all and take of this film is not actually the first collaboration. main voice in the film can you talk about how you two originally got connected and how it really translated into a documentary film sure well first of all i grew up poor i grew up my mom raising

a family of four between nine and fifteen thousand dollars a year so i've always said sort of a keen interest in who gets what in society but i never had any way to sort of voice that interest and then i scott really frustrated after two thousand and eight and decided i wanted to make these short two to three minute videos these kind of explainers that could explain that people like me who don't have an economics background some of these issues i felt sort of trapped in a twenty four hour news cycle where i wasn't getting i was hearing all this news but not getting any understanding of the issues that were that were sort of facing me and these videos sort of answered that and hundreds and thousands of people started seeing them i pointed the camera i asked them questions that i wanted to know and people got some information they needed and that sort of gave me the confidence that making a film like this would have an audience as well and of course robert rush was the former labor secretary for bill clinton and also served in the administrations of carter and ford were you worried at all ad that his political background would make the message of the film politicized. you know i think anytime you make

a film called any quality for all and you put somebody like robert reich at the center of it there's a danger that it gets sort of trapped in the same partisan bickering that i was trying to avoid by making this film but the way we approach this issue is to try and take a big picture of you we step out of the sort of partisan fights of the moment and we try and look at say the last forty years or even the last hundred years and sort of look at the shape of the economy and what you see that is something that republicans have had issues with and democrats and liberals and conservatives this when they kind of he gets this on structured as it did in one nine hundred twenty eight and again as it didn't two thousand and seven in both of those two years those were the two peak years of income inequality and the economy had its two biggest crashes of the last century right after both of those years so this is something that concerns both republicans and democrats and when you step out of the sort of day to day twenty four hour news cycle into a larger picture it doesn't really feel partisan the film sort of challenges the

assumptions of people both on the left and on the right here and you know jacob we only have like thirty seconds left but i wanted to ask you about kickstarter because i know you use that to raise funds for the project you made it well beyond your stated goal of seventy five thousand how instrumental do you think kickstarter another crowdfunding services are in leveling the playing field in hollywood. you know what's inspiring about kickstarter is the fact that people who care about an issue can get together and do something about it we were sitting in the edit room and we would see it take up ten dollars twenty bucks at a time so it means that people who don't have a lot of money can have something to say about the types of movies that get made and get out there and for that these things are wonderful opportunities for filmmakers like me well said well that was it jacob kornbluth director of inequality for all in theaters september twenty seventh thanks so much for joining me thank you. and still ahead here on our t.v. a government of quick back is pushing for a secular change all of this in

a new proposal to ban people from wearing overt religious symbols we'll tell you more about that after the break. dramas the truth be ignoring the. stories others use in the. thirty's change the world right. to make sure. you. know the roads to. look. i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on

their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on our t.v. question. and now to quebec this week the canadian province announced plans for a wide ranging legislation aimed at keeping religion out of the workplace it's called the quebec charter of values and if this measure is passed it would include a ban on state employees from wearing overt religious symbols now that can be anything from muslim headscarves and jewish because to christian that crosses donning the sign of the cross it's a move that has ignited fierce debate about religious freedom critics argue that the laws are an attack on freedom of worship and multiculturalism however supporters of the measure say the bill would help treat everyone equally by ending special treatment for the religious outwork and enforcing secularism i was joined

earlier by jacob reams a william lyon mackenzie king research fellow at harvard university's canada program to discuss this proposal and its chances of becoming a law in the near future i first asked him to talk about quebec and its history of rejecting religious interference québec famously it was for a very long time a very religious problem it was roughly run of by a combination. of national of the sins of the catholic church for most of the twentieth century but in the one nine hundred sixty s. there was something called a quiet revolution and who better very much a turn away from the church and. came a very secular society much more on the lines of what we think of as republican friends so now that very much defines itself as a secular society but one with a long tradition so what's interesting is that supporters say

that this would end special treatment of the religious at work what kind of special treatment are they referring to here well primarily they need a special treatment to. to present themselves as individuals you know way that civil servants often don't so one of the back ministers said recently that. in no other way were civil servants allowed to express their opinion they couldn't say things literally they couldn't. play loud music while they were at work so why should religion be one special place where civil servants could express themselves could try to tell other people their their personal views but really what is being that what is being regulated here is dressed wearing a headscarf wearing a veil is wearing a yarmulke is wearing a turban. so it's wearing of wearing a large cross so is that

a special treatment because you can do that but you can't wear it in the special treatment as well can you explain the government's argument that wearing religious symbols makes the government less inclusive. sure so the argument is coming from a tradition that back picked up that really comes from france where the idea is that the government should be a one hundred percent neutral space that civil service civil servants bureaucrat should be. simply organs of the state and that somebody is wearing a head scarf or wearing a yarmulke that that is him posing a view from a. from of the other institution into the government into the state and that someone who is secular or someone who is of a different religion might feel uncomfortable working with that civil servants or

might especially the civil servants in addition to our so one of the really key question is should teachers be aware be allowed to wear religious symbols should prison guards be allowed to wear religious to. all critics argue that the bill allows for a lot of christian traditions you know allowing for instance for christmas trees in public places also interestingly there are crosses on the quebec flag and a crucifix in the voting papers i can explain how this inconsistency really fits into the mindset that went into producing this charter. well the argument that the government makes is that these are historical symbols that the crucifix that's in the national assembly is a recognition of the best historical roots historical catholic that the flag of which has a one cross in the middle and then or learn to leave which is a a christian symbol representing the trinity and the virgin mary those are

representations from quebec history and that they are understood in a secular way. i think it's a little bit hard to imagine how a crucifix would be understood by anyone other than a christian as it surely does feel or symbol i think that that most jews or muslims or six or in use or atheist would see that as a as a pretty religious and symbol but the but that's the are very interesting well let's talk about how difficult this is actually going to be and what path you think and something like this will pass. well i if i had to guess i would say that something will the party chemical of the ruling party is a is a minority government right now but what is between them and the difference between them and a majority is

a another party called attack the which translates to the coalition or the best future. the caca said that they think that this charter as proposed is going too far. but that they want something that they want rules against teachers and prison guards and other people that are already from wearing religious symbols buses that there's room for compromise but maybe day care workers and hospital workers should be allowed to wear religious symbols or that. certain institutions like certain municipalities or even particular. emergency or schools could critic exempt themselves so i would suspect that there is going to be some sort of compromise position and then i would suspect that there is going to be a long drawn out court battle of well we definitely are going to keep our eyes peeled to see what happens with this jake of reims our research fellow at harvard university thank you so much for joining me my pleasure take care. and the nation's

most active death penalty state has just announced it will continue to use the same execution drug that it's running out up the drug is called pentobarbital the state switched to this lethal single dose sedative last year after the substances that made up their three drug execution cocktail became difficult to obtain but apparently switching the drug wasn't enough because now their supply of pentobarbital is also running out other death penalty states have encountered similar problems because many drug suppliers are now barring the drug's use in executions under pressure from death penalty opponents the state will not say how it plans to replace it supply after it expires this month but it seems no executions will be delayed as a result of the shortage so far eleven texas and mates have been executed in two thousand and thirteen with at least six more scheduled for execution before the end of the year. while the two thousand and thirteen liberty political action

conference is in full swing the conference organized by former congressman ron paul's campaign for liberty kicked off last night in virginia with a speech from senator rand paul the senator talked about how republicans have been winning recent washington battles and that they should use those victories as an appeal to engage more voters and today that message continued as a myriad of speakers took to the stage artie's perry and boring brings us more. and we're here at day two of alpaca it's been a jam packed day of breakout sessions activist training sessions as well as featured speakers from all across the nation but the theme that keeps being repeated as that is a place for like minded people to relax and like minded meaning people who are united on this message of liberty and who either very much want to see the republican party more into a more of a liberty party or what is the a third party system a merge and people here are very optimistic that this is not only possible but is

actually gaining traction there was a panel discussion this morning title women in the liberty movement it was wow how women all across the spectrum are starting to come together on this notion of liberty there's another discussion called why republicans can't be trusted more in black well he is the president and the founder of the leadership and the two which is an organization that trains people who are running for office is the same institution that senator rand paul is involved with and he took some jabs at our two party system let's take a listen to persuade the people. that they ought to do what you want them to do another one is to frighten them feeling into understanding they vote they will be adverse political consequences if they don't do what you want to do and the third way is to defeat the event has not happened yet tonight that everyone is waiting for and that's when congressman tom massey speaks tonight as well as the rock star himself

a doctor ron paul and chantilly virginia i'm perry and boring artie. well late at night old houses creak and make strange sounds cupboards open and close at strange times and sometimes you can actually trick yourself into thinking your home is haunted it's usually not the case but for a group of students living off campus at ohio state university the haunting in their basement was real here's what the students told their university newspaper behind the locked door years we're going to use their days in a warm his day when their realtor finally opened the door what they found shocked everyone a bedroom that someone else had been living it you know what they used to be kidding me. well the unwelcome guest wasn't from the spirit world turns out he was just another student at the university looking for cheap rent he got a key to the house from his cousin who lived there the year before and with a bathroom and sink in the basement get access to everything he needed the secret

resident was of course less frightening than a poltergeist but needless to say the students were pretty freaked out that it took a month to find out about the stranger in the basement and they are now considering a lawsuit against the leasing company. with many americans drinking sugary drinks it's been one of the leading causes of obesity here in the u.s. so you'd think account campaign that simply suggest that we drink more water instead would be well received but that may not be the case in certain media circles for more on that the residents lori harf an asst. first lady michelle obama recently announced her drink initiative which is an

incredibly simple idea it's a campaign to encourage people to drink more water that's it when it was announced the media pounds done it they immediately pointed to the fact that companies that make both bottled water and sugary drinks including coke and pepsi support the program they say there's also junk on the point about how bad for the environment bottled water is and not only is it bottled water in the french to the planet it is also expensive and therefore the drink up campaign excludes the poor. the meat was also quick to say that the campaign promotes that ad science politico quoted dr goldfarb a kidney specialist as saying there really isn't data to support that and the huffington post quoted michael jacobson executive director of the center for science in the public interest as saying there's not exactly a hydration crisis in this country that needs solving. what is wrong with you media

people let's drink up campaign does one thing tell people to drink more water not bottled water there are lots of pictures of people drinking water out of plain old glasses out of reusable branded water bottled on the campaign web site just drink more water that's it and you found a million reasons to complain about it. drinking sugary drinks is. a problem one of the same guys quoted in support of bashing the program also says quote soda and other sugary drinks are one of the biggest promoters of obesity and diabetes so what is so terrible about the first lady's face a drink more water she's not trying to unconstitutionally ban large sodas like michael bloomberg did she's issuing a positive plain statement that it's easy enough for every single human to

understand. it is always important to question more rationally when it comes to stop our politicians do because normally there initiatives are nothing more than lies wrapped in slogan however after questioning more sometimes it's ok to reach the conclusion that maybe this thing isn't some awful conspiracy the bottom line and when you approach everything with a foregone conclusion and see only what you want to see you were being just as bad as the rest of the unquestioning sheeple tonight but talk about that like me on twitter at the resident. while that does it for now for more on the stories we covered today go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website at r t dot com slash usa you can

follow me on twitter adam you're a david and don't forget to tune in at nine pm for larry king now tonight's guest is famous comedian adam carolla have a good night. technology innovation all the developments around. the future covered. put it on your. face. a pleasure to have you with us here on r t today.