coming up on r t in new york world leaders are gathering for the united nations general assembly how much of the conversation will focus on the crisis in syria and the chemical weapons attack there we'll take a look at that and more ahead. in kenya's capital of nairobi a terrorist attack on an upscale mall has left dozens dead so will the u.s. ramp up the fight against the group reportedly behind the attack al-shabaab more on the attack coming up. and for the u.s. private prison industry another man behind bars means more money in the bank many private prisons have low does to keep most or all prison beds filled up more in the industry that combines money and bars later in the show.

it's monday september twenty third four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching r t well world leaders are gathered in new york city this week for the sixty eighth annual united nations general assembly and this meeting could not have come at a more important time the war in syria and a potential u.s. strike will undoubtedly command the spotlight at the conference as well as the recent u.n. report detailing chemical weapons use in the country also we are on the lookout for a potential warming of relations between the u.s. and iran it has become a sort of tradition in recent years for the american delegation to walk out right in the middle of former iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad speeches but this year could be different iranian president hassan rouhani has taken numerous steps to demonstrate his commitment to diplomacy such as releasing it. handful of the

country's most notorious political prisoners and that is not the only issue that makes right now the opportune time to meet this is also the first time in years that actual results could come from the u.n. g.a. that's because many of the big players at the u.n. are fresh out of elections so they don't have to worry about politics now they can concentrate on the issues here tell us more about what to expect from this meeting our correspondent on a soft enough on a stasia what should we be looking out for in terms of big headlines and who should we be watching well may go up plenty of issues on the agenda this week definitely expecting it to be a very busy and hopefully productive week there are sessions we've been covering obviously for years the united nations general assembly meetings and some years there are less things to expect than others this is certainly not this time around as you have rightfully mentioned syria remains the top issue that is going to be most concentrated on and that's what we're going to wait to see the most important

developments on that topic also like you mentioned the possible thought between iran and the united states as the new iranian president steps onto the stage here in new york we're expecting almost two hundred different speeches being made thousands of bilateral meetings that certainly could bring any kind of headline out we know that certainly countries like brazil and venezuela are unhappy with the united states right now and those speeches might reflect certain things to common relationships between those countries and the u.s. and of course things like the developments of between israel and the palestinian people of course what is going to happen this is still a major topic all of these are expected to be addressed in the days to come here in new york on a saucy as you mentioned one of the burning issues right now is syria here's what a former ethiopian discipline that mohamed haasan had to say about the syrian conflict. it will be very important that it is members of the so good it's

a constant for us to to listen to the vaduz is which we do use was to present until now there is no evidence was presented for them do you know the distance and it is part of the notes and in fact what they are doing is dozens of toxic. and north to to do. the destruction of the weapon which you have accepted but also. to put the detail of the geneva two they know that even if they go to geneva two that the so-called it's a lose have been totally defeated and to have. a new project for the country the most glue is also in geneva two does as well as no doubt a minority in i don't know and kicking that under the bush so there we hear him mention geneva two on sunday the head of the national syrian coalition has said that the group is very who attend a proposed geneva conference to end the civil the civil war if it talks about a transitional government perhaps have you been hearing anything about this in the u.n. so far well let me give you know the geneva two are meeting would be

a natural laws next step after the united nations security council here in new york is able to put on the table a resolution for a vote so the geneva two conference is something that we are expecting to take place after first of all a resolution is put together something that the security council namely russia in the united states can agree upon and we do want to of course know that this is been you know whether or not to include the use of force any mention of it in the text has been a major point of contention between russia and the u.s. after syria has agreed to move its chemical weapons under international control but for now what's key and what's most certain to expect in the days to come is for one a meeting were expecting tomorrow between russian foreign minister sergei lavrov and john kerry most certainly that will be focused on syria and then possibly as we do know the united nations security. and so is working around the clock to be able to present a document up for a vote on syria so once these steps take place

a conference on the political transition actually facilitating any kind of progress in terms of ending the conflict hopefully doing that will be the next step. on associate in recent years many people have criticized the role of the u.n. in the world even bunky moon himself has gone on the record criticizing it with the serious standoff between the u.s. and russia but considering the fact that some of the most important players are not in an election year can we really expect to see some progress come out. megan hopefully yes because the question is yes you know it is it is fair to say that this is not really for example for barack obama this is certainly not election season as it was the case last year where he was kind of. stepping more carefully to try to not provoke anything and wanted in the election season but in this case to talk about whether or not leaders like him would be able to act it may be more. aggressively and more gravely in a sense is

a big question because when it comes to issues like syria we've certainly learned that threatening to use force or talking about military action was not something that was welcomed widely so whether or not that's the way to proceed and progress diplomatically that's a big if so it's really unlikely that that is something that's going to impact progress on the ground but the number of meetings and the number of opportunities that leaders will have to to sort these issues out is certainly something that could impact that war and we'll have to wait and see what also plays out in iran with the warming the potential mourning of relations between the u.s. and iran so lots to report about r.t. correspondent ana stasia churkin on the ground in new york i'm sure you'll be keeping us up to date with the latest. well in nairobi kenya heavy gunfire sent journalists sense of ilion scrambling for a third day in a row as government forces squared off with militants at a local mall gunfight started saturday afternoon at the westgate shopping mall where

a group of ten to fifteen militants interest on two entrances and they have firing on shoppers the kenyan red cross reports that at least sixty two people have been killed and one hundred and seventy five others have been injured including five americans also posted a list of nine people it says took part in this mall attack three of those people are american citizens it's a claim the f.b.i. is currently investigating the lawmakers are already alarmed about also influence in the united states. that's extremely deadly organisation very well trained and it's one of the only or kind of affiliates which actually has actively recruited here in the united states there's at least forty to fifty somalia murders are gone from the united states to somalia to be trained and move their money carol over there are still alive so i would assume that the f.b.i. and local law enforcement are looking into the somali american community really

leads or indicate as usual where sources and resources to make sure that there's no the follow up the turn to the united states here to talk more in-depth about also bob and the threats the group poses to u.s. interests dr ostroff by yomi an arab researcher thank you so much for joining me in studio thank you give us some more context into this group al-shabaab their history and how they are viewed throughout the region. world peace groups are all linked to terrorist organization al qaeda and as i stand for against terrorism it's very important not to be in one area again as to risk in another area supporting terrorism either that you or combating terrorism or not but this double standards in supporting terrorism and being a guinness to other areas is actually helping terrorists let me give you an example

in cheshire there was terrorism in afghanistan this terrorist you're in syria the history is in somalia the story you cannot be again is terrorism in somalia and practically practically all of it in a directly or indirectly by a proxy is supporting terrorism by proxy i mean saudi arabia qatar and so on that is hurting the issue after the other think so one principle is consistency either you're combating terrorism or not and let's not forget that. he in afghanistan was created by saudi arabia and supported by the united states of america i have a photo of mr bridgend ski with a young man with a black beard his name is ben and then we were inspecting weapons this is like frankenstein you can you create frankenstein you will be responsible for the action or fraction another issue it is really very important in the second principle in

relation to combating terrorism not mixing to resume with other and violent activities like for example if you are defending your country against foreign invasion invasion you cannot call it terrorism resistance but if you mix the two you are actually hurting the cause of combating terrorism which kills innocent people. more. ideology is mean not be here to or encouraged by the majority of the people in that given area so here you're talking about the united states so supporting some of the groups through the saudis and kuwaitis etc that might actually be hurting u.s. interests in the end now as i just heard peter king was talking about the influence that this group has enough to state he says that they are actively recruiting right here at home he also said that it might be worthwhile to look in survey once so should we here in the united states as

a result of this growing out of our influence be worried about more surveillance or more security measures or things like that you mentioned surveillance is the ironic that. is tapping the telephones of common citizens and so on and yet many things are not detected they didn't detect the. boss don't know where they are international so they didn't warn any in kenya about what happened few days ago that is something the wrong as a scientist i tell you when you have loads of information it becomes a headache to distinguish noise from signals and you are too busy call it is it is as if you discover technology and it pleases intelligence people and god that in all this information but what is a value of this information if you are not warning people or incidents locally here

like what happened in the navy yard what happened in boston and internationally what happened in somalia that is something wrong something structurally wrong and also something principle which i mentioned to you that you cannot support terrorism in one area and by the way what's the meaning of support support doesn't mean arms only you mentioned recruiting financing would. the money coming from the network of support the washington cause i believe times i forgot yesterday sunday has issued how small groups now in syria are getting money from individuals some individuals just came with the idea that you have to apply. and he funds a particular project to a particular group of people few billion dollars and so on and you go and attack a small village or kill a group of people this is going on and you know everybody will suffer everybody

will suffer the superpower will suffer and so on you are again one should adhere to this principle you are again as to whether it is in chechnya but i understand any word. on a point that all americans were undoubtedly a great hit against terrorism arab researcher dr ashraf iommi thank you so much for joining me. for decades the united states has been an important financial backer of egypt the u.s. sent billions in aid to the post ruler hosni mubarak during his reign and continued to support the country's through the interim government headed by mohamed morsi and it looks like despite the continual change in leadership and instability in the country the u.s. will honor its commitment to send five hundred million dollars in a egypt each year the u.s. sends one point five million billion dollars in aid to egypt one point three billion of which is spent on military assistance the rest is considered economic

assistance because such a large amount of money is spent on the military which backed the overthrow of morsi american lawmakers have been vocal about halting this money flow even president obama's top security aides have recommended suspending the money however with the end of the fiscal year fast approaching a new state department memo sent to congress outlines the administration's intentions to give the money to egypt after all the department says much of that cash will be used to compensate american companies for so-called wind up costs to help them end existence programs in the country though we will have to keep a close on where that money actually goes. well we've talked a lot here on r t about the prison pipeline as well as private prisons otherwise known as for profit prisons these private systems are supposed to be more cost efficient and safer than government run facilities but what happens when lower

crying needs these companies miss their bottom line the answer to that is that taxpayers foot the bill a new report by a group known as in the public interest describes the prison bed occupancy guarantees clause that is included in private prison contracts take a look at this of the chron tracks that the group reviewed it found that sixty five percent contained contracts meaning that the state guarantees that the. stay will be from anywhere from eighty percent to one hundred percent full at all times or else taxpayers will pay for every bad in the prison that is not filled now these prisons are a business after all so we should expect something like that but this does raise serious concerns about who the state chooses to lock up and where are the correspondent joins me from the incarceration capital of the country california with more hi there on mon so let's start off with how large the private prison

industry is in the u.s. and what its purpose is sure well according to congress nearly twenty percent of the inmates in federal lockup are in privately run facilities about thirty years ago that was less than two percent and when it comes to the top three private prison corporations c.c.a. the correction corporations of america the geo group c. they say that they have the capacity to hold nearly two hundred thousand inmates so and a lot of times these contracts which they negotiate with governments last three to five years and in some cases they've been it's been reported that they've even tried to negotiate contracts as low as twenty years with governments now can you give us a little bit more detail about these occupancy guarantees and how these guarantees have actually added extra cost to the taxpaying public. that's right well when these new good these contracts are negotiated between governments and these private prison companies the private prison companies require that the their these

facilities be nearly full capacity so that means as you mentioned entered into the introduction sometimes they can negotiate a capacity of eighty percent eighty percent to one hundred percent required so just to give you an example of how this works in the in the real world in colorado where there is this requirement to have a certain amount of prisoners in these private facilities sometimes a stay has to move in mates from state run prisons to these private facilities so the taxpayer is on the hook to pay for the private bed but also pain for the state facility which remains in use sometimes and but at the same time ramon it seems a little counterintuitive to have to pay for our state doing well for low crime rates so how are the states just to find these types of contracts. that's right in many of these states and really around the country it seems that the prison

population is starting to reduce is starting to reduce but these states are on the hook to fill a huge amount of beds now these contracts are justified because a lot of these states are cash strapped and are looking for a quick fix to reduce these deficits there's so these private companies offer that quick fix however in the long run many times these private companies are plagued with cost overruns and safety issues and then you have situations like here in california where the state prison department is is having to deal with overcrowding and one of the solutions to deal with that overcrowding has to has been to send inmates to private facilities now i know there are some cases where the state governments actually agreed to signing on this amendment to allow this guarantee after they signed the original contract does it all come down to money here i mean what's the reasoning behind that absolutely well some of the complaints about these

contracts are that they're behind closed doors again going back to the example of colorado where some critical lawmakers say that the governor c.c.a. and lobbyists did this deal behind closed doors arguing that this was going to be beneficial to local economies they didn't want to close down these private facilities claiming that it would've killed jobs at a time when the state is still recovering from recession and obviously ramon these private prisons aren't without problems are they. absolutely world just this year. a prison in idaho was held in contempt because he couldn't deal with its overcrowding staffing issues that prison has been called a gladiator training center biased by some of the prisoners we've also heard of cases allegations of abuse c.c.a. centers that are contracted through homeland security and there was

a terrible case of inmates escaping from a privately run arizona facility who eventually murdered a couple for the escape so these private facilities are not without controversy and kind of seems like one of those situations where they're damned if they do and damned if they don't they either have low crime and they have to pay a lot or they have high crime and they felt the beds are to correspondent ramon glinda reporting to us from l.a. thank you you bet well they call themselves the freedom fighters over the weekend dozens gathered in chantilly virginia to take part in the liberty political action conference where people like ron and rand paul justin amash and mark stanford gave their tarrance talking about what's wrong with the american political system today artie's perry and boring had a chance to catch up with a few of those headliners and she brings up on us a wrap up of those events. former congressman and defeated republican presidential nominee ron paul refuses to let his campaign die. last week he hosted

the liberty political action conference for el pac where he brought together the biggest names in the liberty movement they call themselves the freedom fighters and are working to end overzealous government and take over the white house his strategy begins with grassroots education you have to change people's minds before you can change the people in washington and that is what's happening right now now that's why we should be excited representative thomas massie a freshman at freedom fighter explains from the end side how members of congress become voting and zombie so to speak humans are are frail individuals frail beings and that's what you have in congress are four hundred thirty five frail human beings who have all the same emotions and feelings that you have and that they use all of those emotions to influence you and one of the ways that they will try and convince you to vote a certain way when you're up there if you've whipped lane snow or whipped undecided

they bring you into a classified briefing now you've been in with special knowledge and so it's ok if ninety nine percent of your constituents say to do one thing and you decide something else because now you have the special knowledge and that's how you start becoming a zombie when they start convention to do these things representative of just in a macho the man who almost succeeded in the funding the national security agency is upset with how secretive the government is about certain programs he says he has been lied to and classified briefings these intelligence committees are supposed to oversee the executive branch they're supposed to work for congress and they're supposed to work for you and frankly you have people on both sides of the aisle who are working together to prevent members of congress from having this information and it has to stop senator rand paul who is rumored to be their presidential nominee says you wouldn't believe. the measures the government has to spy on americans we now have drones that are the size of

a mosquito we have drones that can fly up and stick to your window and look inside your house are they saying they need no warrant for that my guess is they won't say that but we really need to figure this out but the freedom fighters have a strategy to stop the government secrets and serving lines the kind of things that they are trying to hide can't be hidden forever their biggest tool consists of leveraging education that with technology today we have an opportunity to take technology and use it and get around the government and get to the people and get the people to resist and object to what our governments have been doing and best to get of journalist then someone explains how it works you have alternative media who's putting the information out you have social media that ensures that so you have a distribution platform and you have content creators those two things together are not controlled by one entity and so you know it's kind of all over the place but that's a good thing it allows for information to pass a much more freely and a representative a marsh says it's

a fact and i've been using social media to get the word out about things i think it's had a huge impact not only are they using technology to overcome government secrecy senator rand paul believes that republicans would embrace these libertarian aspects they could win the white house too if we want to transformational event a transformational election where republicans become the dominant party we could become the right to privacy we could become the private party of privacy the party doesn't believe in big government surveillance they even have organizations that train candidates who support principles of civil liberties who is can she the chair of the pennsylvania republican liberty caucus has a strong message for stablish not republicans you can continue to ignore us at your peril you won't be around that much longer if you're going to continue to hold on to the old paradigm of politics things are changing and shifting the freedom fighters are positioning themselves to take over the republican party and are becoming more. popular among the public it's pretty exciting to see kind of that whole liberty movement exploding the way that it is and defeat those who just won't

listen some zombies are just too far gone you can't help them ron paul's a liberty movement is spreading like wildfire and since this fire has sparked there is no putting it out whether it's grassroots training educational programs or campaigning this movement is deep rooted and has unlimited possibilities and chantilly virginia perry and boring ok. all right well that's going to do it for now but before i go a special programming note for you over the past two months i have been conducting an in-depth investigation into the growing popularity of synthetic drugs we've spoken to families affected by the drugs legislators trying to ban it come a list chemist specialist the da and more here's a sneak peek at what my team and i have uncovered. moment when he locked into the house he looks fine half an hour later he jumps. in people who are calling nine one one saying see

a car going one hundred miles an hour ago needing to get out of traffic his car only ended and there. was a horrible ending to a beautiful life. you could hear but america you could have been to any. and the impacts of these drugs go beyond the human factor tune into our t. all this week to find out what synthetic marijuana is who's behind it why it is so hard to regulate and how terrorism ties into all of this it's unlike any media coverage you have ever seen on this issue so don't miss it but for now for a we're going to go for more the stories we cover go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america check out our web site r t dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez to find out what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news and sometimes when i am but i'll see you right back here at five pm thanks for watching.

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