coming up on r t in new york the u.n. general assembly continues diplomatic talks circle around the syria crisis and the possible improvement of u.s. iranian relations have the latest on today's events ahead and the u.s. military claims the guantanamo bay hunger strike is over but that's not the only news coming out of gitmo we'll tell you why the detention facility was seeking millions of dollars for upgrades coming up then a florida man was struck and killed by a police officer now the man's family is pressing for criminal charges against that officer but so far that hasn't happened more on this case later in the show.

it's wednesday september twenty fifth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sachs and you're watching r.t. and we begin with continuing coverage of the united nations general assembly in new york city speaking in front of the general assembly today where leaders of roughly two dozen countries but the real business at the u.n. headquarters is what's taking place in smaller meetings throughout the week one on ones one group meetings among diplomats to hash out some of the most pressing international crises to begin with an iranian nuclear deal may be back on the table president obama a newly elected iranian president hassan rouhani didn't end up meeting face to face secretary of state john kerry is scheduled to meet face to face with his iranian counterpart on thursday for further talks over iran's nuclear program elsewhere the u.n. security council is busy considering a reza. lucia on syria's chemical weapons also keeping john kerry busy this time

with russian foreign minister sergei lavrov who helped author of the deal so what might come of all this i was joined earlier by our tease on a star who filled us in on the latest happenings at the u.n. general assembly and i first asked her what can we expect tomorrow when john kerry meets with his iranian counterpart. what exactly changes i think we will see tomorrow when this meeting happens on thursday what we're talking about specifically is going to be a meeting of the five permanent members of the security council pro plus germany plus iran to discuss the situation and around. richmond program this will be the first time a u.s. secretary of state meets with the iranian foreign minister which is certainly seen as a big step forward as opposed to you know if obama and rouhani did meet that would have been the first president to tween leaders of these two countries in over thirty years so while definitely talks are going to happen tomorrow we'll see what

comes out of them but to just understand better what has really improved we have been hearing speeches from obama and the iranian president talking about basically being ready for more dialogue iran in particular the new president has said that iran is not interested in building up tensions between the u.s. and tehran it's certainly willing to get rid of and remove any concerns around its uranium enrichment program and has said that basically new nuclear weapons don't have a place in iran's political doctrine and we have seen from obama say that he is cast the door for diplomacy open for iran to step through so we'll see if that actually tomorrow we might see the first signs of that take place let's move on to syria here john kerry and russian foreign minister sergey lavrov held a bilateral meeting last night a resolution they've worked on is now being considered in the u.n. security council what hurdles are still in. with passage and what sort of timeframe

might we be looking at here well sam in terms of the hurdles certainly the major topic of disagreement remains the potential use of force as we know of course russia and the u.s. have worked out a deal that syria would proceed to hand over its chemical weapons under international control so now the security council is working on putting that in a document that they could vote on to ensure that actually happens we're still waiting for that to take place we knew do know the security council is working around the clock on this there have been some reports that some document might have been agreed upon however there's been no confirmation or official statements made by the actual diplomats working on those documents yesterday when love robin kerry met lavrov said that there was in fact a productive dialogue there on the same page to move forward meaning sticking with the agreements for a political transition that was agreed on in geneva earlier for all parties to agree on a political solution so far it's hard to say what the timeline on this issue is

going to be we are literally expecting developments any minute and any day let's move on to economics here in his speech yesterday president obama mentioned the financial crisis the world is emerging from now the european union has been sort of the epicenter of this financial shock since two thousand and eight we've seen austerity put in place with in some areas pretty disastrous results we've seen suicide rates spike was there anything the european union actually addressed the general simply today was there anything in the speech that addressed these ongoing economic hardships i guess to stem that is definitely the case surprisingly with all these hardships going on much of the speech made by the president was concentrated on syria but he did talk about the attempts to rebuild the economy certainly a lot of it was it were very generic statements he did say that we're putting our house back in order after the crisis it's obviously a slow process that is going to take time he did try to reach. sure i guess the

international community that a long term plan for jobs should make the situation better but obviously if we look at the real numbers on the ground and cut in countries economies that were hit the hardest like spain for example where over a quarter of the population is unemployed it certainly seems like a bigger words than actual results at this point but this was addressed and the president of the you did say that all but one out of twenty eight countries should see growth growth in the in the time to come i mean while the united states here is two and a half years into our own. economics as well this u.n.g.a. comes a few weeks after president obama has been trying to lobby support from the american people for military strikes in syria there's a new c.b.s. new york times poll out that shows that a plurality of americans now disapprove of president obama's foreign policy forty nine percent disapproving to just forty percent and those disapproval ratings have grown since july of this year what do you think's behind this growing

disenchantment and how might it hinder what president obama is trying to do at the u.n. this week. well sam you know what's behind the growing disenchantment i guess is the issues the foreign policy specific concerns that are now americans are unhappy with such as interesting we just pull goes for this specifically also into iran and syria where americans don't really have a lot of faith that these these issues will be improved under obama and i guess the explosion for that would be that both the difficult relationship with iran and the crisis with syria has had both been at a stall so people are questioning whether or not the approaches that are being taken right now are going to be able to help come come up with some solution and there are some also interesting numbers in that poll that only twenty two percent of americans expect any kind of improvement with iran and when it comes to syria of course we do know that when the military option was being weighed out huge majority of americans oppose this they continue to do this and largely because that many people are just afraid of a constant military option

a kind of state of mind and potential warfare that was archie's on assad from new york city with updates on the u.n. general assembly a movie on to the detention facility at guantanamo bay york times reports today that the pentagon has rejected a nearly two hundred million dollars renovation project for good mo that included nearly one hundred million dollars for new guard barracks twelve million dollars for a new mess hall and fifty million dollars to replace camp the seven which currently houses what are referred to as high value detainees pentagon decided lack of congressional support as the reason for denying the renovation of the facility a facility that is beginning to deteriorate after more than a decade of so-called temporary operation meanwhile according to the military the hunger strike that brought renewed attention of the facility over the last several months is now over or teasmade lopez has more on this new development. for over

seven months now we have been reporting on mass hunger strikes happening at the guantanamo bay detention facility on monday military officials announced that a core group of nineteen are left but before we declare the mass hunger strike more or less over let's take a quick look back at how the protests played out and what has changed since it started on february sixth the hunger strike reportedly began lawyers and humanitarian groups said the detainees initial reason for the strike was the constant and invasive searches that carrots conducted on the cells as well as the confiscation of several korans however it took weeks before prison officials formally acknowledged what was going on but even though their numbers of how many people were actually participating was significantly lower than the other reports over two months into the strike the spokesman for the high commissioner for the un human rights body wrote a letter to r.t. saying that they are looking into the details of the mass hunger strike and

throughout this time the more the public knew about the hunger strike the more protests and petitions actually took place across the country one time no detainees saw a new change of command on april twelfth when the obama administration appointed rear admiral richard butler as the new commander of the joint task force guantanamo on april twenty third the military realized how serious the strike was and it sent a forty additional medical personnel to guantanamo bay seven days later president obama formally acknowledged the hunger strikes in a speech and reaffirmed his commitment to permanently closing down the facility a little less than a month after that the president held his first major foreign policy speech in years at the national defense university we're going to get him to lay out his plans to transfer detainees out of gitmo he also announced that he would assign a senior envoy to lead that task it was the moment human rights advocates and

prisoners themselves have. waiting to hear for months during the hunger strikes and also during those forced feedings but that momentum stopped abruptly on june fourth when the house of representatives not only voted to keep the facility open but to block the use of taxpayer money to housed detainees transferred out of the prison but some members of congress wanted to see for themselves just how bad the conditions really were i get know president obama's chief of staff denis mcdonough along with senators feinstein and mccain traveled to cuba when they came back they announced that one hundred four people were still refusing to eat forty one of whom were being force fed now in order to bring attention to the cause and to show how inhumane force feeding can be one protester went on a sixty one day fast on september seventh he allowed himself to be force fed in front of the white house and then monday military officials announced that they will stop releasing daily hunger strike updates because the number of protesters

steadily dropped to a core group of nineteen defiant protesters now keep in mind that throughout all of this lawyers of the detainees complained that the military was trying to force the men to end their hunger strikes by denying them water or even visiting rights lawyer david remes described on r t how guards were subjecting detainees to invasive body searches before they met with their lawyers the guards actually found up the men's genitals and that is something that is strictly forbidden in islam so many men simply stopped going to their appointments those searches were temporarily halted but then they started once again also the military was slow to realize that the hunger strike was actually happening and that the numbers vary dramatically from the reports from lawyers and human rights groups they take a look at this this is the line that shows the official prison count for the hunger

strikers as as well. reported by the military the official start of the count on march fourteenth with nine and then slowly slowly very slowly moved up that line to over one hundred six participants meanwhile this is how human rights lawyers and humanitarians say the bhangra strike played out so obviously there is a huge difference when it comes to the hunger strike and when it started and also how many people were participating but eventually officials did acknowledge that one hundred six men were participating at one point in time and that's where we are today a lot is changed since the hunger strike began but whether it was truly a result of this mass hunger strike depends on who you ask in washington meghan lopez r.t. now on to capitol hill for those of you who are obsessed with watching c.-span and i know there must be dozens of you out there you may have been surprised when your

regularly scheduled capitol hill programming last night was interrupted by this somehow in marathon speech what was routinely mislabeled as a filibuster by texas senator ted cruz who spent the night trying to make his case against obamacare and get his republican colleagues to join him in defeating any spending measure in the senate that keeps the government funded while also keeping obamacare funded despite obamacare being senator cruz's main motivation alongside perhaps boosting his own profile the speech tended to meander into the absurd would you like them here or there i would not like them here or there i would not like them anywhere i do not like green eggs and ham i do not like them sam-i am what americans try to if they discovered they did not like. green eggs and ham and they did not like obamacare either one of my favorite children's stories actually from when i was a kid was the little engine that could on

a saturday or sunday morning when your dad's making pancakes it is very cool when he can like flip of a make a make of do a flip in the air and catching you know some time ago i tweeted a speech that ashton kutcher gave and i will confess that phrase a rebellion against oppression conjured up to me the rebel alliance fighting against the empire the empire being the washington d.c. establishment and indeed immediately on hearing that phrase i wondered if it's some point we were going to see a tall gentleman in a mechanical breathing apparatus come forward and say in a deep voice mike lee i am your father star wars speeches green eggs and ham you get the point now this all takes place as the government is scheduled to run out of funding on monday then hit its debt limit a few weeks later artie's period boring has the latest from the circus that is

capitol hill all eyes are turned to washington d.c. of congress within a pull up a lead to a debt debate this afternoon sen ted cruz completed have talked on it after spending over twenty one hours trying to delay the senate from proceeding with the house passed funding bell take a less than this fight is not about any member of this body this fight is not about personalities look most americans could not give a flying flip. about a bunch of what politicians in washington who cares you know almost all of us are in cheap shoots with bad haircuts who cares. well you might be asking yourself what were they talking about and what did he accomplish well his efforts were fruitless because at noon today the senate joined to forcing him to yield control of the floor so this was not technically a filibuster since he was not able to delay a vote but this was to bring awareness to the negative and pacs obamacare would

have on the economy which he was successful with as hash tag stand with cruz was trending on twitter through the night and into the afternoon today but why did senator cruz want to delay proceeding with the bill before word by his own party and basically he wanted to stop senate majority leader harry reid from having the opportunity to amend the house passed bill and remove the provision that defines obamacare this is how he voted. on friday or saturday of this week we will vote on cloture anyone who votes yes for cloture anyone who votes to cut off debate on this bill is voting to allow senate majority leader harry reid to fully fund obamacare the senate agreed to proceed with the government funding bill this afternoon so no matter what now leader reid is going to move forward as he already committed to strip the

obamacare the funding provision a vote on final passage will take place no later than sunday and it's expected to pass as clean bill will then go back to the house and it's anyone's guess if the house will pass the senate's amended bill the possibility of a shutdown as becoming more real the administration told us this would be dangerous and cause economic ruin but not everyone agrees as glenn jacobs a wrestler who's taken to politics told us. we will not have a complete economic collapse you know the first thing the government always talks about when there's fear of a government shutdown is that planes are going to start crashing in the world's going to come to an end and then there's going to be giant earthquakes and it's going to be a catastrophe of biblical proportions and nothing ever happens except people generally find out that maybe we don't need these politicians as much as they think that we doing. the house is also expected to bring up

a step or ability to encrease the government's borrowing limit treasury secretary jack lew sent a letter to congress today warning the treasury now estimates that were extraordinary measures will be exhausted no waiter then october seventeenth this brings the possibility of a debt default closer as well but government shutdown does occur essential services such as national security law enforcement an air traffic control will continue military benefits checks will still be mailed out as well as other means the postal service will still be in service in the case of the debt limit has not raised the united states would not to be able to meet all of its obligations this does not necessarily mean we would automatically default on the debt though you would think washington complete shambles but it's a lot of pomp and circumstance too in washington d.c. a parian boring r.t. and by the way the final vote in the senate to move forward with debate the vote that senator cruz was speaking out against was one hundred to zero

a yes vote from all of the senate including mr green eggs and ham himself senator ted cruz and we now go down to florida and the story of this man thirty eight year old marlon brown he was killed last may when a police officer in florida ran into brown with his car as you'll see in this desh him footage showing the incident. there it is brown was pulled over. you're not wearing a seatbelt he fled from the officers and that's when delay and police officer james harris bed onto the scene harris drove past the officers in pursuit and slammed his cruiser right in the brown who had slipped and fallen on the ground brown died from his injuries of sir harry this was fired but is that all that should happen the city of the land did pay a settlement of five hundred fifty thousand dollars to brown's ex-wife for his death and that settlement also protected the city from any further legal action but

the family of marlon brown wants the officer who killed him to face vehicular manslaughter charges earlier this month a grand jury looked at the evidence and decided not to charge that officer with any crime but according to an attorney representing the family marlon brown was executed in a vegetable garden i was joined earlier by matthew feeney assistant editor for reason dot com and reason twenty four seven news and i first asked matthew that assuming officer harris stopped his vehicle jumped out and fired three shots into marlon brown and killed him we need to be facing some sort of murder charges but the fact that he used his car to kill him in then he didn't receive any charges does that make any sense. i mean well i'm i'm obviously not a lawyer but it does seem very strange to me that particularly in light of the video that was released that he's not actually facing any criminal charges i'm totally bemused by the grand jury decision here not to actually have criminal charges perhaps it is very strange indeed and what is i think it's also worth

remembering is that the medical examiner mission initially said that brown wasn't killed by the impact of the car but as the photos you just showed reveals it's hard to see how he wasn't the medical examiner said he was expected from being trapped under the car and then we have the funeral home. very brown saying look at the bodies this is a massive trauma. that almost looks like and i don't want to i don't want to speculate but almost looks like they were trying to do a cover up here of what actually happened not knowing that a video might be released or something we all know and then the video was only released after the initial incident was reported and i think what is also sort of interesting is that the settlement given to the family. is in place but the office is still not facing criminal charges so the family are going to get money but the the officer involved is not in any trouble and like i said earlier if you look at the video it seems like there's you know ample space for the officer to stop his car and it's also worth remembering that there was you know this was

a chase that started because of a seatbelt violation this is hardly an armed robbery a drug chase or anything like that we hear about these sort of wrongful deaths at the hands of police fairly often last week we had jonathan ferrell in a florida a and m. university student years in a car auction he was trying to seek help and i guess he was waving his arms to wildly in the street and was shot and killed by police we just had five officers who were charged with civil rights violations in new orleans post katrina for shooting and killing unarmed people civilians on a bridge their conviction was recently overturned does this sort of culture of impunity police not really facing any consequences when they step over any boundaries fuel more police. brutality moving forward well i think you're absolutely right that police are getting away with sort of these outrageous way with murder well yeah and well you know i think not only fuels perhaps a culture of this perhaps in police forces but also in. so the very enforces

a culture in some parts of this country of people not trusting the police and you know there are entire communities across this country where police are not viewed as people who are in full safety or you know protecting the property i mean you know myself growing up i was always told if you're in trouble call the police or approach a police officer but that's not what a lot of people are told across this country but at the same time there seems to be a lot of difference given to the police i want to you know a resident told a local news outlet that the officer was just doing his job everyone knows that you don't run from the cops unless you did something wrong and have a reason to run you don't just run because you weren't wearing a seatbelt could there be a cultural problem here too i mean marlon brown was. you know he had been arrested several times before he had been convicted of some felonies before. is their problem where we just immediately assume this guy's a bad guy he doesn't deserve any rights or any chill and actually very reason in my former colleague who's now at the mike riggs mentioned that you know he had a suspended license and was on probation but that hardly seems. you have

a high speed chase which ensued it's this whole case is full of so many tragic elements especially because you know we have these stupid people well to begin with and why it's anyone's business if you know someone in i think it was you know in the very very early hours of the morning is driving around five seatbelt is is totally beyond me but it doesn't it shows the importance of having videotape evidence someplace with anybody as your citizens being able to but the record the case also i see even with videos people get a lot of stuff. about you feeding the system editor at reason dot com and reason twenty four seven news thanks. does everyone hopefully knows it's currently the year two thousand and thirteen there's already media buzz over the next presidential election that's still about three years away and it's not only mainstream t.v. news but also other forms of news media with incredibly early coverage of an election that's been so far away from now for more on that the residents laurie harkness.

it's twenty thirty president obama was elected to his second term less than a year ago and the media did a great job telling him to attack them but apparently they're done with him now if they're greasing us up to sell us candidates for the next presidential election in three years in twenty six t.v. it's practically around the corner right in their latest edition g.q. magazine is greasing the wheels with a profile of texas senator ted cruz it's titled ted cruz the distinguished wacko bird from texas the article is all about how wacky cruises featuring

a picture of him with some sort of i'm explaining to monkey it was on his shoulder it also includes this line already his fans are nudging him to think about a presidential run in twenty's sixteen and he's not doing great bad making trips to iowa new hampshire and south carolina the media is also trying to grease up for rand paul vogue just did a profile on him showing us the whitest safest pictures possible of him in khaki pants and a white button down sitting by a lake with a promising young lad by his side the headline they used to read that could republican senator rand paul when the white house. the media is also greasing the democratic wheel new york magazine really wants you to consider hillary clinton as a candidate in the cover article they ran on her it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that she will be one of your choices with lines like this

three. years before november eighth two thousand and sixteen she's working hard to be relaxed easy but all the while the old clinton gears are turning. yet the gears are worrying all right the media is already greasing up the two party political machine to line up all the candidates you need to think about america the election is three years away in those three years you could be looking to find an independent candidate you actually like someone who might actually institute the change obama promised and didn't deliver but the media can't have you thinking for yourself so they are going to do everything they can in the last three years to make sure you don't come up with any candidate of your own it's just like the old saying goes the bought and paid for two party system in america always gets the media agree. tonight let's talk about that by piling me on twitter at the read that

. does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com r.t. america or check out our website r t v dot com slash us and you can follow me on twitter sam sax and don't forget to tune in at nine pm per larry king now tonight's guest is a cow to me award winning director ron howard as he talks about his new film rush and much much more you don't want to miss it until then take it easy.

i would rather bass 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 more. spice k two scooby snacks the insulting thing is that they actually have the nerve to call if. you smoke and chemicals you're smoking something that is laced with your own even know what there are many many different than me. that ignorant parents now feel close for. there's no f.d.a. regulations on it's going to be must just be smoking light or have no idea what is in that.