coming up on r t the collateral damage of u.s. drone strikes in pakistan and yemen and you report shine some light on the human costs of these u.s. killing machines details on the reports ahead and in two thousand and eleven u.s. combat troops left iraq after an eight year war but now the country is dealing with a wave of deadly violence block out what's funneling these wars up ahead and smoke them if you've got a mes cigarettes are gaining in popularity what is behind these new smokes and are they better for you than regular cigs find out later in today's show.

it's tuesday october twenty second four pm in washington d.c. and meghan lopez and you are watching r.t. well tomorrow president barack obama will meet with pakistan's prime minister nawaz sharif in an attempt to smooth over turbulent relations between the country's and turbulent is an understatement topping the list of issues to be addressed drone strikes according to the bureau of investigative journalism some three hundred seventy six drone strikes have been carried out in pakistan since two thousand and four resulting in somewhere between twenty five hundred and thirty six hundred deaths as if that statistic wasn't a big enough hurdle to overcome in these talks to human rights groups today released reports accusing the u.s. of war crimes as well as a gross violation of international law political commentator sam sachs takes a look at these numbers we have presented evidence today. potentially

unlawful killings and in light of the seventy's we are calling on president obama to immediately commit to ensuring investigations all of these cases and of all other potentially unlawful killings today two human rights organizations presented reports documenting multiple unlawful u.s. drone killings in pakistan and yemen and just international conducted on the ground research into non drone strikes occurring in the north waziristan region of pakistan between january two thousand and twelve and august twenty third team what they found was very little legal justification for these killings lead researcher mustafa qadri describes one of them on the sixth of july two thousand and twelve eighteen mile a bird is including at least one young boy a fourteen year old khan were killed by a u.s. drone in the first strike eight men were instantly killed while they were having they didn't go off for a long difficult day in the field as people came to assist them those who to see if

there were any injured any survive as they too were also attacked. witnesses describe to us i'm a cob seen of body parts and blood and blood panic and terror as u.s. drones continued to to haul the overhead now this report comes just as the prime minister of pakistan arrives in washington d.c. to meet with president obama and the timing of the release of these reports was not a coincidence and while we sit here in washington d.c. with the prime minister of pakistan meeting the president of the united states staying in a hotel very close to this building let's not forget the people on the ground who are affected by drones in the situation more broadly the second report done by human rights watch focuses on drone strikes in yemen and just to giving six specific strikes that the u.s. government refuses to admit even took place and according to their research some of these strikes were clear violations of international law two of the six cases that

we examined in in my report. showed that the u.s. indiscriminately killed civilians this is a clear violation of international law even if it was not the u.s. intent if it indiscriminately killed it should be held responsible yemen saw a flurry of drone strikes in august which seemed to run counter to new drone policy guidelines announced by president obama in may it's unknown whether drone guidelines should publicly correspond with actual guidelines that are still shrouded in secrecy the complete policy is classified we don't actually know what the policy is we have to keep in mind that during the heightened security threat in august when u.s. embassies were closed around the world one anonymous u.s. official did say that the policy was essentially being disregarded that time it's only recently that the white house has even begun to publicly acknowledge the existence of its drone program and both human rights watch and amnesty international were clear to state their reports are not aimed at condemning the

drone program itself but instead condemning on lawful killings and the lack of transparency coming from the white house they called for full disclosure of the facts behind each drone. filling in the legal justification for their call for congress to reassert an oversight role they call for the families of those indiscriminately killed by drones to be compensated and they call for an independent investigations and fair trials against those responsible for unlawful drone killings which could include the president himself in washington sam sachs r t and pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif spoke in washington d.c. today before he meets with president obama this is what he had to say about drone strikes in his country the use of green just not only going to you lucian what did he do to the dignity but also to get two men to do what is order and if which even if you can get risen from our country joining me now to discuss the findings of the

reports say on the implications of these drone strikes in yemen as well as pakistan is robert naiman he's a policy director at just foreign policy robert thank you so much for joining me can you go into a little bit more detail about some of the revelations from these two reports was anything new was anything a bombshell revelation. well. you know. human rights groups. that you know are known by everybody in washington you're watching international human rights watch which are cited by u.s. officials. all the time u.s. the members of congress when talking about crimes of a crucial enemy so you know you know and i think one thought about iran or syria or some other country that they're putting a target on they would leap to approach human rights watch and amnesty international no question of these are going to sources these are these

internationally recognized. us rick no human rights groups are accusing the committing war crimes with the strong through and documenting specific incidents that are recognized internationally to be more so for example in in the in the summary that we just gave talking about so-called secondary search where a targeted hit. so millions gather more on own people gather in on own people are assumed to be civilians unless otherwise others gather you help the wounded and then there's a second strike that is a war crime that is a war crime regardless of what else is true. you know if it happened in afghanistan you would be a war crime so girl most of claims about. you know the. two thousand and one authorization for use of military force doesn't apply to back at

the that's all irrelevant if you document that the cia conducting secondary strikes and there is no there is a meta mool you know washington you know national law doesn't apply to the cia in there something is done by the cia in a covert operation then ordinary rules don't apply of course no longer let me tell you right there because they knew why and brought up a very interesting point with the idea of war crimes realistically do you think anyone will actually be held accountable for these things that have happened and yemen and pakistan and other countries. well there's a lot of ways to hold somebody accountable i do not believe is likely that u.s. officials will go to the hague after all we saw during in all of the war crimes that were committed in iraq in afghanistan no u.s.

official were ever held to account the man who is going to bed i. wouldn't bet that but there's other ways or somebody accountable the first thing he thought the crime . the that's something that we could do we could do or you know i need government to answer on the record you know does conduct secondary strike. will be united they promise not. and then will they be held about accountable to that congress is he who are ten year congress and a country conduct you know affected oversight of the bar we've seen a few episodes where members of congress for example where john brennan was nominated had cia senator ron wyden other senators senator ron paul use that opportunity for some scrutiny of the drone strikes and at the same time you have president obama in his state of the union stagehand in

a speech saying that he will provide that type of transparency that you and also the human rights advocate groups are hoping for however let me play devil's advocate here a recent economists article shed light on a surprising discovery sophia khan she's a school administrator from islamabad found that many chinese men from tribal regions actually support drone strikes also one star of a in two thousand and nine found that fifty two percent of if people actually say that drone strikes are accurate and sixty percent say that these drone strikes actually weaken militant groups so what is your reaction to that i mean obviously not everyone is against drone strikes is there a way to you drone strikes in a way that is politically or otherwise correct. well so it's really crucial these things are necessarily contradictory it's really crucial that the key issue here. this policy is operating outside of scrutiny and there's

a gap between the official story the policy and what independent groups journalists human rights groups are document being taken place if you look at the tally of the bureau of investigation of journalism since two thousand and two or something like twenty percent of those killed by cia drone strikes in pakistan have been silly and that's a conservative count there's a that's like naming people this person was killed and we documented that person was a civilian so if this is true then drone strikes are not the magic super precise weapon that never kill civilians the u.s. official that doesn't mean that. sometimes people are killed the people killed are top level terrorists and that is a very good i'm going to make we're going to have to see how this meeting that's happening tomorrow between president obama and prime minister sharon is actually

playing out thank you so much for weighing in robert naiman policy director i just foreign policy. meanwhile we are fast approaching the two year anniversary of the withdrawal of u.s. troops from iraq the u.s. was said to have left a more stable and secure iraq with a government that represents the people and a military force capable of handling security threats who are the country is still plagued by violence on a near daily basis with suicide and car bombings the video that you're looking at is the aftermath of one such attack and happened on in baghdad on thursday at least sixty one people were killed while celebrating the religious holiday of eat all off ha or the feast of sacrifice and it is hardly an isolated incident take a look at this these are just a few of the headlines from the past two weeks of attacks that have happened in the country policemen and government officials have been targeted children and women have been killed and these attacks have made money many public spaces potentially

deadly their rock bodycount monitoring group says that more than seven thousand people have been killed by militant attacks in iraq this year alone however these stories are not likely to be read in u.s. newspapers they're likely not in our coverage why is that is it perhaps now that american troops are out of harm's way and that we are ready to wash our hands of the iraq quagmire so discuss the latest onslaught of violence plaguing the country i'm joined now by sarah reid saeed arcot political correspondent and political analyst for all crews say it thank you so much for joining me whatever the current situation in iraq these days obviously we are seeing these headlines that look terrible is this a good example of what's going on in the country indeed i get calls from my former colleagues all the time i was the united nations spokesman in iraq for five years between two thousand and five and two thousand and ten and i tell you the situation in iraq today is as bad as it was at the height of the civil war two thousand and

six and two thousand and seven so it is very bad and there are numbered. reason why it is that it's in terms of the inability of the americans to really train and effective iraqi force the fact that it was hastily founded on sectarian bases and so on with loyalties to the tribe or to the sector i think background and so on nonprofessional and lately of course in the last couple of years is really the upsurge of violence in syria because there is tremendous deal of connection between syria and iraq especially with the slamming. state of iraq and led sham which is iraq and syria so is there other than syria or a serial that may cause for this uptick in violence that we are seeing in the country right now well i think it's both you know syria definitely played a catalyst you have to remember that during the surge of two thousand and seven two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine when the u.s. went and you know were through

a lot of force and so on and stamped out this violence or that terror as they called it they were able to bring some sort of calm into the into the country but in the aftermath of the departure of u.s. forces and basically the absence of any air assets in iraq iraq has no. combat helicopters it has no ability to strike from from the sky above against formations of terrorists or kind that i've heard so on so they were able to reconstitute themselves they're able to be funded now there's a great deal of financing going on and the same basically the same tribes that you know go across these elastic borders with syria and iraq and saudi arabia many shomer for instance form for a great deal of the base for these terrorists and they are quite frankly aided by the gulf cooperation council countries so we have seen the uptick in violence in syria we have seen the. flow of money and arms and so on and all this aided this violent situation now let me ask you what about the iraqi army how are they doing

are they are quick to handle this type of situation well as a iraqi army is. basically it was destroyed or was you know dissolved back in two thousand and three that was a decision taken by the bush administration at the time and ever since then they have been reconstituted they have been trying to reconstitute the army but so far you know the sectarian aspect of the loyalties and the structure of the army has really taken its toll on having a professional army so it is not that effective now while we are seeing these civilian casualties that are happening as i said on a near daily basis most media outlets are not reporting about this instead they're reporting about the sparks middle school shooting which people were killed there reporting about the las vegas casino shooting which three people were killed and just to be clear i am not at all belittling those tragedies there tragic they are horrible but why are we seeing even thirty seconds of coverage of these daily

blasts these daily occurrences because basically the american public is ready for war fatigue has been tired of wars that is nothing to be involved in this war they want but the iraq war behind it was a miserable experiment as far as they're concerned they feel that they are out of that quagmire and they don't want to get back into it again that is really the responsibility of organizations including media organizations to refocus the spot market on what's going on in iraq after all it would be a country. by buying a large difference from a situation as a result of the u.s. invasion and i cannot let you go say it was now asking you is there a way to move the country forward again obviously boring another war barring more troops going back and well i think the real genuine reconciliation effort that the u.s. clearly say takes on such an initiative and can find resonance among. the different political parties that think that there is there is their intent to reconcile but

you need to push for it absolutely say at our correspondent and political analyst for all close thank you so much for your opinions and for weighing in. well a follow up now to a story we brought you yesterday here on our t.v. as the list of n.s.a. surveillance targets expands from foreign targets to american civilians to various world leaders so too does the number of people demanding accountability from the obama administration add on to that list this week france and mexico on monday the french government summoned the u.s. ambassador to paris charles rifkin to discuss revelations by lamond newspaper that the n.s.a. collected data on some seventy point three million phone calls a french citizens over a one month period today in a telephone conversation president obama assured his french counterpart president francois hollande that the u.s. is reviewing the way it down there is intelligence on its allies archie spoke exclusively with former french prime minister dominique very opinion about these

latest revelations he says the overarching issue and all of these resolute revelations is the lack of transparency. important to her immediate action so it's not something that can be treated just through the promote each other it's not some secret conversation a secret agreement that can be found between the french government and government barack obama i think it's important to have a very public explanation we need to understand what happened and we need to know what is the the new system that's going to be developed in the interest of the world community. meanwhile mexican president enrique pena nieto is still reeling after german newspaper door spiegel revealed a ras of surveillance operation by the u.s. of mexico over recent years civilians were targeted two presidents were targeted and kenyan yet to himself fell victim to spine as the n.s.a.

trying to figure out the then candidate pena nieto his plans for dealing with the country's drug war pena nieto administration sent out a diplomatic note demanding an investigation and a statement sent to r.t. the embassy of mexico wrote in a relationship between neighbors and partners there is no place for the practices which are alleged to have taken place the dialogue which are corresponding institutions sustain is crucial in order to maintain a relationship of trust and respect france and mexico now joint germany brazil the e.u. and a host of other nations demanding transparency accountability and action. well to california now where a three judge panel has granted the state a one month extension for prisons to cut down there in a population by more than nine thousand the new deadline is now scheduled for february twenty fourth from the previous january twenty seventh goal this extension gives the court appointed mediator additional time to come up with

a plan to reduce inmate populations with the help of the state as well as attorney for the inmates who are the postponement is far lower than the three year delay governor jerry brown and state lawmakers previously requested in order to give the new rehabilitation programs time to kick in because of the overcrowding in the state run prisons attorneys for inmates say the conditions were deplorable and borderline inhumane one attorney don spector claims that there are about fifty percent more prisoners being held then the institutions were designed to hold and that some are operating at one hundred. seventy percent over capacity another issue is the number of people not receiving the help that they need in order to rehabilitate particularly those with mental in balances and the poor prison conditions are certainly not helping out last week r k spoke with a lawyer for the inmates who describe it this way so something like twenty five to

thirty percent of state prisoners in california are people with severe mental illness and those people were in a hurry sick conditions they would be very symptomatic to compensate commit suicide be in cells where they're basically losing touch with reality smearing themselves with their own waste and there just wasn't enough capacity to care for the. right now california's inmate population is over ninety one hundred nineteen thousand the new rules force the state to release one thousand six hundred people by february twenty five thousand have already been released over the past two years now we only alternative to the proposed inmate population reduction is to shell out money and a lot of it to private prisons to howell's the extra in the case that move would give three hundred fifteen million dollars profit school year to private institutions to how's the inmates that the state run prisons don't have the real estate to keep the corner part of the court appointed mediator is expected to

deliver a progress report to the federal court in mid november. and you may have heard of electronic cigarettes well they're designed to look like cigarettes there they use vapor to deliver nicotine and sometimes flavors to users manufacturers of cigarettes say that they're a healthy alternative to smoking and can even help a person kick the habit but there are no long term studies to back up those claims are to correspondent david takes a look beyond the smoke and mirrors to bring us this report it's the leanness trying to take the tobacco world by storm the electronic cigarette when it came on the scene in two thousand and seven it was virtually unheard of but in just six years the device has turned into a billion dollar industry even though it's still called the. one many of its users say it's the furthest thing from smoking but we call it a very i just like a lot of labor. to back away at all if you haven't are eating along that's jonathan

elias owner of my one of the only full service bathing shops in northern virginia and he says it's the non-tobacco aspect that's really appealing to customers unlike traditional cigarettes that burn tobacco and paper ease cigarettes use a battery to heat a liquid containing nicotine which is stored in flavored cartridges and that substance is then converted into vapor it's a technological tool that allows for users to adjust their nicotine level which elia says is helping adults slowly wean themselves off of conventional smoking despite the anecdotal evidence the f.d.a. has yet to conduct a study proving that e.c. carets helped to quit smoking and one of the products key demographics never smokes regular cigarettes to begin with that puts into question the kind of health effects this has on adults and now children who are picking this up as a popular pastime the percentage of middle and high school students who use electronic cigarettes more than doubled between two thousand and eleven and two

thousand and twelve unlike other tobacco products the cigarettes can be sold the minors in many places throughout the country but perhaps what's most concerning for anti-tobacco advocates is that these devices can easily be purchased by anyone at any time right on the internet all you have to do is click a button that says you're eighteen and over and immediately you've got access to an array of east cigarette flavors like cherry cola caramel and bubble gum danny mcgoldrick of the campaign for tobacco free kids says he's concerned that minors will get hooked on the flavors and then on the nicotine cigarettes deliver nicotine better than anything better than the cigarettes and so we're very concerned that this could be just an entry into conventional cigarette smoking among kids but anti-tobacco advocates aren't just worried about flavors with virtually no regulation cigarette companies have been able to do something they've been risk. stripped it from doing in over forty years advertise on t.v. introducing. the first electronic cigarette to. leave the real

that's why i'm in love with louise six now the next switch to blue i feel better about myself and i feel free to have one almost anywhere when i'm driving at home watching t.v. when i'm in the clear the point is you can smoke blew virtually any. we're all adults here. time we take our freedom according to an august new york times report this industry advertising is booming with a spending increase of two point seven million in two thousand and ten to twenty point eight million in two thousand and twelve ericus ward of the american lung association warns that this kind of marketing is dangerous they are trying the some of the same old tactics that big tobacco did that have resulted in millions of americans dying from from tobacco use and they are working very hard at exploiting the loopholes associated to that that is cigarettes have to be able to glamorize their existing products however representatives of these east cigarette companies

reject the accusation that there are a looming kids enjoy which is one of the leading cigarette manufacturers even released a statement about the issue saying we do not market our products to children and indeed take affirmative steps to ensure that our products are not sold to minors by requiring retailers to agree to where the product is placed and request verification of appropriate age as it pertains to each state law but those words may not be enough to call the criticism of those who argue that you cigarettes need to be subject to proper oversight the f.d.a. says it plans to review the product by the end of october but how it will be regulated is still very much in question in college park maryland near david. bad does it for now look for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america and check out our website r.t. dot com slash usa and don't forget to follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez boom bust is next.

if germany's finance ministry as denying reports it is preparing a third bailout for great but of course not no there will be no third ballot for great bailouts or so last decade this is the age of the bell led by the john this is over the bandit's banks as a broker and all that you've got no dollar euro you are drunk will be left behind and inflation deflation the compass nation will take every last nickel and dime.

cross-talk rules and if it doesn't you can jump in anytime you want. we're not psyched to look back to camp long time where patients are forced back to months after a mouse or strike never turned world's attention to the place that summed up jobs

gulag of arts minds. hello there i marinate and this is boom bust here are some of the stories we're tracking for you today on the show. better late than never the newly rechristened belated labor statistics released jobs data today yes b.l.s. numbers for september are out now and it was a mixed bag which of course gives birth nappy the green lights of print with impunity until his term ends in january mike looney joins us later in the show to talk monetary shop and you won't want to miss his prediction for an inevitable dollar racist and can a hedge fund buy a city that's the question on the table management and magnetron capital snapped up a sizable portion of a dayton ohio suburb but is it really shorting the town's tax base has reported by boom.