coming up on r t the collateral damage of u.s. drone strikes in pakistan in yemen a new report shine some light on the human costs of these u.s. killing machines details on the report ahead in two thousand and eleven the u.s. combat troops all left iraq after eight years of war but now the country is dealing with a wave of deadly violence boy look at what's fueling these attacks coming up and smoke them if you're gonna only ease cigarettes are gaining popularity but who is behind these new slopes and are they better for you than regular cigs find out later in tonight's show. it's tuesday october twenty second eight pm in washington d.c.

and i'm a good 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 a turbulent relations between the countries 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 looks into the numbers we have presented evidence today. of potentially unlawful killings and in light of this evidence 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 teen 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

described to us i'm a cob seen of body parts and blood and blood panic and terror as u.s. drones continued to to hold 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 and the situation more broadly the second report done by human rights watch focuses on drone strikes in yemen and just having 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. show 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 that their reports are not aimed at condemning the drone program. so but instead condemning on lawful killings and a lack of transparency coming from the white house they called for full disclosure

of the facts behind each drone killing and the legal justification for their call for congress to reassert an oversight role they called for the families of those indiscriminately killed by drones to be compensated and they called for an independent investigations and fair trials against those responsible for unlawful drone killings which could include the president himself. in washington sam sachs. and pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif spoke in washington d.c. today before he meets with president obama tomorrow this is one man to say about drone strikes in his country the use of green just not only that done to you by lucian but what did it do to the dignity. men to do what is order and if which even if you can get risen from our country and are in shock as an advocacy advisor at amnesty international usa and she joined me earlier to discuss the findings of the report and the implications of these drone strikes in yemen and

pakistan we discussed president obama's disapproval of assertions that the u.s. violated international law with the drone strikes and i asked her what she thinks about all of this. well the main problem with the obama administration's responses to all the criticism of the drone campaign is that it's provided assurances of legality without providing any proof we're asking that the obama administration investigate these cases and explain why they occurred why sixty eight year old grandmother was killed why a fourteen year old boy was killed and in particular your amnesty international report focuses on two cases that you say was a violation of international law can you quickly walk us through them and what specifically makes them that violation sixty eight year old grandmother mommy to be went out together vegetables in her family fields that were largely vacant she was killed by a drone strike right before the eyes of some of her grandchildren and the state or national looked into this case we were very careful about our documentation and we

couldn't find any evidence that there were militants nearby of course we didn't find evidence that grandmother meaning we posed an imminent threat herself alternately the u.s. government has a responsibility here it should if it has any answers provide those to the american public and the international community and in some of the cases that you guys have gone through and really looked at and you have brought up war crimes now can you go into a little bit more detail about the war crimes and what makes something a war crime in this case a war crime would be a deliberate killing of a civilian or other categories of individuals so in some of the cases that we're looking at the u.s. conducts a strike and then rescuers russian trying to recover the wounded the dead bodies there bringing stretchers there trying to render medical aid when the u.s. government targets in a second time in what we call follow up or rescue or strike ten minutes after the initial strike it can result in the killing of civilians if the u.s. government did that deliberately knowing that those who are rushing in were civilians with protection under international law and who were not participating in

hostilities that they would be conducting war crimes or if we were outside of a war zone it would be an extra judicial execution so let's talk about the timing of this. obviously it happened and couple that with the human rights watch the reports that came out about them and also one day before pakistani prime minister nawaz sharif came into town why did you guys decide to release this report on this specific day well this is the time when it's necessary to press the obama administration you know we've seen a lot of other important stories come out over the summer including about the n.s.a. surveillance scandal there's so much secrecy going on with the obama administration's counterterrorism policies with the u.n. pressing this we thought it was high time for us also to bring forth the new evidence that we have of potentially unlawful deaths do you think that there's any kind of potential repercussions that we're seeing in this potential warm up between pakistan and the u.s.

in light of these two reports you know one thing to note is that the pakistani government itself has obligations for some of the human rights violations that are occurring we not only documented u.s. drone strikes we've documented a cruel nature of the abuses that are occurring by militant groups that are operating in the region and also of pakistani military forces that are conducting attacks sometimes indiscriminately so we're talking about a population in north waziristan that is not only facing u.s. drone strikes but also facing the threats of violence elsewhere and the u.s. government and the pakistani government both have obligations to recognize that harm dignify what's happening to these people so we can go on for a little into a little bit more detail for us about how you went about how your organization went about collecting these stories collecting these reports and some of the possible troubles that you have along the way this is a highly politicized issue and there's a lot of speculation and a lot of propaganda out there about it we tried to document specific cases in the part of north waziristan where our researchers could actually get access and

although there was a lot of danger there we were able to send in separate teams to. we've corroborated the i would miss accounts that we received with satellite imagery with video we got as much documentation as we could and this is one of the most deeply documented reports on drone strikes there is out there all the same we don't have all the answers and one of the reasons is because of the u.s. government's policy of secrecy it has to come forward and say what happened in these cases and answer the claims that we have made and our report now we've heard a number of accusations of war crimes by u.s. presidents before. unlikely to actually go for hours and prosecute people for such war crimes in recent history anyway what is your group hoping will come from these reports were hoping that president obama will go further half a year ago he made pledges of transparency on drone strikes we didn't see any follow through we're asking him to do now is to immediately commit to investigating the cases that we amnesty international and human rights watch have documented in

our report i thank you so much for joining me and for bringing some shedding some more light on these reports obviously it's a lot to go through and we're going to have to keep following up with your group and your organization in the days to come in in case anything else comes out as an advocacy adviser and to see international usa. 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 however the country is still plagued by violence on a near daily basis with suicide and car bombings the video you are looking at is the aftermath of one such attack that happened in baghdad on thursday where sixty one people were killed 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 in these attacks have made many public spaces potentially deadly the iraq body count monitoring group says that more than seven thousand people have been killed by militant attacks in iraq this year alone however these are stories that you aren't likely to read about or to see on day to day news coverage here in the once why is that is it perhaps because now the american troops are out of harm's way anyway we are ready to just wash our hands of this iraq war quagmire to discuss the latest on sana violence plaguing the country i was joined earlier by saeed are a cot correspondent and political analyst of all crudes and i answer to him if this reports of these violence represents what has happening in the country today. indeed i mean i get calls from my former colleagues all the time i was a 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 new two thousand and six and two thousand and seven so it is very bad and there are a number of reasons left to why it is bad you know it 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 was loyalties to the tribe or to the sector to the ethnic background and so on nonprofessional and lately of course in the last couple of years is really the opposite of violence in syria because there is a tremendous deal of connection between syria and iraq especially with islamic state of iraq and blood shop which is iraq and syria so is there other than syria or is syria the main cause for this uptick in violence that we are saying in the country right now well i think it's both you know syria definitely played a catalyst you know 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 worked through a lot of force and so on and stamp out this violence or that terror as they called it they were able to bring some sort of common to the and to 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 had no ability to strike from from the sky above against formations of terrorists or tried the types and 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 you know go across the silastic borders with syria and iraq and saudi arabia many more for instance pro forma 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

situation now let me ask you what about the iraqi army how are they doing are they equipped to handle this type of situation well the iraqi army is basically 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 really taken its toll on having a professional army so it is better fact that 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 two people were killed and 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 are 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 really for war fatigue has been tired of wars they do not want to be involved in this war they want to put 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 by and large suffers from a situation as a result of the u.s. invasion and i cannot let you go save us now asking you is there a way to move the country forward again obviously barring another war barring more troops going back and well i think the real genuine. for the us going to say takes on such an initiative and can find resonance among. the different political parties that there is there. but you need to push for it absolutely state our correspondent

and political analyst for all cruise thank you so much for your opinions and for weighing in thank you while a follow up now and on the story that we brought you yesterday here on r.t. 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 rivkin to discuss revelations by lame ones newspaper that the n.s.a. collected data on some seventy point three million phone calls of 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 gathers intelligence on its allies spoke exclusively with

former french prime minister dominique de villepin about these latest revelations he says the overarching issue is all of these revelations lack transparency. subordinate to immediate action so it's not something that can be treated just few people much each other it's not some secret conversational 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 it is that 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 a german newspaper der beagle revealed a massive surveillance operation by the u.s. of mexico over recent years pena nieto himself fell victim to spying as the n.s.a. tried to figure out and the candidates

a plan for dealing with the country's drug war this week his administration sent out a diplomatic note demanding an investigation into n.s.a. surveillance so france and mexico now joined germany brazil the e.u. and a host of other nations demanding transparency accountability and action. well it was once a day of action that transformed into an annual tradition today is the national day of protest to stop police brutality repression and the criminalization of a generation it's the eighteenth year anniversary of this event that started all the way back in one thousand nine hundred six the october twenty second coalition held a rally in new york this evening to raise awareness of the issue artie's honest i'll see a truck when i was there and brings us more. in new york and dozens of other cities across the u.s. the national day of protest to stop police brutality repression and the criminalization of a generation this is a time which went back and marks the eighteenth time these people gather for this

simple message it's not a joke to be how they treat us they shoot us like animals and that's completely unwarranted it's literally on warranted when something breaks through like trayvon martin. sean bell it gets treated in the media like this is a isolated incident something that rarely happens and then more often it's not reported at all organizers have been documented cases of what they call the stole lives project they say just over the last two decades thousands of killings have taken place by the hand of police officers they say the majority of these cases have been under reported or brushed aside hundreds every year were killed by the police that the majority of them were unarmed and not involved in any criminal activity when they were killed and also the majority of them were young and either black or latino the mass media is a very good propaganda saw

a lot of people are under the impression that people are being stopped and frisked being gunned somehow criminals one of the major concerns for these protesters seems to be the lack of accountability when it comes to gun violence police brutality and even killings that occur under the hands of law enforcement they see the justice system continues to neglect these cases of violence thus not doing anything to improve the system and bring about real change you have to go through hell and high water just to get a conviction of the officer and what he's convicted for doesn't meet the crime that he's accused any winds up if not being found guilty even if he's convicted he gets out on good behavior after serving minimal time activists and families of victims called police brutality in the u.s. . b.c. considering the united states lectures the rest of the world on human rights it's time that it begin to follow its own example by not just words but deeds. r.t.t.y.

you know new york now you may have heard of electronic cigarettes they're certainly becoming more popular and trendy among smokers anyway manufacturers say that they are 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 the us this report. it's the latest trend 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 a cigarette and can even look like one many of its users say it's the furthest thing from smoking but we call it paper was like water vapor. back when all you have it all taria very long 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 isa carets help to quit smoking and one of the products key demographics never smoked 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 all over the. or than anything better than e. 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 restricted from doing in over forty years advertise on t.v. introducing. the first electronic cigarette with the little sealed sleeve for the real that's why i'm in love with louise six now that i've switched 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 point is you can smoke virtually any. we're all adults the. 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 erica sward of the american lung association warns that this kind of marketing is dangerous they're 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 to. cigarettes have to be able to glamorize their existing products however representatives of b.z. 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 the 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 david. ok so what's the craziest thing you would do if you were mad at someone would you leave a nasty note or send a nasty text or even throw a fist well into next resident laurie harshness takes a look at some recent stories coming out around the country that makes her ask america are you mad.

america you mad because it seems like you've been losing your cool a lot lately in a lot of not cool waves recently what if you got so bad to see a b.m.w. parked in a handicap spot that you brought in angry note and left it in the beamers door handle the note said i would love to see your wheelchair and his email twenty five to thirty five year old professional what they said got the world by the path but i could be wrong. guess what every man in michigan you were wrong on the b.m.w. is owned by matt mills dead at thirty six year old codger collegiate he parked it in the handicap spot before going to play a game of wheelchair rugby his handicapped parking pass was hanging in the car as

window now of course it's really maddening when people park in handicap spots when they aren't handicapped but to leave an angry note in a car that actually has a parking pass seems a little excessive another recent example of you losing your cool america is a brawl you just had at a jets gave you were all punching each other at the stadium during the melee a man in a jets jersey because apparently he is a professional football player was caught on video actually punching a woman in the face i understand you have to defend your team's honor but punching a woman even a mouthy patriot parent seems a little extra hot headed if those aren't good enough examples to support the fact that you mad america then how about the recent shooting in a nursing home a sixty five year old. being at an elderly living center in detroit had an eight k. forty seven in his room and after a fight with his girlfriend he went on a shooting rampage and killed two women at the center shooting up and elderly

living center definitely need you have lost your cool face it america you bad and you know who you are taking it out on the handicapped women and the elderly night. maybe it's time we took a look at why we're really angry in the first place it could be we're all not mad at those weaker than us but we're fed up with being slowly drained of our freedoms rights and livelihoods by our greedy politicians and corporations so instead of losing your cool with the wrong people maybe it's time to direct our red hot anger at the people who really deserve it tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the residence.

all right that does it for now i'm maggie lopez have a wonderful night. more news today violence is once again put up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. showing corporations rule the day.