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tv   Headline News  RT  June 12, 2014 8:00pm-8:30pm EDT

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now right here on our t.v. question. coming up on r t iraq remains in a state of crisis radical militants have captured one major city after another and they may have baghdad in their sights as the next target the latest on the crisis in iraq just ahead. and chicago is plagued with gang violence impoverished parts of the city have seen incredibly high rates of gang related murders and in-depth look at that coming up. and today the twenty fourteen world cup in brazil begins but the games are marred by social unrest and protests against the government and more on that later in the show.
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it's thursday june twelfth eight pm in washington d.c. and i'm here at david and you're watching r.t. america we begin tonight with the latest in ukraine the country's national guard is refuting reports that phosphorus ammunition was used against civilians in the southeast part of the country overnight on thursday anti-government forces and local media claimed that a village near slovyansk had been attacked with fire bombs which may have been phosphorous based his former british army officer charles shoe bridge on the incident. i've seen the video i've looked at it closely it does indeed tolerate what one might say of the whole science a whole box of white phosphorous use for example a very bright light but in and multiple burns coming down from the sky it's an episode weapon that's been used such as a mortal props an aircraft and then of course again the telltale still burning and
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videos are seen in the daytime showing actually this very tactile why it's a gray smoke so what force was being used it's an alarming development of course it needn't necessarily be legal but it depends on the usage of consent and that's exactly why of course love all of and indeed other people even from the west should be even if they haven't so far should be calling for a proper and for investigation of this incident to prevent escalating and response to the reports russian foreign minister sergei lavrov stated we are concerned to hear reports that the ukrainian military forces use incendiary bombs and some other indiscriminate weapons these reports should be probed into immediately we'll continue to follow this story and bring you some updates. over the last decade the middle east has been no stranger to violence with a number of countries experiencing unprecedented political upheaval and sectarian divide in the past four years the u.s. has been mostly concerned with syria a country that has been ravaged by
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a full blown civil war but this week syria is taking a backseat to its neighboring country of iraq which is now seeing a level of violence matched only by the u.s. led war in iraq at its height in two thousand and six in addition to the high numbers of civilian deaths this year just this week islamist militants gain a foothold in major iraqi cities such as mosul and to crete and today the government lost control of cure cook to kurdish forces aren't he's a marine a port naya takes a closer look at the country's instability. what we're leaving behind a sovereign stable and self-reliant iraq two and a half years later the people america left behind are running away cleaning for their lives on health a million people have already escaped from iraq's second city mosul after the i.s.i. al forced the army to retreat reports a gunman have also sees a nearby oil refinery town iraq's prime minister calling for
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a state of emergency after hundreds of gunman took control. of the northern city of mosul by wednesday militants had seized the turkish consulate in mussel kidnapping the head of diplomatic mission and two dozen staff members some thirty thousand iraqi soldiers reportedly turned and ran as militants from the islamic state of iraq and syria known as isis moved in unleashing an all out assault on the city they've taken control of hospitals police stations they have taken control of ammunition dumps and weapons stores that the fleeing government forces of left behind many of the abandoned weapons and military hardware now in the hands of hardline terrorists were imported into iraq from gas where i think you all are aware of the shipments that we've provided that include the delivery of three hundred hellfire missiles millions of rounds of small arms fire thousands of rounds of tank ammunition helicopter fired rockets that iraqi security forces and don't
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forget about the u.s. supplied humvees here you can see isis insurgents are riding and inspecting the vehicles driving them across the border into war torn syria critics call it an unintended consequence of the u.s. war in iraq coming home to roost there weren't any real. sizable organized militant groups in iraq until mesopotamia rose during them to fight back in the u.s. invasion to help the army we train them for eight years and that didn't seem to work. bush dismantled the original iraqi army after the us invasion and that's the root of the problem the u.s. war in iraq cost washington close to one trillion dollars and the lives of more than forty five hundred soldiers hundreds of thousands of iraqis have reportedly been killed while the u.s. was looking for w m d's and spreading democracy. the unified and competent
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iraqi military that was allegedly established has buckled weapons that were made in the usa are now in the hands of america's enemies and the country left to fend for itself in a state of crisis. r t. i was joined earlier by. adjunct law professor at georgetown university to talk more about the escalating crisis in the country i first asked him to talk about whether baghdad is vulnerable to being seized by islamic militants. well that would depend on how much force the government is able to put in defense of baghdad and if the iraqi army would show the same might and determination that the children mosul well baghdad would be under serious threat so it would all depend on how seriously the government is going to take the issue of defending baghdad and how much force it
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can muster for that is it true that they've asked their their people shiites to take up arms well i don't know whether they did or didn't i wouldn't be surprised that they have tried to mobilize all people to show support to the government but what is very unfortunate is there's. resorting to secondary identity to promote the sixty and feeling of the shia and sunni and whatever this has proven to be a recipe for the social disintegration in iraq as in other arab countries absolutely and we just heard today that the kurds have taken over car cook that kind of i think through people that are that for a loop seeing all the activity coming from mostly islamist militants what's going on there what's the goal there for the credit for the kurds i mean they have been trying to establish some kind of
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a kurdish identity kurdish nationalist. identity in iraq and beyond iraq and they see this point of weakness as an opportunity to expand consolidate and control as much as possible this is a point of weakness on the part of the government of iraq this internal trouble has given them an opportunity and they're benefiting from it so they're not necessarily working in correlation whatsoever with i doubt very much you know. they don't have common interests ok and we also learned recently that forty nine turkish citizens staff members and their and their families are being held hostage in mosul including the consul general of the turkish government is bound to retaliate if any of their citizens are hurt in any way now if turkey gets involved here could this escalate from just you know a civil war within the country to which will more broader conflict in the region
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where the broader conflict would have to have its force that would stand against turkey as a nation and we knew we see that the country is. divided fools. so . divided in a sense i think it would be if it took a would intervene at all or to be for surgical operations that is if it needs to do that even surgical operation would not save these guys i think there would be some kind of pressure and maneuvering and those who are holding these guys would probably get some benefits to improve that stop us this is the purpose of taking hostages. and also of course in the region and other and stable country right nearby is syria do you think what's happening in syria is instigating the conflict in iraq at least with arms going back and forth and that sort of thing i think it's
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the other way around i think what happened in iraq is affecting what happens in syria because origen away from iraq and now they are moving got out of weapons and machine. cars or whatever that they have. taken over from the army they are trying to bring them into the city and territory so it's the other way around it's what the weakness in iraq the disintegration of society in iraq has encouraged. it was a shoes to move into syria and have been exploited by other forces who paid them fund them them or whatever and i'm back here in washington there's been some reaction from lawmakers about what the united states should should do at this point let's take a listen to what boehner had to say earlier about how obama should respond it's not like we haven't seen this problem coming for over a year and it hasn't it's not like we haven't seen over the last five or six months
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. these terrorists moving and taking control of western iraq now they've taken control of mosul they're one hundred miles from baghdad and what's the president doing taking a map. taking a nap you said well not far after that we heard obama speak about what he'd be open to take a listen. i think it's fair to say that in our consultations with the iraqis there will be some short term immediate things that need to be done militarily. and you know our national security team is looking at all the options we're not going to be able to be everywhere all the time. but what we can do is to make sure that we are. consistently helping to finance training at by military forces with partner countries including iraq. that
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have the capacity to maintain security so the question is what does this marry what kind of response should the u.s. really be giving here well i think the. u.s. is primarily responsible for the mess in iraq called the mess in syria for the entire mess in what the arab spring has turned out to be in from libya from all over and they were the promoter of this kind of activity these kind of fundamentalists and now the u.s. seems to be complaining about it or saying that they ought to do something i think this is going to be an opportunity for the u.s. to try to blackmail the. maliki government into some concession to provide weapons or whatever and as long as the iraqis would kill each other i doubt very much the americans are going to be really moved to doing something and the
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president said. only to the extent that our american interest would be affected we would react all right i would love to talk to you even longer but i would hire a lot adjunct professor at our other law at georgetown university thank you for your work. a new campaign is launched in berlin with the purpose of providing protection to whistleblowers who face persecution from governments the courage organization at its launch in berlin yesterday to mark the beginning of a campaign to support edward snowden as his temporary asylum in russia comes to an end in july meanwhile here in the u.s. a separate whistleblowing site has also launched recently it's called exposed facts dot org and it provides a platform for employees both in the government and the private sector to securely expose wrongdoing earlier i have the chance to speak to matthew hoh and advisory board member of expose fact he's also
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a senior fellow at the center for international policy as part of our interview i asked him to talk about what the organization does and here's what he had to say expose facts and expose facts dot org it's a project of the institute for public accuracy we received support from the freedom of the press foundation and what it is it's a group composed of an editorial board of five journalists and advisory board of forty some odd whistleblowers former government officials foreign military officers journalistic cetera and why it's a web site that provides a call to secure a job so people who are in private industry people who are in the government people who are witnessing things that are not right people who are seeing wrongdoing whether it be criminal or fraud or waste or morally or ethically wrong can report that and receive advice from us via secure means now of course in this day when the
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n.s.a. and our government is doing its very best and spending billions of dollars in. thousands of really smart people employed and trying to crack into every aspect of our privacy nothing is one hundred percent secure but this is a as. close as we can get this way someone can report to us they can receive advice and help from us we can help them in getting press we can help them get legal protection that was matthew hoh senior fellow at the center for international policy. this past week in chicago police officers were awfully busy at least thirty people were shot across the city with four of them ultimately dying included in those numbers was an eighteen year old boy found with gunshot wounds to his back and a twenty eight year old man shot in the chest and arm in an apparent drive by and that's a snapshot of what's seen every day on the streets of chicago and what's becoming an all too familiar story so far in twenty fourteen there have been one hundred seventy homicides in chicago chicago is the gang capital of the u.s.
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according to the chicago crime commission a do thousand and twelve gang audit found there are more than six hundred gang factions in the city with a minimum combined membership of seventy thousand people but the windy city didn't always claim the highest numbers and back before chicago los angeles was in the spotlight throughout the eighty's and ninety's grappling with unprecedented gang crime rates take a look at this this is the percentage of gang related homicides in los angeles from one thousand maybe five to two thousand and one and here are the percentages from chicago from two thousand and one to two thousand and eleven to share some insight on gang violence i was joined earlier by a retired los angeles police detective sergeant dennis fanning he served thirty one years with the l.a.p.d. and is also a native of chicago i first asked him if he noticed any similarities between the violence in los angeles back then and the violence in chicago now. yeah absolutely
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the connection is the criminal street gangs make most of their money from selling illicit drugs that's what happened here in los angeles back in the mid eighty's early ninety's along with the illicit seller drugs comes the violence and you know a lot of these kids don't have fathers in their in their households. to teach them to help them grow into men. so they go to the streets a lot of them don't finish school they drop out so there's a lot of social issues involved in so they gravitate toward the street gangs in their various neighborhoods whether it be for protection or whatever at first and then you know to make money in the easiest way for them to make money is to sell drugs and you're just touched on this right now but what would you say are the contributing factors to the rise that we're seeing the physically end in chicago is it just social issues are there more well it's not just chicago recently this is
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been going on for at least three four years in chicago it's consistently gotten worse the police department is utilizing every tactic and tool that they can they've learned from other agencies whether it be putting more officers on the street as far as foot beats or bicycle officers everybody's gone to the comps they are saying now where they try and get up to date real time. statistics as far as what crimes are being committed so they can utilize their deployment sufficiently to try and put a stop to it unfortunately. it continues on you know a drive by shooting or gang member getting hurt by a member from another gang oftentimes there's a retaliation and it's it's a never ending cycle and what ten cities like chicago and l.a. and any other city that dealing with as i do to better support the police officers the police force me city. he said to really how come back this gang violence. well
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it's not just chicago and l.a. every major city in the country has got a gang problem new york detroit philly miami all of the major cities have have gang issues and most of the gangs make their money from narcotics like i said it's either have to get the communities involved unfortunately a number of the murder victims majority of them are african-american the suspects in those killings are african-american so the community needs to stand up not just the african-american community but every community the teachers the principals the police department the mothers the fathers the brothers the sisters everyone needs to come together in the community to bring a stop to it and one of the first things they need to do is they need to cooperate with the police this whole generation of knows no snitching or don't cooperate with the police department is foolish what we need is for the community to work in
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alliance with the police department and start giving information about the people that are committing these surrenders crimes and these acts of violence so they can be removed from those communities so they become safer so the kids can come outside and go to school and they can play with their friends and not worry about being killed when they walk outside their front door absolutely and one last question we only have thirty seconds left but the manual the chicago mayor proposed strong a strong slate of gun control measures at this juncture do you think tougher gun laws would help the situation. you know chicago has some of the toughest gun laws in the city or in the in the country. they haven't given a c.c.w. permits for. people to carry concealed weapons you know i don't know what the answer is i'm certainly not. the smartest one for that but i know the chief of police in detroit who used to work in l.a.
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. because of so much crime as to citizens as a law abiding citizen starman themselves to protect themselves so you know that's a little extreme also so i don't know where the where they're come it is a difficult situation it will be hard to find common ground i hate to cut you off but i ran out of time retired l.a.p.d. detective sergeant dennis fanning thanks for weighing in on los angeles police department's plans to use two drones that acquired last month won't be happening anytime soon if the city's mayor has anything to say about it and may the seattle police department gifted the l.a.p.d. would to free you a vs this was after seattle mayor mike mcginn the toad their use now l.a. mayor eric garcetti says the drones will remain grounded until lawmakers can make specific rules governing their use here's what he told a local l.a. radio station yesterday morning
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said he is concerned the drones would be used for illegal purposes however he will allow their use in tactical situations like hostage standoff that he went on to say he does not want the drones to fly around at leisure making people uncomfortable take a listen i don't want to have you ease flying over the city looking at the general population trying to find crime that's creepy that's not the place for these things . so looks like one mayor's gift has turned into another mayor's legal problem. well for the millions of soccer fans around the world today is a sacred day brazil has officially kicked off the twentieth edition of the faithful world cup brazil's world cup opening has been plagued of course by mass protests over the estimated eleven billion dollars cost of staging the continent and concerns over the instability in stadiums infrastructure artie's nicholas o'donovan
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is in brazil with more on. finally the day has come off the full years of patiently waiting for football fans across the world the world cup is back and it's back in fashion today is opening day opening ceremony here it's going to be an all brazilian strava guns and after that the opening game between the hosts between brazil and croatia obviously there has been a lot of tension a lot of social tension here in brazil in the build in the build up of the twenty world cup there has been strikes in some cities here in sao paolo and as well in rio de janeiro actually today as we speak there is a lot of the workers at the air pull out there in rio de janeiro that are on strike and that will obviously affect the flow in of the many many charities that will be coming here to brazil to see the world cup but we had the opportunity to speak to some of those the cheeriest to speak to some of those football enthusiastic and
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they actually said that here in sao paulo they had no problems and that the brazilians were perfect hosts here's what they told me in newspapers there were quite a lot of pictures of here people who were against the championship but i didn't see anything yet and all the people very friendly and looking forward to sort of throw championship i like it here really the people are very friendly and open minded and . i didn't see the things that we read in the newspapers so everything is good here so obviously there is some sectors have the population here in brazil that not happy with the world cup with. the whole hosting of the event but there are many others that think that this is just a miracle for the country for instance the hotel industry the restaurants and the truth is that there's going to be over half a million tourists more than even six hundred thousand foreigners coming here and obviously spending their money nearly three thousand dollars the cheeriest that
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those are the estimates so obviously that's going to be a boost for the brazilian economy and the truth is that we have seen those tensions in the last few days but today it's all about football it's all about brazil croatia off to that three weeks of passion and football that will end up in rio de janeiro that was artie's nicklaus o'donovan and a quick update brazil dominated croatia in the world cups opening game where the final score of three to one it was a great start for the home team next up for brazil is to mexico on june seventeenth and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com says usa and follow me on twitter at a mirror david for now a great night. for you like me once a comedy news with some t one to comedy news to be
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a bear fisted no holds barred fight to the dead. looking through the vampire fighting into the next in the corporate elite of the billionaire freaks well they're going to rise. so that's what you get with my new show projected tonight. i marinate in the financial world moves. back to serious developments having not started citibank's only taken from the demand for credit not going to get any economic benefit in life there are blues and there are facts.
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where society gets hung up on the weirdest things like for instance swear words for some reason society deems some words to be so indecent that just to save them offends people but while the f.c.c. can charge you with a federal crime for saying swear words on t.v. it's not a crime to say them in your everyday life your right to be as profane as you like is protected as free speech here in the us except sometimes it isn't take the case of butcher to stoke a twenty four year old from pennsylvania he was working at an auto zone back in two thousand and twelve and he got fired so he went home but then he realized he left his phone charger it is now old job so he went back to the auto zone to get it when managers spotted him back on the premises they called the police things got heated and richard began to swear to express his feelings about the situation according to
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court records he wasn't directing to swear words at the belief but they asked him to stop cursing anyway richard was like screw that and he swore again and that's when the officer of breasted him for disorderly conduct you see according to fair rose a lawyer for the a.c.l.u. in pennsylvania has subsection of the pennsylvania disorderly conduct code can make using obscene language or gestures a crime if the person does it with the intent to cause inconvenience annoyance or harm to the public but that word obscene is pretty vague and the. active rosen says it is supposed to be limited only to words of gestures that are sexually obscene at nature with no redeeming value but apparently the police there use that they've missed of the law very loosely that's according to the lawsuit that britisher has now testified health he alleges the police there have
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a pattern of issuing illegal play taishan under the disorderly conduct code to citizens who use speed that is protected under the first amendment he says as priest speech rights were violated and that he suffered personal humiliation embarrassment and emotional harm from the whole ordeal as a result he's looking for punitive damages in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars to which i say good for him just as the wording of the disorderly conduct code is arbitrary so is what we consider to be bad words in the first place and when bad crap is going on sometimes a bad word is the only thing that can convey the proper emotional reaction to it we should be able to use whatever words we want and if we can't like richard then i swear we can't keep saying that our speech is free in this country tonight let's talk about that.

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