coming up on our t.v. president obama is requesting from congress five hundred million dollars to arm syrian rebels there's fear that the weapons may end up in the hands of radical elements in syria and beyond more on that just ahead. and iraq remains a country divided by six tarion clashes government forces battle isis militants with surrounding nations worried about an expanding conflict a report on the violence from inside the country coming up. and a new report reveals a startling trend for local police departments from heavily armed swat teams to military vehicles the nation's police force is becoming more and more militarized

more on this trend later in the show. it's thursday the twenty sixth at eight pm in washington d.c. i'm an ellipse hand you're watching r t america tonight we begin with a major story here in washington president obama barack obama has asked congress to approve a buyers to help train and equip moderate rebels in syria today's request comes as the conflicts in both syria and iraq are seeing the same sunni extremist also known as isis gain strength and take control of many parts of northern iraq for more on this developing story here's our tease marina park in iowa. the obama administration is requesting lawmakers authorize five hundred million dollars that would be used to train and arm syrian rebels the white house

claims that only appropriate vetted elements of the moderate opposition will be trained by the u.s. military and equipped with american weapons and ammunition u.s. officials insisted that the weapons would serve to help in power of the syrian people and help them push back against the government as well as the militant extremist group isis which has been fighting to topple the government of bashar al assad since the civil war began more than three years ago american weapons may very well likely end up hands of its enemies just two weeks ago ice is unleashed an all out assault on the box second largest city mosul and causing a reported thirty thousand iraqi soldiers who were actually trained by the u.s. military to turn around and run as a result sunni extremists have seize stockpiles of american weapons and ammunition as well as u.s. humvees the bloodshed being unleashed in iraq right now by isis has arguably been

strengthened by the fact that militants are fighting with u.s. weapons in afghanistan the taliban is now armed with u.s. made stinger missiles which according to reports were originally sent to libya when the obama administration was arming the opposition then rising up against former leader moammar gadhafi so for for more than a decade the u.s. has been drowning the arab world in weapons arming locals to help them overthrow governments not only has it created absolute chaos many would argue but it has also helped strengthen terrorist organizations because some of the u.s. weapons are ending up in their hands the devastating civil war in syria is not disputed some one hundred fifty thousand people have been killed in over three years the international community does agree that something should be done but the question is is sending weapons to one side of the conflict which includes terrorists the best solution. that was our tease marina. meantime

iraqi prime minister nouri al maliki confirms syrian warplanes did in fact bomb the border town of aim but he contends that this was not a coordinated attack on isis militants maliki publicly stated that while he did not ask for syrian president bashar al assad's assistance in battling insurgents he did say that these bombings left both countries as winners leaders from neighboring countries such as saudi arabia the united arab emirates and jordan are meeting with u.s. secretary of state john kerry in paris today to discuss a possible plan of action this while the sunni insurgents continue their attacks in iraq archies lucy kavin office in current cook and brings us more. the details so far are murky but what we've heard from officials is that one man a suicide bomber was seen on the street wearing an explosive device

a vest he was actually aiming for the building down there it's a kurdish political party office apparently authorities had seen him they tried to intercept him and that is when he detonated his device now if you look around it's chaos this is rush hour a lot of people in the streets. the car here completely destroyed this building also you can see there's down manch in the upper floors this must have been an incredibly powerful blast now if we walk this way we think this this blast really did happen so recently that they haven't had a moment to clean up the blood right here we don't know if this is. a place you probably get when. we're not exactly sure what's happening there some kind of in the ocean right now but you can see there's bipartisan authorities here trying to keep calm very hotly contested city that there are kurds arabs sunnis shias christians turkmen this is

a very violent city that has seen many explosions many of clashes over the years since the isis the islamic state in iraq and syria militants made their push in northern iraq the iraqi army have essentially fled from these areas allowing the kurds to come in and take control of a lot of people in the city are not happy about that and we're not sure whether this attack was retribution perhaps for the kurds reasserting their control over this territory they belong to claim this as their historic and cultural powell. oh look. it's really not safe to be here the authorities have been shooting their weapons into the air we're not sure what's going on but we're going to get out of here before any other attention. there hasn't even been a chance to verify the casualties verify exactly what was the target but we do believe that it was the kurdish. political office yesterday we had a chance to speak with the governor of the two groups province he said that this was a very very calm city that they haven't been problems with the it's not that security

was actually getting better it's one of the things that is very clear here from what we've seen today is that that's far from the case of your book and an unlikely voice is speaking out against future bombings in iraq british entertainer russell brand as he's not only criticizing the violence he's also coming down on a certain media outlets calls for the u.s. to engage in yet another war take a listen. i want to welcome the jones because this is just the suggestion name so what should we do send in more troops to protect sacrifices already made to cut a deal with the devil iran iran is not the physical i know referring to them as such he's essentially provoked you still with a situation in iraq she's i judged to be in league with satan or even the embodiment of say and post later because this is going to knowledge the us

government and military in imaging in florida face crazy situation in iraq create a fresh election is likely to them of course the perceived decay can set of course the instability in that region which generates problems that should be no intervention omitted in because of that either that's what led to the problem at first kind of justice the i think the thought of the islamic state of iraq and syria signaled the beginning of the reverse crusade they are coming for us to them we are the infidels how do. then i could come i'm both interested to leave introduce me to the shade because there's a different means i'm clearly disconnected from go. try and counter it just straight research with reduced extremism americans have shed another log there my resolution errors strike. them. and why bring them

home again and again. only when she's talking to every thing when i do these programs create moral insurgents actual critics of those things are told. straight stuff from producers like bush that goes to the ground grows insurgency it creates more turner isn't doing it that was british entertainer of course russell brand with his take on the way fox news is covering the crisis in iraq. and if you've looked around the streets of your hometown and have seen things that look like they came out of a war zone get used to it a new report by the a.c.l.u. finds that police forces throughout the u.s. are arming law enforcement agents with the weapons and tactics of war and this is not come without consequence though last month

a two year old baby boy was badly burned one a swat team accidentally dropped a flash grenade into his crib while searching for someone suspected of making a fifty dollars drug sale back in two thousand and twelve we saw a similar raid that saw police throw a flash grenade into the bedroom of a sleeping twelve year old girl she was also badly burned. in both incidents swat deployments were not sent out to deal with emergency situations rather instead were used to search homes for drugs in fact the a.c.l.u. found that sixty two percent of swat deployments were hunting for drugs and it's not only that innocent people are getting caught up in the raids the a.c.l.u. is also finding that minorities were disproportionately targeted with thirty nine percent of people impacted by the swap deployments being black and eleven percent latino and as for acquiring weapons of war the a.c.l.u. estimates that five hundred law enforcement agencies have received mine resistant

ambush protected vehicles or better known as m. wraps that were built to withstand roadside bombs i was joined earlier by elizabeth beavers to talk with us about this growing militarization of police departments elizabeth is a legislative associate for militarism and civil liberties at the friends committee on national legislation i first asked her if the recent mistakes made by the swat teams represented a larger issue at hand. sure you know what our good friends at the a.c.l.u. they've done a fantastic job of submitting this report and just sort of confirming what i think many of suspected for a long time which is that the police are looking more and more like military you know and we remember that military forces and police units are two separate institutions they have separate mandates and separate responsibilities but instead what we're seeing is that weapons and equipment that's specifically designed for the war zone is flooding in to local police and so when they have it they're going

to want to use it and we've seen the rise of swat teams a rise of all these aggressive tactics that you've done such a great job of highlighting here and then also we're seeing that as they increase their usage of it it's not because crime or the or the violence is escalating it's because in the local course of their usual course of law enforcement that's what they're using them for and so it's low level search warrants executing search warrants drug raids that sort of thing that we're seeing and we don't think that it increases security we really necessary that's right and it's actually sort of making things worse because when police officers are looking like cops looking like soldiers acting like soldiers they're going to start to see everyone around them as an enemy instead of people to protect and to serve and so that sort of keeps the cycle going no violence right and as we mentioned the communities of color seem to be the most affected by these types of swap deployments can you speak to that trend sure well i think it reflects exactly what the war on drugs shows for the last few

decades which is that that's exactly who is affected by this war on drugs and this is just another mechanism of enforcing that and what we've seen is that specifically through this ten thirty three program which best the department of defense program that transfers weapons in vehicles and all this equipment to police departments for free this is reaching every state all fifty states for u.s. territories almost five billion dollars worth of equipment has been handed out since this program was an acted. no one is. from the us now are these equipment that the police departments are getting are they i'm hearing that they're hand me downs from our ending wars and they're coming back and just getting redistributed is that right that's exactly right and we do have to look at the root causes of this why is there so much excess equipment in the first place because that's exactly what this program does of when there's something that that sure that the department of defense doesn't want or doesn't need they hand it down although i

will say that a certain percentage has been shown to actually be brand new equipment that's never been used so that tells us something about the level of defense contracts that were purchasing so it's not necessarily pre-owned we'll call them pre-owned stuff that was used in say afghanistan this is extra stuff that was laying around that the d.o.d. had in their arms that it sometimes there's a percentage both ways for sure but either way it's the same equipment those specifically designed to withstand bombs and in a war zone not necessarily in a small town usa and now you're helping congressman hank johnson develop legislation that will help reform that existing ten thirty three program can you tell us a little bit about these reforms sure this is one of those issues that there's a fascinating sort of uniting of the left and the right on this issue congressman john fund as you mentioned has been developing some great legislation he's attempting to rein in the ten thirty three program and try to stop the transfer of these and maps of the weapons that are specifically designed for the military not per law enforcement and also try to put some reins around the accountability because one of the really troubling things we've seen which they. again did such

a great job highlighting is that there's not a lot of oversight these departments are receiving this equipment these weapons and they're losing them or they're selling them they're generally missing them yet is there evidence of yes there are eleven jurisdictions just in indiana that were suspended from the program because they couldn't account for their weapons in my home state of north carolina sheriff was found guilty of selling his on e bay i mean these are just some absolutely agree just examples of something that congressman johnson is trying to put some rings around that's excellent you know what. kind of perception do you think this legislation will receive from congress in and what kind of arguments are you expecting or anticipating for sure again i think that there's real bipartisan hunger here to do something about this representative christy word as well from utah has been introducing some legislation of his own to get around. the very related problem problem of federal agencies having sort of paramilitary units at their disposal so what we've seen of this really is sort of a growing trend it's not something that's isolated to the democratic party the

republican party and quite frankly it's time for congress to start putting some marines around this because what we've seen in the last decade is not only unchecked weapons like this come from unchecked worth or united check war funding and that starting to funnel back home and so it is the responsibility of congress to step in and restore that separation of powers and start to to restore the constitutional balance of powers there and another legislative effort is being made by utah republican congressman christopher and he introduced legislation this week that would ban non law enforcement agencies from buying these high powered firearms what does this in tale yeah that's that's exactly what i was referencing earlier it's a great piece of legislation so good to see it on their public inside as well the democratic side. yeah it's great it's how often is the happen in congress so it's very good five of them they can agree i might teach them to work exactly right but you know some of the stories almost sound made up and these are some of them. congressman stewart is looking to get some rain there and because there was you

know a story that the department of education have the paramilitary you know that was executing warrants the f.d.a. of these regulatory agencies that don't have a law enforcement purpose for some reason have law enforcement capabilities muslims build scale back that wow we have got to have you back on the show to talk some more about if you have already that was a list of favors legislative associate for militarism and civil liberties at the friends committee on national legislation thank you for your insight. and we've talked a lot on r t about three d. guns but how about smart guns a personalized hand gun that only fires in the hands of its rightful owner this technology is already prevalent and weapons sold in the european market but you won't find it on store shelves in the u.s. just yet that's in part because the policy surrounding the technology is spurring a very divisive debate archies a mirror david has the story. it's

a technology that most people only know from the movies. it's your turn to you can sit around and. they're known as smart guns personalize handguns that can only be fired by the authorized user turning the movies into a new reality take the army takes ip one pistol it's a gun that comes with a special wristwatch that uses radio frequencies to identify the user before it fires but perhaps even smarter than that is the intel a gun system which completely secures your gun and unlocks it only after recognizing your fingerprint and while those weapons are already available on the market a fully operational james bond like technology is currently in the works and we could understand who you were literally by the way that you gripped the gun while you were pulling the trigger and so it was the most unobtrusive google approaches

because we are identifying you by the characteristic biometric of your pressure pattern it's a biometric system that's being developed by the new jersey institute of technology the gun works by identifying you through the size of your hand the strength of the muscles in your fingers and the way your brain is wired to pull the trigger the technology is a dream for gun control advocates who have long argued that firearms are stuck in the past in so many other products we've developed safety features that will prohibit unauthorized people having access we have a thumb print to authorize our our cell phones we use thumbprints to open safes but for some reason with handguns we want to use technology that's fifty to one hundred years old smart gun proponents say the new technology could help save lives the latest gun death figures out of the center for disease control and prevention show that in twenty ten there are more than thirty thousand deaths from firearms sixty one percent. those were from suicides and thirty five percent homicides but

regardless of the staggering numbers so far gun rights advocates have vehemently rejected the sale of any kind of smart gun in the u.s. and in fact engage armament a gun shop here in maryland was supposed to become the first seller to offer the specialized gun but after severe bullying and even death threats the owner decided to pull the gun on the shelf analysts say that outrage stands out of fear over a controversial new jersey gun law in two thousand and two the state passed a trigger law mandating that all handguns be personalized within three years of a smart gun going on sale anywhere in the u.s. many gun owners are against any legislative mandate on what kind of gun has to be purchased and they worry that the new jersey law could one day be adopted across the country opponents have also expressed concern that adding technological features could make the gun less effective are if id technology biometric

technology all these technologies have issues with reliability and if you're using the firearm either to you know carry out law enforcement responsibilities or military responsibilities or civilian self-defense failure is not an option that has to work but proponents point to the states where smart guns are already meeting reliability standards last year california the state that employed some of the most rigorous firearm testing approved the armitage ip one right now many states are looking offers safer firearm options and even though smart guns were developed with public safety in mind their implementation may take longer than intended but the technology battling through the nation's political debate on guns in rockville maryland mirror david artes. and the battle to ban large sodas in new york city is finally over after former mayor michael bloomberg banned a large sugary drinks the decision was talked out in

a court challenge the city appealed but today a judge ruled you can keep on drinking your big gulp our tails on a stack it's are going to has more. the battle between new york city and big sugary drinks lovers and sellers continues in full swing and the latest turn of events in this freedom of overconsumption extravaganza it's a win for the fans of the gigantic delights the state's highest court has decided that city officials have no business meddling in the sizes that people consume after all saying the city's board of health basically went way above their power when approving it and sugary drinks larger than sixteen ounces let's see who wants to celebrate on ball to get one running from where we are love them. as they're sugary they give you energy you know why not i don't really drink soda beer i have a problem i'm worried about it because i think there's a real problem with obesity in america and i think that kids are drinking too many

sugar drinks and a lot of caffeine too. what do you think about us we chicory drinks nine too soon. i don't think anybody needs to drink that much robust coke or pepsi in one sitting the initiative to put it into big sugary drinks was the brainchild of former new york mayor michael bloomberg over increased obesity rates and other health concerns a legal battle between the city and companies from sell these drinks lasted for quite some time two years ago a lower court decided to strike down the band before this latest appeal by the city of course health officials in new york city are not happy with this latest decision and intend to keep fighting including by trying to battle the aggressive marketing campaigns conducted by the sugar filled beverage selling companies they should have more important things to think about how sure they do things that are on a healthy if they want a ban do you think well it should be allowed to ban giant sugary drinks. why

why should they be allowed to do it that's not their business are you not you like me and yeah those things and yet we go. to. or something to drink whatever they want if you want it's not like you're pretty much i actually think like you really can't tell people what they can take in to which i don't think anybody's really don't listen to drinks are the biggest source of added sugar in what americans consume say those who are against the fizzy drinks still what's clear is that real fans will continue drinking whatever they want and however much they want despite any potential future regulations as they see it you're going to. and then world cup news american productivity no doubt took a dive today as the u.s. battled germany led by coach you're going klinsmann himself a star player for germany back in the ninety's however klinsmann's background though helped fuel rumors of a possible non-aggression pact since both teams would advance if the game ended in a tie but it was simply not meant to be after

a score less first half in germany managed a goal in the fifty fifth minute and kept the u.s. at bay till the very end however jubilant fans couldn't get to upset over the loss since ghana lost to portugal at the same time the u.s. finished second in their group dubbed the group of death this tournament and so they advance along with germany into the round of sixteen with a score of one two one team russia is now out of the world cup while algeria advances to the round of sixteen algeria will next face germany and about that's sure to not be very easy and it's the wrong sport but three strikes and he's out right luis suarez star uruguay striker is out of world cup play for biting an opposing player for the third time in his career in this case it

was italy's giorgio chiellini on the shoulder no doubt the incident is leaving a bad taste in suarez as mouth as fever has barred him from your. wise next nine games and any football activity at all for the next four months his team and fans have found the decision hard to swallow and threatened to boycott part of the tournament in protest not surprisingly though as he is one of the top players in the world and his absence will really take the teeth out of the uruguay squad. and that doesn't work now for more on the stories we've just covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r t america and check out our web site r t v dot com for slash usa a manila chan have a great night. the stories we cover here not to write stories of extra headlines saying there's a reason they don't want to do things. now let's break the

set. extending one's middle finger while holding the rest but if one's phone is one of the most ancient insult gestures known according to anthropologists and historians i'm a big fan of it as anyone who's ever visited me on twitter knows the middle finger has been used from at least ancient greek times to present day to express insults or the little moment the obscene gesture is know to round the globe to convey contempt and now it seems that building developers have caught the middle finger

fever too in washington d.c. developers are renovating the residential buildings all over the district and making them up to sixty five feet high and they're surrounded by short two story rowhouses the result a bunch of new buildings that all look like middle fingers they're called pop ups and they're popping up in cities from new york to amsterdam but in d.c. they're going up everywhere and residents are starting to get upset one pop up building on the street has been nicknamed the monster there's even a blog keeping track of them called pop developers love them because they can squeeze more residents into cool neighborhoods while squeezing more money out of small plots of land but detractors including council member jim graham say not only do these middle finger buildings look ridiculous they're also bills for rich people when what the district really needs is more affordable housing now i am strongly against building more crap for rich people while poor people continue to get

screwed but i do think there's a silver lining to these build. you see the middle finger building on the street actually faces the white house so in effect the building is slipping off the white house and i definitely agree with that when someone is screwing you the appropriate gesture is to give them the middle finger in any way that you can by using your literal fingers your votes your dollars your mind whatever middle finger is yours to give so why not make our buildings shaped like little figures when i trim our trees in the shape of middle fingers or build their fences in the shape of middle fingers let's keep everything in middle fingers and then point them all at the white house or the stock exchange or any other building where the people inside are screwing us we should let the establishment know that we know they are screwing us and what's a better way to do that with a little finger salute.