which ones doesn't do the doing about anything to nj mission to teach religion and why he should care about you and. this is why you should care what you only. coming up on r t in detroit thousands of people are without running water the city has turned off the taps due to overdue accounts r.t. is on the ground in detroit looking at the crisis facing thousands of motor city residents. and mid east turmoil causing a strange twist in the dealing with attacks from isis militants the nations of iraq syria and others find a common enemy the latest on the middle east shake up coming up. and droning down protesters south africa have seen numerous minor protests over the years and now a local company is offering a riot suppression drone armed with pepper spray and paint ball all the details on

that later in the show. it's friday june twenty seventh court in washington d.c. i mean you're a david and you're watching r t america we begin today with the ongoing battle over water in the motor city in an effort to balance its books the city of detroit has begun shutting off water access to residents behind on their payments and already thousands of detroiters have been affected our t. is one of the very few networks on the ground in detroit and our very own meghan lopez has that story. it is one of the most essential elements of life. americans enjoy some of the cleanest and most abundant water in the world but what happens when the pipes are turned off and the tap runs dry how am i supposed to wash my child heilman i supposed to shower must fill in the largest american

city to ever filed for bankruptcy residents are falling behind on their water bills now facing five billion dollars in bad debt the water department is taking drastic measures to plug holes and that means cutting water we send out forty six thousand lower forty six thousand shuttle motors isn't me. all of those forty six thousand showed up notices about forty five hundred were actually shut off some of the city's most vulnerable are scrambling to find a way to pay their bills bills that have gone up one hundred twenty percent in the last decade well beyond the national average the city's water department argues that this financial burden has been put on the backburner by many families who didn't believe services would be shut off but for carla walker miller i'm more likely to assume that those are people who decided once there was shut off not to buy their medicine or not to eat that evening you know not to do something that's really really important because again we're talking about a low income population this is one of those houses that has had its water shut off

and you can tell that because the detroit water and sewer department went ahead and painted on the porch that water cut sign now they've been doing this more and more frequently to abandoned houses and they are they say going after abandoned houses first in order to kind of avoid it wasting water for houses that people simply don't live in now up and down this block there's one house after another with those water cut signs these two houses happen to be right next to one another and they're really relying on the residents to report these houses however more often these days the houses facing shut off have residents living inside this is the detroit water brigade headquarters groups like the way fund in the detroit water brigade are working with residents to get them the water they need in the short term and the funding in the long term to sustain themselves with poverty in the city hovering at forty percent and an eight percent unemployment rate that is no easy

task we have donations of water that people have say and we also have water filtration devices as well as what's happening. so that people could you know the access to clean drinking water these groups are now calling for help from the federal government and even the united nations to address what they described. as a humanitarian crisis nikita rally is one detroit resident who is afraid of the consequences of missing even a single payment if you tell someone i don't have water in my home that's the first strike you can get your children removed will you go to the our department if they help get my children back they don't care that fear isn't completely unfounded the michigan welfare rights organization says that child protective services will come into the home if water is not running fraid that if your bills keep going up if they cannot seem to resolve this problem with the payments that your daughter could possibly be removed. don't just think and she isn't alone no

you're shutting off the water on the most vulnerable first which now is a human rights question that raises a moral question what if people do once the water is. out of the take their medicine if they're seen a shot of they make the formula for the babies however the water department argues we have the the burden of being heavy to be realistic a lot of the folks the activists for example don't have that burden they have what they feel are simple solutions. which really don't really hold water if anybody can come up with a way that we can make the detroit drinking water is good as it is right now for pennies on the dollar will point to listen unfortunately this is not the case the city of detroit recently announced an eight hundred thousand dollars plan to help struggling residents. but was water prices set to increase another eight point seven percent in july that money is really just a drop in the bucket people detroit are resilient to strong they can take a look but i'm telling you the breaking point is coming leaving some residents

salivating for a solution to this water crisis and others just plain thirsty reporting in detroit michigan meghan lopez r t. to us as you from an economic standpoint earlier i spoke to attorney thomas stevens of the organization detroiters resisting emergency management i first asked them how interconnected is the city's debt to the water departments that's well there's quite separable although a lot of equipment that is being paid in the course of bankruptcy assuming that the litigious fourth version goes through one hundred percent of the jobs day in the given area in case you're flogging the water department. in order to insulate the city the water department does as you do that but you know that's that you need in order to maintain vital infrastructure that is secured by the revenues the water department and guess what people throughout metro detroit will pay for water and

sewer circe when some people hear about what's going on they say it makes sense that this would happen to be able to learn the language on their bills for a very long time but in detroit are unique and you need case. the truth is you need gates to be everything you hear there's no other city certainly in the americas and it's hard to manage it in. your hands touch and if you're standing out through neighborhoods and shutting. between one thousand five hundred and three thousand residents you look at once a week i mean in any other city since our local elected has been decapitated by the. neighbors and for us that they were just the management there's no accountability so that they're getting you know we get. this right the average monthly water bill is nearly double the national average of forty dollars which is incredible to think about on top of that the detroit city council approved a nine percent hike last week for

a city that's already struggling why do we continue to see the water prices increase when people can't afford to pay it. well the suburbs are paying their share and that's part of it if you look at the fitch rating series downgrade. the water department came in they made it very clear that although the charges are basically reasonable compared to other places. because you know if you compare your average bills might that be the best way to compare it because it has to do with how much they charge for you to service and so forth but what fitch said was that although charges are reasonable in a national basis in the city of detroit. when you compare it to an affordability index more than detroiters a lot of drivers going to work today that's what we're seeing here whereas in the suburbs the suburban regions consumers are getting a tremendous break being way less they can afford even though the average back the average is abu they goes to their local government and it's not that's not

a support system at the local so the suburban wholesale customers are skinny and making out in the middle of this whole system financially are there any alternative ways for the city to resolve that that without cutting off the water yes. what saboteurs. are well over a decade ago the same group that filed the human rights complaint with the us and michigan welfare rights they found that they played together water plant and food and water watch and people's water board in the ninety's they came forward with the water affordability plan which was accepted by the church city council and the version of it was the water to search department but with the massive hole that's been blown in the city's budget by the wall street induced foreclosure crisis and the exodus of people from the city and with the takeover by the state and the implementation of the corporate private profit mindset and to this but

a public health service we've got in attempts to force the poorest people the most vocal bowraville people in the city to pay the costs that were created by the rich and yes there are what you can do is you can accurately fund the system based on ability and treated as a public trust and as a public health necessity and make sure that the human right to water recognize unanimously the united nations is respected and you know here we are sitting in the middle of the greatest freshwater resource on the planet there are a lot of places in the world that would really love to have the resources we have and yes it is perfectly possible if they choose to do it for the water's syringe department under emergency manager kevyn orr jones day and night are to provide water but he says the city to try they just don't want to because this is part of the abuse and i should say the racist abuse that is being inflicted on the people that you're right the whole underlying premise of this is not that they need to

fund the water department they're not doing this that they need to fund the water department they're doing it because they want to sell it and or privatized. some kind of public private partnership and by eliminating these accounts by cutting these poor people offered. human rights and water and sanitation they hope to make it. more attractive asset this is under discussion and mediation with federal judges and the leadership in the bankruptcy court order bankruptcy right now and that's the whole motivation of this is not anything to do with survival or funding the system it has to do with making that paper for purposes of taking. that was attorney thomas stevens of detroiters resisting emergency management. and now to the middle east where the turmoil is beginning to show a shift in international relations first in syria president obama has asked congress allocates a half a billion dollars to provide military equipment and training to vetted opposition fighters this would expand the cia training program and be the first direct u.s.

military participation in the conflict the funds are intended to help the moderate groups in their struggle to fight against syrian president bashar al assad and of the isis insurgents who are now focusing their efforts on iraq as the civil war begins to bleed over the border into iraq in a rare twist this week syrian military jets bombed isis forces near an iraqi border posts an attack not coordinated with the shiite led iraqi government but welcomed all the same meanwhile isis pushes ahead in their efforts to overrun the country stoking a sectarian conflict between the kurds sunnis and shiites in response to the crisis the u.s. is now flying its first armed unmanned drones over baghdad sharing the skies with iranian surveillance drones the new york times reports that the armed u.s. predator drones are meant to protect the one hundred eighty u.s. military advisers that are currently there to assess the situation on the ground

officials tell the new york times that any strike would have to be approved by president obama first and while the iraqi government has been requesting air strikes by the u.s. for weeks president obama has so far refused so prime minister nuri al maliki tell the b.b.c. he's taking a different approach if we had had a couple that we could have prevented what has happened in this country so today i can tell you that we have bought second time jet fighters from russia which will arrive in iraq in two or three days telling. the prime minister maliki is fighting to keep his job as western leaders and the grand ayatollah ali al sistani encourage iraqi leaders to create a government that is more inclusive of shiites sunny's and kurds by a tuesday deadline u.s. secretary of state john kerry is also in the region this week backing that effort.

in syria government forces recaptured a key town located north of the country's capital of damascus now the city of new brood is relatively calm although the scars of combat do remain artes nor enough an ocean is on the ground with the very latest. in central syria used to be sent by snipers and anyone driving here could be kidnapped that's when the smallest western area known as the moon was controlled by armed drug that's all your brother next to the syrian lebanese border is just eighty kilometers from the capital damascus but it is like a state within a state that has its own security forces police and even the army can see symbols all new of forces here every way graffiti or three stars that means free syrian army is controlling this area big syrian military cannot enter six months later return to the main square. feet of the syrian army

spectrum after months of fierce battles and numerous offensives. officers say i can take off my flak jacket but here for a very. it's friday today and the officers tell us that they're all the shops are closing the restaurants a close eye roll out so a lot of people on the streets but there is another reason actually many residents fled this town and entire area of cologne in an attempt to escape from atrocities. at the city's mosque the heart of this predominantly muslim town crowded prayers have just finished. most of these people on their return to their town recently my heart out so not my home was hit and destroyed thank god the army is now back on the mood is also home to a big christian community a different face he used to live in harmony here for years until islamic rule was

imposed by the rebels many being religious zealots some linked to al-qaeda or free syrian mostly really officially they were religious groups jihadi islamic but in fact it was normally asian or anything else their religion was money and. this young man shows us what used to be a jewelry shop it was looted and then set on fire. although the clock made no bouyeri they were on motorbikes they call themselves the free syrian army they used to also take food coming to town from damascus often they were also kidnapping people locals hope the dog days a gun to destroy a week after he left the town attacked the army decisions in the region again several other areas across syria still the main house by rebels i jihadists it seems that despite the army's recent success it's still too early to say when this diverse state in war will be over rich nationality from syria.

now to the crisis in ukraine today the country signed a landmark trade deal to bind itself to the european union this is the same document that was rejected in november by ukraine then president victory on a coach which sparked protests in the country the agreement will have consequences for the country's relationship with russia and it's expected to complicate efforts to end the more than two months of separatist violence seen in the eastern part of the country nonetheless a cease fire is currently being observed most recently ukraine's national security council extended kiev's ceasefire in the east by twelve hours an apparent attempt to jumpstart negotiations initially russia said today that it would welcome a three day extension now for more on the violence that erupted today in eastern ukraine let's go to our tease roman kosar of battle took place last night and according to reports at least twenty soldiers that's what the fighters of ukraine's

national guards were hurt were killed as a result of that the national guard didn't know its mercenary called bad division formed specifically to aid the ukraine army and its military operation against the defiant east of the country now we also learned that and to government forces have destroyed two armored personnel carriers belonging to the national guard that was artie's rahman kosar of. all right well we talk a lot about predator drones here on our t.v. particularly ones that have the capacity to kill what about on man drones i can spout enough pepper spray and paint ball to deter protesters that's exactly what's being marketed right now by a south african company called desert wolf that already has some oil customers one of them being an international mining company the on named corporation has

purchased twenty five pepper spraying paint ball shooting flying drones for the sub purpose of a riot control machine has been branded the skull for its relation of course to a skunk spraying capacity as eight electric motors with propellers that can lift and carry four thousand pepper spray balls or other non-lethal ammunition the device is equipped with four barrels firing up to twenty balls per second each which could equate to eighty pepper spray balls per second it's also fitted with strobe lights blinding lasers and onboard speakers to give verbal warnings to the crowds us to say there has been some backlash to this technology earlier i was joined by steve rambam c.e.o. of polonium incorporated i first asked him why a mining company would be interested in this kind of technology private industry governmental agencies. and especially law enforcement are trying to find ways to

minimize risks to take a lot of humans out of the equation and to take a lot of humans being injured out of the equation. which i think is a good idea the problem arises when these devices drones robots semi autonomous security devices are on their own when the humans of take it out of the equation that's when i think we start. what say approach started out. well the supplier says it's providing these in order to prevent another maracana now just so our viewers know maracana was a wild cat miners' strike at a south african platinum mine in two thousand and twelve or forty four people were killed in violent protests what are your thoughts on that argument is this a good way to deter people from dying if. if if they're claiming that these are less than lethal alternatives to firing bullets into a crowd i think that's

a wonderful thing but i think that a lot of these devices are going to be used to to somebody autonomously suppress the senate suppress legitimate labor organizing and suppress legitimate demonstrations if you know that you can send a fleet of drones with pepper spray or sting spray or markers into a crowd of legitimate demonstrators and bust up the demonstration you know the to that's a very seductive option you know why why deal with your workers why deal with legitimate political the sun when you can just crush it with the press of a boat so one of those tactics involves paintballs so as i understand it the operator what would have full control over each die marker so red dye could be used for protesters who carry dangerous weapons blue could be selected to mark vandalizing protesters if needed the question is in my mind and i'm sure in

a lot of other people's minds as well what would that do marking people with different colors and how would that really deter them from advancing in their protest or oh well first of all of course it would second of all you're really going to arrest somebody based on a paint ball mark without eyewitnesses without genuine evidence i mean that's pretty outrageous even in africa which is a country that plays pretty loose with with with individual civil rights. you know there's a lot of dangers inherent in using these drones first of all is what i call the video game effect if you are not on the scene if you are not personally observing if you are ten or twenty or in the case of u.s. drones five thousand miles away it almost becomes a video game gee there is this character on a screen let's press a button and i think that's very dangerous and very seductive if this is being used

once you've already had people on the ground who can assess the situation and who have withdrawn for their own safety if only then do you send in drones that will stop a violent situation that's not only a good thing that's a great thing but i think that you're going to see more and more and more first of all these drones being sent in in lieu of human interaction and second of all a lot of these drones are going to be semi autonomous you already have caverns that can decide is a sit in taking place is a violent altercation taking place is this an illegal event without humans even being involved and this by the way is is for the least worthy of reasons companies and governmental agencies are trying to save money they want seven or eight or ten or twelve drones manned by one human operator and to do that

the drones have to be able to interpret and make decisions on their own to do in this the same a few bucks and i think i think that's a terrible and a scary thing you don't want to drone that looks at a crowd and decides on its own to fire paint balls a you already have security robots that are making this sort of decision absolutely and then i thought this machine is also fitted with pepper spray and blinding lasers and it's sound way worse than even paint balls that's the part actually that gang most. people riled up some some of even compared it with deadly u.s. military drones do you think that's an outrageous comparison or a fair comparison it is i mean these these private corporate drones are not going to be firing hellfire missiles into crowds or and so into vehicles it's a ridiculous comparison but i'll tell you where it does come close where it does come close is you have an operator that is nowhere near the location who is who is

firing a projectile at the crowd enough it's pepper spray or painful and it's a less than lethal device or ideally less than lethal device that's keeping anyone from being killed and that's keeping security personnel of law enforcement from risk of injury yeah that's a good thing but it's really really easy to cross the line into into thinking of it as a video game and hitting a buck absolutely a lot of questions and still need to be answered before this is fully employed everywhere see rambam's c.e.o. of korea incorporated thanks for joining us like you all right we have an update on a story we've been following in los angeles the department of homeland security has placed two new police trial is under lock and key the l.a.p.d. got the two dragonfire x. . six drones from seattle police and the seattle police department received them through a federal grant however they decided against using them out of public outcry says

los angeles needs to put rules in place for their use before law enforcement can ply their newly acquired unmanned aircraft the man who oversees the l.a.p.d. air support division says he's happy the drones are under lock and key he told the l.a. times quote i'd rather have them locked away in a dungeon than here on the graveyard shift officers were taking them out of the box and playing with them many civil liberties groups being the a.c.l.u. have concerns about police using drones to monitor people and public places right now los angeles is accepting feedback from the public before deciding on the city's drone use policy and boom bust is coming up next year on our t. aaron a joins us for quick preview hi aaron high on merit thank you coming up on the boom bust new york attorney general eric schneiderman has filed fraud charges against barclays over its dark pools saying that the bank favors high frequency traders

over other investors scary stuff and now broker dealers are heading for safer waters we'll tell you all about it coming right up plus it's the end of the week which means it's viewer feedback day here on boom bust we're fielding the audience's questions comments and concerns also been throughout the week a live on today's show it's all coming up to stay tuned lots of good stuff there are things there are extra and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to you tube dot com forward slash r t america check out our web site r t dot com for its last usa and follow me on twitter at a mirror david make sure to let me know what you think we should cover and stay tuned to buses next. well you like me you want your comedy news with some t.v. . comedy news to be a bare fisted no holds barred fight to the dad. like a vampire quiting into the next in the corporate elite the billionaire freaks while they're going. well that's what you get with my new show projected

tonight. because ukraine struggles with the ceasefire the regime in kiev says it is committed to an association agreement with the e.u. the impact of which could be truly painful for the ukrainian people dividing ukraine continue. the chance our forces. and the finish line of the marathon. might. come. but.

we welcome aaron nathan abby martin two of a terrific hosts on the our team network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock tip i'll never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about how breaking this works it's a revolution of the mind it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness and frustrated with the system the extremely public truths would be described as angry i think in a strong enough under single. one of the new cultural phenomena like the bank of new policies to supply people.