for a politician. to act. ok. just to wrap. up. coming up on our t.v. eastern ukraine continues to experience bouts of violence a russian cameraman was fatally shot while riding a bus packed with journalists and mothers of ukrainian soldiers and now a declared cease fire has come to an end more on those events in ukraine coming up . and the private security firm blackwater is once again at the center of controversy a new report reveals that a top manager threatened the life of a government investigator in iraq the latest on the scandal coming up. and the iraq crisis expands with an announcement from isis militants the jihad or scroope has declared the establishment of

a new islamic state extending from syria to iraq and more on this development later in the show. it's monday june thirtieth eight pm in washington d.c. our military and you're watching r.t. america. we begin tonight in ukraine where the cease fire has come to an end ukrainian president petro poroshenko announced that he wouldn't extend a unilateral. protests in eastern ukraine originally declared about ten days ago the ceasefire had seen bursts of violence between both to date on the latest as it becomes available also in the region a russian camera man for channel one t.v. was shot by military forces in the eastern region of donetsk he along with other journalists were on a bus with

a group of women traveling. duty take a look at the minutes after the shooting. archies irene a galo show has more on the journalist who filmed the attack and the other journalists killed during the ukraine fighting not only again along with

a number of other journalists were on a bus which was carrying mothers of ukrainian soldiers who were going to the army base in order to demand of their sons return home when the bus approached the army base shooting reportedly happened coming from the army base the driver then tried to turn the bus away in order to get the bus and the people on board on board to safety but the shooting continued and that's when until the ground was hit by some of the bullets that were piercing the bus now this is how those who were on the bus along with him other journalists have described the event we was born in there was a panic i didn't know what to do i just laid on the road face down move digital bronze also made to save myself from the constant mortar shelling the last of the you know i was there before it was very scary specially for a person who isn't totally leech motion was we were trying to find a car to get him to hospital and when we started taking him out of the box he

turned around and his last words were the camera. in the car he was conscious for a while but he lost consciousness when we got near the accident and emergency station they tried to revive him for about half an hour but then they came out and said there was nothing more they could have done. on the market they're going to turn one of the shooting started without warning and they were shooting to kill not as a warning activists who later examined the boss told us one of the bullets was from a sniper rifle or other that account has spent forty years working for the very same channel where for which he was fulfilling his job in in the southeast of ukraine has been working there for almost half a century and this is how his colleagues described the man that they used to be working with of does now thought he knew his work he always helped out the correspondence until today i never knew how old he was a i couldn't believe it was exactly eight you know it's really hard to talk about a mother who has to have him picking it up with his job was his life i saw him and

then that he told me that when you get back from his assignment in ukraine he would go fishing in september it was more i've known him since one thousand nine hundred two he was not standing cameraman cheerful sympathetic but this is a great loss now russia is demanding an investigation into the death of the russian cameraman and there is a number of human rights groups which are also wasting their frustration with the situation in ukraine where journalists have repeatedly come under attack this is a tragedy that must be fully investigated by ukrainian authorities the government of ukraine should do more to avoid harming civilians during loincloths meant that the ration journalists unless they are taking a direct part in the hostilities are civilians and under international humanitarian law may never be targets of an attack during unarmed conflict. unfortunately this is just the latest in a string of attacks and journalists happening in the southeast of ukraine two weeks

ago two russian journalists a reporter and a sound engineer from brasi a channel work killed in artillery shelling as they were trying to film refugees crossing the border last month a photographer an italian photographer and his translator were also killed in a mortar shelling in the same region and then of course there was the case with our producer for archie's ruptly news agency who was also gravely wounded in the city of moore rueful in the beginning of may it took three it took several days for the ukrainian authorities to release him to allow him to be transported to moscow for treatment unfortunately of course such are the cases are not the only things that are happening to russian journalists there have been numerous reports of russian journalists being detained handed. interrogated and even beaten and of course the russian channels have numerous occasions voiced their frustration with the situation but so far they seems to be absolutely no reaction coming from ukrainian

authorities that was artie's irene ago lucia reporting and usually the death of a journalist is big news here in the u.s. but the mainstream media has decided to focus on more pressing issues have a look for yourself. but first did you see this map lauer's interview the first female c.e.o. of general motors but there are some people who are speculating that you also got this job as a woman and as a mom matt is usually a very elegant interviewer and with that aspect of the interview he simply bubbled it big implosion of the view what are they going to do barbara walters is gone and sherry is gone and now jenny mccarthy is gone they don't have to reinvent that show and i think that's going to be difficult to do while the camera man's death has gotten some attention online here in the states but not on the cable news channels . and like a scene out of a movie blackwater the contract security team hired by the u.s.

government was under invested. patient that was cut short just weeks before blackwater guards killed seventeen iraqi civilians in baghdad back in two thousand and seven but now new revelations of a death threat against the government chief investigator have emerged according to documents obtained by the new york times blackwater manager daniel carroll met with special agent john ritter and state department management analyst donald thomas jr to discuss their investigation into the firm's substandard dining hall facilities that's when carroll allegedly said i can kill you right now where you sit and no one's going to do anything about it because of where we're at now that's according to richter's official statement donald thomas corroborated his story and said in his own statement that the blackwater manager went on to say i could shoot you and kill you here in iraq and no one would do anything about it because that's the way

it is here he also went on to compare iraq to the wild west such as the ok corral i was joined earlier by david isenberg author of shadow force private security contractors in iraq i first asked him if the recent allegations call into question the u.s. government's relationship with blackwater here's what he had to say it certainly does but the reason he called it into question is not just because the blackwater security men but rather what the state department did not do which was to back its own people when this the gator. reports really back up the chain of command that this man made a credible threat. all sorts of alarm bells and instead. according to the new york times article they basically sit back and did nothing

that's actually an appalling commentary on the state ensuring accountability in the oversight on the part of the state department for employing private security contractors bear in mind that blackwater at that time was sort of the eight hundred pound gorilla private security contractors when it's practically everybody else that isn't like the olivia hutton commercial so if the state department and its people there in baghdad. within the regional security office and in charge of ensuring compliance with all the standards basically washed their hands of it been that they're really saying we have no control interest in exercising control given that kind of situation it's makes things the news who are square which happened the following month. even more horrifying and perhaps in hindsight more predictable now you've written extensively about the relationship

between security contractors and u.s. government in your book shadow force private security contractors in iraq now what incidents of misconduct have really stood out to you. well there is there were numerous examples this or square was the moat even back in two thousand when the four blackwater contractors were killed. and strung up on the bridge the subsequent investigation showed that blackwater had not lived up to the terms of its contract in terms of the board people it employed had not provided them ever type of armored vehicle or the orientation time or sufficient number of personnel that were supposed to be assigned to the detail again in retrospect that was a warning sign that blackwater was willing to play perhaps fast and loose with the

terms of its contract there is been. course blackwater is not the only company which is behaved in a pretty unprofessional manner in iraq you just depend services because firms was notorious at one point or in stroke the video which was circulating online where people had filmed themselves shooting. iraqi civilian vehicles to the tune of buildings presumably night train. leaving afghanistan how well are these sorts of contractors being vetted before we go and give them millions of dollars in contracts. well it depends on what period of time you're talking about in the area days after the u.s. invaded iraq back during the coalition between an awful already days and a few years after it was basically a wild west anybody who could hang out

a shingle and then they go contract. somebody in equipment and get them over there didn't have too many questions asked of them the government of course did set out its standards but it didn't have. much in the way of resources and perhaps even less in the way of political will to actually try and document that the number of contracting officers in contracting officer represent is that it had out in the field were very few they were vastly overworked they were dependent upon the private security contractors themselves for cooperation not to mention security if they tried to go out in the field to document anything this is why a lot of that in terms of trying to do the due diligence with eventually turned over actually to the military to the army which set up an armed contra. contractor oversight division. things slowly and i would emphasize words slowly improved over time in terms of setting up the construction operation centers to foster

coordination between security contractors in the military to keep better tabs of who was coming in country and. what what kind of training people had gotten before coming into the country but it's safe to say that you know even to this day it's not at the one hundred percent sort of standard that people in vision wow that is a lot of information to taken out thank you so much for your time that was david eisenberg the author of shadow force private security contractors in iraq thank you sir my pleasure. and blackwater has undergone lots of changes since its founding by erik prince back in one thousand nine hundred seven most notably its name prince sold the company back in two thousand and eleven when the name was changed to academy with an i the firm continues to operate across the middle east through u.s. government contracts then in june it merged with its rival company called triple

canopy together they are now called can stella holdings but despite the change in the name in a company has had. its controversial reputation artie's meghan lopez brings us more on the infamous contractors. for over a decade the u.s. state department and military have relied on contractors to help fill security gaps abroad one of the most trusted companies is formally known as blackwater but this group's troubled history might be catching up to it here are a few of the most questionable incidents blackwater is involved in a march two thousand and four ambush by iraqi insurgents on blackwater s.u.v.s resulted in the bodies of four contractors being burned beaten and hung on a bridge over the euphrates river in fallujah with a rocky civilians cheering below these are the images that outraged americans and pave the way for the first battle of fallujah however what was an unquestionable

tragedy for the security firm turned into a scandal when the house oversight committee released a congressional report in two thousand and seven the clarinet blackwater had intentionally impeded an investigation into those deaths the congressional report claims that the company trying to hide documents by declaring them classified in february two thousand and six blackwater sniper opened fire from the roof of an iraqi justice ministry building and killed three guards working for the state funded iraq it media network witnesses say the guards never opened fire and an iraqi police report describes the shootings as quote an act of terrorism the state department how it was fired on. a blackwater contractor named andrew moon it was accused of opening fire on one of the iraqi vice president's guards after a heavy night of drinking for him saadoun was a thirty two year old gold guard who attempted to stop noonan from passing through

a security area when he was shot three times and killed moon and claims it was self-defense ultimately the u.s. attorney's office in seattle close this investigation without filing charges moonen was eventually fired and blackwater paid the victim's family twenty thousand dollars a common practice within the company now according to former c.e.o. erik prince just as of two thousand and ten his contractors racked up over three hundred counts of violations while following clients' orders each time the company paid the fine and then moved on then to add to the scandal in two thousand and twelve the firm agreed to pay seven point five million dollars in fines to the justice department in addition to a two thousand and ten forty two million dollars settlement with the state department for violating u.s. gun laws and for gun smuggling in the middle east that could have resulted in seventeen criminal charges the fines however wife that slate clean these are just

a few of the myriad of incidents blackwater has been accused of over the years the company has changed its name from blackwater to z. to academy and now it is called constant was holding but no matter the numerous name changes a history of controversy and question and never the bully follow this group wherever it go reporting in washington meghan lopez r.t. . in the isis crisis continues across iraq the group is claiming that parts of iraq and syria are now and islamic caliphate isis spokesman abu mohammad out of naani said this move ushers in a new era of international jihad and that they would now simply be called the islamic state muslim extremist groups have long dreamed of recreating and islamised state to rule the entire region as it did in the middle east for hundreds of years

artie's marina poured ny has more. then you don't care if you're going to be here known as isis is overtaking al qaeda had rain as public enemy number one sunni islamic militants are leasing brutality and bloodshed in iraq but it's next door in syria during a three year civil war where the if stream a screw got its start we are where we are because we armed the syrian rebels we have been fighting alongside al-qaeda fighting alongside isis isis is now emboldened in two countries but here's the anomaly we're with isis in syria we're on the same sort of the war so those who want to get involved to stop isis in iraq are our allied with isis in syria that is the real contradiction to this whole dollars right according to reports the u.s. government may have inadvertently played a direct role in strengthening extremists there are also allegations that the united states may have been involved and some of the training the isis insurgents

went out a training camp and jordan selling you the saudis the capacity all those are directly involved in this regime change policy in syria and iraq and united states has helped and created these conditions and this will cause chaos and expanding war in the region according to german magazine der spiegel americans were still in jordan in march of last year training up to twelve hundred members of the free syrian army to use anti-tank weapon mary we have spent a lot of time trying to work with a moderate opposition in syria now the white house is ready to spend a lot of money the obama administration has requested half a billion dollars to arm and train syrian rebels fighting to topple president bashar al assad u.s. officials claim only appropriate that members of the moderate syrian opposition will receive american weapons and ammo problem is it's not always easy to

differentiate between the moderates and. arist here's u.s. senator john mccain posing with members of isis the photo is now reportedly being circulated by the group as proof of their legitimacy not to be disputed the legitimacy of isis is gruesome behavior violence oher effect some report osama bin laden looks like a gentle soul in comparison as the newest group of terrorists is growing stronger and gaining more ground throughout the arab world there are safe haven remains in syria where the white haven remains in syria where the white house is promising of establishing peace green a port i r.t. washington d.c. . the obama administration has agreed to discontinue the use of land mines in warfare and no longer produce them but has fallen short of signing the international ottawa convention banning them completely last week the obama administration announced that the u.s.

will no longer produce land mines will not acquire new land mines and won't replace those that are expiring and while the administration says it's pursuing steps towards signing the mine ban treaty it is yet to do so this announcement has humanitarian activists caution asli optimistic but still believing that the united states will join the hundred fifty other countries and sign the ottawa convention to discuss the issue further i was joined earlier by at attack way international advocacy director at amnesty international usa i first asked him why he believes the u.s. has taken steps towards eliminating landmines but while it signed the treaty here's what he had to say. well i think it's important to remember that they said that they would preserve their right to use land mines should they need to and that's one of the things that makes this announcement a little bit disappointing because even though they're not going to produce more and they're not going to extend the life of the existing landmines they have not as

you said either decided to ratify and sign the treaty and they have not completely banned their right to use it and i think it's because the department defense has not yet. accept not yet. accepted the fact that there's no place for the modern day world and that it really is not essential to u.s. national security so we're stuck with the same political lack of political will to actually move those of us into the right side of the battle on the right and besides that i mean this is obviously a very old technology no you know it's not useful when we have other more accurate ways of attacking the enemy per se why do you think the u.s. might be so keen on continuing to have these in general why white people well the argument is that the in terms of critical defense lines for the united states.

these landmines are the most economic and efficient way in that because you don't need men to actually protect all the border for example the. d.m.z. between north and south korea is usually referred to as the critical area where land mines are important so i think that that's one of the reasons that they want to continue to use that right to use them. ok and now each year approximately twenty six thousand people fall victim to land mines right because they are unmonitored they they just kind of lay their dorm it with many of them being children and they become severely disabled what are the dangers of having continue landmines. to exist that you're going to have more child amputees you're going to have more dislocated populations because they can't farm where the maps of the land mines are no longer accurate or up to date you're going to have incredible you bad human rights violations linked to the destructive consequences of these mines that

know no distinction between a friend or for child or adult right now. to say on the u.s. side though they're one of the biggest spenders on humanitarian mine action in as far as removal what are some of those efforts can you tell us about what the u.s. has done well the u.s. as you said is a leader in the mining activities and funding those kinds of programs programs and cambodia programs and go in parts of. somalia where these mines were used the u.s. is indeed providing the technology in their expertise but one has to argue that if that mines weren't being used in the first place we wouldn't have such a big problem so it's almost a catch twenty two that they are not solving the problem but they are addressing its consequences and that's why they should just join the treaty they should comply and they should be

a leader on this in both the the mining aspect as well as in the behavioral change that's sounds like that's a call to action had to the obama administration by you and i definitely ready for that yes awesome thank you so much that was added to my international advocacy director at amnesty international usa thank you for your time in your insights are thank you and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r.t. america and check out our website r.t. dot com forward slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at manila chan for now have a great night. i'm abbie martin the stories we cover here you're not going to hear in iraq next are that have lived and taught you the reason they don't want you to know. that we will be completely outraged and let's break the set.

i take my studies like i take my polls and statistics with step to well these tools can be used to enrich our collective knowledge and understanding of the wacky world we live in they can also be unscientifically weaponized to support bunk theories and agendas which ends up hurting our intellectual growth more than helping this story concerns the latter's the mariel you see a new study was just released out of stanford university the findings were detailed in a journal called organizational behavior and human decision process researchers titled their findings thinking that one is attractive increases the tendency to support inequality in other words the research draws the conclusion that if you consider

yourself a hot person you are more likely to support inequality what's more the research concludes that if you think you're an ugly person you are more likely to protest inequality how's that for bunk for the study researchers asked about five hundred study participants about their own attractiveness and their ability to empathise then they were shown a video about the occupy movement after that participants were asked whether or not they wanted to donate a prize of a fifty dollar lottery ticket to occupy the researchers found that participants who perceive themselves as less attractive were almost twice as likely to donate to the movement conversely researchers found that participants who thought they were hot were less likely to donate to social causes that deal with. peter bellamy one of the researchers told the organization campus reform that they found cues to suggest

that people who think of themselves as more attractive think they belong to a higher social class and so are therefore less concerned with inequality because they've benefited from it people who think of themselves as ugly associate themselves with a lower class and therefore have a stake in fighting inequality now back to why studies like this can actually do more harm than good this study asked five hundred arbitrary peoples some questions and drew conclusions that fact one of the worst arguments used by the one percent today but the poor are just jealous of the rich. and is just bitter because they don't have jet skis that the ugly are just jealous of the view brash and now we need to divide by in our society not propagate our government. has nothing to do with how any.