coming up on our t.v. isis threat is sending fear across the west the u.k. raises their terror threat level over fears of an attack plus new information is coming out about the treatment of executed journalist james foley an update on the isis crisis coming up. and the cries continue into an alleged invasion in ukraine by russian soldiers nato allies say they have proof while russia continues to deny involvement either way humanitarian crisis continues as thousands are caught in the crossfire more on that coming up. and images from ferguson missouri

bring back memories of war zones after an uproar over the militarization of police forces in ferguson and across the country will some of those departments be scaling back we'll take a look at that later in the show. it's friday august twenty ninth for him in washington d.c. i'm in the david you're watching r.t. america. american intelligence and law enforcement agencies have now identified nearly a dozen americans who have traveled to syria to fight for the islamic state also known as isis the extremist group has seized ron swanson of territory in recent months and with that they've also attracted more foreign fighters the numbers reported vary but thousands of isis fighters are now thought to hold western passports meanwhile we're just learning that at least four hostages held in syria

by isis were water boarded after being captured that's according to a report put out by the washington post freelance journalist james foley was apparently one of those hostages the four were water boarded using a model similar to that of what the cia used to torture suspected terrorist acts after nine eleven. and despite u.s. aid drops that took place earlier this month thousands of years edis are still facing a dire humanitarian situation many are scattered in refugee camps while others have been kidnapped or killed at the hands of isis represent an ancient religious minority in iraq and therefore are a prime target for an extremist group that's looking to form a purely islamic state but that attempt to eliminate religious minorities is not only happening in iraq you can also see it just across the border with christians in syria where groups like al qaeda and isis now control broad swaths of territory

according to a recently released proport from the state department persecution of christians in syria is part of the worst displacement of religious communities in recent history the conditions for christians in syria is something that virginia state senator richard black has long been outspoken about and fact back in may the senator wrote an open letter to president bashar al assad thanking him for his quote heroic rescue of christians in the letter he said i pray that the syrian armed forces will continue to exhibit extraordinary gallantry in the war against terrorists please convey my personal things to the syrian arab army an air force for protecting all patriotic syrians including the religious minorities who face death at the hands of the foreign jihadists given the growth of isis in recent months should the u.s. throw more support behind president assad to discuss i was joined earlier by

senator richard black and i first asked him to talk about why he felt compelled to write this letter. well i've been a little bit like like the boy who said the emperor has no clothes the whole world has been sort of in a state of group think where no one is willing to break out and begin to look at things in a very realistic manner i wrote a letter to president assad that said essentially two things the first thing. the syrian forces had swept the column on mountain range where there are many villages that are occupied by christians and i thanked him for the very courageous battles of the syrian army that liberated the christians including thirteen nuns who had been held as human hostages. so that was number one of stocking him for the rescue of the christians number two is i told him that i

could not explain how the united states which suffered three thousand deaths people who were who were sent to a fiery death on nine eleven how we could then come out in support of al qaida which was the very group that murder all of these americans so those were the two things i talked about with president assad and do you believe that actually showing support for president assad will translate into greater protections for these christians. well i think i'm very concerned about the christians in the middle east. there were a great number of christians who managed to survive for centuries and

centuries until we began to take aggressive action towards different countries in the middle east. we have had a tremendous loss of christians in iraq we we almost had a tremendous loss in egypt until fortunately president l.c.c. took over and he is very much a protector of the christians there. in syria. president assad and his father before him have both been steadfast protectors of the christian community and. so by by reinforcing what his army did to rescue the christians this was this was my way of trying to to reinforce those are first because the christians are under enormous pressure in the middle east today while the u.s.

has a longstanding record of supporting countries at that uphold human rights how do you expect the u.s. to really support the assad regime considering it has a pretty dire human rights record. well the the human rights record is. it's a combination of of truth meth and propaganda i thank the who are very close observers of what's going on in syria i have come to believe that the server and gas attack in good in the suburbs of damascus was in fact launched by rebels who were working in coordination with the turkish government. there have been some actual lent articles reported seymour hersh road very fine article called the red line in the rat

line in which he discussed the rebels' use of the serin gas attack as a pretext to trigger american bombing of syria and i think even even a public commentator like rush limbaugh has come out very public away and said look the the serin gas attacks were not initiated by by the syrian government they were in fact initiated by the rebels so it it within those that small group of people who truly focus on syria there's not a realisation that. we have aligned urso us with people who deliberately killed thirteen hundred innocent people in the demolished it's suburbs and these are the rebels and i believe it was our newsroom that actually carried

out the the searing gas attack nuestro is an affiliate of al qaida the group they'd killed three thousand americans that was virginia state senator richard black. and now to ukraine u.n. high commissioner for human rights navi pillay called on all parties involved in the conflict to immediately and the hostilities before more civilians suffer the un report published today puts the blame for serious human rights violations not only on the rebels but also on the ukrainian army and other pro-government forces the commissioner said quote deliberate targeting of civilians is a violation of international humanitarian law and war must be done to protect them meanwhile today the ukrainian army subjected the city of donetsk to yet another bombardment artie's policy or is on the ground in eastern ukraine with more. what was a small mosque. you can see the rocket has hit the whole the whole

facade of the building people that were killed while waking at the local bus station you see that awful but it's a little bloody bloody if you look. a little closer look a little at. least. thirty plus a little something that if you know one person hates being covered with his sheeting he cannot think that i'm going then throws him a distance of one hundred that you know i don't want to give you the spirit for this report because this is to be understood the part that says a woman lying on the ground here and he's being killed she was the. small store she was hit by the impact of the rockets and the loss. the bodies being blown away in the way so now when the ambulance to come and take me to the old. woman is one

of the supports this is one of the residential buildings that has been hit people are coming back now to clean up their apartments and to see what remains this is a bomb shelter here which is top of. the moment immediately off to the rockets way and people can come in that are girders nurtured this year the earth as large as. it is now the sound of incoming artillery so we can get out of here what some people are telling us is that there is an army barracks in the vicinity and they think that the ukrainian army was aiming for that rather than these residential buildings point to see on t.v. downtown demands. and today the rebels agreed to provide a humanitarian corridor for ukrainian government forces who are now surrounded by antique you have separatists this came after russian president vladimir putin. asked the forces to avoid a quote senseless loss of human lives and let the ukrainian soldiers leave the

combat zone meanwhile president barack obama said that the u.s. and its major western allies will consider imposing new tougher sanctions on russia at the upcoming nato summit in the u.k. the members of the north atlantic alliance will discuss among other things their joint strategy towards the country the u.s. and the e.u. continue to blame moscow for providing direct help to the separatist movement some reports yesterday even suggested that russia was conducting a military invasion of ukraine arties going to check again has more. panic alert in western media after key if tweeted that russia invaded ukraine when reports started coming in that fighting broke out between the rebels and ukrainian forces in the port town of. many were quick to claim that it's russia's doing what seems to be happening on the ground however is that russian troops of pushing in

from russia photos of tanks emerged to social media with nothing to suggest that they were operated by russian soldiers kill you put out this video claiming it's a russian tank. but while journalists were grappling with the new developments and struggling with the pronunciation of the town that was supposedly being invaded this is no bus got u.s. and nato officials pushed ahead with accusing russia of deploying more than one thousand troops and heavy artillery into ukraine last week ukraine called russia's delivery of humanitarian aid into eastern ukraine an invasion this week accuse moscow of quote unquote a full scale invasion the western media that is generally not putting much distinction between rebels and washer quickly picked up that side of the story that is despite the fact that this thursday the ois sea which is now monitoring the russian border with ukraine said they saw no evidence of russian troops and tanks crossing the border the u.n.

said it could not independently verify the reports of the russian invasion but a u.n. security council meeting was called upon where its western members push to hold russia responsible russia stop this conflict at least two thousand two hundred twenty people including twenty three children have died in the conflict in eastern ukraine but we've never heard the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. call on key to stop bombing its own people in washington i'm going to r.t. . all right a multimillion dollar lawsuit has officially been filed in missouri seeking compensation for excessive force by police and ferguson according to the lawsuit that excessive force is defined as false arrest assault and battery the lawsuit was filed by three out of state lawyers who participated in the protests and they allege of the excessive force was the result of negligent supervision resulting in

a violation of their constitutional rights this news comes just as dozens of progressive organizations gathered in front of the white house yesterday to deliver the signatures of more than five hundred thousand people americans from across the country signed a petition that calls for changes to policing nationwide along with accountability for michael brown's death to discuss this in the recent criticism of the pentagon program that funds these police departments i want to bring in michael shank professor at george mason university michael thank you so much for being here it's great to be here ok so let's first talk about the pentagon program which really allows this equipment to be shared what is the process by which the pentagon determines which police departments get what they actually don't determine it's a pretty simple process let's say you're a police chief of a small town like roanoke rapids north carolina sixteen thousand people live there all they really have to do is apply online there's a one page form they say we want to end up in the pentagon is able to give away

almost twenty thousand rounds from the war zone from iraq and afghanistan if given maybe a thousand so far along with one hundred thousand sold weapons but it's pretty simple process there's not a needs assessment there's very little accountability after they get it and they have to use it with so you mean there's no justification that a police department has to put forward for needing a tank correct so you see towns across the country getting equipment that they actually don't even need for example a small town in georgia getting in boats and scuba gear but there's no water nearby so there's no needs assessment whatsoever why do they get it why do they believe they need this. that's arguable as. why they think they need it perhaps they want to show off their toys you see a lot of pictures across the country of police chiefs stand in front of them wraps or mine is just an ambush protected vehicles very proud perhaps they're watching the military overseas and learning lessons they're thinking that we can do a shock and awe approach in america but this is a serious threat to the american way of life small town america will no longer be the same thanks to this militarism and i am i correct in saying that

a large portion of that budget has gone to rule cities smaller police departments across the country big and small but the stories of small towns are becoming more and more ubiquitous four billion has been given by the pentagon in surplus equipment the town only has to pay for the delivery but then they have to pay for maintenance and so taxpayers are bearing the cost going forward of roughly twenty to forty thousand just to do maintenance on a seven hundred thousand dollars vehicle and i don't think this is something a lot of people think about at all you know what we have absolutely and as i mentioned we're now starting to hear a lot of criticism over the program we've seen community leaders speak out we're now seeing lawsuits and i'm assuming we're going to start seeing more of those what do you make of the public outcry i mean is this a signal that we're turning a page here what an incredible opportunity based on very unfortunate circumstances in ferguson because we've been working this defense committee on national legislation we're also we're going to explain some for the last year but of course people who would participate in our time saw armored tanks come down the street armored personnel carriers and routes and response but seattle doesn't you know

protests also so the sense of this is very much a tipping point so i'm very heartened by the outcry congressman hank johnson in the house leading a bill that's now bipartisan one hundred one laboratory republican and see the senate and and i want to ask you about that because you co-wrote a paper with rep payne johnson called stop treating america like a war zone can you can you tell me what kind of recommendations are put forward in the legislation we will prohibit the following so tanks humvees armored personnel carriers and ramps like we've mentioned assault weapons grenade launchers anything that looks sounds like a military were prohibited anything else coming from the. zone more benign nature whether it's an unarmored drone or helicopter for surveillance that can pass through but the really armored stuff we're prohibiting now that's only four billion worth of surplus that's gone to police police can get armor to militarize by another program a department of homeland security terrorism grants are given to police the police then buy new equipment which is handy for the defense industry because they're supplying new equipment and thirty four billion has been given to the do just

program so the militarization of a small town america can either happen through the do chess program or through the pentagon program so are you tackling that as well or we will get there we decided to take a piece that we could chew initially and it looks like senator mccaskill and senator coburn are all right as well absolutely and given what we're seeing on a community level do you think we're actually see something pass i know that this is supposed to be presented in september that's right introduced in september we think so it's bipartisan i think people are very upset with what is also the swat of the cation of america you're seeing one hundred fifty swat reads a day by departments like department of education who's using a swat team to just issue a warrant a simple warrant so i think people are very upset and this is the tipping point that's incredible and just recently we heard that the davis city council in california told its police department that it had sixty days to come up with a plan to get rid of its m. rap and i guess you know they're following to some community pressure do you think we're going to see police departments maybe scale back

a little bit on their own or perhaps you know implement new programs body cameras etc do you think that they'll take their own initiatives to do that of san jose police department just so that they're going to get there and rap back to the pentagon so good news there i think there's been enough bad news about the waste fraud and abuse in this program people selling police chiefs county sheriff selling their assault weapons online on e bay or giving them away to friends so there's been enough bad press that i think they'll be forced to do the right thing all right michael shank george mason university professor thank you so much for coming on and weighing in on that critically. new research could shed some light on why the reaction to the crisis in ferguson may have been so polarized along racial lines research suggests it could be because most white americans have almost exclusively white social networks according to a survey by the public religion research institute three quarters of whites have entirely white social networks without any minority presence taking a hypothetical from group of one hundred friends each researchers found that in

a white american social network on average ninety one of those one hundred friends would be white with the equivalent of one minority friend of various groups all african-americans social networks were eighty three percent black with an average of eight percent white friends while that also shows significant social segregation it does mean that while black americans have ten times as many black friends as white white americans have ninety one times as many white friends as black robert johnson says this research clarifies why stories like those of michael brown are trayvon martin seem alien to the white american experience because those are quote not stories most whites are socially positioned to hear. all right and here are some of the other stories we're covering that you may have missed starting out in denver the police department there hopes to become the first department in the country to have body cameras on all of their patrol and traffic officers by two

thousand and fifteen cameras will record audio and video of every exchange and conflict between the police force and civilians but all of that comes with a price tag of one point five million dollars and nasa latest design for deep space rocket is set to blast off for the first time in twenty eighteen the space launch system has been in the works for three years and will eventually launch cruise to mars by the twenty thirty's yes alas will be able to carry more weight and go further than any watch system ever before but it too will come with a price seven billion dollars in just four years and now to the gulf coast nine years ago today the area braced itself as hurricane katrina created the most expensive hurricane and u.s. history about one hundred eight billion dollars worth of damage years later the effects of the storm are still being felt the u.s. census bureau says the population of two thousand and thirteen was only seventy

percent of the city's population in two thousand and a third of renters may pay more than half of their pretax income on rent and utilities. 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 slash usa follow me on twitter at mira david stay tuned buses next. dramas that can't be ignored. to the. stories others the few still noticing. the faces changing the world right now. so picture of today's news. on demand from around the globe. look to. you like me who want your comedy

news from t.v. what's your comedy news to be a bare bones did no holds barred fight to the dead. like a vampire pointing into the next of the corporate elite the billionaire freaks while they're going. well that's what you get with my new show redacted the night. i marinate in the financial world the tactics used to comments can't stop sitting there only taking the credit. in life and there are clues and there are facts.

really under the two civil unrest according to new research and according to hungry people rioting in thailand and venezuela right now and that reality might be something americans experience first hand sooner than they realize right now in the u.s. forty nine million americans are already dealing with food insecurity one in seven americans rely on food banks a quarter of the american military needs outside assistance to feed their families and of course minorities are facing serious hundred shoes this is happening in a country with a wal-mart on every corner but stocks to the brim with cheap carbs and while this is happening food costs continue to rise at alarming rates according to forbes the price of food in the u.s. has spiked to its highest rate in three years people are now paying much more for

staples like meat eggs coffee butter you name it it costs more recent droughts are partly to blame for the rising prices but the f.d.a. the latest round of food regulations can also share the blame because there are a total circle of doma first we've got this capitalist system that encourages corporations to make really unhealthy cheap food to maximize profits for investors so our food makers make crap food then we all get fat then the government studies why we're all fat and comes up with regulations like food makers need to reduce the amount of sodium in their products yet you need to watch your salt intake but for thing hamburger. help her to reformulate their box of divorce isn't going to solve our obesity craze it's just going to drive up the cost of hamburger helper as it offsets the cost of complying with regulations and in turn hamburger helper is going to contain even incredibly your ingredients and thus the circle of regulatory

domain is completed. another factor in rising food costs is the us to be regulation of the commodities market that's according to a study from the new england complex systems into two in cambridge and for that study that makes the direst of predictions for the us using plain simple math and david schardt they've come to a clear conclusion that when food prices rise as much as they have been in the us then people start rioting just as they already are in other parts of the world to see all that unrest in ferguson that just happened that's nothing compared to what can happen when millions of people really start feeling the effects of hunger that's a level of civil unrest that our craft food system is only going to feed tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the residence.

i'm happy martin the stories we cover here not in your new story headlines saying there's a reason they don't want you to. point. out now let's break the set . facing the abyss ukraine is running out of options as winter approaches with a crashing economy the regime in kiev who scented it may be looking to end the civil war but that train may have already left the station.

this month show bush's transports gets a facelift a new cutting board we make the most of the sun in this on this science flourishes in tomsk and we check out some carlos a. technology update here on r.g.p. we've got the future of coverage. place .