legal battles not over for a massacre in iraq a decade ago as a court throws out convictions against guards for the notorious us military contract to blackwater. dozens of russian speaking children are found stranded in orphanages in iraq after their parents allegedly died fighting for terrorists to hear their story. and fresh reports of voting irregularities in the u.s. suspicions have been swiftly aimed at russia but we hear how the problems more

likely close to. good morning my name is kevin owen it's just turned eleven in the morning here in moscow this tuesday welcome to this latest thirty minute news update them from r.t. international and first the legal battle over a massacre in iraq a decade ago is heading back to the u.s. courts judges ordered the recent unsing of three operatives from the private u.s. security contractor formerly known as blackwater before faces a complete retrial the four guards opened fire back then with machine guns and grenade launchers in baghdad's new sewer square fourteen unarmed civilians were killed seventeen others were injured the guards argued that they were under fire from insurgents but there were no witnesses to support that claim the carnage at the time drew widespread condemnation and raise serious questions about the military's accountability in iraq. i know when you're going to perth where are.

there were dead bodies everywhere and the argument going to be with you people inside among the dead bodies lying on the street that's. seven years old. i blackwater was on the u.s.

government payroll earning it about three billion dollars in the process it secured a contract but now that ensued after the two thousand and three us invasion of iraq operating as part of the us occupation authorities blackwater gained notoriety over its conduct its security flaws this disciplinary problems following the massacre the company rebranded but it's still operating it seems to the scandal is done little to dent the u.s. government's appetite for working with military contracts is the still thriving is jacqueline verger explains. meet erik prince the founder of blackwater a private military company with a controversial reputation with its legacy you might expect prince's career to be over but this cannot be farther from the truth there's no backlash for him no shame the man's gun for hire business is booming what i care about is a taxpayer is that large you wasting food say five billion dollars a year in afghanistan i don't think it's appropriate to pull out completely with all the wars the us is waging abroad times are lucrative for private security firms

yet you'd struggle to find one with an untainted slate dyna corp for example for over a decade the u.s. state department was giving almost seventy percent of its funding for afghanistan to this particular firm this company's record features a sex slavery scandal in bosnia a male prostitution scandal in afghanistan and also there a botched seventy million dollar worth construction project were also means big business for sally port global who were paid nearly seven hundred million dollars to secure an iraqi base they allegedly turned a blind eye to alcohol smuggling theft security violations and allegations of sex trafficking and then fired investigators who uncovered wrongdoing that's all according to an associated press investigation the list of controversy goes on yet private security firms are doing just fine and filling their coffers with the spoils of war. r.t. washington d.c. . got reaction from the founder of shock a monitor that's a group that monitors private contractors human rights records he told me believes

the company's lack accountability for violations. in the us own state and government reform from us as i said that during the butte two thousand of by two disasters i don't know what are. you one hundred ninety five incidents involving failure sure you can imagine you know all of the great impact on human rights or get it revoked from all this case it gets more of my duty we're not going through i do these two gross it's i was leaving to be duty in iraq and they can get you ten people. and not this be misty's recalled we did this a lot of public accountability or public scrutiny. if you saw we need to use international. international norms in northern did you get a job you just possibly did to the security contractors. forty eight russian speaking children

a stranded of norfolk edge in iraq after they were rescued during the battle to liberate the city of mosul from islamic state and our crew as being that shelter to visit them. so. it's just for the pilot. we're doing it for a movie called kinds of ways. oh my goodness surprising considering what so we think the big three as you can see this some of those children appeared to be i'm sure the road names read hold it's believed they were taken to iraq by their parents who joined islamic state and who are now presumed dead russia iraq and jordan are working to try to track down other family members of these kids some of the children describing the harrowing ordeal they've been through it only are upsetting to listen to. hear that it was time that the. families. were

asleep one is still a little boy don't need a mom it's a good. bits of wood done us. a good deal solution to enlist for a fraction of. what does just looked up like. like i mean you have a list. she's too early it was a bit of each. i need. to fill. it should. not on a no more. than we needed it only of. your mom only a buck. on it one week. was still. each someone else goes through it put into

a school just to find someone who knew as over the. years clothes will money. me yet. as a fresh voting irregularities in the united states in california alone several counties have been found of substantially more registered voters than voting age residents and citizens is colored mopo with more. voter fraud a subject that seen fierce debate in recent u.s. politics but the current president and his opponents trading barbs over claims and counterclaims flying back and forth every time voter fraud occurs it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy can't let that happen the fiction that millions of illegal votes were cast in the two thousand and sixteen election it is impure gly stunning allegation for which the white house is providing no evidence to people registered in two states they registered in new york and in new jersey

they vote you mean voter fraud california allows i believe there was voted for and a new report suggests that it's an issue that does need to be looked into the activist group judicial watch sent a letter to california authorities pointing out a discrepancy between the number of people registered to vote in the state and the total population of eligible voters it is urging that california to take reasonable steps to clean up its rules we will see with state officials fail to act the greatest discrepancy was in the los angeles county coroner the report there forty four percent more people registered to vote than eligible citizens living in the county and that amounts to roughly one million people now california isn't the only state facing these kinds of problems according to the report that was released back in april over eleven different states have counties with similar discrepancies we decided to talk to folks here in liberal new york about what the figures show there's not that much voter fraud but there's been a couple of states in the south but they've brought before

a local politics not for national politics i just think it's a system where even if maybe one vote is off in a state then the state goes to the other way and mostly it's just i think it needs to be more on the people than it is do you have faith in the american electoral system yes absolutely you don't think it's rigged or faulty you know think our elections here in the usa are rigged. maybe you have faith in the american electoral system yes tell me tell me why. because there's checks and balances in the system if california doesn't get a grip on things it could soon be facing a lawsuit as it stands the elections of the united states and their integrity are now in question but not because of some a list of russian hackers the problem appears to be much closer to home able to mop and artsy new york the u.s. state senator we spoke to says the problem spreads so beyond california two is a stunning number first of all your dish your watches are highly respected

organization and they have compared the voting record with the number of voting age medicine's there are far more people voting than there are people who are eligible to vote and so the system is all of us great corrupt it's got a combination some of them are people who have died some of them are non set aside and some of them are illegal there's some way you know illegal immigrants were being permitted to vote president trump has made the statement that he believes that literally a couple of no you know he casts illicit votes i tend to agree with him but even in virginia now genya is better than some states and yet i know for a fact that there is a great deal of voter fraud. police in the u.k. of lotion interactive come pain and raising awareness awareness of extremist hate

crime. it's. the crossing the line up asking users to make several choices depending on how you respond seems the story you can then play with the character involves becoming involved in hate crimes then ends with the me the killing the personal witnessing others committing murder the project was created with the help of the county police force in bedford share now it's been endorsed by other constat bridge across britain should police advertise the game on twitter it asked people if they could spot signs of right wing extremism or maybe know someone who might cross the line as they put it but people are quick to point out the risk that the game might actually incite violence is that a fourteen it is some of the reaction we've been hearing. i think this this this notion of this game trivializes how one can become radicalized and i think it's

focusing frankly on the wrong problem it's a problem but it's not the major problem technically there is violence from both sides technically we have to be able to focus on what the reality is which is most if not the overwhelming majority of all the terrorism we've seen in england and certainly here the united states has come from radical islam not from islam itself but for radical islam that's really if you want to get the head of the snake that's really we should be focused on not some of them some game like this i think well i look i mean i think just comment there from a friend in new york just sums up what the problem is. we've had mosque you know terrorist attack here in the u.k. carried out by the far right we have a mosque bombed only a few days ago in minnesota and this is what the right will always do they always say oh forget everything else is happening from the far right let's just focus on the muslims i accept the majority of terrorist atrocities we see around the world carried out by so-called muslims the majority of victims of those terrorist attacks

limbs so you know i've been pretty consistent of fighting terrorism being on the front line and confronting it but what we require now is the same leadership the same commitment from people on the other side rather than looking for excuses for far right extremism are you serious are you seriously saying that far why by the way to be used ideas. for follow do you seriously are trying to compare fringe right we have truism which is exactly that it's fringe as opposed to the real credible problem we have with radical islam and by the way you're exactly right the majority of all victims of radical islam are not wait guys in europe they're in mosques in pakistan and iraq i agree with you so these these law must. electorate should be the ones who are most concerned with radical islam but to compare a few fringe and that's what it is fringy right we could stream as a tack. as opposed to what's going on overall in the radical islamic community is ludicrous we as faith communities should stand together against hateful language y.

that it comes from within the muslim community and whether it comes from within the far right terrorism of violence is wrong full stop on which nobody should be making excuses for it i can point out as early but i you know i guess you know it's what do we have to bear i that's nice i like that in the airport you shouldn't really didn't it coming up the syrian army has made a significant get in homs we'll tell you about that and hear what locals have been living through there one of the stories after this quick break. it's. thanks. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or somehow want to.

have to go right to be this is what the four experience more people. interested in the waters of our. city. the syrian army is clearing the eastern tone of. i still terrorists it was captured by government troops at the weekend the news being regarded as one of the most

significant victories in recent months we spoke to the syrian army's information chief to get more details. you know it's been circling in the suburbs mirror or advance in the last missile stronghold that makes. us feel terrorist as usual leaving behind land mines and unexploded shell making it difficult for the syrian army to me who are troops a menace from the city in tracking every move the ice and snipers in fights the syrian military is quite lost in the city and soon as your permission to wipe out the militants is going. to. leave video news agencies field exclusive video from inside. is the last islamic state stronghold in holmes province the retaken towns about fifty kilometers give you an idea of where this is from the border with the result which is still mostly though and i still control loop or trying to explain the. syrian war geography the south east is where the color coded key is least complicated government controlled red vs eisel

held the black divided by won't long desert front line and it's just shifted to the right of a town called no. there's plenty to so great for these troops their commanders saving. edges them closer to their ultimate goal and this part of syria dare as zoar where one to two hundred thousand people are completely surrounded by islamic state and a few more months the siege will have been ongoing for three years in strategic terms is the last stop on the way to dare as for province taking control of this province will mean wiping out i sold impromptu or production no more cash for the terrorists from all so the government troops can also push to the north and if they

can we night with fellow soldiers and the rock a province. isis forces will end up cattle in the geographical heart of syria out of circle is definitely the beginning of the absolute end of isis in syria where there are definitely two potentiality of superman is only fifty kilometers away from that is or retaking that particular city is of vital importance to the reopening of the route on the road to their resort now the other option is to actually link up with the forces coming in from the northwest now that would create a huge pocket of remaining isis forces i think the army will potentially link up with what's left of the horses and at the same time push for their daughter in the quickest to form a new way possible we've seen the syrian army gaining ground and then relinquishing some tough lessons in war geography have been learned those trapped in the arizona

or can breeze momentarily with relief but there's still a long way to go until you mentioned always been under siege for years locals told us the conditions they faced having to live under the shadow of ice. well i learned very late in the navy as isis terrorists raided our house my thirteen year old cousin was staying with us i hid her in a water tank so that the terrorist didn't take her as a slave terrorist from iraq execute civilians in the streets and leave bodies lying there for up to five days i secretly drove my sons out of the city otherwise isis militants would recruit them by force inject psychotropic substances and later use them as suicide bombers to billion don't have access to regular good to commodities to services planes aren't always able to reach the iraqi power through the equipment of the third which is needed it is already on the outskirts is one large front line you've got thousands of syrian forces fighting i think on

a day to day basis they're in constant need of resupply. hate filled graffiti as we describe twitter's offices in the german city of hamburg but it's not the work of right vandals is part of a stunt in fact the whole of the abundance of offensive posts on twitter and the company's seeming reluctance to tackle it the artist behind it says he's used real life tweets here of racist who semitic and were phobic messages to try to make the point clear guy's name is shafak shapira he says he's reported three hundred eight full tweets on twitter verse four but he says the social media germs failed to delete most of them and that's what prompted him to take rather collection now the law forces companies like twitter and facebook to delete those kind of comments after twenty four hours or to at least process them twitter is a huge company. a bunch of wrist resources and i think considering how much or how many resources they actually have i feel like they're not doing everything in their

power to stop this problem which is the big problem isn't it interesting that i have to spray those things on the whole street for people to actually notice them while those tweets all of those tweets it's been on have been on twitter for years the only response i got when we were there was you know after we sprayed everything . day someone from the building i'm not sure if it's twitter or one of the other offices that are there are there they hired someone to clean up but he cleaned up only in the front so we only cleaned up the entrance of the building while all the other hate comments were. were still there and i thought it was a it was a nice symbol to how twitter approaches things. choose day marks the night for verse three of the start of the war between the caucuses country of georgia and the so for a total playing republic from south to set you have cars here georgian forces waged

a massive attack on the south a city in capital skin vile to try to get it back under control russian peacekeepers who were there also came under fire at the time. ah. so it was sutures just phones or some of these why didn't you. third the good. job. was.

georgia is under attack from its neighbor russia we are all george georgia's president says russia is attacking his country secretary of state rice is calling on russia to end its assault on the republic of georgia. mr sutcliffe who started this morning and mr saakashvili the increase of the myself and the core of. today's. my my people people will shield anywhere on their blogs and kill cells as people who feel guilty one day and that's what i guessed i would. actually a commercial break will take us there in four seconds what.

so on this one of those results he's been talking to the leader of one of georgia's opposition parties at the time he recalls the role that then president saakashvili played in the conflict the full interview is here in just over an hour but he's a small preview. subhashree to begin the war and saakashvili was the person who is most responsible in these tragic events i was to clear. just any meat off six hundred feet up by all the media and all the media representatives and even right now despite openness to gay shit in a film made by european union despite health care levinas the collaboration despite a top of the things that everybody knows what's really happened to say that it's true to begin the war. thirty uncomfortable enjoy it nobody wants to. seem to say that there's more of that in full next book before but i can tell you

about the next live news global. thirty minutes times of programs continue to break . here's what people have been saying about rejected in the senate it's pull on. the only show i go out of my way to talk to you know what it is that really packs the. yampa is the john oliver of our two year marriage is doing the same we are apparently better than nothing. and see people you never heard of love redacted the night president of the world bank very. seriously send us an

e-mail social environment. with. chemical discoveries over the last century made every day life easier but at what cost this is syria was exceptionally sick. no wonder it's confidential. sist says the years old industrial giants reap the benefit. by chemical production. you know as if these people are just experimental animals. the toxic environment continues to poison lives and we found these astronomically high levels of dioxin levels that my staff think maybe some of the highest levels in the united states for almost thirty years this very serious problem have not actually been addressed what will that investigation into the chemical industry secrets revealed.

and. i. think i was. just i don't hide oh i lost his boss because i just figured out that you're just going to. let me put your money but the pressure on us to want to go to show your i mean we have to i think.

you know if any of them. showing us you know if i was you know. not just i mean what a lot more people have spent up out of me just. a cheek i'm just i have a lot coming up from all that is an italian on loan. and in the up on what i've. seen the. priests. always had a were do. my thing with lassie equal kind of woman you just bumped into already. in the tone of the thing i. think. it's the. focus on the boards you know people for. go out and what i mean by that anybody made a comment to you when they were going to be seen but they have been.