Oversaw group of snipers shown on video urinating on the corpses of afghans. Captain James Clement is the only officer to Face Criminal Charges for the 2011 incident. Plea marines accepted deals last year. A pair of lieutenant generals will now review the panels recommendation on his fate. Government official says international talks to resolve the conflict in syria could open in geneva in late november. A devotee Prime Minister in syria, is the first to mention a possible date for the talks. Ban kimoon has appointed sigrid kaag, a dutch expert on the middle east, to lead the team charged with destroying syrias. Hemical arsenal the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons, which was awarded the nobel itse prize last week, says inspectors had made progress in visiting sites and are storing key equipment. U. S. Secretary of state john kerry told npr the weapons should be relocated. The fact is that these weapons could be removed whether alassad is there or not there. Ecause we know the locations locations have been declared. My hope is much of this material would be moved as rapidly as possible into one location and hopefully on a ship and removed from the region. Syrian rebels meanwhile have reportedly shot dead a top general in an eastern province. Was the military intelligence chief in the ezzor. E of dei r National SecurityAgency WhistleblowerEdward Snowden says he hasnt sure there is zero percent chance either china or russia could obtain access to the secret documents he is provided to journalists. He says he was able to prevent china from accessing the files because he was familiar with their systems after targeting them after an nsa contractor. He said snowden also disputed in earlier New York Times report about a warning regarding his behavior placed in his personnel file in 2009 by supervisor at the cia. Snowden said his supervisor was retaliating against him after he warned about the software vulnerability. Theca has also disputed times account. Edward snowdens father has returned after visiting his son in russia. He told reporters back in the u. S. That Edward Snowden is doing well. Given where we were in june, i can imagine a better scenario today. This allows time to continue to push these issues forward, to make sure the story is the true story told, not spun within the media, about Edward Snowden. Who is a whistleblower, not a fugitive. The white house has confirmed the director of National Security agency, general keith alexander, will step down early next year. Sinceder has led the nsa 2005. His deputy, john dingell is also expected to leave. And nsa spokesperson denied general alexanders departure was tied to recent revelations about the nsas sweeping spy program. Canada, dozensk, of people were arrested and several pleas cars were set ablaze as protesters resisted efforts by police to clear fracking blockade. Weeks, residents have blocked eroded the village of rexton, cutting off access to an agreement compound used by the texasbased firm southwestern energy. The Company Seeking to explore the area for natural gas. Residents say they dont want their Water Supplies poison by natural gas fracking. Scores of police descended on the and cam in early thursday morning to enforce an injunction. Protesters described what happened. Oure were all asleep in tents and my sister hollers out, a are coming in. All i could do was rush to get and i come out onto the road and i could see them starting to come in. They came in through the fire exit car entrance near the highway. Probably 75 to 100 cops. They are armed with semiautomatic long rifle weapons. There were shots fired at one point. I believe one of the people in cammo was firing in the air. Police fired pepper spray at protesters, some of whom reportedly hurled molotov cocktails, setting five police cars on fire. At least 40 people were arrested by the police count. The crackdown has sparked widespread solidarity protests across canada and in the u. S. Suspendedys it has its search for natural gas in northeast romania following massive civil disobedience against fracking. This week hundreds of people to blocke field chevron from drilling. Protests also rubbed it in the capital bucharest. Romanians have also taken to the streets by the thousands to protest plans by Canadian Firm to construct what would become europes largest gold mine. The protesters say cyanide used in the mining process could poison animals and Water Supplies. In the u. S. , the new Government Health insurance marketplace continues to be plagued with glitches. Now there are reports the new federal Health Care Exchange was made using decadeold technology that may require a complete overhaul. Today reports the wall street journal says the federal Health Care Marketplaces websites are feeding insurers flawed data, including duplicate enrollments, spouses reported as children, and missing data fields. One Analytics Firm says just over one fourth of more than 200,000 users who started the registration process on monday and tuesday actually finished. Thats up from 10 in the first week. In california, Public Transit workers have gone on strike after talks broke down between Bay Area Rapid transit and union negotiators. It is the second time in four months the transit workers have gone on strike. They say theyre approaching a deal to resolve issues related to health care and pensions, but remain at odds on work rules. The seiu local 1021 president said we made concessions, but you can only good so far before you break. The World Health Organization is classified outdoor air pollution is a leading cause of cancer deaths among humans worldwide. The move places the air we believe read in the same top category of cigarette smoke, plutonium, and ultraviolet radiation. Air pollution from sources including cars and factories caused more than 200 20,000 deaths from lung cancer worldwide in 2010, more than half of them in east asia. In a report by the Walk Free Foundation has found there are nearly 30 Million People living in slavery around the world. Today people are enslaved as forced laborers and sex workers, child soldiers and child brides in forced marriages. India and china have the heist overall numbers. 10 countries in asia and africa account for 76 of the enslaved population, but there were enslaved people found in every single one of the 100 62 countries investigated. An estimated 60,000 enslaved people are living in the United States today. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. You have a piece today about the largest Corruption Case in city history, that you actually exposed, going to trial this week. Scandal, three people start trial in u. S. District court in manhattan this week. They are the last of 11 people that were indicted by federal prosecutors in 2010 and 2011 over this massive Information Technology contract, a payroll system the new york City Government and Bloomberg Administration was instituting. The amazing thing is, of the 11 people originally charged, one died, two fled to india with millions of dollars they stole from new york city taxpayers, and the rest have already pled guilty. There are only three leing the masterminds of the plot. The most fascinating thing in the first days of testimony is that a key city official who is never been indicted, the former head of mayor bloombergs payroll agency, was repeatedly raised in testimony as the person who allowed this massive fraud, kickbacks of millions and millions of dollars to the contractors. The main company, the defense giant im a saic, has artie receed a deferred prosecution agreement with the government and repay the city of new york the astounding figure of 500 million, because his payroll project staed at 60 million and ended up costing over 700 million. The company paid back 500 million and one of its executives has now been a chief witness in the case. He testified the city payroll director basically allowed these fellow workers of his to develop the fraud, to continue to hire people and charge outrageous rates to the city, even when the company a self new he shouldnt be doing it but they were new himself they should be doing it. We will see how the testimony unfolds over the next month. The trial is expected to take a month. It really is sort of a way to look at what i considered for years to be the prime form of corruption in modern governments in the United States today, which is Information Technology contracts. It is the new form of corruption in local, state, federal government. It makes me wonder about the exchange website. Absolutely. Same kind of problems. Hundreds of millions of dollars. , seeing you this new computerized system and inevitably, charging in a normas amount of money and dont deliver what they promise and the taxpayers end up with problems. We will certainly continue to follow this trial that is just begun this week. Now we want to turn it human Rights Groups are criticizing the Obama Administration for lifting rules to make it easier for u. S. Arms manufacturers to export weapons and related tech with little oversight. This week, military firms had to register with the state department and obtain a license for each export deal. That allowed u. S. Officials to screen for issues including possible human rights violations. But now tens of thousands of items are shifting to the commerce department, where they fall under looser controls. The changes were heavily lobbied for by military firms including lockheed martin, textron, and honeywell. The United States recently announced plans to scale back aid to egypts military government three months after the ouster president mohammed morsi. Departmenthe state said the United States will withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance until credible progress is made toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government. But a new investigation from al jazeeras fault Lines Program shows the recent aid cuts by be more symbolic than anything else. Al jazeeras anjali kamat joins us here in new york, former democracy now producer. Amazing report that you did. Why dont you explain what you found as you traveled from the United States, washington, to egypt. I think the important thing to understand is this has been portrayed as a pretty substantial cut to u. S. Military aid to egypt, in some ways, it amounts to several hundreds of millions of dollars. But what is important is this is temporary and something that Obama Administration officials made very clear that it can be reversible. The other thing is that at the end of the day, it is very symbolic. From the research we did and the reporting we did on the show that aired last week and now airing in Al Jazeera English, we found what actually mattered is the transfer of spare parts and maintenance contracts. That is continuing. That is not stopped. Egypt artie has a surplus of these large military systems. What was announced last week by the administration was a temporary delay in the delivery of large systems which include f16s and tanks, apache helicopters and egypts military already has a surplus. It has the large amount. Many and what became clear is they dont need these kind of large Weapons Systems for anything there constructing right now. It is interesting u. S. Military has been trying to push for egypt to kind of switch from these large electric systems to later systems defined design for counterterrorism, freezing the sinai and all of that support will continue as before what will also continue is military training. Egyptian officers and generals come to the u. S. Teacher to be trained in american war colleges. Sisi. Those was general this Exchange Program will continue. The major generals in American Military and Egyptian Military told us, this is a key part of the relationship. It creates lasting friendships between the two militaries. And you found even as the Obama Administration was announcing these cuts, huge shipments were on their way to egypt. Right. So there was a military coup in egypt july 3. Under u. S. Law, the u. S. Is required to suspend military aid to a country if there is a determination there is a military to there. The u. S. Has declined to make the determination so far. What we found, and this is on the department of defense website, is that after july 3 in the three months after the coup before the latest announcement, the pentagon continued to award defense contracts to large defense corporations for equipment headed to egypt. So this was to raytheon, dae systems and general electric. This continue through july, august, and september. When we asked the pentagon to comment on this, they directed us to the state department. When we asked the state department to comment, they had no idea about it. So we commission further research on arms shipments to egypt from the United States, from a group that tracks armed shipments in chicago called trans arm. We found in the three months after the coup, there were nearly 2000 tons of military equipment they continued to flow to egypt, despite the administrations pronouncement that business would not be continuing as usual. And there was a review underway. That might have led some people to assume that maybe there would be a hold on some of this equipment. We found 2000 tons continued to flow on eight ship settler from baltimore, new york, virginia, and arrived in alexandria as late as late september. This continued despite the pronouncements of concern and despite august 14 it has been described Human Rights Watch as one of the worst incidents of mass killings in egypt. Hundreds of protesters were killed. The day after that, president obama said business cannot continue as usual, that these but the shipments and 10 year. President obama said the United States and avoided choosing sides in egypt after the militaries july 3 overthrow of morsi. And america has been attacked by all sides of this internal conflict. Simultaneously accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and engineering the removal of power. In fact, the u. S. Has purposely avoided choosing sides. Our overriding interest throughout these past two years has been to encourage a government that legitimately reflects the will of the egyptian people and recognizes true democracy as requiring a respect for minority rights and the rule of law. Freedom of speech and assembly and a strong civil society. That was president obama speaking at the United Nations. Anjali kamat . Is interesting, in egypt, the u. S. Has early been viewed as a villain from both sides. There has been a great deal of populist antiamericanism, nationalism that has been fueled by state and private media within egypt because they perceive the u. S. As having supported the brotherhood and as not being as supportive of the militaryled government after july 3 as they hoped the u. S. Would be. On the other side, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, those who havent been arrested, do yal thatense of betra they did not get the support they thought they would from the United States. When i was in cairo, hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and practically all of the top leadership had been arrested. There are about 1800 people who were arrested, many of them supporters. There are few of the top leadership that remain free. One of them used to be the minister for International Operation under the morsi presidency, still free. He felt, he said i thought the era of supporting military dictatorships was over. But i shouldve known better. But within egypt, there is a very deep polarization right now in a way that it is probably never happened before. Segments of the population that support the militaryled government, militarybacked government. And segments of the population that are opposed to the coup and support for a while there were calling for the return of the hasta president morsi, but that support the Muslim Brotherhood. There are still protests continuing. For a while they were fairly sporadic but in recent weeks they have stepped up. Of morsi supporters on the streets of egypt, some of these protests have been targeted in continue to be violent from Security Forces against protesters. A lot of people in egypt are also might make up a solid majority, which is hard to tell, but the climate when i was in cairo was very much one of fear. There were still a curfew in place. It has largely been lifted by now. People are very scared to speak out. There was a sense that the police to egypts notorious minister of interior, which their abuses under mubarak formed the basis of the january 25 2011 up