excess civilians trapped in conflict impacted areas the french president has promised to rebuild or not to damn cathedral within five years because of the fire that engulfed and destroyed part of the historic building is being investigated. the chairman of algeria has constitutional council tired belise has resigned from his post the protesters are continuing their calls to replace the rest of the country's ruling elite those are the headlines the listening post is next. they call this bleeding the tree. for a substance the world is addicted to now at the center of the global trade war. it's latex in its purest form found in tires phones toothbrushes satellites or mattresses it is an essential element in daily life and so deep in the ivorian forest goes from tree to tree scarring them for the precious liquid. is imposing

two hundred billion dollars in tariffs on china the world's largest manufacturer of rubber goods china in response imposes tariffs on synthetic rubber the west produces while in the short term this is bad for african producers in the long run some hope the continent could benefit from this trade war but aware of the global trade war and despite falling prices at opa calls rubber white gold at least for now. especially arrested the founding of the wiki leaks web site. with me about her i'd like ok we can explain not to publish. a clip here or actually which says that on top of tricksy exposures china. hello i'm richard gilbert and you're at the listening post here are some of the media stories that we're covering this week out of the embassy and heading for the

courts ecuador pulls the plug on julian assad what lies ahead for him and wiki leaks malaysia's one m.t.b. scandal is one of the world's biggest cases of government corruption it took a while but journalists finally got the story out and. out of kuwait in khartoum after chants of the revolution go viral. when it comes to media personalities and stories about the news and journalism there are few that come bigger than julian assange and. wiki leaks and this past week there have been developments after nearly seven years at the ecuadorian embassy in london was dragged out of the building by british police in response to an extradition request from the united states a sand stands charged with a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion we will be speaking with the wiki leaks editor christian robson in a few moments but first some details on the charges and the timing of julian

assange just arrest. this arrest was a long time coming. for years julian assange said that washington was building a case against working towards his extradition to the u.s. for publishing classified defense department documents on the wars in afghanistan and iraq. and state department documents and the so-called diplomatic cables that exposed the ugly side of american foreign policy this past week was proven wrong. however the indictment released by the u.s. department of justice does not as many predict charges under the espionage act for publishing classified information such a prosecution would have opened the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations including mainstream media outlets that published his material instead the d.o.j.

has charged under the computer fraud and abuse and accusing him of proactively helping his source chelsea manning log in to the defense department computers to get the documents in question. regardless of which law u.s. authorities are charging essential press freedom advocates of war the criminalize ation of what essentially does stand accused of such as the use of encrypted messages concealing a source inside and using secure drop boxes all common. working practices have precedence implications for journalism in the u.s. and beyond. let's start with the context and the question why now given that ecuador took joining us in seven years ago does the decision to expel him from the embassy and probably place him at the mercy of the u.s. justice system simply come down to the fact that the president who initially gave

him asylum rafael correa is no longer in power having been replaced by the new president lenin. that's exactly what happened in the the only change that was in this you know area was the fact that there was a regime change door and the president came in that was willing to go to the pressure of willing to. go to favors with the drug administration it had been reports that he in the new york times in december that he was willing to hand julian's arms over to the front of inspiration in exchange for debt relief or favors at the i.m.f. so it didn't come as a surprise and therefore there has been increased pressure inside the it was an embassy in trying to force him out and it ended in this man earlier this week edward snowden who was among the people who tweeted on this right away and he said images of ecuador us ambassador inviting the u.k. secret police into the embassy to drag the publisher of like it or not award

winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books and just critics may cheer but this is a dark moment for press freedom how do you see this precedent. i totally agree was no doubt on this it is a very dark day and it sets up presidents that is totally very dangerous for journalists publishers all around the world if you can actually. journalist to a third country the united states for publishing the truth. no journalist can be secure so this must be stopped this must be resisted in or money of this it has to unify journalists around this cause whatever they may think about julian sells prosecutors allege that in march of two thousand and ten julian assange agreed to assist chelsea manning his source in cracking a password that would allow manning to get access to some of those classified u.s. defense department documents that would later be released through wiki leaks did

that in fact happen and how problematic will that be for julian assange just case well his communication alerts communication between julian and chelsea manning has been out in the open for years there is a reference here to an alleged communication between a journalist and a shores and what is dragged forth there there's a quote the union allegedly said to chelsea manning curious eyes never run dry and that is supposed to be a proof of conspiracy it's outrageous and let's not forget the fact that chelsea manning was sentenced to thirty five years in prison. served seven years of that time she is now been hold back in two into prison for refusing to testify against the julian assange and wiki leaks so this is been the escalation we have children money in prison we also have julian assange is in

prison so it's coming to. in this saga where a journalist a publisher and an editor is going to face press. for doing what journalists are supposed to be doing the charges in the us carry a maximum jail time of five years first of all do you take the u.s. justice department at its word on that no i mean there are two things to consider here first this is. there is a reference to hacking here and being reported in media conspiracy or hacking which is very strange depiction of this but secondly this is only a the tip of the iceberg because we are absolutely certain that this is only one of the charges that will be brought on you know sons and they will be added on more charges when he arrives if you arrives in the united states in chains. it's it's specifically presented in his manner in our opinion to increase

the likelihood that he will be extradited because people say well it's only five years so many news outlets published material furnished to them by wiki leaks over your busiest period there were the afghan war logs the iraq war logs the u.s. diplomatic cables there was a feeding frenzy among mainstream media news organizations with that material the new york times for instance published wiki leaks material commodified it turned it into clicks profited from it and published an editorial yesterday in which it kind of sat on the fence whereas the guardian in the u.k. said extraditing sanj is wrong the new york times sat on the fence and wrote a very carefully worded editorial on that what do you make of the way news outlets have covered this story this week. well they have been trying to play it very safe and it seems to me that the new york times or rather the tauriel. seem to be

content to to fall on that plot to say well it is not charges for publication it's not charging for. for journalism but something totally different they are falling into buying the narrative of the trump administration which i think is just disgraceful we all know what this is about it's about the idea of revelations of war crimes in iraq and afghanistan and that is what it's about the guardian changed his tune we have we have been very critical guardian and we have to take them to court for a libelous and fabricated story that printed on november twenty seven which was very dangerous one the one on the allegation that. poor man a ford had somehow secretly had a meeting in the ecuadorian embassy on three occasion which is everybody knows is a total fabrication they were not retracted written by luke harding written by look harding and on call ins of the with the help of a third party from ecuador actually so the guardian changed the tone and came to

the right conclusion on this issue do you think julian assange can get a fair trial in the u.s. do you think and get a fair extradition hearing in the u.k. which is more likely in your view. well if i would take into account the snarky comments by the judge last week about him being a narcissistic personality and what have you with was that it was totally outrageous so you don't have high hopes i had only what i do not have high hopes with in the u.k. court system with. trial in the united states it's totally impossible to have a fair trial is that if you consider the house words from high officials throughout the years and now from members of the trump administration there is no chance that he was going to a fair trial there germy corben the british opposition leader has come out and said flat out that the extradition of julian assange to the us for exposing evidence of

atrocities in iraq and afghanistan should be opposed by the british government can u.k. politicians make a difference or is it too late for that of course they can make a different and thank you for the reporter up for politicians to his cause and of they they have an effect of full on public opinion they might be even be in office when. this comes to. in the courts here of course they make a difference just in the same manner that outrageous comments by politicians in the united states make it totally impossible for a fair trial there this case is about more than julian assange is about the precedent and the children and they sat amongst other news organizations i'm wondering how effective wiki leaks can be with julian assange behind bars even with that even with the organization for ten years you're now an editor are you going to continue to publish information at the rate that you have we have been of course restrained by the situation that julia has been in for years but we have tried to

work around it and we've had the ways and means to do that there had been. weeks and months when julia has been without any ability to communicate with the outside world except through lawyers and a couple of colleagues that go in so we we are able to work around it and we can we'll continue this work christian hopson thank you very much for joining us here at the listening post thanks. last week malaysia's former prime minister najib razak went on trial over one of the biggest corruption scandals the world has ever seen the media shorthand for the case is one and b b it involves a sovereign wealth fund by the same name that najib set up it lost billions almost seven hundred million dollars of which is alleged to have ended up in his own bank account the malaysian media are all over the story but it wasn't always that way under najib the government there were clear red lights that reporters and the news outlets they work for feared to cross and if not for a british journalist running

a website out of london one business newspaper in kuala lumpur and a secret meeting that took place in singapore malaysians might not know about any of this listening posts flow phillips now with the media back story behind the one m.t.b. scandal. the big news coming trial of the former prime minister. run top all seven charges this course of this trial and all the media attention around it was probably the nothing new that wanted. it three years ago when he was still in power to try to through the media office that publicly requesting that all investigation into the one m.t.p. scandal be left to him rather than conduct a trial by media we must wait for that of these investigation i don't think that

that is the you know trial by the media there's no such thing as. trial by media this isn't a trial by the public i think it's an exaggerated how can you have the biggest trial ever in the nation's history subject to the principle we put up the neck of the state this is ridiculous to stop the media from covering the world's biggest case of clipped ocracy. this case is a global corruption scandal involving the state development fund a jeep himself set up in two thousand and nine one malaysia development bird one m d b under his watch the fund lost four point five billion dollars through shell companies and opaque transactions now being investigated across twelve countries six hundred eighty one million dollars of that according to u.s. prosecutors has been found in the jeeves personal bank account. if any wrong

doing. i can assure you that appropriate action will be taken against those responsible. three years later it turns out in a jeep was the one responsible public anger against him and his party thrust a newly united opposition into power. and today najib is facing more than forty charges of money laundering bribery and abuse of power and the media both foreign and domestic are out in force and media in malaysia were prevented from reporting on it. and laws were in fact used to crack down on the media that reported or wanted to report on one and even so in a former prime minister's isn't this trial in a way is politically significant for the media that in the past was controlled could actually be seeing a new dawn and one that has a long record on high profile cases and also political issues despite the measures

najib took to stifle reporting into one m.t.b.f. suspicious dealings the scandal was eventually broken by the media the first investigative piece was published in twenty thirteen by an online business portal called can a bit is now defunct examining whether one m d b was in fact a giant ponzi scheme then the story was picked up by two outlets in particular a london based blog the sarawak report. founded by journalist cleric castle brown and a kuala lumpur based business paper the edge that just wouldn't let the story. we start that bring a lot of stories asking a lot of questions about what has happened. so this was going on throughout really fourteen we came together in general or february of twenty fifteen where we connected with claire i constructed a deal whereby the edge. obtained the material from san diego who was

a former director of the first joint venture partner with one m.t.p. it was an extraordinary cache of documents and information exposing an extraordinary crime keeney the edge free malaysia these outfits did a terrific job in disseminating what they could on one m.t.p. but they couldn't write about it in the way that i did because. they were injured jurisdiction that was controlled by not cheap. and that's crucial to how the rest of the story unfolded the sarawak report continued its investigations from london protected from the reaches of malaysian law for tat publisher at the edge as well as some of his colleagues it was a different story we were under a lot of pressure when you are writing a big expose on the big financial scandal in the government owned company a company that was started by the prime minister at

a time budget so it was unprecedented it was not easy environment to do to work under and we always knew that the media laws are such that the government can shut us down any time we did it eventually. the edge was shut down its sister sighed the malaysia insider was blocked along with two others asia sentinel and medium and journalists at the news site malaysiakini were arrested all for trying to cover one m. d. . their coverage highlighted something many malaysians already knew that the country's media landscape had a split running right through it while online publishers were leading the journey.