alleyway navigates the big questions raised by the global pandemic power system based on private ownership and profit. 3rd, the world in a ton of capitalism is the pandemic that causes so much of the suffering exclusive protect the people or the profit as a good one of all hail the locked down on al jazeera, the run kong in dough. the top stories on al jazeera, $247.00 korean sailors on an anti piracy mission, in waters across africa, and tested positive for over 19. the naval ship 1st reported 6 cases last week, and it's now become south korea's largest outbreak among service members. meanwhile, the country has recorded 1200 new cases in the past 24 hours. restrictions have

been extended across the country to cut the spread robe. mcbride has more from sol this outbreak. it really is quite alarming, especially the speed of it. literally the whole vessel seem to have been overwhelmed in the space of a matter of a few days. this is man move the great. it is called it is a destroyer and it is south korea contribution to the anti piracy task force of the east coast. but to no less alarming for the speed of the spread out of a crew of around $3247.00 have now tested positive. the solution to this is the authorities here are scrambling to get to the military craft out there to bring the whole crew back to south korea. it is dealing with this massive force wave here of, of cases which is a concern. and the latest figures, again, bear out the fact that they're still very much in the grip of this wave sundays

figures were slightly reduced because of course, there's a dip and the number of tests done over the weekend. but still, the number of new case has been recorded here is well above a 1000 that it has remained like that for nearly 2 weeks. we are seeing an extension of the restrictions that have been put in place in the greater sol metropolitan area. it counts for around half the country's population. we have the highest level that is set at level for that same level is now being imposed on parts of the country. the east coast as restrictions are also being put in place in the provincial parts of south korea. where basically, the groups of people are not allowed to gathering in groups of greater than 4, as again, we're seeing a spike in numbers outside of the metropolitan areas. thailand is reported. it's 4th consecutive day of record new corona, virus infections as it struggles to continue to its containers was outbreak. on monday, it confirmed more than 11000 new cases. thailand has expanded restrictions that

include stay home orders and nighttime curfew. in some areas, including bank domestic slides to and from the capital, another hotspot areas will be suspended from wednesday. germany as chancellor has described the situation in areas hardest hit by floods, a thrill and terrifying angler. merkle has visited, the village of shoals as a massive clean up gets underway across western europe. well, 180 people have died in the floods. is this a 2nd? it's terrifying. i would say there's no word in the german language to describe this devastation. but what i witness is incredibly comforting. it's how people are sticking together, how they helping each other this solidarity among people. they ask and government and the taller bond of issued a joint statement following another round of talks in the 3 capital. they've agreed to speed up discussions aimed at finding common ground when the taliban express disagreements with proposals on a political right. and

a constitution from kind of phone's belong to hundreds of journalists, activists and politicians have been hacked by government using spyware, owned by the israeli surveillance company at a. so group, that's according to the latest investigation conducted by 16 media outlets. a court in japan is handed down prison sentences to to americans for helping format. nissan chairman call us wouldn't plead the country. michael taylor, a u. s. army veteran received 2 years. his son peter a year and 8 months they pleaded guilty to help him. one escaped to lebanon in 2018 . the ex, this i'm boss, is facing charges of financial misconduct in japan, which he denies. form of south african president, jacob's name will appear in court later on monday via video link. it will be his 1st appearance since he was jailed in which box protests, more than $200.00 people had been killed during the demonstrations. so if after his

present call for unity, those are the headlines, but news continues on our desert. oh i hi, i'm steve clements and i have some questions. why is it so easy to own an exotic path like a line or a tiger in america? what's the hidden industry behind this trend? and what does the conservation movement stand for? let's get to the bottom line, ah, barely a day goes by the united states without a headline about someone getting hurt when they're exotic animal turns on them are let loose in a neighborhood, but that's not flowing down the crease to own one. tune into tic toc and the feeds abound with videos of baby tigers. leopards, wolves, foxes, huge anaconda, and pythons. in more for generations, we've seen cute baby tigers appear on america's leading talk shows,

often called ambassador animals who are linked to those that are in zoos. all allegedly validated by a conservation industry. well think again, today we're talking about a new film that aims to expose the abuse and trafficking that's behind the scenes of this trend. the documentary is called the conservation game, and it's directed by michael webber who's been tracking this issue for years and years. carnie. nasser is one of america leading big cat experts in animal protection attorneys. she became the 2nd full time animal law professor in the world. when metric michigan state university appointed her to direct the animal welfare clinic of the college of law. and carol baskin is a c, e o big cat rescue in tampa, florida, where she started 30 years ago. and it's brought so much attention to the plight of captive and abused a big cat. it's a real pleasure to have you on here and i should say at the outset, to my audience, i've seen the film. it is powerful, it has made an impact on me. and so congratulations. but our audience has not yet seen the film michael webber. so can you share with us? can you give our, our audience a picture of what you've done, what you've exposed,

and why? sure. i think it probably starts with my work undercover at the exotic animal. ok. you know, so it's at these auctions where you will see tiger cubs, lion cubs. these are, again, will options in america that's, that's correct in america exotic it will options where they will sell animals out to the general public. know, licensing required, a lot of cash, you know, changing hands and where someone can go buy a tiger cub, take it home, put it in their basement or backyard. and, you know, we've seen actually, we, we see in houston what happened recently, you know, so that was, you know, that was something that i did several years ago. and that was expected. and that was shocking when i, when i did that. and, but what i didn't expect to see was when i was at one of these options is i looked to my side and what i saw was a celebrity conservationist that i had watched for many years on a navy. who do you have to sit?

you have to see the, you know, to see that, but who is standing right there to, and actually this person, actually, my kids grew up watching. ironically, my kids may have been watching this person at the same time that i was at this auction watching him on tv. and so this person was not there to shut down the ox was not there to protest, was not there to expose what was going on as, as i was, and these other public safety officers, they were there participating, buying and selling animals feeding into the exotic pets. right, and so it made me wonder, is this a one time event? is this an anomaly, or is this systemic? is this something that might be happening within the industry more broadly? and, and i will tell you that a little further investigation which only requires looking at an ambassador cat, as you mentioned on t v watching or celebrity conservationist. tell us where this cats going to, where it came from. did a very simple exercise which should have been unremarkable. just go to the place that they say that this endangered species will end up. what i found is that

animals not there, these cats aren't there. i have to tell our audience. so i jumped to cardeana carol because it was shocking to me. they were seeing little baby gus, you know, on, on a, you know, with jack hannah, i'll name name shak hannah, and others on these morning shows david cell moni, others were bringing their pads from animal planet and you would see them. and these were endangered animals. and it was his whole architecture and scaffolding of how they talked about being special protected species. and there was in know, this loving and engaging environment where they were free to roam and they were sanctuaries for them. i just was shocked when there was no registration for any of these animals. and you would go talk to these people and you got to tell the story cardeana, tim harrison who is just this obsessive, compulsive retired, former cop because he's such an important part of the story. but i guess my question to both of you is, as you saw, as we saw, as i saw on the show,

these cats disappearing into the ether is, are there no laws against this? i mean what, what is the, how can this be happening? there's no meaningful legal mechanism to figure out where these animals are coming and where they're going. which is outrageous is that you have a legal framework in the united states of america right now. where in some states, there are fewer regulations to own a tiger than there are to own a dog. you know, if i wanted to go adopt a dog or a cat, it's incredibly difficult, right carol. i mean, tell us how you are part of this story and what you've been commenting on for a long time with regards to the absence of that legal scaffolding. with regards to these exotic animals. at our peak, we had to turn away 312 big cats and every other year that number was doubling until the captive wildlife safety act passed. and that made it illegal because you had no more resources to deal with them, right?

us and all of the legitimate sanctuaries. we were full to the brim with all of these cats because they were breeding hundreds of these lions and tigers every year to be used as these pay to play prompt and then discarding them into pet homes and worse and just disappearing. and so we had been working on a federal ban of this since the ninety's, and we got a partial band in 2003 that actually caused that number to drop. instead of doubling the $600.00, the next year it dropped like $160.00. so then we knew that the only way we were going to fix this was to change the laws. and that's where the big cap public safety came in. like, you know, i think when you start to film this young boy there probably in the sixty's i said that's me. that's where i'm watching mutual omaha wild kingdom. then i'm watching the today show or the david letterman show. i'm probably not david letterman, when i was 8 years old. but you would see someone who look like a wildlife conservationists with the jungle had come in with the, you know, baby links or the baby tiger or the baby leopard. and we would play with them.

these, this was abc, nbc, cbs major networks in the united states that have connected these entertainment 2nd sections to their new shows. is there not a complicity and minimum a blind eye? but if not, that a a dereliction of responsibility of these news organs about what was happening with these cats and what became of them. i think at least a blind eye, but i think maybe all of us, you know, that's no different than possibly me. even tim harrison that you see in the film, and he acknowledges that which is what happens is you know, these conservation of gain, our trust. they have a level of celebrity to them, of course. and i think if anyone else might come on tv or maybe show up at a mall or something like that, you might actually give it a 2nd look and say is what they're telling me true. i'm not sure. i trust this. you know, maybe it would war and some further investigation, but you know, when, when we've, when the celebrities have gained our trust,

i think we just don't go and look. we believe what they tell us is true. and we kind of go no further than that. i don't think that's unreasonable and, you know, with the shows that they are on, these are people, the host of these shows and the producers of the shows are animal lovers. you know, they're involved in a lot of the same advocacy work that a lot of us are. it's just that the wall has been pulled over all of our i's with this because of the trust that we put in to these celebrities. carnie and some of the celebrities in this are grant camer, if i have names, right? jared miller, david sell moni, jack hanna, among many others that you profile that are part of the celebrity culture of showing big cats and sort of, you know, creating a pretend in, you know, non existent environment, or bout sanctuaries in the care of these. of these cats have any of them responded to what you have on earth have they responded to you formerly or even informally, and reaction to what you have, what you collectively have surfaced?

well, i don't know that any of them have seen the movie yet. however, grant camera has been in trouble in the state of new york for violating state law relating to the handling of animals on late night shows and at birthday parties and being a supplier for entertainment. while out of the other side of his mouth saying that he's involved in conservation. so we have seen that these individuals have been implicated in the same nasty industry. whether it's the auctions, the exotic pet trade, the animal d. c on late night shows the exotic animals used in circuses. it's all part of the same cesspool. and they really can't say anything about it because there's no justification for the things they do. they can't debate this with people like us that know what's going on. yeah, there's no, there's no justification. let me ask you also because i know you've been running your park to help save big cats for 30 years, have not been there,

but of course we've seen tiger king. we see the, the issues and the value went through on this, but there are a lot of regulatory, our regulatory authorities out there. u. s. depart, viagra, culture. i assume that you know, fish and game administration there are, there are players out there that one would think we're part of the regulatory environment, which is happen. where have they been, do you interact with them? i know that you've been very active politically trying to get this legislation passed. when you hear from these parts of the administration have, are they complicit or are they trying to do the right thing? absolutely complicit to the point where when i bring it up to our inspectors, why are you not doing something about this at this facility that we have witnessed? and we've had all of these people submit complaint forms, and they'll say that the higher ups, they are tell them not to even file a citation because been the animal rights crazies will actually force them to do something about it. so instead, they'll make it a teachable moment and not do anything. and so it's been, oh,

frustrating that these people have hundreds of citations before they're ever brought to court. and then usually they'll pay a $2500.00 up to a $25000.00 fine. they just considered that the price of doing business you is i understand, i don't know the legal dimensions basically were involved and i know carney and you were with with joyce artic and his, his is tiger park and what happened and as i understand it, you basically received a judgment in that my question is scale because when i talk to my producers about doing today's show and they said, yeah, but how big a deal is as i said, have you driven across america? have you gone through some of these states in backwards? there are billboards of these kinds of parks pending sous exotic animals, you know, in every corner of united states that i've been, i just never had put it together. how big is this industry? how big is it? and do you have to go through a legal process with an e? should every one of them to get a change? we refer to it as wakeham, all because as soon as one of these people loses their life and somebody else just

gets it in some other family member name and they continue to do the same bad things. if you think about the thing with jo, exotic, i mean, we filed that case in 2011 and we weren't able, we still haven't finished the case. we weren't even able to take the 0 until last year. so these things just take decades sometimes, and the animals die in the meanwhile, because there's nobody coming in to protect them from the government from the traffic. the lead a wildlife trafficking monitoring agency has written about how the d facts in the laws in the united states and the lack of enforcement by the u. s. department of agriculture and 5 us fish and wildlife service service is creating a perfect storm where there's an increasing likelihood that these tigers and other exotic cat born in roadside to is born with backyard breeders and all of these exploiters are going to end up also supplementing the demand for tiger parts in other parts of the world. so this is not just, i mean there are global implications for our lack of doing what we need to do here

in the united states. i'm so glad you brought that up in one of the other things that strikes me about the beginning of your powerful film, mike, is the beginning, starts with him, harrison and you apparently seeing these celebrity is at wildlife auctions and the saying, wow, ok, this person and then the string in the wall connecting people who in our eyes we don't even know are connected. and as it builds up, it's like a police investigation drawing together, you know, who's operating in the mafia and which, which elements to the control is this like a mafia. and i'll ask you because there's 11 seen in the film with grant camera who is pointing it, you folks from a football field where they're showing off their annual tiger cubs that they brought in. i think it's obee 47 and he's looking at you menacingly. and showing people, were you ever at risk? yeah, i think that's one of the tactics that we've all experienced to, which is there's an intimidation tactics. so this happened when i did my 1st film,

the elephant in the living room. and i realized it the 1st day that the movie played just for a 100 tell how about the elephant and well in the living room. that's right. it is the my 1st documentary with that really i think exposed the issue of exotic pets in america. and the day that it world premiered only just to a small crowd of 100 people in santa barbara the next day i got my 1st death threat on, on the, on my phone. so in many more from there you see what, of course, of course, obviously what carol dealt with and, and, but the, the intimidation tactics. some things that are in the film were things that we interviewed people who were trying to give us information about where we could find these missing ambassador cats. they wouldn't reveal their name, they would send anonymous e mails. i would record them and record their knees and their feet and so forth. and it's like, but we're just looking for

a tiger that we saw on tv. we're just looking for, you know, an animal you are trying to base and we want to fasting. it would take gus, the tiny little kids tiger and say whereas gus to day and then you had a list of more than 200 of these animals that appeared on morning chosen tv very carefully with whatever celebrity handler they had with these sanctuaries behind them. and all you did was go to them and say, where is that cat now? yeah, i think that's the most revealing. because at the end of the day, as far as we go to try to discover ourself, you have to go to the source. you have to go to the last person who was seen with that animal and give them the chance, obviously to say, well look, i know that you think this is awesome room or whatever, but it's not. we've got it right over here and you can see and you have to leave that open to that possibility. and so it was only fair to do that. but what i wanted was to hear the truth. and so i think in the way that i journalist typically do as a documentarian, we did that and we did get the truth. and the truth is,

this is, this is crazy. they weren't shocked by it. so when you go to someone and say, hey, your ambassador cats are men that were on tv, nobody was shocked there. they just go, you know, where are they not going to tell you? will anybody help us know, you know, go away and then you see some of the intimidation factors when we go deeper. so there's quite a contrast between what you see and the phone with the recordings, with that interaction, than what we see very polished on the tv shows with care care what we're seeing, your on tick tock. i look on tick tock and i'll tell you every what i'm going to have, you know, produce my own videos and take talk one of these days because you're on tick tock. and you see what i do. you see the cute cuddly pictures of exotic species? sometimes you see people there that are saving animals that have been harmed to hurt and releasing them as well, which i'm very find very moving. but off more often than not, it's somebody continuing to engage in the same kind of practice. we're seeing visual images where everything is okay and the cat has a moment. we're not seeing visual images of how they're ending up. you've been in

this business for a long time. i want you to describe to our audience. what are the horrors that these, that these animals are going through? you know, when people see those images on tick tock and other social channels, what they're usually seeing is a juvenile animal who's under 5 years old. it might be $500.00 pounds, but it's still mentally a kid. and so they're still able to play around with it as soon as that can reach a sexual maturity. like with a case of roy horn, they're going to get attacked, and that's going to be the end of it. and there won't be any more ticked out channel for that person. but the way that these cats end up the places that i have gone into and rescued cats from the neighbors would have been absolutely appalled to know that these animals were literally starving right next door and desperate for their live and being kept in flimsy cages. my daughter reached up to the door of one of these cages one time where we had gone into rescue. 13 tigers and the whole door just collapsed in her hand. and it like all that had to have done was hit that worth enough force. it would have been loose and neighborhood and we just

see this over and over and over again, just wretched conditions. and some of the conditions that you saw in the conservation game, people will be just appalled that those cages contain the most magnificent animals on the planet. and many times these cats, when they're pulled away from their mothers, immediately at birth, these roadside views and backyard breeders, their decline ma'am, which is a partial amputation procedure with pliers and hammers. and this is a standard industry practice. and it's just one of the many things that these facilities are doing to try to make these animals less of a liability when they, when they offer them for public contact and pay to play. so there's a section in tiger king where all of a sudden they were missing large cats and you saw even his own staff worried about that and saying, wow, maybe he went and shot them and disappeared them. and i kept a wondering, as i watched the film, are there killing fields out there are there, you know, are you know where, where do these, where do these?

because, i mean, is that also part of the picture? i'll give you a good example of that and that is doc angel who was in the film tiger getting every year he has a roadside su type thing where people can come in. they can choose from a dozen different cubs to have their picture made. they can only use him from about 8 weeks to 12 weeks, so they have a one month shelf life. there's always plenty of cubs to choose from. and yet his census, every year goes up to cats, forecasts. it's not going out by the dozens of cats that are being born every year . and yet those cats are not in the gap in sanctuaries. we're not seeing them end up in other facilities. so where are all those cats go in and u. s. department of agriculture, when they do their inspections, they're counting what they see, but they're not verifying identity. so they're not checking to see if the same 10 or 20, or 50, or a 100 tats, are still there. then the next inspection that they do. so there's this revolving

door in roadside views and nobody, there's no, there's no legal requirement for anybody to be checking where the cats are coming and where they're going. so they're just check, they're just counting numbers, they're not checking their identities. so i want to be transparent that we are filming this today audience in washington, d. c. you have visited here both to do my show. so thank you very much, but to talk to people in the policy world about what the response to be. so mike, what, what are you hoping to achieve, either either a public policy or through public attention right now. and all of you that you think needs to be heard by citizens in this country. so when you see the conservation game and when you've been in the subculture, as i have as a filmmaker for say, 1012 years, you know, it really pulls back to vale and the illusion that we're talking about that we see whether it's from the cub petting versus what's really going on afterwards, the vanishing of these animals where the cub is valuable, whereas the full grown tiger line is not in that, that, you know,

translates even to our television celebrity conservation of. so what i had hoped with this investigation that we did together and also with the film is, is, is the transparency that you talk about, which is, let's see what's really going on there and see what needs to be done. and i think the thing that needs to be done as the film also follows is the passage of the big cap public safety act, which would seek to protect these endangered species and keep them out of the hands of backyard breeders, roadside sues. and what's most curious about that is the pushback that we got from high level celebrities that we see on tv, we're trying to locate the animals. we find that there's pushback for that bill as well. so the people that you see on tv telling us to protect and help these endangered species behind the scenes or pushing back to stop the big cap public safety act. so jim camel brings these pats on. jim. we all know jimmy kimmel, we call jimmy kimmel up and say, where is he on the big cat, public safety i,

carroll just in last minute or so. and carny, if you just just quick places. i just love to hear how you got into this. i know you started out west virginia. i want our audience understand, you know, in kind of the, the, authentic way you came into this world of trying to save these animals. when i was 17, i was rehab and releasing native bob cats that have been hit by cars or, or brand, and i saw what name nickerson, animals, they were and how much territory they need. and so when i saw these animals in captivity, it just broke my heart right in carney. and how did you get in this business? 32nd, i grew up in the palo alto stanford area, and the age of 11. i went to interview the director of laboratory research at stanford university about animal experiments, and i was horrified and i've been involved in animal protection ever since. and when i had the opportunity to leave a big law firm job, pursue animal law, i jump on it. the film is called the conservation game. be sure to watch it when it

comes out. thank you all for being with us director michael, whatever. animal law, professor carney and nasser and the founder of the big cat rescue in florida. carol baskin. so what's the bottom line? as was so much in america, there are 2 totally opposite mentalities at play. here. one believe that this is a land of do whatever you want freedom. that means no one can tell you what to do, whether it's about owning assault rifles getting a corona, virus vaccine, wearing a mask or regulating wild animals that you want to exploit for profit or social videos or your own ego. the other believes that liberty needs laws and regulations to protect the people. and in some cases, animals from cruelty and abuse through the reality show tiger king and the epic battle between jo exotic and carol baskin, more americans than ever have been exposed to the underbelly of an illicit trade and tigers and other big cat. the film the conservation game takes us public awareness a step further showing us that our retainers, our media, and our talk shows, had been promoting a huge lie about the welfare of exotic species in america. the least we can do is

to give wild animals the same protections that we give dogs and cats in america. and that's the bottom line ah, across the world and organizers around the motivated and politically engaged, the challenges they face couldn't be more daunting here. and we were the one who had life on what was going on in the way that will mean submitted to them. there's looking stuff that goes on. there's always in the dynamics formation. we have the agency to create the vibe of the generation. we changed on al jazeera, escaping a wall, finding a new identity,

confronting the reality of racism, religion, and the struggle to be accepted. al jazeera, tells the story of what it is like to be lebanese, and call us trailer home. once upon a time and punch bowl on al jazeera ah my name ron calling and joe hall, the top stories on al jazeera, $247.00 korean sailors on an anti piracy mission, in waters off africa, tested positive the coven. 19. it's now become south korea's largest outbreak among service members. meanwhile, the country has recorded 1200 new cases in the past 24 hours. robert bride has more

from salt. this is monday, the great it is called. it is a destroyer and it is south korea is culture abuse.