revealed unfilled by locals, yet an irresistible challenge to western climate. a sherpa family mist choose between going against their religious beliefs and guiding a group of mountaineers. oh, rejecting max needed income. the wall of shutters on al jazeera. ah, hello, i'm adrian sort of get in. so how, with a summary of that, here's on al jazeera, early results are expected on sunday after gambiola voted in an election, but seen as a test for its transition to democracy. turn up was high, as people decided if president adama barrow deserves another term, al jazeera ahmed address reports from the capital under president adam a bottle arrives to cast his vote. aware that in this tightly contested election, there could be surprises by the president in his supporters, accounting only divided opposition to achieve victory. or i am john present to

support this one. everybody knows that even you realize you won't be the rena. i believe you borrow is challenged by the leading architects of the coalition, but ended in the victory of ice produces a ja, jamie 5 years ago. they also voted and i confident of women. when i want to say that i have gotten my, what i'm didn't there, does the god, it is you to him. this election is significant in many aspects, from the record number of candidates to the nearly a 1000000 people who registered to vote slaymen boss as the difference between the 2016 election and this one is clear. the feeling of fear was this was this one. there's no feeling of fear for my own from my own of the business. and does it mean anything for us, a voter? yeah, it mean something?

yes, because then some would, you can do that anything which is not in line with his own desire for the 1st time for to how a demi, it's a dream come true. you'd feel nice wouldn't, since since i was a dad i wanted to feel like i should run fluid as an old previous elections since 947. a unique system is used traditional models along with a drum and bell inside. this could be the last time the mobiles system of voting. if you understand the gambia or the list of candidates going, it's becoming increasingly expensive to produce ballot boxes for each candidate. and in all of the countries, 1540. the election commission wants to talk about in the next vote because the system that a software country for more than half a century is no longer a sustainable turn out across the country was impressive. and the process large and

the peaceful people are enjoying greater freedom. the, you know, the individual elections as a means to piece because that was very, got a piece of in, but also love the result of the election is expected within 24 hours of poles. closing on saturday night, ahmed rece al jazeera by june, the gambia, france and saudi arabia have held a joint phone call with lebanon, in what's seen as a significant gesture towards resolving a diplomatic crisis. the call was made as french president emanuel micron visited saudi arabia after trips to the u. e. and cutoff the kingdom and other gulf states withdrew their ambassadors from beirut last month, angered by a government minister who criticized the saudi. let war, any eminent minister resigned on friday. south africa's government is working to scale up cove at 19 vaccinations. the new omicron variant is driving another wave

of infections with the number of new daily cases daily quadrupling in just 4 days. the u. s. says that iran has back tracked on compromises it made and talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, but insist that washington will push on with diplomacy. a c, d, a state department official says that it's unacceptable that iran is building up nuclear capability for leverage. and is where the security forces of shot and killed a palestinian man who police say stabbed in his railey before attempting to attack offices. it happened just outside damascus, gate and occupied east jerusalem. video appears to show israeli police pointing their guns at paramedics, preventing them from treating the palestinian. the israeli stabbing victim was treated and is now in hospital. and those that had lies moneys for here on out a 0 after the bottom line coming up next. ah.

ready hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. the u. s. says it wants to fight corruption and promote democracy worldwide. but shouldn't start at home. let's get to the bottom line. ah, today we continue the discussion we started last week on the summit for democracy. the white house is hosting leaders for more than 100 countries to the virtual conference with 3 main goals, according to the by the administration, fighting corruption, promoting human rights and standing up against authoritarianism. but with all the dark money and the questions surrounding the election process and polarization in american politics, shouldn't president joe biden be more worried about the future of democracy right here at home. today i'm talking to sen. sheldon whitehouse, who's been a leading voice on fighting corruption domestically and internationally. sen, whitehouse chairs,

the senate caucus on international narcotics control sen. thank you so much for joining. say, i want to kind of give our viewers in an understanding of the underbelly of a lot of what we see on the surface of governments and democracy. what are the big factors you've been looking at that are corrosive, that are corrosive here at home, that are corrosive internationally that you worry about? well, corruption is the big factor. corruption is money. and then the question is, what do you do with the money? because if you're a collector crap or an international criminal, your one bigger bad or clipped a crack or one bigger batter international criminal away from having everything you stole stolen. so the dirty secret here is that the corruption and the money that support so much of the evil in the world then comes and finds home in our rule of law countries. and it's in our interests, i believe, very,

very strongly to clean that mess up. and no longer be aiding and abetting these. what george bush would call evil doers was. so like this summit for democracy, this is one of the pillars that we're we're that the president has outlined of concern. and, and i know that, that when this summit comes up, they're going to be people are assembled where it's going to be one of the discussion points. yeah. how do you expect it to play out? are you going to be participating? do you think you think this issue, which has become so endemic, are both here is a problem in the united states, but also internationally. and you should see the reaction or show last week of people thinking, well, what is the united states are getting off on talking about democracy when it is supporting all of these elicit leaders around the world. and it's turning a blind eye to a lot of this corruption. yeah. well, we intend to be a part of that conversation and are working on exactly how right now. but i think what's important is that this is not just an opportunity to form an 8

that corruption is a bad thing. and scold countries that we think are corrupt. we've got actually look at the techniques of corruption, the techniques of hidden money done by these corrupt forces and in particular, look at ourselves and how we, how the rule of law countries and america specifically are enabling that corruption and enabling the hiding of the proceeds of that corruption, we have some cleaning up to do ourselves. now i occasionally turn on c, span senator and cspan, for our audience is a channel. it's devoted to covering congress. you can turn it on. and you can see senator a white house about either members of congress of their own village. i've been, i've been watching you for years long about shadow players in the global political economy. you know who operate in in a, you know, dark way and looking at dark money. can you help bring that to life or a people? can you give us examples beyond the kind of big brand name corruption, can you go on to it into, to some detail and give us, you know,

something tangible that people may be able to relate to as people have looked at this, usually from a money laundering perspective, they have found for instance, child trafficking organizations based in europe owning farms. in the united states, they found buildings in new york city known towers in downtown manhattan, owned by a arrangements, an arrangement to sewer sanctioned by us. and what you see is that the boundary between this dark economy that supports corruption, supports criminality. and our economy is very porous. and it's very much in the interest of the bad guys to get their loot into the protection of our rule of law. and they've got to do so secretly. so anonymity is the key to

all of this. and being able to penetrate that anonymity and find out who is really behind the shell corporation, who is really the nominal, the real owner of the property, nominally owned by some fake entity. those are the things that we need to protect our national security at this point. are we going the right direction, senator? i was just reading about a decision, for instance, by the federal elections commission that allows foreign governments to weigh in on valid initiatives or foreign entities to weigh in on valid initiatives. you kind of look at this question of, you know, anonymity in politics in the ruling we had years ago in the supreme court on citizens united. i mean, it looks like, and then i mean, just to be honest, people look at the last administration and the opaque relationships that the president allegedly had with various potential russian players for india and it's oligarchs, etc. and when you kind of look at that and ask yourself, are there any positive steps coming forward other than the summit for democracy? we're going to talk about it. i mean, are you hopeful? are you?

are you pessimistic? we just one in congress, a long battle to give the treasury is been sin, its financial investigative group access to what are called the beneficial owners. the real owners behind american shell corporations. that was a long fight. and the folks who make money off of catering to these people, rounded up a lot of the usual d. c players to fight us. but at the end of the day, this was a bipartisan when it passed into law of the last national defense bill. and the treasury is writing those rags right now. so that should be a big step back from the united states becoming the new cayman islands, right? where crooks everywhere can go to hide their resources. is that a complete step? no, we need to see the regulations and what else needs to be done, but that's been a big step in the right direction. while most of our dark money draft has been in the wrong direction, you know,

one of the topics we've looked at on this show before things like bitcoin and crypto currencies and the role they play, either constructively and helping give a new architecture to how we track stuff versus what we see is, you know, cyber attacks and ransom attacks, you know, sometimes done in bitcoin or other crypto currencies. to what degree are these emerging, you know, non federal backed weather, national back currencies coming on. part of the problem is you see it, there is kind of the new aspect of it and it's probably the one we understand, the least. but anything that confers anonymity on a bad actor is the danger. and so when a bad actress able to use a currency that allows them to avoid money laundering investigations, that's not a good thing for either our public safety or our national security. do you think from an intelligence perspective or a financial intelligence perspective, when we see players out there, russian, oligarchs, or vladimir putin himself,

who's reportedly the richest person in the world of non transparent, i'm sure here and at legitimate, very, very legitimate. he very high paid chief executive, but i guess the question is, do we have the awareness of where these assets are? why isn't the u. s. government playing more of a role in disclosing what it knows about corruption abroad? if for no other reason to create pressure is abroad so that those citizens and other countries actually because were waiting on, you know, leaks of papers like that more papers or other of that happening. and so your story comes in a very full 3 d vision. when you look at some of these papers, but i assume that somewhere in the u. s. government, we know a lot of this. why are we so reticent about disclosing what we know about the so i wouldn't be so sure that we know a lot about it and i think a lot of what we do know about it may very well come through sources that we don't

want to reveal because there is no obvious way to go to the cayman islands or to go to some other place that are hides foreign loot very effectively and try to penetrate through. in some cases, multiple screens of fake corporate layering that prevent you from knowing who the real owner is of that asset. so it's not as easy as you think. and therefore, the way in is often somebody who knows something who was telling you that as opposed to being able to go in and investigate and you don't want to blow the source. so i don't think we put anywhere near enough attention on that aspect of the problem to begin with, which is one of the reasons i'm excited about the summit. but i also think that we've got limits that we need to deal with by forcing a new international consensus that hiding this dark economy that had the, you know, there to benefit, kept a craps and criminals should be as unacceptable as child labor. se one of the

things that worried me years a back about 911 and the emergence of groups like al qaeda was their desire to embed themselves into the governments abroad. because if you control a state, you can control a lot of issues that people don't, don't understand. and a lot of people have alleged that, that has happened with norco, trans national norco operations. so the international drug cartels have become as powerful or more powerful, you know, then governments, and then you see the struggles in certain parts of mexico and another, a central american governments in kind of dealing with this is america derelict in helping those governments fight those, those those situations, are we in any way not doing what we should be doing on that front because once they do control governments, then they have a lot more ability and tools to penetrate this country. yeah,

i think we have been inadequate in addressing this the way i give this context is to go back to samuel huntington famous argument about a clash of civilizations and between 2 different worlds that we are coming into. only he posited that our class civilizations was based on cultural religious ethnic divisions. i don't see that i see the clash of civilizations between rule of law civilization and the cryptography and criminal countries of the world. and if you look at what's happened, bad to america and the last couple decades, pretty much all of it has come out of non rule of law land. and we have not looked adequately at that as a national security problem and addressed it at the level that it needs to be addressed. it's a little bit like having a, some sort of, you know, bacillus or plague molecule when it's around, it's really dangerous and you've got to cure it and fix it. and you can do that

with sunlight and do it. it's not the fix isn't that hard. we just haven't paid enough attention to it and the battle between rule of law civilization and it's adversary and this contest is one that we desperately need to win and we're not winning it right now. and so how do you fix it? what's the strategic leap or the fix for that? because what you're talking about is also a regular topic on the show, which is the corrosion here at home. the corrosion and trust in institutions are leaders. and the just serious doubt that, you know, if you're in a neighbourhood and you've got a republican neighbor and you happen to be a democrat, your folks are going to think gravity operates differently. so i'd be interested when you see rule of law not work and you feel people somehow demeaned and left behind in that. do you worry about that here? yeah, and i think the way you solve it is 1st, you've got to see this as a strategic priority. and it very often is kind of the little puppy the tailing along behind everything else. and the foreign policy national security

establishment, look at o, rush on the board of ukraine, such a crisis. oh, what's trying to do about i want such a crisis and things like this. the don't have a kind of moment to them. but are structural and art very important to get right because they will avoid that later. that's wakeham. all right, that's, that's reacting to something you want to show them. yeah. so, so the institution that makes clipped crafts and foreign criminals able to hide their money behind rule of law protections is an institution that we need to and do . and if we do wanna do it will have a much safer and better planet how literate do you think the biden national security team is on this subject? i know you're out there pounding on this every day, and i don't mean to critique you unfairly. but there aren't a lot of other people with senator sheldon white house pounding every day on this.

i'm sure you do have allies be nice to hear who they are, but are you sensing that president biden and his team are taking this as seriously as you are? yeah, i think that this administration has taken his problem more seriously than any previous administration has this conference, i think is an expression of that. and particularly if it's successful at raising the profile of this issue of cryptography and hidden money and our role in all of it, then i think they can really step up an entirely new level and, and be very, very effective. i wouldn't, since you've mentioned other senators, wanna go without mentioning, been kardon, who's been so effective in for sanctions to magnify magnets gate sanctions, particularly, and the sanctions regime and not interrupt it. def, here describe that what the magnets he met. magnets key sanctions are for our audience. so russia found a guy they didn't like. and they basically deprived imprisoned him and deprived

them of health care. and he died. as a result, they were able to steal his company. he'd been a big investor in russia, and other people came in and took over his company. and that whole operation was so rotten that a regime of international sanctions was developed to find the russians who'd been involved in that scheme and deny them access to banks and other institutions in the free world. so that regime makes a very good model for dealing with other bad behavior. trade sanctions and magnetic sky sanctions can put real pressure on countries that are providing shelter for this dark economy to not get off and to come clean. and kardon has been a real hero, i think, in that respect. yeah. and bill browder who is wanted back to art and you know, is, was working on this now. and my understanding is the leading team is now applied to other governments as well. so not just russia, but you know,

more broadly and even got it expanded to the russian scheme to do doping in the olympics and other international athletic contests. so as a tool we've seen are useful. it isn't work spanning it's use, and it's there are ready to be applied to people who indulge the dark money cryptography regime. so we just ask you this question. i'm, i want to show you this, this chart. we're going to put this chart up that shows how, you know, whether most americans are going to trust the 2024 election. now this is slightly a different topic, but i want to get into it because it talks a little bit about confidence in the system that we have. and we show that, you know, democrats have 82 percent trust in the 2024 election coming up. republicans for 33 percent this election that hasn't happened right. it has not happened, but the level of crossing institution is so divided between these 2 parties. and i know in my, in my gut, that part of it has to do with doubt in institutions and

a feeling like the system is unfair to some fair to others. i or, or maybe you have other insights into what's going on. i think a lot of it has to do with propaganda. propaganda is an age old technique. the i did that in america, we're not vulnerable of propaganda is not justified by facts or rationality. and i think people are being very heavily propagandized about this. and we happen to know that a loved us propaganda actually originates overseas. we've actually caught the russians sending propaganda through us communications vectors and into our population. so we know that it is happening, and unfortunately we are not effective at i'm defending our firewalls against that stuff because the very same channels that allow russia to propagandized the public or the channels that allow, for instance, the american fossil fuel industry to propagandized, the public and so to indulge our domestic propagandized ers and let them hide,

we've kept these channels in place that let anybody hide. and that's just a really stupid choice for our country to make. do you think, given the tools you have in the u. s. senate your, you know, on committees and you, you had a narcotics caucus that, that you were seeing subpoena plow a power play out right now. and i'm just wondering how strong a tool or weak a tool it is to use that to try to create transparency on these rule of law and kind of democracy solvency questions. do you need more tools to do your job as a senator to get into these and to get into these dark places? i think we probably do. there's a very real danger that the new supreme court majority is going to a republican majority. republican majority is going to create already has created and, and expand dark money rights that inhibit congress as ability to do the investigations that the constitution allows us. and in fact requires us

a to do so. we have some hazards. one of them is where this court goes on this question. it's the court, the dark money belt, the dark money behind the federalist society ran the turn style through which the last 3 judges came. so the idea that it's now turning to defend dark money, it's kind of an ominous portent and it suggest, i mean, those are strong words, ominous portent. but it's an ominous puerto because i think in a, you know, somebody said many years ago that sunlight is the best disinfectant. right. and the more the court, and the more our system establishes safe havens from sunlight channels where dark money and anonymity can do their worst. right. the worse off we're going to be sen, wrap up. i want to read a couple of comments that came in after our last show because i think it's important. we listen to how the world is perceiving this summit for democracy in

reaction to the show tor eric back a right. they should be pointing out major flaws in american democracy. money in politics. yep. lobbying gerrymandering, voters, suppression, low participation in elections. the electoral college, the filibuster, counter majority carrying institutions like the senate and the supreme court. erosion of democratic norms, etc. sounds like a sheldon white house list to me one moment. the 2nd one is from such even us it says, let's just think for a moment how in iranian would see this or cubans, or venezuelans, bolivians, or just the majority of popular opinion around latin america, asia, africa, or even europe. the popular notion would be that the united states has been the biggest obstacle in the path of even thinking about a democratic justice based nation abroad. so there's doubt in this summit for democracy that's coming up. i just love to kind of get your picture. you know, if you were advising joe biden, on how to keep this from being a big belly flop and failing. what would be the key to turning around?

the doubts that these people have about america's role in convening this i think you've got to start the way we did in glasgow on climate change with a little humility. but with really showing up in force. and then i think you've got to make it real. we have lost our standing to give the rest of the world lectures. we have to actually fix the problem and show that we're fixing it within our own country as well as demanding that everybody else does. and there are 2 big networks that need to be disrupted. one is the network of foreign countries that shelter the international dark economy for the criminals and for the collector graphs. and we can do that in the 2nd, which is not unrelated, is the dark money network within the united states. that has made a lot of those things that your writer called us out for happen. there's a group of front groups with a funded by a couple of billionaires who are responsible for making

a great deal of that happen. and we need to make sure the american public hears that story and understands how they've been had just real quickly we. i remember on, on shows like the godfather with marlon brando, seeing those senate hearings, you know, on organized crime in america. they may have actually happened in real life in the past. but do we need something like that? again, do we need to have sheldon white house or other senators ashy convening senate hearings of that old would calling a subpoena people on organized crime trans nationally? i think it would be helpful for the american public to see that behind a lot of what they don't like about this country is a set of groups that are essentially phony groups that are all interrelated and often have overlapping boards and directors and same offices and all that kind of stuff. it's like a covert operation. and behind that is a bunch people who are funding what is essentially a covert intelligence operation against their own country. that's

a story worth telling. we have not told it at all. well, for sen, sheldon white house, democrat of rhode island, and chair of the senate narcotics caucus, really appreciate you sharing with us these other contours of the summit for democracy. this coming up. thanks for joining us today. good to be with you, steve. thanks for having me. so what's the bottom line? americas version of democracy has some great aspects that have inspired others, but there's so much that is not inspirational. sen, white house is right to focus on shadow organizations, corruption, that drug trade and the people behind them. these real centers of power that have real influence and they eat away at our democratic institutions. non transparent money and power are harming the u. s. at home and undermining order injustice in the international system. on top of that, sometimes washington supports those leaders abroad who are propped up by this corruption for a summit of democracy to mean anything. these issues, this issue of hypocrisy of supporting those leaders who are anti democratic anti human rights, all have to be dealt with. otherwise this summit is a lot of sound and fury,

signifying nothing. and that's the bottom line. ah december, josh was the feet that ira account a momentous event for the region and a glimpse of what's in store for the 2022 world cup people empower, investigates the use and abuse of power across the globe. a well exclusive interview with joint nobel peace, lori if recognize the safeguarding freedom of expression as a precondition for democracy and lasting peace from shore. documentaries to in depth explain his portal. showcase is the best voucher 0 digital content. as the years drools to a close, we look back at the events that have shaped the news and look ahead to next year. december on a jesse europe. our defines our wow,

the lawns, new babies were dying. i did it, not in their barish. people empower, investigates, exposes, and questions they use and abuse of power around the globe on how to get a hello again, adrian, for the get a here in dough. how the headlines on i was just 0 early results are expected on sunday, after gambia and voted in the election that's seen as a test for its transition to democracy. so up was high as people decided if president adama borrow, deserves on the term. i'll just hear as i'm address, has more from the capital one jewel. the turn out was really, really important talk to can be voice. i will tell you that this election is very important or significant in many respects. this is a false sunday. voting is close to 30.