along with my feeling is that's what will happen over the years to drought and all that with climate change. what to do with them. for months now, spain has suffered from low rainfall and data from the environment. ministry shows reservoirs up well below capacity for taurus and thus tanti trip round a coast village is also a reminder. the region is facing. a tough reality. may consume agencies. ah, this is audra 0. these are the top stories. the ukranian president deserves citizens not to panic. as warnings grow of a potential russian invasion, something that moscow denies the u. s. is evacuating non emergency americans to offer from its embassy in kiev. it's our borders. it's our territory. you, you know, i have to speak with our people, like, you know, like,

like president and said, people throughs and the truth that we have different information. and now the best friend for enemies that hispanic in our country. and all this information details only for bernie. doesn't help us. the russian foremost is accused the u. s. of conducting a propaganda campaign about a possible invasion socket of rob was speaking with your secretary of state antony blinking ahead of a planned call between the us and russian presidents later on saturday. ranch police have fired tear gas to break up a large valley in paris against pandemic rules. and convoy vehicles is blocking traffic in the center of the city after making it past police checkpoints, the so called freedom convoy has been inspired by similar protests in canada. and police are beginning to move on. preston protesters in the canadian capital also continuing to block a bridge, connecting canada to the us. despite an order from

a judge to leave 5 days of destruction, of force, some us all to factories, to shut down because of the lack of parts from canada. shlang as president has declared that health and power has provide essential services. and that means it's illegal for them to take strike action. well, the health care workers walked out earlier this week to demand a better pain conditions. us president joe biden signed an executive order to unfreezes $7000000000.00 in afghan funds. half of the funds will go towards humanitarian efforts in afghanistan, the half to relatives of victims of $911.00. i stopped presidential election inter madison is likely to be held on march. the 12 president build on raleigh about the local off, reportedly told parliament he was young leaders to steer the oil rich nation coming up next on our 0. it's upfront, goodbye as well. the best athletes to pass the winter olympics stating is bracing

itself for the arrival of an estimated 11000 people, kind of 0 tolerance, corporate strategy. what and despite diplomatic play, cloth will china is vince again trying. moving you the latest from dayton's 2022 winter olympics on houses era. from the 1968 olympics went to black athletes, tommy smith and john carlos, raise their fist in the black power salute during the national anthem. to mohammed ali risking his career and boxing by refusing to be drafted to fight in the vietnam war through billie jean king leading the fight for equal treatment of women, political statements. they've long been a part of us sport. more recently, we've seen athletes protesting police brutality, like naomi osaka, wearing face mask bearing the names of people killed by the police in the united states. and in 2016, a seminal moment. how and cabinet a player and the national football league, or nfl, began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. then last week, just after we reported the conversation that you're about to watch. another moment

of reckoning, fired miami dolphins coach brian flores is suing the nfl m 3 teams alleging systemic and structural racism in their hiring practices flores and suit thumbs. just as the nfl is working to rehabilitate its image. and per pause for boycotts over its treatment of captioning with the super bowl, the annual championship game of the nfl. coming up right around the corner. we take a look at the state of politics and sports today and examine just how far we come. ah, you wanted me to discuss sports and activism. we have michael bennett, junior, former nfl player with the seattle seahawks pro bowler activist and author of things that make white people uncomfortable. a book that he co wrote with dave's iron sports editor of the nation magazine and author of 11 books on the politics of sports, including his latest the cabinet effect. taking a ne, changing the world. good to see you both. oh my god, want to start with you back in 2017. you decided not to stand for the national

anthem until you saw equality and freedom. why did you make that decision? and what kind response did you get? who's a hard decision? i think internally would team i think there was a lot of those a lot about it within organization just because a lot of people feel like you know, politicians, sports don't mix, but i think there's a sense of where we have to connect to humanity. see what's happening around us, and although you freedom isn't always expected in a lot of things, but being able to use our platform just to bring awareness to people who are experiencing a different life than we're experiencing. then trying to build this as an empathy. so there was a lot of backlash from, like just you know, this is a white america who doesn't understand a black man who's it seems to have no material. would they only equate our humanity to material one is like it's not about the money. it's about when you don't have the money, just recognize as you play,

being black. what can happen to you in case the police are you engage in the wrong area? how your life can be short and just because it's simpleness, or just because of your skin. michael, do you think that there was an expectation that because you had a different class position because you were out well paid athlete that you wouldn't care about what, what was happening to every day black people on the ground? i know, you know, this is interesting because in mom nelly's books, he was talking about the tare, one in the big metal, and he tried to, in a restaurant. although here were the elliptic metal and all these different things have happened. they still can get in the restaurant, i do it in a metal into, into the river. and it's like in a day, doesn't really matter what kind of actually will come to work for you calmly in america at the end of the day, which has a lot to do with what's happening to people around this country. they've. michael is speaking to these powerful relationships between sports and politics. there are

a lot of people who argue and who genuinely believe that sports is supposed to be. the respite from politics to sports is where you go for entertainment. it's that where you go to find an arena for political change, you obviously made a career saying just the opposite. why? well honestly, because when i hear people say sports and politics shouldn't mix, i feel like what they really mean is that sports and a certain kind of politics shouldn't mix. you know, the politics of a, michael bennett, the politics of people who stand for social justice in human rights. that's what they don't want to see in sports. when it comes to nationalism when it comes to militarism when it comes to commercialism. when it comes to all those kinds of political issues, backs, politics. and so just because we say we don't want to see politics or we don't think politics should be in sports. i mean, honestly, that sort of like saying you don't believe in gravity when you're falling out of an airplane. mike or how do we get here? you know, there was a moment when mohammed ali is refusing to fight in the vietnam war. there's

a moment in the ninety's though, where athletes stood suddenly or less willing to share their opinions. ah, they don't want to take political statements. i think about when michael jordan famously said a republicans by sneakers, too, as a response to why he wouldn't endorse a particular political candidate. how do we get from the arly moment to that moment in the ninety's where athletes are doing less and speaking less about these issues? ah, i think there's a sense of, right. i feel like it's not just a actually thing. i think we're lucian has always been brought to come in and i think there's a historical evidence of there. and also i think sometimes is axis one. the title of athlete allows is not to be connected to the idea of what a tardy of where he may experience and, and we kind of put ourselves in a bubble and i've been ali burst at global. and then as we start to get more in tune with capitalism, that global starting to in our food banker covers and consumers that you know,

we got there was so much money that was happening so much through the contracts got bigger, the television got bigger, the commercial his got bigger, they just became his disconnect what was happening on a daily basis to all kinds of communities. mother how, how conscious is that capitalist piece in the minds of athlete in your experience? in other words, like, do athletes just get caught up in the moment and they don't realize it? or have you experience athletes who are like, no bra? i am not doing that protests. i am not making a statement because it's too much money on a line. yeah, because i think it is money. there's a lot athletes who are like, ma'am doing this for the money, which i can understand are some moment people are doing it for the moment and they really want to support their families. but also there's moments where the athletes that i don't understand all the ones who are significantly compensated or that are also worley were known and don't take the opportunity to share the message which, which makes capron very interesting. and also somebody like on the brand, james, who constantly is on the forefront of all that regardless of the money that he's

made. he's also he said things. i think there's a lot of athletes that are granted to like, i'm not sending thing. i don't want anything to happen to me and you know, there's people who, you know, one of my actually friends, he said he supported to some of us and in his family, got burned back in texas. so i think there is a sense of where a lot of people are affected by their communities and their families are still live in the certain area. so, so thomas about my but also sometimes about the safety of the families. interestingly enough, like even i just in britain was telling the story about how he supported us. and in back the next year he travels the bar camp and nobody wanted to come to serve him at a restaurant or did they not want to support? so i can be more. wow, those are those are high stakes. and you mentioned calling capron gave you wrote a book called the catholic effect, taking in the changing the world. crappy knick isn't the only person who's ever taken a stand. he's not even though the person is innovation or in the nfl who took a span, but his stand did have a specific impact on the league, and indeed on the country and the national discourse around sports and politics.

what was the effect of capron, nick? you say he changed the world. how? yeah. um, before i, i just want to say a quick edition in case some listeners don't know who the justin. brett is. who michael bennett was just referring to. that was a white see me of michaels. ah, who is in solidarity with michael, so that's a white former player not being served in a restaurant and not having people at his camp. imagine what it's been like for black athletes over the last 10 years. as we've seen this return of politicized athlete. and it really has been like a 10 year period. ah, women athletes, male athletes, l g, b, t, q, athletes. there's been an explosion of politics over the last decade in capron. it is only just a part of that story, you know, but he came up, taking that knee in 2016, and we're talking about right now a period that i think goes back to the murder of treyvon martin in the miami heat, lead by le bron ah, speaking out against that. so capron is just a part of the story,

but i think he represented an incredible acceleration and elevation of the politics and the new athletic movement. and that's how he changed the world. he changed the world because he took this feeling of protests that was out there and he brought it to the point of, i think, the greatest contradiction of every sporting event. and that's the playing of the national anthem. and by taking that knee, he was issuing a direct challenge to this country, saying that there is a gap between what this country says it represents. and the lived experiences of black and brown communities, particularly around the issue of police violence. and by doing that, what he did was he forced white vans to confront the bigotry racism, and violence that exists in u. s. society force them to confront it against their will. and i think that something that the entire black lives matter movement has done. and it's generated both solidarity in white communities. we saw that in the protests in 2020. it's

also generated. i horrific and violent backlash seen in everything from book burning to the patriot front, which is some clown right wing, a group that just marched in d. c by the re lincoln memorial. i mean, the confidence of the hard right in this country is one of the effects of polarization. and collin capron. it is a part of representing that polarization. now some people have said to me, o, collin capra, nick, you're celebrating someone who polarized this country and my response to that is just to say, con capron. it didn't polarize this country. you know, police brutality polarized this country racism polarized this country inequality has polarized. this country, what con capron did was just point out for everybody to see that the emperor right now is not wearing clothes. when the response comes to current cabinet, michael and believe start to make some changes. there are some people

who argued that the leagues change is weren't real. that they were superficial, that they were performative that you know, the nfl, letting people have slogans on their helmets, like stop hater or black lives matter. you know, when you see stuff like that, or is there any real substance of change there? or is that just the league sort of playing into a narrative for its own benefit? and if that, if it is the latter, what is real change look like? and again, it's all tries to make positive, strives to lead issue, but i think there's just such a disconnect between either the nfl could really ever have the impact that it could have because color can predict never been to beckett's and flawed. number. one thing that could really hope to, in a felt really make his impact was in white collar cap or need to have a seat at the table to help control the narrative and bring in the ideas and the people to hear man ra activation. people have truly are here. so the street i had

the feet to the ground and really understand what's happening is communities, how they could have been and bring a great change. and i think the greatest thing i think that to me, that can be changed on top of police brutality is you know, investment and things such as education. ah, oh, hospital hospitals and it's access to fair nutrition, libraries, parks just like the everyday necessities. the human beings need not just the victimization of it, but also the opportunity to actually have a real foot at the starting line and really have opportunity to really run that race. that america says everybody has the opportunity to be, you know, has a dream to be what they want to be. i think us opportunity to really allow people like us to go to our communities and really change the way that we see fit. a one of the ways that the nfl attempted to change those communities and to bring people in because michael makes an important point. car capitan made the sacrifice a league made every shift except finding

a way to get college happening back in the mix. to have a seat at the table and to help is he said shift the narrative. one personally didn't bring in to help shift the narrative was jay z and his company. right. to those exact as he is he, that response is what the nfl for you bought the rock. that's exactly what people say the nfl. and that happened right. is that, you know, if we bring jersey and he's popular, he's beloved by the community. the streets love him, and if you bring him in to not just do the half time show the super bowl, but to do the community engagement piece that it will make black people stop complaining, but it'll make protester say, look, the nfl does care about what's happening in black communities and jazzy can now run interference, pardon the metaphor, but jesse can out run an offense for, for the league as opposed to doing the substance of work. when you see the nfl make moves like that, does it make you more skeptical? does it make you wary of the move or does it make you say maybe maybe to some

positive opportunity here? i mean, it makes me realize that they're operating with a carrot and stick. at the same time, the carrot is look, we're bringing in j z. look, we're putting slogans on the helmets. look, we've got a special committee that's going to work on these issues, all carefully controlled by the league. look at the half time show this year. we're bringing out dray and snoop and amen. m. that's going to be the half time show this year. look at all these things and that's on one side. but we can't forget the stick part like look column capron. it's still unemployed. look at the executive class of believe the ownership class of the league. we're talking about counting on one and the people of color who truly have a seat at the power tables in the national football league and you know, a leading nfl rider name michael silver even works for the nfl network after some of the recent round of firings of black coaches, michael silver said look, there is institutionalized racism in this league. and there are very real races in positions of power in this lee. so they're trying to operate

a very delicate dance right now. because at the same time, they can't just let their races freak flag fly and just be like, yeah, this is a face is not for payton, because the league is 70 percent black. so you need and that's why i think people like column cabinet and michael bennett, ah, what their greatest sin in the eyes of, of nfl power is that they stepped outside this highly autocratic, very top down and structure. and they sit. they basically live the words of mohammed ali even said i don't have to be who you want me to be. once you have black athlete saying that it kind of upsets the whole apple cart of the structure of league, which is let's try to appease the players while at the same time closing the door on real power migrant. you've spoken about before about a fear of serious injury or, you know, brain damage due to repeated knocks on the head in your book. in fact, you said,

i'm scared every time i go out on the field that something possibly could go wrong and i might leave my kids for good. how are leagues like the nfl structure to deal with series player injuries? you know, when it is so interesting cuz i mean, dave is working on the book. oh, there was a moments in a book where it was like this. ah, vulnerability an honesty that it graphs you for a moment and he hit you which all reality i like. there's a moment, there's a moment that was a moment where i had to stop in like dave, i need a moment because tears don't come down my eyes because it's emotional because it's like looking, looking at you look at g, you say as you look at all these different people who have experience of brain trauma or experi, some type of pain like that. and you and you wonder sometimes am i look in it. when i look in a mirror arm looking at a broken man. and i think this is very scary when you start to think about when you could be harmed or you could be injured. but you notice i could deal with the devil . can the nfl do something more to make sure that the players are protected?

cuz you're right, i mean if, if it's a sport, it's a gladiator, sport, and you run into each other. there's a level of violence, it's inevitable in the sport. you can't play football and not get hurt. right. ok, but can i? i think i'm good if i could do, i think personally with initial can doing where my do would be would be be bill bill treatment centers around america where athletes, all that, all the sport and things come together is where people can go and get treatment and find out what's going on with their bodies. it's been a certain amount of time. then when you retire almost like you have to go in a and you have to spend a might do site training and go to bring your wife in there. bring your kids in there and just deal with injuries so you can have the opportunity to keep going to these places when you feel pain. also give her, you know, health care and, and money fraud is different things was there doing, but i think there's just a deeper thing that we have to deal want to minnesota guys go through. and i think when you go to sports like this, you build up a sense of numbness and callousness to your body and your emotions that it's hard

to even deal with things in life. because you all have been told to plates and pain . you even know the relationship with pain, nor to you, he should look or to really sure which only emotions while david mike was talking about building structures in place to deal with the physical trauma or the mental anguish that comes with planning sports. but in the current moment, the nfl seems to be responding quite differently to player injuries of in 20192. former black players filed a civil rights lawsuit against the info for what's called race norming. which assumes that black players have lower cabinet of function than white players. talk to me about this practice. ah, is it still happening and why was it happening in the 1st place? well, hopefully due to public pressure on this will not be happening going forward. i mean, a couple of things about it. first of all, as you well know, mark, i mean, race norming. this idea of judging ah, black bodies in white bodies differently. i. it is something that's been going on

in this country since the trans atlantic slavery. i mean, this is something that this kind of racism in medicine runs very, very deep in the american psyche and it pushed forward into this concussion lawsuit that was negotiated by the nfl by the nfl players association. i together, you know, it was this idea that said that if you were a black player, then your cognitive ability, your baseline cognitive ability is inherently lower than your white teammates. therefore, you don't need to be paid as much in the concussion loss and fall out because for lack of a better way to put it because you're cognitively impaired. any way for you to lose as much as i am functioning as your brain and work. very good, anyway. yes. yes, that, that's the ugliness of this. and it was so ugly, a technician that we only know about this because of a b c news because some technicians were whistleblowers. are these technicians were

emailing each other like wow, this is really racist. what we're dialing right now. this is wrong and then it came forward and then the players came forward and, and the nfl did what the nfl does very effectively. there were, you know, it's like the famous scene in casablanca, like, were shocked that there's gambling going on here. here's your winning, sir, that, you know, it's like we're, we're, we're going to be on the front lines ending race norming. not only in concussion settlement, not only are we going to change that, but in all of medicine, we're going to play a leadership role in making sure this never happens again. and you know, immediately switching the narrative instead of saying, well, why was this practice seen as okay? and to me, very importantly, how does the fact that you exercise this practice? how does that connect with the fact that there are so few black people in positions of power and leadership in the national for bali? and that's the point that i want to get to because michael, you played in the nfl. ah, your black 70 percent of your teammates were black. ah,

there are almost no black coaches in the end of the head coaches in the nfl. why? actually on the why i think this is i think as so i think the black players have to say more. i think black players have to say more. i think black players have been very silent on this and i think we is black players. even though the info is doing is the integrals for on a doing this, but i think is black players. we can really take a stance and work to support our fellow workers and because a lot of the cultures used to be players, right? so it's like what kind of yeah, that's what i'm saying. i'm which you, my god is like, there's a way that players can certainly do more to, to leverage their power to get the nfl to do the right thing. i just want to started to please don't it. they're not doing the right thing. i mean, how to use it. all right, thing i'm agreeing with you get in there doing the right thing, but i'm just saying just like common cabinet was able to step up and change the narrative from what's happening outside of the inner bill. how do we have that same narrative? who got austin,

percent of all players. now plan to we start getting more black coaches and position of power to be get more black cultures and then we can take the victimization of it. take the power to control the st. we're not playing. we'd love our black coat, she should have the opportunity, be me, raise a raise. a good point about the nfl players responding to the kind of structural institutional racism. it's reflected in the, in the power dynamics right between who owns the teams. ah, who coaches, the teams, et cetera. but how do we get to this space where it's just accepted that all these black and brown people on a field are going to be led by white men on the sidelines? oh, we've gotten to this place because the average career is only 3 and a half years and the contracts aren't guaranteed. and so everybody feels in a state of profound uncertainty all the time. and so this idea of speaking up, it comes with a cost and then column kept the specter of someone like fallen. capron, it haunts this new generation of players because it's like, hey,

you want to speak out, you want to step out of line, go right ahead. we can also take away your livelihood and we have to remember this . now i was thinking about this when we were talking about class earlier, it's like players overwhelmingly come from working class or poor backgrounds. and this 3 and a half year career. that's the average length, that's when they're going to make over probably over 95 percent of the wealth that they're gonna make over the course of their lives. and so the idea of keeping quiet and not risking a year of that do a strike or a lockout or more of that becomes very important. so there's a lot of powerlessness in terms of being labor in the nfl. but there's also a lot of power because this is a multi $1000000000.00 operation, and it only works if the players are willing to be on board. i think one of the most powerful nfl political moments of the last several years was after the police murder of george floyd. the nfl issued a very tepid statement. and a group of players put out their own video saying the nfl is not doing enough to

stand up at this critical moment in history. and the person who helped organize that and who led the charge was patrick ma homes. now, why is that important? you're not going to get rid of patrick more homes. patrick homes could walk out naked on to madison avenue and do a little dance and the nfl would say, oh, that just shows he has character. and i think in the nfl n patrick ma holds. did that it sent at least a message to me that if the players wanted to, they could grab a piece of the string on the sweater that is the nfl. and give it a mighty mighty pull. we'll see what happens. but in the meantime, arm, i'm excited that the energy on the ground is still there. the players are still resisting that the analysis is still happening and i'm glad that you, tourists were able to join us that way and on it. michael bennett, thieves are thanks. so much for joining me on up front. that's our show up front. we'll be back with

ah diets define who we are. but who always, if we don't know what way eating in a disturbing investigation into globalized food fraud, people and power reveals long hidden scandalous practices. the def, infiltrated international health. so markets on supermarket chains and asks what's really on our plate. food in glorious food on to, on al jazeera, this sport style mom flying the flag for her nation. we have been putting, i'm going to him face and playing cricket and rugby for her country between rig maximum. my dream play in the woods while providing for her family cries in by ways cleaning games. that's my view by precious moran gay

in the game. my zimbabwe on al jazeera tree fall precision. these athletes are experts in the art of jumping out of planes. more than 40 military, parachuting teams have descended here to the desert of guitar to compete for the world championship title. the competitors are all active military members. and have been training for years to get here. most have tens of thousands of jumps to their names. each country will compete in 3 disciplines. freefall, skydive, accuracy, landing and 4 way formation. men and women compete separately, but under the same flag. you know, i can't do a story about parachuting and not jump out of a plane as we climb up the teams mentally prepare for their job. i try to do the same then minutes later once the earth is just a blurb below it's time to free fall.

lou. huh. this is al jazeera. ah, hello. this is in use our on al jazeera. i'm fully back to go live for my headquarters in doha, coming up in the next 60 minutes. the best friend for an image that hispanic ukraine urges citizens to state.