launch pad to bolster its capacity to send satellites into orbit. i see lavonne de lion joined sweden's king and prime minister to cut ribbon it is face course s ranch. it, sir, an extension of an existing facility in the arctic fall north of the country, and its aiming for its vast launch in 2024, 3 days earlier, a launch from a new project in the u. k. failed ukraine. morrisville could tell the use of russia satellite launch site in kazakhstan, the current geopolitical situation. not least, of course, the russian invasion of ukraine has demonstrated how important it is. but the european union has access to space as range unique, geographic goes position and long service makes it ideal for launches of satellites in polar orbits and other space activities. ah,

so ok, look at the main stories of following the sour rushes as it's captured, the eastern ukrainian town of soda, it would be moscow's 1st gain in the dumbass region since july capturing sold also allows russian forces to concentrate on taking near by backlit, which ukraine has been defending for months, efforts to take sold our have been spearheaded by of gainey magazine leader of the mercenary wagner group. but ukraine is saying heavy fighting is still going on. visually, you love the oil on the evening of january, the 12th, the liberation of solid all was completed. the town important for continuing the russian advance on dani exc. taking full control of solider enables russia to cut off the ukrainian forces and supplies in battle mode, which is located to the south west from solider. and after that, to block and, and circle the ukrainian army divisions that remain their local climb active is kratom burgers joined offers in the german village of le seraph to protest against

the expansion of an open cast. coal mine. thousands of people are expected to join them on saturday. several other activists in the village remained chained to a house in the bands and village resisting police efforts to a victim. protest is argued that the coal project on the mines, germany's climate goals, a court in greece has dropped as be nice charges against a group of activists involved in rescuing people from migrant. both of course, also admitted the long run in case had a procedural fault because the non greek speaking defendants had not received proper translations or into protests. prosecution was ordered to re file the case, meaning that they might still face charges including human trafficking. and at least 9 people have been reported dead after tornadoes and thunderstorms hit the u . s. state of georgia and alabama. rescue crews are still searching for missing people. drone video from the out about a town of selma shows thousands of damaged homes. more than 35 tornadoes reported

by the national weather service across the se, united states on thursday while front is coming up next. now with mark lamont hill, we have the news out for you at $2100.00 gmc and about 90 minutes from now. and then of course of a bit more news you in about 25 minutes time. i will be back for that. aah! in 1971, a military analyst by the name of daniel ellsberg leaked to the press. a 7000 page top secret pentagon study and covering years of official lies about u. s. military involvement in the vietnam war. the leak documents,

known as the pentagon papers were instrumental in exposing the scope and strategy behind the u. s. is war in the region, and many at the time believed they could change how the world viewed war decades later as conflicts rage on and ukraine, yemen in ethiopia, just to name a few. the decision making process behind wars remains as murky. is that what we do know is that billions of dollars is spent on weapons and defense contracts every year, making conflict incredibly profitable result. so who benefits from war? and who are the biggest players behind the war machine and up front special. but daniel ellsberg ah, daniel ellsberg, thank you so much for joining me on up front. thank you for having a large part of your life's work. has been committed to not only raising awareness about the dangers of nuclear weapons, but also the money behind them. in 20. 20 is. the pandemic raged the 9 nuclear weapons. states collectively spent an estimated $72000000000.00 on nuclear weapons

. and we're now living in a time when the danger of nuclear war, of course, has spite. where does this leave the movement for nuclear disarmament given how much money is at play and all of this one's kept his from having any real effect on reducing the danger of nuclear war all these years that no one was quite effective in helping stop a above ground testing and even the underground testing was actually, but in other respects i, it really hasn't been very effective. and i don't think the movement was as conscious as it should be of the money behind it in the effect that had on congress . they really acted as so it was just a question, what people watch which was tool void nuclear war or rob, i just political of strategic aspects of it is not needed. it's dangerous and so forth. that it came very little attention to the role of companies like owing

lockheed raytheon, general dynamics and job. he is, if far they really want to factor. it's like talking about climate without talking about the exxon corporation or shell or chevron. and actually that is the way climate is talked about pretty much we just don't face fact. and we are facing a large flows of money directed at keeping the status quo, which is the status quo of extreme nuclear danger, especially in times of crisis like this. and of climate movement toward an abyss, basically the end of our current civilization, or preach. we shuffling with people around the world in talk about the threat of nuclear war in this abyss that we're headed toward that certainly a piece of another piece of it is war in armed conflict that's taking place right now is plaguing multiple countries. you could ukraine, you got yemen, you got some malia, you got the ethiopian list, goes on,

but behind wars like that are a weapons industry that you just alluded to. that was worth $531000000000.00 worldwide in 2020. and as of this recording, while the asian of ukraine intensifies the stock prices of general dynamics lockheed martin, as you mentioned, northrop grumman, raytheon. they recently hit their 5 year hive. so as we talk about war, we also have several who benefits from war. can you help me unpack that a little bit? who's really benefited? is the old earth, latin silken coolly bono, who benefits are going all the way back when you can name? let's just go in the last century world war one. the loans by j. p. morgan to the british for arms, for the british, it had to deal or even had lost the war to some extent. j. p. morgan would have gone bankrupt and wilson,

i'm president and could not allow that to happen. that would have been a financial disaster, and that goes on from there on, in particular whoa, whoa, who benefited from vietnam going on as long as it did, or afghanistan. right? now the war that we're supporting in yemen through arms to saudi arabia and the way keeping it, actually genocidal war going on are enormous massacre. and i think with very little benefit except to the arms manufacturers. people ask, why don't we learn from our failures in vietnam and afghanistan and elsewhere in the answer is, who has a lesson to learn? those floors were very profitable for the people you name for lockheed raytheon knows we're coming and the others are. they have anything to learn. i'm afraid that right now, there's 2 major purposes that will keep the war. they can keep the war and ukraine

going. as long as the war in afghanistan, not in the way that is being waged now. but by a kind of guerrilla, we're that we're supporting that we support, as we did against the soviets in afghanistan for 10 years. and the f ukrainian people would be ground to bits in the course of that as the afghans were. and yet it's very comfortable for people who are supplying those weapons and keep going. there is one other major motives that affects these things in particular in europe . and that is that higher u. s. role in europe who are not after all, a european nation. and we has no particular rule in a european union, but in nato, that's as the mafia says. cosa nostra our thing. we control nato pretty much, and nato gives us an excuse and a reason to sell enormous amounts of arms to now to the formerly warsaw pact, nations which had only 2nd raid or obviously soviet weapons altogether. from the

moment that the berlin wall came down, lockheed representatives were in warsaw showing them on a need for f, 20 twos and for other weapons right there. against who, as the russians are reasonably asked, actually, russia is an indispensable enemy in europe. and nothing else can rancho is to say noble enemy, that if that's that fascinating language, break that down for me, the, an indispensable. and what does that mean? it means that you can't really justify new trident submarines or i she be m's that northrop grumman is making a whole new life. she be up against ian or isis or i l. cater. ah, nature stonecutters as rationale for multi 1000000000 now dollar arms budget. only russia has the targets, any sophisticated arms to fight against. you don't need advanced 5th generation

fighters against people who don't have any aircraft or fighters of their own, or sophisticated ones. but russia and now china and for the future in particular, to offer noxious arrival or a competitor, but shown who could be painted as an enemy against whom you have to defend. and of course, put now in the last shoe once has just been a bonanza for the armed people. because it last you've made a russia look an offensive i enemy of some kind. who has to be defended against, with the latest weapons, with new weapons. and of course, russia has its military industrial complex to maintenance fast. they remind me of the black arts poet, gills got herons that everybody loved peace. the problem is you can't make no money off of it. you know, in the past few months, more than 5600000000 dollars has been poured into ukraine in the form of military

aid from the u. s. from the u. k. and from the e. u. we seen similar situations in the past when u. s. arms were used by libyan in syrian opposition groups. but what happens when those conflicts are over or seemingly over? oh, where did the weapons go? iraq church, it's a long time before these contracts are over. as you know, in afghan, a santa went on for 20 years, and it could good much longer. in libya, what we did was supply lot of weapons to people who in turn. so some 2 other insurgencies of and terrors groups and others throughout africa and elsewhere. and of course, our efforts in afghanistan armed in effect against the soviets isis, or i'll should say, al kato, and then later isis. so he things have low back effects. ah, heaping in mind. they didn't have these amps industries. that would be wrong to say

they didn't invade ukraine. cooking did that. however, they, in their people, they were influencing and the government were willing to risk a war like this coming from their policies, which were in fact provocative. in terms of making it likely that the russians, any russian leader would eventually react against it, however illegally. just as we reacted when khrushchev put missiles in cuba, jewish new tires and those missiles did not, in fact, threaten our security. and i say that as someone who was looking at precisely a problem in the pentagon, at that time working for his mcnamara said, hey, it's not a security problem, missiles into it, it's a political problem. critical, good. i want to know this is somewhat at this stage, foreseeable, right? i mean after thing, what happens in syria would thing, what happens in libby or we, as you've done, we can go back decades prior. the weapons end up in the hands of folk who as

physically we wouldn't want to have them. and yet we continue either to fund them directly or by proxy. so i guess the question for me is, why do we allow it to happen in ultimately? what happens to these weapons? what kind of considerations given to what happens to these weapons? well, it comes down to who the we is, who we're talking about. i, it's an artist, it's not a century, the taxpayers are the citizens who are, by the way, regrettably willing to see it, deaths of others who don't look like us. ukraine is getting much concern about the casualties in the war crimes because it is not on brown muslims that are being victimized share but by the russians in this case. but it's white christians and that they're like us. and to see they're in such anguish, inter that creates a public pressure that tom wasn't here before. but in all of these other cases. and

so should, oh, what's the problem? we hear that matters. the ones that provide the large campaign contributions and they provide the personnel at high levels and these ranks benefit fine from them. there's no problem. i may not be very successful, but he failing war is just as profitable as a winning one. in fact, in someplace better cause it goes on forever. as you see, the winning is over really wish i wouldn't say the libby is, is the prime example. i where and could, to some extent, afghanistan, where the weapons fanned out to other people had provided opponents to an adversaries. but is that bad? multiple adversaries are also good for the military industrial complex, not only in our country in europe as well. it's not only american school, so these weapons, though it is mainly these oversee the french, the others,

and the russians have big arms markets in the world. according to the institute for policy studies last year, the average american taxpayer gave about $2000.00 to the military with over $900.00 going to corporate military contractors. in contrast, the average taxpayer contributed about $27.00 to the centers for disease control and prevention and barely $5.00 to renewable energy. how do you advocate for peace when so much taxpayer money is going to will call it the fits republicans in particular, are very resistant to spending on social welfare or of any kind for people or anything that in any way seems to compete with private industry. the one thing you can get republicans to bunch of money for is allegedly

national security, even though almost none of these weapons actually add or even relevant to our national security. but they are relevant to making threats against russian. you need russia later, china will be billed enough militarily to serve the purpose of the necessary the indispensable enemy. but now it was hard to keep the cold were going fully at full speed with rushes in enemy in the 90s. in the early part of the century, so now it's back and was back before the attack on russia. but now pollutant has fit into that in a way that i think was not unwelcome to our military industry. if they didn't actually want it, i'm sure they could even count on russia actually invading another country like to have russia objecting and complaining and posing and threatening to invade. as he

did a whole year ago with, with, with troops on the edge of ukraine in belarus. all that was good for business and it doesn't, by the way, it doesn't justify putin's aggression at all. he's did to have reason to feel in the longer run treatment every russian security in terms of weapons so close to their borders, like the weapons in cuba that we objected to. kennedy had no regiment reason for threatening to adventure on that. and russia has had no legitimate recently for grading craig, but time. nevertheless, we've pursued a policy that was warmed against, going back to the mid ninety's by 1210 another c founder of the cold war. and trish, who should issue an indescribable error blunder mistake

or to make an enemy out of russia by moving especially into ukraine of some of the u. s. as top spies and military generals with ties of defense contractors end up as intelligence analysts on various news channels when they retire. for example, former c, i a director john brennan became embassies senior national security and intelligence analysts se, se, connecticut with what you want to say. and former c i a director michael hayden became a national security analyst for c and n a. how much does this compromise what the public is told about war? what else? what that stake? well, it depends which you think the purpose of functions that really is in times of war, in our military society. their function pretty much is to sell the public on the need from war weapons and the need to intervene in this country are media is ultimately controlled by major corporations like general electric ah, for a long time. and jo,

many other conglomerates basically themselves recognize her consist of big business. and as i say, war is good business for the media. and joe, for the administration, even when it's failing, so hoof. so i'm answering your question. it's natural for them to hire these people . if they're messages to get propaganda out, who better to do it, and he's military or the she a people, if you want, endless war, which in effect, the wish has wanted for her. that's something. what happens? what happens when citizens are only told the truth about war after the wars are over, after the information is leaked after information is the classified. it seems like we only get this under extreme and unforeseeable circumstances and the people were trying to conceal it. so what does it mean for us? well, the kinds of information that we needed to blood vietnam was represented by such as

the pentagon papers, which was a study of vietnam decision making from 45 to 6768. i put that out 1st starting in 69 and then through the newspapers and 71. so that was somewhat belated, but not too long. but i put on trial for a possible 115 years in prison. so down quite a few people, i didn't see any other big reach like that of for 39 years until chelsea manning put out hundreds of thousands of files on his canister. and in iraq. and she spent 7 and a half years in prison. ed snowden, for his revelations, essential revelations of criminality. why the national security agency, the universal surveillance, not only in our country but around the world, but where it wasn't so illegal, but definitely against

a constitution in america. and so essentially a lifetime exile. so these people and daniel haile revealed the drone program. they did what they should have done just as i think i did what i should have done, but everyone has paid a penalty. very heavy penalty nodded my chase nixon actually committed so many crimes which happened amazingly, almost miraculously to become revealed towards the end of my trial that kept me from having to go to prison as he had intended with the others and say either exile or prison and that just purchase. you mentioned chelsea manning, he of course leaked information through with you, leaks and now it looks like we can found abilene a size is being extradited to the united states and weekly published, of course classified information including document exposing us war crimes in iraq and afghanistan. and publishers were integral to the information that you liked

about the vietnam war. so i'm curious from your perspective, what happens if that president that you spoke to is said that allows governments to dictate what can and can't be published? well, you from a clue this way. it threatens to create a new as chris, it is not distinguishable from russians to day with julian, a sorry, ah extradited if he hasn't yet been expedited, but it was expedited and prosecuted and convicted here. we will have had the 1st instance of an actual journalist i hadn't been in prison for putting out the truth . i was the 1st source, former official to give information like that to join wish and i was put on trial for it. but no journalist is ever been put on trial. thanks to our 1st amendment, friedman, chris and treatment speech, which most countries don't have as a law or

a. it will be essentially rescinded if julian sanchez, successfully prosecuted. and we will then approach these take control of your information, such as we're seeing in russia today. all of these cases of course, demonstrate the importance of exposing the truth about what's happening when it comes to war in other matters. and of course, your leaking of the pentagon papers is a prime example of that. but today, we have an expansion, arise even of this information and it's hard to decipher what's true, what's not, what's fact, what's fiction? how important is it to have actual transparency when it comes to government actions and government decisions about war? i'm afraid that transparency and war are 2 words don't really go to each other. they don't exist together. in war time,

the secrecy that the government carries on all the time about its own crimes and lies in misleading statements in bad predictions. reckless actions that secrecy is certainly legitimize in war because you have to keep it from an enemy. that's one of the senses in which i said at least, are indispensable, especially as, as a long term, once in a, in a cold war, we have to keep things from russians altogether. so you don't, you don't get transparency. and when people do come out, there's 2 native it, they do get prosecutor, when it's coming out of the sick. part of it, which is very dismaying, is nothing much happens. it may affect public opinion to some extent component. the thing doesn't try policy or whether a word can be ended or not. i hoped it would. in fact, in my case, nixon was so concerned that i might put out his secrets, which i did have,

but i didn't have documents to prove it. but he thought i had documents in to shut me up. he did domestic crimes against an american me, which actually figured far more politically in the millions of other people we were killing in vietnam that a crime against an american counted more. unfortunately, when these things have come out, i have to say not much is change. so there's a problem with the audience, with the citizenry. you could say with our species. and i actually, i do say that our willingness to support unquestioningly a leader, especially when he or occasionally she can point to when he's threatening their security. and she us to set down public information about it in order to people go wrong with that pretty well. and when they find out it not to any of our

own soldiers are getting killed as in kansas, then they let it go on indefinitely. as friends them was 20 years ukraine. i think if it, if it devolved down, if the russians came in, war didn't get out, which i don't expect them to, to wish, and others will be supporting a guerrilla war, which could be as costly to the ukrainians as the guerrilla war, that the movie dean put up that we supplied against the soviets in afghanistan, that cost a $1000000.00 and a half afghan lives. and i would hate to see that imposed on the ukrainian people when under any circumstances. i've been through a war like that in vietnam. and i saw what we did to insurgents in the way of bomb cushion several 1000000 lives that has not yet been the price in afghanistan, no matter what, what we're hearing about or crimes which it will could be so and negotiated outcome

in which concessions are made on both sides, however unsatisfactory, it might look to many people on both sides could save hundreds of thousands to millions of lives. and i would like to see that happen. i don't think it will though. i don't think it will. wow. and on that sobering note, i want to thank you for your time, daniel ellsberg. thank you for joining us on a thank you. all right, everybody, that is our show up front. we'll be back with . ah

thea is at a tipping point. scientists are telling us that we have just 12 years as the world's leaders fail to agree upon the solution. people are taking matters into that we're talking about the property now. we're trying to fax it to get people to understand that it kills people and that it kills people. now it's already killing people, thrice the people's voice on al jazeera. now in america is a region of wonder. i'm joy tragedy, and yes of violet. but it doesn't matter where you are, you have to be able to relate to the human condition with no country is a life, and it's my job to shed light on how and why are they protectors all profit is a free speech mosque is showing us how vulnerable space is online,

truly are when they are controlled by billionaires of lago, documenting facts on the ground. i'm not a journalist, people trust individuals, more than the news or a purveyor of the state line. how can you show the destruction of a political war and still be a political uncheck the media can distort narratives and reshape realities. the listening post keeps watch on al jazeera. the world economic forum returns to dabble since january to assess the global economy reshaped by the pandemic. and the war in ukraine can lead us from government and business prevent a promised decade of action becoming a decade of uncertainty. extensive coverage on al jazeera ah. ready