♪ amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now. tension is rising on the korean peninsula after north korea tests and intercontinental missile that experts believe would be capable of reaching alaska, while the u.s. and south korea have carried out a joint listing trail in the sea of japan. 44 states are refusing a request at the trump administration to hand over detailed information about every voter in the country. >> states all across the country are rejecting president trump's election commission. architecthair is the

of the voter suppression experts not -- efforts nationally. amy: then, we look at the showdown between qatar and its gulf neighbors -- neighbors. well i'll just zero be forced to shut down? >> regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees politically, al jazeera is a professional channel that has proven itself over the past 20 years and there is no reason to demand its closure. amy: all that and more, coming up.[532]greeting -- coming up. now, this democracy is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. korea successfully tested and intercontinental missile that extra to would be capable alaska.ng -- reaching

the president said the fourth of july -- the missile was a fourth of july gift to president trump. tensions have been rising in recent months between the united states and north korea. earlier this year, the u.s. carried out massive military exercises in the korean peninsula and deployed an anti-missile system known as "thaad" to south korea, despite protests by south koreans. the new south korean president , moon jae-in is also opposed to the thaad missile system, and last month ordered an investigation after learning that four more missile launchers had been brought into south korea. after the north korean missile launch, president trump tweeted -- perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all. meanwhile, the chinese president visited russia and met with the russian president where they

express their opposition to th aad and u.s. military drills. in a joint statement they called on north korea to suspend its ballistic missile program and called on the u.s. and south korea to cease their massive joint military exercises. the statement also calls on the u.s. to immediately cancel the deployment of the thaad missile system. the un security council is holding an emergency meeting over the north korea missile test. thousands of protesters marched in dozens of cities sunday to demand president trump's impeachment. marchers took to the streets in los angeles, san francisco, austin, philadelphia, new york city, in davenport, iowa, and other u.s. cities. these are two protesters in los angeles. >> resist, and resist loud. so loud that we won't even hear

the door slam when he is dragged out of office. unstablental state is and i think everyone kind of knows that, but we don't say it about our president. amy: meanwhile, on capitol hill, more than 20 democratic lawmakers are now backing a bill, introduced by maryland congressman jamie raskin, that would create a commission to determine if the president is mentally or physically unfit for office. the bill has gained support over the last week, after trump issued sexist tweets attacking msnbc's mika brzezinski, calling her "crazy" and falsely claiming she was "bleeding badly from a facelift." on sunday, trump again sparked outrage when he tweeted a doctored video of himself body slamming and punching a figure whose head has been replaced by the cnn logo. the video was an edited clip of eventappearing at an called wrestlemania in 2007. the video ends with the words "fnn: fraud news network." it

was posted to trump's personal account, then retweeted by the official presidential account. the reddit user who created the doctored video has made racist, islamophobic, anti-semitic and violent comments in the past online, including commented on a photo of refugees by writing that," in moab for reference the massive bomb the u.s. dropped on afghanistan in april. cnnlso posted pictures of reporters with stars of david by their head shots. he deleted his past posts and apologized for all he said. in response to the video, cnn said "instead of preparing for his first overseas trip, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior, lowering the dignity of his office.

we will keep doing our job, he should start doing his." president trump is heading to poland thursday where he is slated to meet with the president before giving a speech in warsaw square. the furthest of right governments in europe and is defying european union rules by refusing to allow refugees into poland. trump will then head to the g20 summit, where he'll have an official meeting with russian president vladimir putin on friday afternoon. it's trump's first meeting with putin as president, and comes as trump faces multiple investigations over his ties to russia. thousands of protesters are expected to disrupt the g20 summit. on sunday, german police attacked protesters with water cannons as thousands demonstrated against the summit as well as president trump. on trump will visit france for july 14, bastille day and meet with french president emmanuel macron.

a top justice department official has resigned, citing president trump. in a linked in post former , corporate compliance watchdog hui chen wrote "on my mind were the numerous lawsuits pending against the president of the united states for everything from violations of the constitution to conflict of interest, the ongoing investigations of potentially treasonous conducts, and the investigators and prosecutors fired for their pursuits of principles and facts. those are conducts i would not tolerate seeing in a company, yet i worked under an administration that engaged in exactly those conduct. i wanted no more part of it." a delegation of senators, including massachusetts senator elizabeth warren, arizona senator john mccain, and south carolina senator lindsey graham, and rhode island's white house visited afghanistan over the july 4 weekend. the group demanded president trump fill vacant embassy and state department positions in

afghanistan, amidst what the pentagon calls a mounting military crisis. the trump administration has not yet even appointed a permanent ambassador to afghanistan. foreign ministers of bahrain, egypt, the united arab emirates and saudi arabia are meeting today amid a diplomatic standoff with the gulf nation of qatar. the saudi-led coalition has issued 13 demands on qatar including the closing of the al g0 tv channel. other demands on qatar include ending its support for the muslim brotherhood, downgrading diplomatic ties with iran and closing a turkish military base in qatar. the diplomatic standoff began soon after president trump met saudi king salman in riyadh. we'll have more on the diplomatic crisis in the gulf later in the broadcast. in a rock, u.s. backed desk in backed in iraq, u.s. iraqi forces are continuing to fight isis in a few remaining

neighborhoods of mosul. iraqi military officials say they expect to seize control of the entire city of mosul by the end of the week. the fighting has forced hundreds of thousands to flee the city, while u.s. led airstrikes backing the ground offensive have reportedly killed hundreds of civilians. in lebanon, two separate fires tore through syrian refugee camps in recent days, killing at least one girl and injuring nearly two dozen others. on sunday, a fire burned the camp housing hundreds of refugees in lebanon's bekaa valley to the ground. another fire broke out tuesday at a nearby camp. meanwhile, the lebanese army raided two syrian refugee camps near the border with syria friday. suicide bombers attacked the army during the raid. at least one small girl was killed in the conflict. in brazil, police have arrested a close ally to president michel temer as part of a widening corruption investigation. prosecutors say former cabinet minister geddel vieira lima tried to block an investigation into corruption at a government controlled bank.

his arrest comes as temer himself has been charged with corruption and is facing increasing calls to resign or be ousted. canada will issue an apology to, and pay $10 million to omar khadr for the abuses he suffered while imprisoned by the united states at guantanamo. born in toronto, canada, khadr was detained in 2002 by u.s. forces in afghanistan before being transferred to guantanamo at the age of 16. khadr became the first person since world war ii to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile. after eight years at guantanamo, he confessed in 2010 to throwing a grenade that killed an american soldier in afghanistan. his lawyers say his statements were illegally obtained through torture and cruelty. in honduras, 26-year-old bertha zuniga caceres, the daughter of the murdered honduran indigenous and environmental leader berta

caceres, has survived an attempted attack by a group of men wielding machetes. the attack comes just weeks after zuniga was named the new leader of copinh, the group formerly led by her mother. last week, zuniga also demonstrated in support of pending u.s. legislation to suspend all u.s. military aid to honduras. this is bertha zuniga caceres speaking on radio lenca about the legislation. >> in particular, the law mandates suspension of all military aid the united states gives to honduras until the murder case is solved in a effective manner. it is not just that case, other cases that have been represented , like the cases of honduran into -- environmentalists defending life in this country. amy: we'll go to honduras for

more on the attack against caceres tomorrow. and tuesday was july 4th, or independence day in the united states. across the u.s. activists staged , protests and demonstrations to demand justice for indigenous people, immigrants, muslims and others. in texas, people blockaded the july 4th parade to protest the anti-immigrant bill sb2, which was signed into law by texas governor greg abbott. also in texas, protesters heckled senator ted cruz over his support for the republican healthcare bill, chanting "ted wants us dead." if passed, the republican senate healthcare plan cause 22 -- could cause americans to lose 22 million their insurance over the next decade. meanwhile, former nfl quarterback colin kaepernick posted a video of himself on twitter visiting ghana along with the words "how can we truly celebrate independence on a day that intentionally robbed our

ancestors of theirs? to find my independence, i went home." in new york city, members of the council on american islamic relations held a teach-in inside trump tower to educate people about the rights of immigrants and muslims in the united states. this is talia bauer. play sot -- this is tally of our. >> we are at trump tower on the fifth floor. it is the space that was designated as a free speech area of some sort, so we are here in the belly of the beast talking about what this horrible space represents in terms of capitalism and in terms of huge wealth in new york. we are kind of taking it over. amy: finally npr faced an , outburst of online protests from trump supporters on july networkfter the radio

tweeted out the entire declaration of independence. people mistook the document and thought npr was calling for an armed insurrection against president trump. in response to npr's tweet of the line "it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government," one trump's supporter replied "so, npr is calling for revolution. interesting way to condone the violence while trying to sound "patriotic". your implications are clear." this twitter user later apologized, writing "i was terribly stupid for this comment." and new jersey governor chris christie sparked massive outrage over the july 4th holiday after a photographer for the star-ledger caught him sunbathing on a public beach that christie's budget shut down had closed to the public. as a result, christie and his family had the entire 10 mile long beach to themselves.

and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.[561]lede - -- i am amy goodman. the united states and south korea have carried out a joint ballistic nestled rail and the sea of japan after north korea tested a missile that experts believe would be capable of reaching alaska. north korea's leader said the missile was a fourth of july gift to president trump. video as anleased apparent warning to north korea. tensions have been rising in the recent months between the u.s. and north korea. the united states has carried drills ine missile south korea. the a south korean president is also opposed to the missile system and last month ordered an

investigation after learning that for more missile launchers had been brought into south korea. after the north korea missile launch north korea tweeted " perhaps china will put a heavy move on north korea and end this nonsense once and for all." we are joined by founder and coordinator of women across dnc, a global movement of women moving for peace in korea. thank you so much for joining us. can you talk about this latest escalation? >> as we know, north korea tends to conduct these missile tests times in a poetic way, and they said it was a gift to the trump administration. it also happened to coincide a few days after the end of the moon j in an donald trump summit in which unfortunately president moon, who had come into office

and has about an 80% popularity rating, in many ways toed the line of the trump administration about maximum pressure and agreeing with the u.s. policy on north korea, which has slightly departed from his pro in gauge design and the sentiments of the south korean people. eight out of 10 want into korean dialogue. i think in many ways it was in response to that and it happened to coincide with president , and weisit to seoul --w the koreans were not which the trump administration is basically replicating. tests these korea missiles as a way to advance their capability to defend in the case of any kind of preemptive strike from the united states.

we don't know if they could put a nuclear warhead on one of these that could reach the united states, but that is the point. they want to put the pressure on the united states, on the trump administration to say we need to negotiate some kind of peace settlement because they feel threatened. and so right now, the most viable proposal that is on the table that has now been backed by china and russia but came from the north koreans in 2015, was to halt the u.s. and south korean military exercises in exchange for freezing north korea's nuclear and long-range missile program. that is the deal that should be seriously considered, but the trump administration is not accepting it and in fact, i think by virtue of not accepting it, theot considering

only way americans can interpret that is to say that we value the exercises more than we value freezing north korea's nuclear program. i think this is north korea's message to the united states, we want to negotiate and we will do what we can to defend our sovereignty and our country from any kind of preemptive strike by the trump administration. amy: earlier this morning president trump tweeted "trade between china and north korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. so much for china working with us but we had to give it a try." that was trump's tweet earlier today and as we reported earlier, the president of china visited russia and met with latin america for a two day summit that ended yesterday. for both the u.s. and south korea to cease their massive joint military exercises

, and for the u.s. to immediately cancel the thaad missilethe system. the south korean president had criticized the u.s. in june, saying he had not been told they brought in more launchers while he was resident. -- president. >> that is true, and unfortunately because of the enormous pressure that the united states places on south korea economically and politically and militarily, the u.s. has operational control over south korea. unfortunately, the president, even though south korea is the 10th largest military in the world and the 11th largest economy, it still has this relationship with the united states. he has to toe this very gentle line even though he has backing from the korean people and an 87% popularity rating. he unfortunately has stalled.

i am not sure if they have the courage to basically reject it. we did a korea peace network conference in washington, d.c. with former secretary of defense will perry answering a question about the missile system. he said it will do anything to protect the south koreans. it definitely will not protect south korea, it is definitely there to protect u.s. bases in the region. if the south koreans want to remove it, by all means they should have that right to do so. unfortunately, i do not think that they are a bully administration and my hope was that south korea would stand up the way that germany and france and australia and other historic allies of the united states have, to say this is not benefiting the people of

south korea and our security. we have the right to defend the country in a way that we think would advance peace on the korean peninsula, and they want inter-korean engagement. perhaps that is one win that jae-in anf the moon president trump summit is that president mont walked away with a stamp of approval. that is what he left with. with an approval to pursue inter-korean dialogue and hopefully they will do so. by basically towing the trump administration line on korea they will not get very far. amy: your concerns about north korea launching this intercontinental ballistic missile, this icbm. >> of course.

's to not want any icbm strike the united states but i have never seen any indication north korea would use this proactively or preemptively but only in reaction to any kind of strike from the united states. what is so disheartening is again, going back to bill perry and him reminding us that in the late 1990's, 1998 at the end of the clinton administration -- sorry, 1999, 2000, we were this close to basically stalling north korea's nuclear -- we had already frozen north korea's nuclear program but had worked to basically stall there program . all north korea wanted was some kind of nonaggression pact, not even a peace treaty and they had come this close. ng ilumber two under kim jo came to the white house but

unfortunately because of the bush-gore election president clinton was not able to go. office, itame into was the preemptive doctrine that really set off for north koreans , see what happened in iraq and afghanistan and libya subsequently, that they had to do what they had to do to defend their country. unfortunately, pursuing nuclear weapons and now having some kind of delivery capability for this long-range missile to strike the united states is one way to get the united states to come to some kind of negotiating table. that is an unfortunate reality but that is where we are at. think, serious korea expert from military officials to former diplomats, we saw a bipartisan letter from

former secretary of state schultz, bill perry signed a letter. it went to donald trump and said a negotiation is the only way forward with the north koreans. before they really do have the capability to strike the united states, we need to negotiate some kind of deal. amy: thank you for being with us, founder and organizational -- this is democracy now, democracynow.org. back in a minute. ♪ break]

amy: i'm professional wrestling. i am amy goodman. dozens of state lawmakers and civil rights groups have denounced an election commission established by donald trump which has asked all 50 states to hanover detailed personal information about u.s. voters. the request was made by the kansas secretary of state and vice chair of trump's presidential advisory commission on presidential integrity. "theletter, he requests

full first and last names of all registrants, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of social security , voter history from 2006 onward, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter information and other states, information regarding military status." he recently defended his request on msnbc. >> this is publicly available information. the commission is only requesting what any person in the street in california and walk into the county office and get. his social security number is not available -- and it is not publicly available in most states -- we are not requested -- requesting it. amy: virginia governor terry mcauliffe blasted the request

saying "i have no intention of thising this request." entire commission is based on the species and fraudulent notion that there was widespread voter fraud. worst this is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression." on saturday, trump holdout states refusing to turn over the information tweeting " many states are refusing to give out information, what are they trying to hide?" federal calling on the -- kovac announced he is running as a republican governor of kansas. they led she may have broken the law by highlighting -- we are

joined by two guests, kristin berman.d ari he wrote about crisco back in kobach.ed's -- kris kristin clark, let's begin with you. you are suing? >> what we have done is filed a kobachnt against kris under a federal law known as the hatch act. it prohibits federal employees from using their official inernment position to engage political activity. it prohibits government employees from soliciting political contributions. kobach is running this commission and was appointed by the president to serve as vice chair.

several weeks after he was appointed he announced he was running for governor of kansas. since that time, he has actively exploited his role as the vice chair of the election integrity commission to promote his gubernatorial bid. in our complaint to the office of special counsel, which is housed inside the justice department, we lay out extensive evidence in which we show that kris kobach would appear in a news interview, for example on june 30 he appeared on fox news and msnbc and other networks to talk about his role leading the election integrity commission. he promotesbreath, those appearances on his political campaign sites, on his social media sites linked to the campaign, and solicits political contributions around those media appearances. this conduct, we believe runs

afoul of the hatch act. mr. kobachow if agreed to serve and this commission because his goal ultimately was to use his role to promote his gubernatorial bid, but what we know is that these are not isolated instances but a pattern in which he talks about his work with the andission and then goes out uses those media appearances to solicit political contributions and to promote his governor bid. the 44n you talk about states refusing to hand over information to this election commission? >> we should qualify, there are 44 states that have said they will not fully comply with the president's request. we continue to keep the states under a microscope.

are many state privacy laws that simply prohibit state election officials from disclosing the vast amount of data that the so-called election integrity commission seeks. social security numbers, date of ,irth, address information there actually is just no way for many states to disclose the kind of data that the commission seeks. some states have said they out right will not participate in any fashion. some of those states include california and virginia and new york and kentucky, and we applaud those states, but there are a number of states that are saying we may be able to give you something. you have to make your request in a way that anyone else went. you have to pay for the data that we provide, so we are watching closely to see how much states turn over. , we do notof the day

believe any stage should participate in this commission. the goals of this commission are clear. this commission was set up to lay the groundwork for a massive push of voter suppression laws and policies on a national scale. we think that goal is a very and our hope ultimately is that states will not in any way legitimize the work of this commission by turning over data that could be ultimately abused by cyber hackers. there are 200 million registered voters in our country and we have never seen an effort like b and pullom together this extensive amount of data on individuals in our country. so we are going to be watching closely to see what states do this week, secretaries of state

will be convening at the national association of secretaries of state. they are holding an annual summer meeting in indianapolis and our hope is that at that forum we will he -- see secretaries of state take action to condemn the commission, and make clear they will not allow this federal overreach to interrupt the good work that they are doing across our country to maintain their own state registration rolls and the work that they are doing to carry out their jobs. kobachen kansas, where as secretary of state has refused to hand over information. >> he asked all of the states for what he called publicly available data, but a lot of the data was not publicly available. social security number, political affiliation, criminal

history. he is the secretary of state. he could not comply with this. amazing letters from numbers of trump's own election commission said they would not comply with the request. the main secretary of state record -- denied the request. home state said they would not comply. it seems like they did not think this through and did not consult with members of the commission in terms of what they were asking for. amy: kansas secretary of state has defended president trump's unfounded claim that millions of people illegally voted, supposedly costing trump the popular vote. he lost by about 3 million votes to hillary clinton but won the electoral college. this is kansas secretary of state kobach questioned by reporters. >> i think the president elect

is correct when he says the number of legal votes exceeds the number of popular votes. >> what tangible evidence is there that that happened? >> this is the problem with aliens voting and registering. you cannot look on the voter rolls and say, this one is an alien and this one is a citizen. you do not have any way of easily identifying them as aliens so you have to rely on postelection studies where you get data from aliens themselves. it does appear that aliens do vote in very large numbers. amy: that was kansas secretary kobach. kris in february he again claimed there was widespread fraud in the presidential election. >> of the 30 states we have about 3 million people registered in more than one state. >> and closing -- including the

president's son-in-law and secretary treasury. >> and many of your viewers, but what is a crime is if you actually vote in those states. a crime but this is where's the evidence of this widespread millions of people voting? why haven't we seen it? >> actually, maybe, i don't know if your network has covered it but in my state, people voting in kansas and other states, my office prosecutes it. >> on the notes i saw, you have nine cases. six guilty pleas and two pending since january 25. nine cases does not rampant make.read voter fraud amy: that was cnn anchor kate golden. >> he is a leader of voter suppression movements

nationwide. he has been going around the country trying to put into place suppressing voter laws. one law they have in place in kansas is proof of citizenship for voter registration. you have to have a birth or -- ifte, passport, you want to vote. in kansas, one in seven new registrants have been blocked from voting because of this one law alone. see proof of to citizenship laws in every state which would have an impact and disenfranchise millions of people. going around the country claiming that voter fraud is widespread, trying to build support to put in place policies that make it very difficult to register to vote. times magazinek

article i looked into all of the claims about voter fraud and found that noncitizen registration is exceedingly rare nationwide. there is no reason a citizen -- noncitizen would risk a deportation. the secretary of state is the prosecute voter fraud cases. he has only convicted one noncitizen of voting so if it was so widespread you would think that in kansas where he has prosecutorial power he would be able to show this, but he has not shown this. this entire commission is predicated on this giant law .hat people voted illegally that is why they wanted this data from all $.50 -- states. amy: let's talk about your new york times piece, the man behind trump's voter fraud. kobach is interesting

because he was a leading proponent of restricting immigration. most of -- most people think of these issues as separate but what he has tried to do is combine them. he drafted all of these anti-immigration laws like arizona's law where police could stop anyone and check their citizenship based on reasonable suspicion. he went all around the country drafting these laws and then became secretary of state in kansas and began drafting anti-voting laws. he said all these people were in the country illegally and were voting illegally as well, so he combined anti-immigrant sentiment with policies that would restrict voting rights. the goal is twofold, to boost the republican party by eliminating the number of voters and the electorate, and trying to preserve america's shrinking white majority.

he is looking at the demographics of the country and seeing how they are changing, how white people are becoming a minority in many states, and they are pushing anti-immigration policies and anti-voter policies to restrict the nonwhite voter. amy: talk about his connection to white supremacist groups. >> since 2003 in 2004 he has that hascil to a group been called a hate group by the southern poverty law group, the main group that promoted restricting immigration. the owner of that group has said unbelievably racist things about latinos, saying there will be an explosion of whites against latinos in the u.s. he republished a french novel that is incredibly racist. that is one influence. another was samuel huntington from harvard, a longtime

professor known for his work "the clash of civilizations." he had two radical ideas, there is such thing as too much democracy. after things like that voter passedghts act huntington worried about the effect "the blacks" would have on the political system. the idea that latino immigrants were threatening anglo promise -- anglo protestant christian values in the u.s., so they talk about the rule of law and voter fraud. amy: huntington was the mentor of kobach. >> he talks about all of these things like they are commonsense things but you scratch below the surface and he realized his intellectual influences are leading proponents of white nationalism and white supremacy. amy: his relationship with sheriff joe arpaio in arizona?

>> he had a close relationship to sheriff joe arpaio who branded himself america's sued.st sheriff and was kobach had this idea called intuition through enforcement. the idea, you make life so miserable for immigrants they will leave the u.s. got joe arpaio in all this legal trouble by claiming he had authority he did not have. amy: the commission is to identify and vote -- suppress those votes you do not want. where does the commission go now with 44 states refusing to fully or partly comply? >> i think trump's commission will still make the argument that voter fraud is widespread, rampant, and massive, and we have to put

in place all these policies to try to suppress votes in reaction to that. they are not even going to get the data to do this kind of analysis so to me, this entire commission is a sham. the fact that states have refused to turn over data needs that this commission should be disbanded. amy: kristen, do you see that happening? where do you see your complaint going? >> we hope they will revoke the election integrity commission. we believe it has a baseless mission which is to substantiate the president's false allegations about widespread vote fraud. they put together a dream team of drone or -- voter suppressor proponents, not just kris kobach. it is rumored that can blackwell , former secretary of state of ohio am a these are folks who have made a career out of it directing barriers to the ballot

box. tenureckwell during his rejected voter registration forms he thought were not printed on the right paper weight. but koski is someone who has andpioned voter id laws laws that seek to make it harder for people to vote, including taking away the right to vote for people with a criminal history. when you peel back the layers, the goal of this commission is clear. to lay theded groundwork for voter suppression laws across our country. the lawyers committee for civil rights under law filed the hatch act complaint against kobach but we think the commission as it stands today is illegitimate. you have states around the country saying they will refuse to participate. we intend to continue to bring pressure on other states to

discourage them from turning over data or information of any kind to this illegitimate commission. we know that there are folks in congress introducing legislation, calling for the defunding of the commission and calling for revocation of the commission. i think those are important points. this is a waste of taxpayer dollars at the end of the day. at a times is coming where we are seeing the justice department turning the clock back on federal civil rights enforcement, including enforcement of the voting rights act. we need to return our focus in this country to doing work that brings people into the process and get to a place where all eligible americans are able to participate in our democracy, and the commission runs against that important goal. amy: thank you for being with us , out of the lawyers committee for justice.

berman is the author of "give us the ballot." when we come back we go to beirut, lebanon. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: a love song by a honduran singer. the daughter of the murdered honduran indigenous and environmental leader berta caceres, has survived an attempted attacky a group men wielding machetes. this is democracy now, i am amy goodman. officials are meeting today amidst a diplomatic standoff with the gulf nation of qatar. they imposed sanctions on the small gulf country, claiming it destabilized the area by backing terrorist groups. the saudi-led coalition has issued 13 demands on qatar including the closing of the al jazeera tv channel. other demands on qatar include ending its support for the muslim

brotherhood, downgrading diplomatic ties with iran and closing a turkish military base in qatar. on monday qatar responded to the demands but their response has not been made public. their defense minister spoke in germany. >> we have seen that it is unrealistic and we cannot see action. not talking about terrorism, it is mainly talking about shutting the freedom of speech, infringing the sovereignty of the country. any country would find these offensive within international law. amy: the diplomatic standoff began soon after president trump met saudi king salman in riyadh. trump has endorsed the isolation of qatar even though the nation is home to a major u.s. military base. he took credit for the isolation of qatar but secretary of state

rex tillerson has called for a blockade of qatar. we go to beirut where we are reporter.a he is an internationally syndicated columnist. welcome to democracy now. talk about what is happening. >> what is happening is essentially two of the most powerful countries in the gulf, saudi arabia and the united arab emirates are trying desperately to hold back waves of change all around the middle east they do not like, and that other people do not like, like the government of egypt that took power through a military coup, and other groups around the world and around the region that want to maintain the old order that has this arabruined region for the last 50, 60 years. in other words, they are trying

to stop popular activism, democratic elections. they seem to represent a majority of sentiments, peaceful nonviolent groups. normal relations with iran and things of that nature, and the free media like al jazeera, that is the essential battle between the hard-line regressive perceptions and aspirations of james.di and emrati ro -- regimes. want to see an evolution with more dignity, more participation, more accountability, and ideally more democracy. that is the essential battle. emiratesd arab

'pressures on qatar were there he said in an fierce, -- where very sudden and fears, and they have no support from anywhere around the world. trump now has directly called the leaders involved and urged them to negotiate a peaceful diplomatic resolution of this conflict, which is the sensible thing to do. is have stood their ground because they think these are exaggerated or unfounded and second of all, if there are accusations that have a grain of saudis doesm -- the not want qatar to have ties with iran -- dubai and they uae has much more relationship than

qatar does. it is a large hypocrisy in these accusations. also, a sense that this is predatory and bullying. they are trying essentially to get qatar to follow the same policies as the saudis and iraqis. they will not do it, they are holding their ground, they have support internationally, and they would like to solve this. the qatari former military -- theirry is explaining position, pointing out that some of the accusations that have some legitimacy, for instance there may have been people living in qatar on a band u.n. list, he said they have taken action. they are not against responding to legitimate grievances, but the grievances and these nonnegotiable demands have been

so fierce and brutal and exaggerated they have no credibility. the saudis and iraqis are basically stuck in a quarter. -- corner. amy: i would like to turn to al jazeera's response level against the network. this is the acting managing director of al jazeera english, speaking to the bbc. >> there are many accusations made against al jazeera and i think all of those are a bit of a red herring. in the end it is about us providing fair and frank coverage. we are not part of any particular group or ideology or government. we provide a diversity of different viewpoints and perspectives and i think that is a problem for some people in the region. the acting managing director of all jews zero english. d.c. the -- al jazeera english.

you think it would close? >> it would be quite a catastrophe and would say that qatar has agreed to be a vessel state of saudi arabia. egypt is dangerously close to being a protector of the coalition of gulf countries. i don't think it is going to happen. the accusations, i have written about this quite a bit, these are tangential issues. the complaints against al jazeera are perfectly normal complaints against media. a lot of people complain that democracy now is a very left wing, progressive oriented station or program, and therefore they criticize you. you have a right to be progressive and someone he has a right to be a nationalist. somebody has a right to be peaceful with islamists. ,ox has a view, cnn has a view

you have a view, msnbc has a view. if those accusations are the best they can come up with, then they are a ball to understand why nobody -- able to understand why nobody is going along with them and everyone is standing up for freedom of speech. freedom of speech is what masses of arabs stood up and asked for. they were prepared to die and thousands have died asking for their dignity and human rights and social justice. they are battling for these intangibles that they want to express because they have not had a chance in the last 50, 60 years. to use their phone mind and intellect and cultural governments and capabilities, thought control, and all kinds of institutions that essentially turned citizens into cattle or robots.

the governments of many arab countries continue to do this. al jazeera represents the opposite. al jazeera is not the problem and qatar is not the problem. the united arab emirates and egypt have taken al jazeera as a proxy for qatar andatar as a proxy of the normal evolution of hundreds of millions of people who simply want to live with -- as dignified human beings with more freedom, more accountability, more friends around the region, and letting the full human capabilities of people to express themselves to build strong, decent, peaceful, just countries. this is really the problem we have. ra is not the issue, it is just a proxy. amy: i want to ask about this latest story in lebanon, two separate fires that tore through syrian refugee camps, killing a

small child and injuring scores of people. can you tell us what happened there? >> there is over a million syrian refugees in lebanon that have come in over the last six years. most are scattered in haphazard or local communities that are considered unofficial camps. a lot are getting support from international agencies and the government is helping out by opening schools and doing other things, but it is a chaotic situation in the sense that there is nobody really in charge of their well-being and they do not have many options to go back to syria or stay here permanently. many of them cannot work, many work illegally, most are poor, and the conditions are haphazard. strong 10d a very days of intense heat and these fires break out. amy: we are going to continue it

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