05/16/19 05/16/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> the syrian security system has a network of prisons that have sucked in estimated hundreds of thousands of people during this conflict. there is 128,000 people who have entered the system and have never come out, and that is probably an undercount. amy: "inside syria's secret torture prisons." we look at a shocking "new york times" expose on how bashar

-- torture and execution inside syria's prison system. then a california jury has ordered monsanto to pay a record $2 billion to a couple who say they both got cancer after using monsanto's roundup weed killer. >> monsanto keeps denyining it causes cancer. and these two fine people here are casualties of that deception. this is going to continue until monsanto and now they are take responsibility for its product. people are dying. people are getting sick. and they have no idea it is being caused by roundup. amy: the nearly every country in the world has agreed to curb plastic pollution a am a butt te united statetes refuseses to suo ththe globalal agreement. >> plastic i is everywhere.

it cannot be the responsibility of only one country. it has to be all of the countrtries of the world, all coconsumers, all organanizations haveve to come together includig plastic producers, to find a solution. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. alabama governor kay ivey on wednesday signed the nation's most restrictive ban on abortion into law. the bill, which faces immediate court challenge, makes no exception for cases of rape or incest. it was approved tuesday by alabama's senate with the support of 25 republicans -- all of them white men. under the alabama law, doctors could face up to 99 years in prison foror performing abortio, decades longer than prison sentenceces typically given to rapists.s. even far-right christian evangelical leader pat robertson

called the bill extreme, saying "it goes too farar." meanwhile, missouri's republican-led senate passed a bibill early today banning abortions at eight weeks of pregegnancy. the legislation now heads to the republican-led missouri house of representatives. republican governor mike parson has promised to sign the bill into law. architects behind the bills in alabama, missouri, and other states say they're aimed at overturning roe v. wade, the landmark 1973 supreme court ruling that recognizes the constitutional right to an abortion. president trump declared a national emergency wednesday over what he called threats to american technology, barring u.s. telecoms from installing foreign-made equipment. the move appears to be aimed at punishing huawei, the chinese maker of telecommunications gear and consumer electronics. it's the latest escalation of the u.s. trade war with china, after trump followed through last week on a threat to hike tariffs on $200 bibillion of chinese imports.

meanwhile, the white house has delayed plans to place tariffs of up to 25% on imported cars and auto parts. this comes as canada's trade minister has left washington, d.c., without an agreement on lifting u.s. tariffs on steel and aluminum. treasury secretary steven mnuchin has said the u.s. won't ratify a successor to the north american free trade agreement until canada and mexico reach an agagreement to end tariffs. presesident trump is set to unvl a sweeping immigration plan today that would prioritize high-skilled workers and english speakers, while further cutting the number of immigrants granted asylum or allowed to reunify with family members living in the u.s. the plan would cap immigration rates at their current levels, changing the percentage of those receiving green cardrds based on so-called merit system from 12% to 57%. it could even require immigrants hoping to enter the u.s. to pass a civics test. trump is set to announce the plan, which was crafted by his son-in-law and senior adviser, jared kushner, at a ceremony today y in thehe white hou rosoe garden.

meanwhile, guatemala's u.s. consuls has a 2.5 year old migrant boy died in u.s. custody wednesday, three days after he and his family were detained by customs and border protection. he's believed to be the fourth migrant child to die in u.s. custody since december. the white house says it will not meet a request by the house judiciary committee to turn over documents in a sweeping investigation into whether president trump instructed justice. in a letter to house judiciary the whiteold nadler, house counsel accused immigrants of attempting a do over of special counsel robert mueller's investigation of trump. congress member nadler accused them of "claiming the president is a king." he said he was considering holding trump administration officials who refused to testify in contempt and may levy large fines against anyone defying a congressional subpoena. in paris, the leaders of france and new zealand on wednesday

unveiled an agreement t to combt online extremism. the so-called "christchurch call" is named after the new zealand city where, in march, a white supremacist gunman killed 51 worshipers at two mosques and livestreamed the massacre on facebook. thisis is new zealand prime minister jacinda ardrdern. >> the social media dimension to the attack was unprecedented. and our response today would the adoption of the christchurch call is equally unprecedented as well. never before have countries and tech companies come together in the wake of a horrific attack to commit to an action plan that will deliver collaboratively workrk and new technology builto make our community's ultimately safer. amy: so far the christchurch call has the support of 16 countries, the eururopean commission, and eight tech giants. but the trump administration

said wednesday it was "n"not currently in a position to joion the endorsement." the white house cited concerns the agreement could violate the first amendment. in a "new york times" opinion piece last weekend, prime minister ardern wrote she supports free speech rights but "that right does not include the freedom to broadcast mass murder." in yemen, at least six civilians were killed and dozens more wounded today as u.s.-backed, saudi-led coalition warplanes bombed residential areas of yemen's capital sana'a. the violence came as hououthi rebels and saudi-backed forces clclashed in the port city of hodeida, threatetening to unravl a ceceasefire and a a planned pullout from the city by houthi forces. in sudan's capital khartoum, government troops opened fire on pro-democracy protesters wednesday with live ammunition, wounding at least 14 people. [gunfire]

amy: the violence came just days after at least six protesters and one soldier were killed at a similar protest. after the latest shootings, the head of sudan's ruling military council said he had suspended talks with pro-democracy demonstrators for three days, accusing them of failing to de-escalate tensions. demonstrators have been demanding a transfer from military to civilian rule following last month's military coup that ousted longtime leader omar al-bashir. in the gaza strip, israeli troops opened fire on palestinian protesters wednesday with live ammunition and chemical agents, injuring at least 65 people. the protesters were marking the 71st anniversary of the nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes after the state of israel was formed. one protester was left in serious condition, with 16 injured by gunfire. others were treated for gas inhalation from tear gas and skunk spray, a chemical concoction that smells like

corpses and feces. trump administration official said wednesday photograph showing iranian boats equipped with missiles or the cause of the recent escalation between the u.s. and iran, claiming they were evidence that iranian paramilitaries in the persian gulf were preparing to target u.s. naval vessels. cited threek times" unnamed officials who made the claim, which widely contradicts other officials, including europeans, iraqis, members o of both parties in congress, and some trump administration officials who reportedly said the missiles are likely defensive weapons. this comes just two days after the top british general in the u.s.-led coalition against isis said there is no increased threat from iranian-backed forces in iran or syria. major general christopher ghika was speaking v via video-link fm baghdad during a a pentagon news conference. >> there's been no increased

threat from iranian backed forces in iraq and syria. we are aware of their presence clearly, and we monitor them along with a whole range of others. because that is the environment we are in. amy: just hours after general ghika made those comments, u.s. central command disputed them in a statement. the u.s. department of transportation has ordered a halt to all passenger and cargo flights in and out of venezuela, in the latatest move by the trup administration to ratchet up pressure on president nicolas maduro as it backs efforts by opposition groups to stage a coup d'etat. meanwhile, in washington, d.c., civil rights leader rev. jesse jackson successfully passed through police lines wednesday to drop off food and water to four activists who remain inside venezuela's embassy building, at the invitation of venezuela's government, in order to prevent it from being taken over by venezuela's u.s.-backed opposition.

last week, authorities cut off water and electricity to the embassy. to see our coverage of the occupation and protest at the embassy, visit our website democracynow.org. in climate news, temperatures near the entrance to the arctic ocean in northwest russia reached a record-shattering 84 degrees fahrenheit over the weekend in an area where high temperatures are normally 30 degrees coer this s time of year. ththis comes as the nationonal w and ice e da c center recocordea rerecord low sea ice extent t fr ththe arctic ocean in april, noting almost all of the sea ice more than four years old is gone. over the weekend, meteorologists measured carbon dioxide levels in in the atmosphere at over 415 parts per million, the highest level in human history, and a concentratation that's not t ben seen on earth in over 3 million years.

california fire investigators said wednesday that the pacific gas & electric company, pg&e, was to blame for last year's camp fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in california's history, which left 85 people dead and scorched more than 150,000 acres. investigators concluded the fire began after pg&e electrical transmission lines ignited dry vegetation in at least two spots. in a statement, pg&e said it accepted the determination. californrnia has seen increasiny deadly blazes in recent years as climate change drives higher temperatures, extreme droughts, and severe weather that make wildfires far more destructive. in new york city, the american museum of natural history and the metropolitan museum of art both said wednesday they will stop accepting donations from the sacklers, the billionaire family that owns purdue pharma, maker of oxycontin, the highly addictive drug at the center of the opioid epidemic. other cultural institutions,

including the guggenheim and london's tate modern museum have also severed ties to the sacklers. president trump has pardoned former canadian press baron conrad black, a longtime political ally and former business partner who in 2007 was found guilty of fraud and obstruction of justice. black, who donald trump has described as a friend, wrote a glowing book about the president last year titled "donald j. trump: a president like no other." black was convicted for fleecing millions of dollars from shareholders of his company hollinger international. his media empire included the daily telegraph in london, the chicago sun-times, the jerusalem post, national post in canada, and 400 other newspapers. new york city mayor bill de blasio is running for president, joining a crowded field of 24 contenders for the democratic nomination. de blasio kicked off his campaign today with a video highlighting his experience as mayor of new york, promising to fight for working families,

combat climate change,ndnd tak ononald d ump. > willake on the wealthyhyi will take on the big corporations i wi not rest until th govement sers working pelele. inmayor of the laest city america, i he e doneust t th. >>eblasio for presenent, gs. bstopped.tmp mt i haveeen themefore ani wi do it ain. y: and tse are se of the headlis. th is demoacy now! demoacynow.o, the waand peacreport. i'amy goodn. neeen: and'm rmeen shkh. weome to a of our steners and viers fromround th couny and arnd the wld. nside sya's cret torre prisons." that's the title of a shocking expose by the new york times looking at how bashar al-assad's government has jailed and tortured tens of thousands of syrians since the uprising began in 2011. according to thehe syrian netwok for human n rights, nearly 128,0 peoplele have didisappeare-- t y

are presumed to be either dead or still in custody. the group estimates almost 14,000 individuals have died under torture. and the dedetentioions are continuingng, even as the fightg winds down. over 5600 syrians were reportedly arbitrarily detained last year, a 25% jump over the previous year. while the syrian government has denieded runningng a secret tore and detention program, moree evidence, including internal syrian government documents, has emerged showowing the extent o f the torture program. over the past seven years, "the new york times" has been documenting what takes place inside the secret prisons. the accounts are harrowing. "the times" report includes graphic descriptions of torture, sexual violence, and murder. one former woman inmate, mariam

khlief, told "the new york times" she and six other women were tortured and repeatedly raped in a basement cell, where "blood from violent rapes stained the floor." survivors also reported guards forcing detainees to eat excrement. amy: a prisoner named mounir fakir recalled a guard who called himself azrael -- the angel of death -- who was also a nurse at a medical facility where prisoners were often tortured and killed. fakir told "the times" that up to six patients were chained naked to each bed. fakir said patients were taken by azrael at night and, "we'd see the shadow of someone hitting, we'd hear the scream, then silence -- suffocating silence. in the morning we'd see the body in the hallway to the bathroom. you would see bodies piled. we stepped on our comrades' bodies, barefoot." "the new yorker -- "the new york times" also heard testimony from

former prisoners being forced to act like animals to amuse their guards by a guard who went by the name "hitler." the prisoners were beaten if they did not "bark or bray correctly." a united nations panel has said the unhealthy conditions in the prison -- including the paucity of toilet facilities, rampant illness, minimal and rotten food, and the absence of medical treatment -- are tantamount to extermination. to find out more, we're joined now by the story's author, anne barnard. she's a reporter at "the new york times" and a fellow at the council on foreign relations. she was "the new york times" bureau chief in beirut from 2012 to 2018. we last spoke to you when you are in beirut. this is a horrific story. talk a about the scope, the numr of people you believe have been detained, the number of people disappeared from and killed in syria's prisons. >> and forcefully, nobody knows the exact number because the government keeps this behind closed doors and does not

release any information to the families of most of the people who are taken. but according to the syrian network of human rights, they have counted, not estimated, but who have28,000 p people been reported by their families or by witnesses to be taken by the security forces and not emerged from the prisons. 81,000 of those people, their families have not had any word from them whatsoever. this is a sprawling system. human rights groups estimate the total number of syrians who have passed through could be in the hundreds of thousands. nermeen: you have been working on this for several years, compiling this evidence come as have a couple of other rights organizations, amnesty international particular. i would like to go to the syrian government's response to earlier research and documentation on these torture prisons. in an extended interview with 2017, syriann presidenent bashar al-asassad

claimed certain refugees weree "definitely y aligned wiwith terrorists" and when you were shown photographs exposing the torture of political prisoners by his government, he dismissed the allegations as "fake news." >> i if you take these p photoso any court in your country, could they convict any criminal go ifing this crime to you don't have the full picture, you can -- it is just propaganda. it is fake news. and everywhere you can have an individual crime. world happen all over the anywhere, but it is not policy. nermeen: that was president assad in 2017 responding to earlier reports. in fact, he was shown photographs of these prisoners and then he denied the ferocity of the photographs. has the syrian government responded at all to your much

more extensive report and the fact that you make thehe case tt his success in this war has been contingent on these prisons? >> they have not responded at all, which is pretty typical. there are not very responsive to direct queries from the press. i think their mo has always been to deny, deny, deny anything no matter how much evidence there is. said to my face in 2016 when i met him in damascus that we have a normal justice system operating here, any family who is missing their relatives should just go and ask. of course, families that i know personally, thousands of families have been going for years to ask after their families. nermeen: where they supppposed o go? who do they go to? >> they make the rounds of

dozens of security offices. there are four intelligence branches and each one operates dozens of torture and detention facilities. amy: "the new york times" expose begins with the story of muhannad ghabbash. his testimony, echoed by many other survivors, revealed that by 2012, "there was an industrial-scale transportation system among prisons. detainees were tortured on each leg of their journeys, in helicopters, buses, cargo planes. some recalled riding for hours in trucks normally used for animal carcasses, hanging by one arm, chained to meat hooks. mr. ghabbash's new cell was typical -- 12 feet long, 9 feet wide, usually packed so tightly that prisoners had to sleep in shifts." tell us his story, how you met him, how you learned of the situation and then why you say the uprising in 2011 was caused by this kind of sadistic, tortures prison system. >> muhannad ghabbash was very

typical of the types of people that were sucked into the system. he was a protester and eventually led a peaceful press -- protest in aleppo in 2011 when the uprising began. he was arrested the first time in 2011, arrested several times in a 2012 and taken to a number of different facilities. he said he was like a tour guide to torture. he was forced, as you said, to act the r roles of animals. amy: thihis is in kind of pseudo-plays for officers. and guards at dinner. >> entertainment. more -- i shudder to call it routine -- that the more routine type of torture being hung by wrists, put into stress positions and beaten until he made a false confession, which is something that happened in most of the prisoners. look, i think the use of this

system followed a playbook that assad's father began in 1982 when there was an uprising. the idea was to suck up the people who were nonviolent protesters because it is easier to go after the ones that are violent. of course there were all kinds of people arrested, but there was special focus on arresting civilian protesters because those are the biggest threat at the end of the day. we're t talkingng about a stateh all of the machinery of state power and violence at its disposal, in a way easier for them to fight people that pick up arms and harder for them to face people who are using civil methods. nermeen: you also say in the piece of simultaneously, as the al-assad regime was arresting more and more civilians, they also released radical islamists who had been imprisoned for

decades. >> yes. the al-assad regime helped f fil jihadists into iraq to fight the u.s. occupation there. they arrested many of them when they return. in one of the first big steps after the uprising began in 2011, a lot of those people were released, including the top leaders -- the people who became in the future top leaders of the most hard-line islamist rebel group. at the very same time those people were released into the population, they were vacuuming up people literally him including followers of gandhi, who followed in islamist cleric who believed in nonviolence and called on people to adopt a form of jihad that was not violent but was based on nonviolence. this person's followers were among the civilian leaders of the revolution at the beginning,

and many of them were killed right away or sucked into the prisons and have not come out. amy: we're going to go to break and come back to this discussion. anne barnard is a reporter at "the new york times" and a fellow at the council on foreign relations. her latest piece that came out "inside syria's secret torture sunday, prisons: how bashar al-assad crushed dissent." back with h her in a minute. ♪ [music break]

amy: "bad monsanto" by the american folk singer michael hurley. monsanto has been ordered to pay julian dollars to a couple who said they got cancer from roundup. we continue with anne barnard, reporter at "the new york times." her latest piece "inside syria's secret torture prisons: how bashar al-assad crushed dissent." with nermeenman shaikh. tells the story of mariam khlief. was helping injured

protesters, which was considered terrorism by the government. 2012 ands arrested in taken to one of the facilities. she was raped, she said, every night by the chief of investigations of the prison, who she knew by name, and documents we have seen show the head of the investigations in that facility was in fact the kernel. she was held in the prison with a number of other women in a basement cell where the six women barely felt -- it. there were taken to the colone s l's office and he's to bring his frfriends in raping them. the syrian refugee

crisis, the millions and millions come up to six night refugees who are now living outside their country. president trump welcomed the hungarian prime minister the tour mantra the white house on monday. the far right nationalist leader is known for his hard-line anti-immigration policies and rolling back democratic institutions and checks on his power. this is orban and then trump speaking from the oval office. >> we have some similar approaches. i would like to express we are proud to stand together with the united states on fighting against illegal migration, on theorism, and to protect christian communities all around the world. pres. trump: he is a tough man but a respected man and he has done the right thing, according to many people, on immigration. you look at some of the problems they have in europe that are tremendous because they have

done it a different way than the prime minister. or bond has closed down hungary's southern border, building a razor wire fence to keep out refugees, many of them from syria, and has also deported refugees already in the country. the al-assad regime has conflated the refugees with terrorists. in your keys, you say that many millions of syrian refugees are now unlikely to return even once the war is over if these torture prisons remain in operation. also the fact that trump -- saidated or said was what orban has them was right. only 62 civilian deputies were admitted. >> at the beginning of the syrian conflict, syrians would say, if this kind of rights violations are allowed to go with impunity in syria, it will affect freedom and the west. that seemed at the time

histrionic. in fact, what is happening is refugees have flowed out of the country. the refugee crisis proved to be fuel for the right-wing and leaders like orban. trump is enjoying the same rhetoric. as you saw, agreeing. this reflects al-assad's own conflation of refugees as terrorists. when in fact, terrorism, both isis and the violence of the state used against them, is what these refugees are fleeing. amy: can you talk about the internal memos that you got a hold of? this question of -- we just listen to president assad. how much he knew and how much is being directly directive from the top? >> this is a state where there is a very close coterie of advisers and officials around

assad and they decide almost everything. after the uprising began, there was a crisis cell created to respond to it. it reported directly to assad. ordereds show that cell crackdown on protesters, people who toners the image of syria in the foreign media -- people who talk to journalists -- and these types of people. later, the top security officials also asked for every death to be reported to them so that it was clear they knew about the killings in detention. the referred to bodies piling up. toy referred to the need deal with all kinds of bad conditions that were leading to all of these deaths. it sounds in a vacuum as if they're try to correct these problems, but there -- in the 800,000 documents smuggled out of s syria, no documentation of

punishment. it just shows they were aware of them. amy: can you talk about your methodology? you in working with this for years. what first prompted you -- i mean, there is some coverage of the catastrophe of war in syria, the obvious barrel bombing, all of that. the what about what is happening behind closed doors? assad hahas been very careful. and what it means to talk to people about those who survive, the lucky ones, about this level of torture they have endured? is somethingthis that everyone knew in syria in the sense that it is not a new system. it has been around for a long time. but what we decided to do over the years -- of course, we did this while covering the daily news of syria over the years -- was to try to go deeper to try to get accounts of survivors who corroborated one another and were corroborated by documents. it took a very long time to get enough people who had their

families safely out of syria and felt safe to talk and to get documents and it basically, you know, over the years, many human rights organizations and journalists and lawyers worked on this issue. so we're talking about evidence that has accreted over the years. up to this big picture. one of the toughest parts is speaking to the survivors about what they've been through. we spoke to dozens of them. me and my wonderful team of syrian and lebanese colleagues. sensitiveeed to be when you're dealing with victims of trauma and without zika -- sacrificing journalistic rigor and verification, but this was a long process. in that huge emotional impact on us as well as on the survivors who had to retell their stories. it tooook time. it took energy. askit does sort of make you

yourself a lot of questions about humanity and how this kind of thing can continue to happen in the 21st entry. nermeen: how did you know which survivors to speak to? you tell the story of someone who sneaked out the names of some of the detainees. can you talk about that? >> in terms of who to talk to, basically, almost every syrian that we talked to had any connection to the protest movement and even many who did not, had a relative or friend who was in the system. it was not difficult to find people. through those people, and also through networks of survivors, we would get different names of people, especially in our quest to find people who are willing to use their names -- that was the toughest part. prisoners whoe work together in a cell underground in a base run by the fourth division, which is controlled by assad's brother,

this group of prisoners decided, let's write down all of the names of the people in our cell and get them out with whoever manages to get out first just to let people know, their families, and the world, these are the names of at least these people that we could identify here. they had to write the name in blood on a piece of fabric. they were sewed into the seam of a jacket. theuro managed to wear jacket out -- for sure, i guess, -- to bring those names out first they were displayed in the holocaust museum and washington, d.c., shown to many different officials, and they were recently submitted to authorities in sweden as part of a complaint by survivors trying to get swededen, as france and germany have d done, to open a r crimes prosecution against syrian officials on behalf of of

refugees and citizens who are in sweden who have been subject to this system. amy: the syrian government is aware of this anand trying to prototect themselves from any kd of war crimes or crimes against humanity charges will stop how are they doing this? >> first of all, by staying in syria -- there is already an arrest warrant against the head of the air force range of intelligence and against the top security official overall. those guys just are not going to come to europe to end up getting arrested. but there are lower-level officials, some of whom have joined the refugee flow and have been arrested once they have been identified in germany and france. now they also in the memos, interestingly, one memo from the military intelligence department says when you make these death

certificates about each detainee who dies -- remember, all of these death certificates claimed the people died becacause their heart stopped. of course when you die, your heart stopped. all of these in people in prison are not all suddenly having an epidemic of heart disease. the memo instructed them to write the memos in such a way as to ensure a judicial immunity from prosecution or the work of the intelligence officials in the future. nermeen: one of the other things you point to is the fact that the u.n. general assembly has voted in favor of establishing the international independent and impartial mechanism. what is the status of this and what kind of mandate isn't charged with or will it be if it is established? >> it has been established and funded, which is a big step. that was done through general simply vote in the u.n. in order to get around the impasse in the security council.

the security council is blocked by russia from referring syria to the international criminal court. that you mention is a new body that will be kind of a clearinghouse for all of the documents and court ready evidence being collected by different groups, syrian and european groups, to try to build war crimes cases. it has a mandate to build those cases for use in any future prosecutions, international or national court, but it does not have the ability to arrest or charge anyone. like a prosecutor waiting for a court, i guess you could say. amy: we want to thank you so much for joining us today, for explaining your peace come in for the piece itself. your years of work will stop anne barnard is a reporter at "the new york times" and a fellow at the council on foreign relations. we will link to her piece " inside syria's secret torture

prisons: how bashar al-assad crushed dissent." coming up, california jury has ordered monsanto a record $2 billion. we will talk about the u.s. refusing to sign on to a global treaty around plastics. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: sniffle party, "all the snow is gone." this is democracy now!, democracynow.o.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: we turn now to the stunning verdict in the case against u.s. agribusiness giant monsanto, which has been ordered to pay its highest damages yet in the third lawsuit over the popular weed killer roundup. a jury has ordered monsanto, which is owned by german pharmaceutical giant bayer, to pay more than $2 billion in punitive damages to alva and alberta pilliod -- a couple who were both diagnosed with non-hodgkin's lymphoma cancer after using roundup on their properties for over 30 years. the main ingredient in the

herbicide is glyphosate and is said to cause the cancer. this is plaintiff alberta pilliod. >> we have been fighting cancer for nine years now. al longer than me. it was caused by roundup. it has changed our lives forever. we can't do the things that we used to be able to do. monsantoally resent for that fact. we wish that monsanto had warned us ahead of time about the dangers of using monsanto and that there were something on the front of their label that said "danger, may cause cancer." at that point, we could have used roundup, but we would not have used it. but i'm sure a lot of other people would choose to.

they were not giving us any choice b because frorom their a, we felt it w was incredibly safe toto use. amy: attorneys for the plaintiffs estimate that there are tens of thousands of similar cases against roundup pending in courts around the country. last year, a jury in california ordered monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to a school groundskeeper who developed cancer after regularly using the weed killer roundup. the 46-year-old man, dewayne johnson, also has non-hodgkin's lymphoma. doctors say he is unlikely to live past 2020. earlier this month, the epa said glyphosate is not carcinogenic. however, other scientific studies and the world health organization have found that human exposurere can in fact led to cancer. well, for more, we're joined by attorney brent wisner, co-lead trial counsel for alva and alberta pilliod. welcome back to democracy now! can you start off the responding to this record verdict?

$2 billion. and what is said about monsanto? >> we've been litigating this case for over three years now lost up this obviously is the third trial that has gone to a jury. we presented all of the evidence and we've been growing -- we ever growing mountaiain of evidence that we have been accumulating as part of this litigation. i think we finally had a chance to show it all and show the jury int monsanto is in gauged corporate malfeasance for the lesser years. i think the jury's punitive damage award speaks points about what the evidence shows. people talk about how monsanto, the epa says it is safe or whatnot, the simple fact is when you look at the evidence, it is overwhelming and juries are resoundingly saying "stop it." nermeen: i want to go to a sailor from bayer saying -- "bayer is disappointed with the jury's decision and will appeal the verdict in this case, which

conflicts directly with the u.s. environmental protection agency's interim registration review decision released just last month, the consensus among leading health regulators worldwide that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic, and the 40 years of extensive scientific research on which their favorable conclusions are based." brent wisner, your response to what bayer has said? >> it is the same response -- the same thing they said to the jury, the same thing they've been saying for the last three years. nonsense. simply the simple fact is the epa has got it wrong on glyphosate. we have study after study after study showing it in fact does cause a specific type of cancer called lymphoma. we see it happening and thousands of thousands of people across the country. currently, this a administration will not take

action against monsanto. we've seen the internal documents, the text messages, the males between senior epa officials and monsanto employees . the sisimple fact is they know this epa will not take adverse action against them. it is a travesty that this truth about it causing cancer and this awareness we're trying to raise has to be done in the context of litigation. we only exist -- these laws only exist because the epa has failed the american public for 45 years. and monsanto is been allowed to get away with reckless conduct withth essenential impunity. amy: during the trial, numerous documents and emails came to light including the july 2018 email from an analyst from the corporate intelligence firm hakluyt. the email read -- "a domestic policy adviser at the white house said, for instance, 'we have monsanto's back on pesticides regulation. we are prepared to go toe-to-toe on any disputes they may have with, for example, the eu. monsanto need not fear any

additional regulation from this administration'." after this email became public, the center for biological diversity asasked the trump administration for public records to assess the pesticide industry's influence on the epa's proposal to rereapprove glyphosate. can you talk more about this, brent wisner? >> in the middle of the trial, after we had rested our case, but before closing arguments, out of nowhere, the epa issues and interim analysis. it was written by an individual, billy mitchell, who does not have any higher or special edge lysed -- specialized education or training, the document reads like the opening statement from monsanto during her trial. monsanto once a report, the epa brings it. and that just shows you the level of capture of this agency that essentially does not work for the american public but works for industry. these documents from these corporate intelligence agencies,

they just show us how deep it runs. it is not just a political thing, but actually in the staffers themselves. the fact that white house is telling monsanto, we have your back, it just tells us we're going to have to keep fighting thisis figight and that we are t one to get any support or help from the public agencies that ironically are supposed to be protecting the public health. amy: join johnson, he also represented him, the schools a $289keeper who won million in damages. the pam millers won $2 billion. how do you arrive at these numbers and do they actually get this? what does it do to monsanto? >> whether or not mr. johnson will see the entire award is an issue that is currently being fought in courts and on appeal. biggerliods'award was and the fact that mr. johnson's case was actually rushed to trial because of his failing health where as the pilliod case we had time to develop a full

body of evidence. that is one of the reasons why the number is so big. i think we look at the overall situation, what these numbers say is a clear signal to monsanto and now bayer that they need to do something in the simple fact is currently the leadership at bayer is refusing to take responsibility for thiss health crisis ththat monsanto created and are refusing toto do right by these people. we'rere going to continue to fie these lawsuits, taken to trial, and get bigger and bigger verdicts until they finally do right by these people. amy: we're talking thousands of lawsuits? 13,000, and those are the filed lawsuits. that is probably not the other 20,000 or 30,000 that are get to be filed. this is a health crisis we have. bayer needs to sit down with these lawyers and victims and find a way through this. at right now they're choosing to fight also if they want to fight, we will see them in court. amy: what happens to roundup? >> we want people to know and

have a choice when they use the product. hey, does it cause cancer? they ever right to know. amy: should be removed from the market? >> that is a difficult question. people still smoke cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer paulson people have a right to make a choice. , ather it's removed or not least they deserve to know it causes cancer. amy: brent wisner is an attorney and the co-lead trial counsel for alva and alberta pilliod in a lawsuit against monsanto. the pilliods both developed cancer after using roundup weed killer on their property for decades. a california jury has ordered monsanto to pay the couple more than $2 billion in damages. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: we end today's show with the growing crisis of plastic pollution. nearly all the countries in the world -- but not the united states -- took a historic step to curb plastic waste last week when more than 180 nations agreed to add plastic to the

basel convention, a treaty that regulates the movement of hazardous materials between countries. the u.s. is one of just two countries that has not ratified the 30 year-old treaty, however, . last week in geneva, the environment protection agency and state department joined the plastics industry in trying to sort the landmark legally binding agreement. despite this, the united states will still be affected by the agreement because countries will be able to block the dumping of mixed war unrecyclable plastic waste from other nations. the amended treaty will make itt much more difficult for wealthy countries to send their plastic waste to poorer nations. only around 9% of plastic is recycled. amy: the u.n. estimates there are 100 million tons of plastic waste in the world's oceans. for more, we go to anchorage,

alaska, where we're joined by pam miller, co-chair of the international pollutants elimination network, or ipen. it''s a global network o of ngos dedicated to a toxics-free future. miller is also the executive director of alaska community action on toxics. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you in from alaska. can you talk about what the u.s. and theing to do significance of the problem? >> yes, it was appalling to see the u.s. government behave in the way that they did at thebasal convention, specially knowing they are not a party to the convention and yet they try to thwart efforts to establish plastics ways at the basel convention because they have a vested interest. the u.s. is the world's largest exporter of plastics, mostly to developing nations. and this has created a global crisis of waste in countries in

south and central asia as well as south america a and africa. nermeen: explain how this entire process works. is it possible for these developing countries to refuse to accept thisis plastic waste? amendment tonew the basel convention, which has been proposed by norway in 2018, yes, developing countries will now have the right to refuse imports from developed countries such as the u.s. so that they will have the right to refuse 30 plastics, mixed waste, that have inated such a huge problem 70 countries, particularly in asia, where we see, as you mentioned, most of these plastics cannot truly be recycled so they are essentially dumped on the land adjacent to communities where these plastics are burned, creating a huge health hazard to many

communities in these developing nations. put a ban on china foreign waste imports. can you talk about how much plastic waste was going to china and where that waste is now going? >> yes. so china did make this landmark decision, which was really important for their country to have the right to refuse this dirty plastic waste that is highly toxic, these plastics that are not only a physical hazard in the environment, but also a human health hazard because they contain many toxic cancer-causing chemicals. a country such as china made the decision, because this was such a huge problem in their country, to have the right to refuse it. unfortunately then, the u.s.

began shipping it to other cocountries insia such a as ,ndonesia, as well as india malaysia, and others. amy: a american explorer v victr vevescovo recentlyly broke thehe record for the deepestst dive er when he descenended nearly s sen miles into the pacific ocean's mamariana trtrench. on the ocean floor, he saw new specieies of crustaceans, but ao found a plastic bag and candy wrappers. this is vescovo speaking shortly after the dive. >> it wasn't completely surprising, although it was very disappointing to see obvious human contamination of the deepest point in the ocean. when i first got to o the botto, it seemed very pristine, almost like a men's skate. i did see life. amy: that is american explorer victor vescovo. if you can respond to that, pam, and also describe the scope of the problem. how large are these plastic

islands that are floating around the world right now? the problem of plastics in the ocean is just immense. the plastics in the pacific ocean are just a huge mass of hundreds of thousands of acres plasticics in a huge out in the pacific ocean. so it is an immense problem. it is not just a physical threat to the marine environment, but as these plastics breaeak up, certainly we've all seen the images of how plastics can chohe sea life such as sea turtles and maririne mammals a and birds, bs these plastics break up, theyy create a an even more insidious problem. they become micro-plastics, which then can b be ingest by marine animals such h as fish,

marine mamls, and others, which then posose a threat to human health because these plastics at sea not only contain toxic additives themselves, but when they are at sea, they absorb pollutants such as pcbs, flame referring chemicals such toxic and- highly they absorb these toxic chemicals. then when they are ingested by marine life, these toxics are conveyed into the bodies of these animals which then create a problem for human health because we rely on fish and other marine life as a source of food. only a very serious, not physical and unsightly problem to the marine environment, but also a toxic problem that we really have to solve by stopping the production of plastic upstream. the production of plastic relies on fossil fuels.

and ultimately, this is also a contributor to climate change. so the entire cycle of plastics production, waste disposal and use, it's really a toxic hazard. to the unitedback states refusing to sign on to this global treaty, talk more about the significance of the u.s., the most powerful player in the world -- certainly historic polluter when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. what does it mean when they don't sisign on to a treaty that would curb plastics? very good. is not a player in the international convention arena, including the three chemical conventions that have met over the past few weeks including the basil convention, the rotterdam convention, and the stockholm convention. of u.s. is party to none those treaties. however, the us department of state and epa show up and in the

case of the basil convention, played a very negative role in trying to persuade a small handful of countries to go against the will of the majority of the countries who really plastics indress the basil convention. the u.s. played an extremely negative role. the position they vocalized in the plenary session and the contact groups that met to hash out the amendments really mirrored the positions of the plastics and the chemical industry. the american chemistry council was there representing the major petrochemical manufacturers. there were plastic waste trade companies and associations. the u.s. position was essentially the same. not t only was a disappointing, but appalling as american citizens in an international arena such as this to see the u.s. behaving so badly. amy: we want to thank you for being with us pam miller, , co-chair of the international pollutants elimination network,

or ipen. executive director of alaska community action on toxics. anchorage, us from alaska. that does it for our broadcast. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or