09/15/22 09/15/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! the white house has announced a tentative deal to avert a nationwide mourning -- rail strike. we will at the latest. then to pakistan where one third of the country is underwater. >> the global response to the climate crisis and the betrayal

and injustice -- amy: as the death toll from catastrophic flooding in pakistan nears 1500, we will go to islamabad and karachi to look at how the climate emergency is upending the lives of tens of millions. then to ukraine, as russia continues to bomb civilian infrastructure following ukraine's successful offensive in the kharkiv region, we will speak to the artist molly crabapple, just back from ukraine, about her latest piece for the new york review of books. weill also speak to a ukrainian motorcyclist sh features iner article. >> [indiscernible] we have never been so united as a nation before. every single citizen of ukraine.

we are getting united to contribute to our victory. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. unions representing railroad workers have reached a tentative agreement with their employers to avert a potential strike that was set to start just after midnight tonight, threatening to bring passenger and freight rail service across the united states to a halt. the white house announced the agreement to stephen earlier this morning, calling it "important win for our economy and the american people." the deal must still be ratified by union members. the breakthrough came after vermont independent senator bernie sanders blocked a bid by senate republicans to pass a bill that would have imposed

contract terms on the unions. >> right now if you work in the freight rail industry, one of the most grueling and dangerous jobs in america, you are entitled to a grand total of zero sick days. part of the contract negotiations. the rail workers are asking for 15 paid sick days. this is not a radical idea. amy: "the washington post" reports it meets one of the workers key demands "the ability to take days off for medical care without being subject to discipline." we will get the latest after headlines. in minnesota, 15,000 nurses are returning to work today after three days spent on picket lines in the largest private-sector nurses strike in u.s. history. the nurses want a pay increase

to keep ahead of spiraling inflation, and they say dangerously low staffing levels and pandemic burnout have led to low morale that's driving nurses from the profession. mary turner, president of the minnesota nurses association, joined picketers outside children's minnesota hospital in minneapolis wednesday. >> this is a fight for our very profession. if you have not heard the study out of illinois university, 51% of the nurses potentially will leave the bedside as of next year. 51%. that is a public health crisis. we are pushing for a contract that will draw nurses back to the bedside. we have plenty of nurses, but we have nurses that don't want to work in the conditions that are out there. i can say this message every nurse and every state and they would understand what i'm talking about. amy: the biden administration says it will transfer $3.5 billion in frozen afghan funds to a trust fund in switzerland, which will use the money to help stabilize afghanistan's econy. this comes just weeks after a

federal judge recommended against efforts by victims of the september 11 attacks to seize half of the $7 billion in afghanistan's foreign reserves frozen by the u.s. humanitarian aid groups are calling for all the assets seized by the u.s. to be returned to afghanista's central bank, saying the money is critical to mitigating a -- against a humanitarian crisis. the u.n. says some 6 million afghans are at risk of famine and more than 95% of the population is not getting enough to eat. in ukraine, more than 100 homes in the city of kryvyi rih were damaged by flood waters after russian missiles struck a dam, causing a river to overflow its banks. elsewhere, reports of torture are emerging in formerly russian-occupied areas reclaimed by ukraine's military this

month. one former prisoner told the bbc he was held by russians for r me than 40 days, tortured with electrocution, and forced to hear the screams of other prisoners. this comes amidst growing signs of dissent in russia. more than 30 russian and is a full deputies have signed a petition demanding the resignation of president vladimir putin. meanwhile, some public officials are now calling russia's invasion a war instead of a special military operation as the kremlin demands. on wednesday, the u.n. secretary-general spoke by phone with putin. after the call, he said the near-term chances of ap still are minimal and that cease fire is nowhere in sight. today president putin is made with chinese leader chinese leader xi jinping in uzbekistan. it is meant to show growing ties between moscow and beijing. back in the united states, sweeping abortion ban goes into

effect in indiana today, making only extremely narrow exceptions for medil emergencies, rape, and cest. the ban is being challenged in court by the aclu and several abortion care providers, with hearings set to start september 19. in ohio, a judge has temporarily blocked the state's ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, saying that the right to abortion is protected under ohio's constitution. the decision restores broad abortion access for at least for the next two weeks in ohio. meanwhile, a louisiana woman who was barred from aborting a non-viable fetus in her home state has received an abortion in new york. nancy davis traveled from her hometown of baton rouge to a new york city clinic, a nearly-2500 mile round trip journey, after learning her fetus had a fatally flawed skull and would be unable to survive. davis spoke to reporters ahead of her trip. >> the doctors told me my baby

would die shortly after birth. they told me i should terminate the pregnancy because of the state of louisiana's abortion ban, they could not perform these procedures. basically, they said i had to carry my baby to bury my baby. i want you to imagine what it is been like to continue this pregnancy for another six weeks after this diagnosis. this is not fair to me and it should not happen to any other woman. amy: in chicago, a federal jury has voted to convict r. kelly on six charges of coercing minors into sexual activity and of producing sex tapes involving a minor. r. kelly is already reserved -- serving a prison sentence after a jury in brooklyn convicted him of racketeering and sex trafficking charges last year. kelly's conviction in chicago will add a minimum of 10 years to that sentence. this conviction comes 14 years after kelly was infamously acquitted on similar charges. a teenage girl who killed her

alleged rapist has been sentenced by an iowa court to five years probation and ordered to pay his family $150,000. pieper lewis was 15 when she stabbed 37-year old zachary brooks to death. police and officials agree that lewis was forcibly trafficked to men for sex after running away from home, including at knifepoint. lewis says one of those men was brooks who raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. lewis, who is now 17, pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury last year, charges punishable by up to 10 years in jail. iowa does not have so-called "safe harbor laws" in place that gives underage trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity. an ex-aide to andrew cuomo has sued the former new york governor for sexual harassment. charlotte bennett filed the

lawsuit wednesday in a federal court in new york city, alleging cuomo repeatedly made inappropriate sexual advances, then sought to smear her reputation when she publicly revealed the harassment. bennet's lawsuit is the second from at least 11 women who say cuomo unlawfully groped, kissed, or otherwise sexually harassed them. in sweden, four right-wing parties have agreed to form a new coalition government after winning a narrow majority in sunday's parliamentary elections. the anti-immigrant far-right sweden democrats party won 73 seats with more than 20%f e vote, becoming t second-largest party in sweden's parliament. the party emerged out of sweden's neo-nazi movement in the late 1980's. prime minister magdalena andersson announced her resignation after her government's defeat. >> the election results also shows us the sweden democrats with a big margin is sweden's second largest party and i know

many swedes are worried. many have already met hatred and threats and even more are worried about becoming a target and hesitate to express themselves in public. i see your concern and share it. amy: meanwhile, in italy, polls show a coalition led by the far right is poised to win national elections on september 25. that has the leader of the neo-fascist brothers of italy party giorgia meloni positioned to become italy's first far-right leader since benito mussolini. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman, joined by my co-host nermeen shaikh. hi, nermeen. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: negotiators for railroad companies and workers have reached a tentative to avert a potential strike that was set to

start at 12:01 et on friday and could have shut down rail service across the united states. this comes after they secretary marty walsh met with union leaders and railroad company negotiators for some 20 hours into the early morning today, with president biden calling in personally around 9:00 p.m. wednesday night to the meeting. a railroad workers strike could upset the country supply chain of food and much more, potentially causing prices to skyrocket. it would also shutdown travel for long-distance passenger trains which use the same tracks as freight rail. the white house announced the agreement in a statement early this morning, calling it a "an important win for our economy and the american people." the deal must still be ratified by union members. "the washington post" reports it meets one of the workers' key demands, "the ability to take days off for medical care without being subject to discipline."

"washington post" reporter lauren kaori gurley wrote on twitter, "workers will receive voluntary assigned days off and a single additional paid day off. they previously did not receive sick days. the agreement provides members with the ability to take unpaid days for medical care without inc. subject to -- without being subject to attendance policies. for more, we're joined by ron kaminkow, a locomotive engineer who has worked in freight and passenger service, and the -- first hired out as a brakeman with conrail in 1996. he's the organizer for the railroad workers united. he previously served as the rwu secretary and general secretary. it is an inter-union, cross craft solidarity caucus of railroad workers across america. this news came out a few hours before democracy now! went on

the air. can you talk about this tentative deal, what was at stake for the workers, and for rail across the country? >> good morning, amy. it is pretty early out here on the west coast. i did get theews -- i think all of us are trying to make sense of wt this agreement is without actually seeing that agreement inriting, it is very hardo make any kind of stement of support or opposition to it. it doesound like the three major sticking points for the operating craft unions, basically three issues -- most freight train operators traditionally have not had any id sick leave. so that was issue nber on it sounds like the tentave agreement grants a single sick

leave day, which is a bit of an insu one wou think. most worke have 10 to 15 sick days i believe, so it sounds like the tentative agreement has one single paid sick leave day. also it unds like we will not be penalized now for taking time off work for medal appointments. last but not least, itounds like there is going to be some sort of semblance a schedule. that probably is the key here because the railroad workers tradionally have not had a schedule. we are on call subject to a two hour call 24/7. it seems like to bring us into the modern era we ould hav some semblance of a work schedule. now, what i read voluntary assigned days off, it is hard to say exactly what that means and

the del is in the details, the rank-and-file will have the last word so it will be circulated amongst the membership in the coming days and weeks and we will have a much better idea, probably by this afternoon, exactly what this tentative agreement that was brokered holds for railroad workers. nermeen: ron, could you explain when unions started opposing these conditions -- i'm in, some of the things that they've been protesting what you just pointed out, that workers were penalized for taking -- were having medical appointments or taking sickly post of the fact there was absolutely no paid sick leave. how long have these conditions been protested? also, how many unions were involved? >> i will start with the first question. this culmination that we are seeing has been 30 years in the making. i entered the industry 26 years

ago, and i was amazed at the lack of time off, the number of hours that we would work, and you could make good money. this is the job traditionally you uld hold with a hig school graduate. there was a time when railad workers had the ability to do what is called mark off. if you are brakeman, conduct, engineer, take a week or two off to take care of business, get some rest, enjoy a new romance, go to flora. we lost all that. now it is lean and mean. they do not want one more work on the payroll than absolutely necessary. so we lost the right to be able to work when we want and not when we don't want toork,nd that has been getting more and more resictive with the passing years. we have never had sick time.

until recently, it was not really an issue because the right to work when you wanted to and not when you didn't want to was considered one of the perks and benefits of a railroad job and the operating craft. that has gone away completely and been rlaced by harsh attendance policies. and this trend has accerated particularly under the new operating planned that has most all of the big class run railroads and its grips right now, which is this thing called precision schedule raioading, which is just a fancy way of saying lean anmean productions, we're going to cut mainnance, cut costs, cut staffing, and otherwise do whatever we can to pump up the stock price, increase the profit -- profitability of the carrier, reduce the operating ratio, and so forth. and one of those ws to d that is to get more worout of the existing workforce. and it imadeor a cometely

miserable situation in recent years. it was already bad 25 years ago when i was in the trade industry. so what we're seeing now is workers with twenty-year seniority leaving the industry, something that was unheard of even 10 years ago, is now very commonplace. as for the second question, unfortunately, we have 12 unions on the railroad. we started organizing early on. railroading is a dangerous industry in the 19 century. railroad workers were some of the first organize. we organed along craft union lines. this quickly was understood by many unioneaders and most rank-and-filers it was quite 1926, the roadway labor act- we are still left with 12

unions, all at the bargaining table who have the ability to cut deals, reachentative agreements on their own, and some of these unions have a very small nber of members. at the end othe day, the whole bargaining of railroad workers could be made much more streamlined and i believe rail workers would have a l more power if we could go into bargaining with these fortune 500 corporations, the css run carriers, united as one single organization. but unfortunately, thais not the case. nermeen: the deal still has to be ratified by the union members. do you think that is likely? >> it is hard to say. there's a lot of discontent. railway workershink thiis our time. there were conditions in our favor. the labor movement is on the

resurgence. the supply chains are a mess. the rail carriers are desperate for employees. there is a lot of momenm on our side and there is a lot of deep anger and resentment. the fact the rail carriers have made record profits for the much of the last 25 years -- they actually made record profits right through the recession of 2008 and 2009, made record profits to theandemic. and today, well, as wepeak, there are probably hureds of freight trains standing idle awaing crews because the rail industry cut to the bone so deep that they simply do not have enough employees, conductors, and engineers and also machinists and maintenance workers to keep things together to propey operate the railroad and yet they are still making

record profits right through this debacle. it would seem one of the ways to alleviate the crisis in rail right now would be to advance workers' conditions to make the job once again more pleasing, to retain employees, to make it easier to recruit. very few people want to work for the railroad now. in the old days, railroad workers had their children get jobs. that is a thing of the past. amy: the significance of this going right to the top? for this negotiation to go on for 20 hours with marty walsh, the secretary of labor, then biden calling in at 9:00, consider the most prolabor president in history, what this

meant for the deal to be sealed this morning -- i should not say sealed because i rank-and-file decide that in the end, but for those at the table to say they have a tentative and just after 5:00 easte time this morning? >> i'm sorry, what is the question? amy: the significance of biden weighing in and do you think that he weighed in on the side of the workers? enormous pressure brought since, one third of the freight in this country is carriedy rail, not to mention amtrak canceling all its long-term train itineraries for people traveling and passenger rail. so the stakes were extremely high. does that put more pressure on the owners or on the workers? >> wl, i think there's a huge

amount of pressure on the workers right now ter all of this kind of circuso vot f tentative agreement. there is always this idea that workers are greedy, overpaid, so forth. if you look at the demands here, ey are not really very economic. we arealking abo having some semblance of schedule. we are talking about sickeave, which most workersn highly unionize industries have had for dades datg back t the middle of the last century. and then of course thinable to negotiate attendance policies, that was another issue that apparently has been placated by mply sing you're not going to beenalized for taking time off foredical reasons. but that leaves the harsh atteance polic on many rriers still i effect. all i can say is the

rank-and-file will have the final word. there's a huge level of discontent amongst much of the rank-and-file step as you noted just yesterday, the rank-and-file machinist union, which was the first set of union officials to agree to a tentative agreement, the rank-and-file did vote that tended to agreement down. -- tentative agreement down. it remains to be seen what the others do in the coming days and weeks. amy: and we will continue to follow this closely. ron kaminkow, thank you for being with us, locomotive engineer who has worked in freight and passenger service. he is the organizer for the railroad workers united. coming up, we go to ukraine. we will speak with the artist molly crabapple just back from ukraine about her latest piece "in the shadow of invasion." and we will speak to a ukrainian motorcyclist she features in her piece. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "i've been working on the railroad" by pete seeger. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. ukraine is accusing russia of bombing a dam in the southern city of kryvyi rih, where ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy was born. parts of the city have been evacuated due to flooding. this marks the latest russian attack on civilian infrastructure after ukrainian forces recaptured over 3000 square miles of territory from russia during a counteroffensive. on wednesday, zelenskyy visited the city of izium, which ukrainian forces retook over the weekend. we are joined now by the new york-based artist and author molly crabapple. she recently returned from ukraine, where she traveled across the country drawing sketches of what she observed. several of those sketches appear as part of her article just out in the new york review of books

headlined, "in the shadow of invasion." in her article, molly talks about and draws about her meeting with anna grechishkina , a ukrainian journalist who was a full-time motorcycle traveler, riding around the world for the past nine years. trying to set a record in the guinness book of world records for the motorcycle female rider who travels the furthest. she returned to ukraine when the war started. molly crabapple joins us from new york and anna grechishkina is with us in kyiv. molly, talk about this journey you took. talk about why you chose to focus your enormous talents, or illustrations, and your writing on what is happening in ukraine right now. >> thank you for having me here, amy. i chose to travel to ukraine at the beginning of august because

history was happening there. ukrainians were writing their own history and i wanted to document it. i had known ukraine primarily for my research for my next book is a place where some of the greatest cataclysms of the 20th century had happened, word millions of people were killed in a planned famine in the 1930's, a place for the germans essentially began the holocaust. also a place that led to the dissolution of the soviet union in 1991. and because of this, i wanted to see with my own eyes how ukrainians were writing and finding their own future in the face of this idiotic and unprovoked invasion. i traveled all over the country. i did not go to the front lines at all, but i went to odessa, kyiv, lviv. when i was there, i saw a

country that was fighting so hard to preserve its independence, to preserve his identity, so to preserve a sense of moral -- normal life, go about your day and have beauty and sit in a café and be able to live even when war had extracted so many costs from evy single person. nermeen: anna, could you talk about your meeting with molly and what kind of -- go back to ukraine once the war began and what kind of aid and assistance you have been providing to people who have lost their homes, people who have had to flee their homes, homes that have been destroyed? >> thank you so much for having me here and the opportunity to talk about ukraine and share my experiences of ukraine. i've been traveling around the

world for the past nine years on a motorcycle. i decided to come back because i wanted to be with my country and my people and contribute as much as i could for the cause in ukraine and to fight. honestly, i did not know exactly what i could do. i was working with many of my local friends and people who had experience. one of my friends, he was a commander in the volunteer battalion in ukraine in kyiv and he said, just, and we will find you a job to do. without thinking twice, came back. i joined this battalion. i went through basic training. i learned some basics of combat, of medicine, of shooting -- using weapons, some psychological moments, etc.

it was really useful for me as a person who had no military experience at all. because i am a traveler and a writer, so i decided to use the same skill for ukraine. what i'm doing now, i am traveling around ukraine and even close to the front lines and meeting people, collecting stories of the war, recording interesting facts just to show to the world how ukraine is managing and how people are surviving and how they are managing to keep normal lives despite everything and to be a huge source of inspiration for the whole world. because were protesting the values of freedom and mocracy. in this sense, we're not just fighting for our land. and our values. but the values of the whole world. we appreciate the support of the whole world, people from many

countries, from the united states, who actually come physically to our country to support us, support financially, morally. i was happy to meet molly in kyiv and travel a little bit with her to the outskirts of kyiv. i was impressed with her dedication, with her talent that she used to show to the world how ukrainians are. i really appreciate that and i really appreciate every foreigner that i met here in ukraine. amy: anna grechishkina, i also want to say how well you're doing right now given that you have covid. i thank you for your energy. i wanted to play a clip of one of the civilians you spoke to during her travels in ukraine, a woman named kateryna who lost everything in the war but still works in the garden and plants vegetables. >> bombethe houson the 1h

ofarch. we left thatime. we cam bk wh ukrainis takever. whatan you d t i havehe garn here. planting evething,eats, bbage, erything. >> all othis now aer t use w bbed? >> yes, ithe spring. to see a real garden with no house. amy: i want to go back to molly crabapple. it is women like these you met across the country, as you rode on the motorcycle with anna. describe that journey that you took and the places where you mainly focused that you are most affected by. >> i have to give a small correction. while i was on the back of her

motorcycle to visit most of my trip, unfortunately, i was only traveling by train and on anything so cool as been on the back of anna's motorcycle. fingers crossed for the future. amy: maybe you could break a guinness book of world records together. >> most drawings on the back of a motorcycle. kateryna, a working-class woman who saved her whole life, going to poland to work doing physical stuff and everything she owned was destroyed by the russian bombing. she had to stay with her husband in a cellar that was -- i feel wrong and calling it a cellar, it was like a root cellar where you would store pickles or something. despite this, she was growing vegetables and she grew dill in

a pattern to emphasize how it looks. about war and covering war, it is the same in many places. i briefly went to a city just over the turkish border in syria that was bombed in 2014. i went to gaza as well. what war looks like is war looks like blackened buildings that are half fallen down with bits of people's lives hanging from the sides, but it also looks like tough working-class old women standing next to the rubble that used to be their homes and offering you the most delicious dessert you ever had in your life because they still want to be hospitable to guests. nermeen: molly, i want to go back to the history you pointed to, ukraine at the center of so many calamitous events in the

20th century, including the created famine, the so-called care famine of the 1930's, what is happening today and what happened most notably in the second world war. among the places you visited was where tens of thousands of people, majority jews, were shot dead in the second world war in what became known as the holocaust as part of this holocaust i bullets. could you describe or what you saw there and what you learned of that history, what has happened to that site? >> it is a park now. me and anna went together. it is a bit hard for me to talk about. when you go there, it is this huge ravine where 100,000 people were forced to strip naked and were murdered. you feel like the ground is

crying out with all of their ghosts. right now it is a beautiful place, though the soviet plaque on the memorial just has 100,000 citizens of kyiv, not that they were jewish. for me, something that was personally meaningful was that despite the holocaust in despite the murder of the vast majority of jews in ukraine, there is a jewish community still, which zelenskyy is the famous member, and also a community that are jewish, not jewish who are passionately committed to keeping ukrainian uterus culture alive. one moment that will stay in my heart, the apartment of an 82-year-old woman inlviv. she was a polish woman that fled from warsaw is a little girl. when she retired as a nurse, she devoted the last 20 years of her

life to studying and performing yet is music. she and a small band of musicians, many of them jewish, were rehearsing. they did not just rehearse like the old yet if standards about lovers, parents, they also patriotic songs into yiddish. cut gianna has a daughter in the armed forces right now. i feel like women like tatianna or another woman i met, i jewish refugee, women like these, they show the multiethnic identity of ukraine that it is possible to be ukrainian and be proud to be ukrainian and support your country and this terrible time while also being polish or also being jewish. amy: after the u.n., summit in polandi went to lviv and then about an hour away where my

grandmother was born in 1897. she was a woman that died at 108 just in 2005. we visited the second largest massacre in ukraine in world war ii where have to jewish population was killed. can you talk about the movement in ukraine to revive yiddish and yiddish culture? close sure. i think a lot of it has to do with links that are made between american institutions like in new york that has provided tons and tons of free classes to ukrainian -- there's also an institute in kyiv at the university.

there are amazing musicians. recommend everyone google two of the most glamorous women i have met in my life, ukrainian women that are trying to resurrect the very sisters for a new generation. there is also -- there was an elderly holocaust survival who -- there was a documentary about him about his stubborn and passionate love of lviv and his insistence on staying there for the rest of his life and on keeping this language that he loves alive. there's something about it. being in a city that was one third jewish before the holocaust and hearing that language spoken, that kind of broke my heart into it was so beautiful. nermeen: just to say that what you witnessed there, the attempt to revive the language of

yiddish, 85% of the approximately 6 million jews who were killed and it the holocaust were yiddish speakers. anna, earlier we covered in our headlines that putin has said -- the u.n. secretary-general said after speaking to putin that there is no possibility of resolution at the moment. what are ukrainian saying? what prospects are therefore negotiated peace now? >> well, you know, i was a most of ukrainians, we are looking forward to our victory. a full victory without any compromises. because we want our territory back. all those territories that have been occupied by russian state -- even though it is a full-scale war favorite 2022,

but actually the war with russia is going on for more than eight years. it wasn't much on the news all these years. in the whole world can see what russia's intentions is. we are not ready to compromise. we are waiting and hoping and we are confident in our victory. the success of the army like the beginning of this year in the eastern direction and many territories that have been liberated, it really gives us hope it will be ours and it will happen quite soon. i would say this is the position of most of ukrainians, especially after all their lives the russians took from us. i don't think any compromises possible.

especially they don't keep their promises, they don't keep their word. so whais the point? so many lies fromheir side. we are looking forward to our victory, the victory of ukraine. amy: we want to thank you so much, both of you, for being with us. anna grechishkina, ukrainian journalist and motorcycle traveler, now back to be in her country, speaking to us from kyiv. again, speedy recovery from covid. and molly crabapple, thank you for joining us. we will link to your piece in the new york review of books "in the shadow of invasion." when we come back, we go to pakistan where a third of the country is under water after a catastrophic flooding caused by the climate catastrophe. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: performed by the symphony inset amel in rivna. i recorded it on my phone in 2018 in december. they were trying to get people in the mall to come to the symphony that night and musicians popped up from the salon, from the apple store, from everywhere and just came together and started playing. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nearly 1500 people have now died in pakistan where catastrophic flooding has left a third of the

country under water. the dead include 530 children. tens of millions have been displaced by the floods which washed away homes, bridges, hospitals, and schools while destroying massive amounts of farmland. on wednesday, u.n. secretary general antonio guterres issued another dire warning about the climate emergency, days after he returned from pakistan. >> demonstrates the sheer inaccuracy of the global response to the climate crisis and the betrayal and injustice at the heart of it. where it is pakistan, the horn of africa, small islands, or least developed countries, the world's mos vulnerable, who did nothing to cause this crisis, are paying a horfic price.

amy: pakistan estimates about 30 many people have been displaced by the floods. this is a mother who gave birth last week after being forced to flee her home. >> the flood came to our village in swept away everything. i felt labor pains and my father brought me here to the evacuee camp on a motorcycle. the labor pains continued and then my father took me to a hospital where i had to undergo a c-section to deliver the baby. sometimes we don't have food. i don't have milk to breast-feed my child. i am sick and my child is also sick. god willing, my child will be all right now. amy: we go now to pakistan where we are joined by zulfikar ali bhutto, a pakistani artist whose work centers on the indus river. he recently traveled across his home province, sindh, to witness the devastation caused by the floods. he is named after his

grandfather, the former prime minister zulfiqar ali bhutto. welcome to democracy now! can you talk about this journey you took and what you found? this is just hard to fathom, one third of your country is underwater right now. >> thank you so much for having me on the show. yes, it is incredibly overwhelming. just the thought of it, but even the side of it. when the catastrophe started, really, the monsoon started in june and just did not stop. so by early august i was getting calls from people who were desperate and needed help. i wasn't quite sure how to provide that help and then calls came from my own house, our own ancestral village. of course i went. it was still raining. the roads were completely flooded.

there was water pouring in. the thing with the floods, there is not only water coming from the river, there's also water coming from above you and from the mountains. so they're all of these pressure points of watebuilding and building and building and building. and within my village itself, we had to wade through kilometers or four kilometers of water that was up to our waste in order to reach the first sight of land. nermeen: could you describe what the conditions are now? there are not only concerns was that the fact that so many people's lives have been devastated, homes destroyed, people forced to flee, but also now there's so much water that is just standing that there are concerns about the spread of diseases like malaria and dengue. >> malaria and dengue, there is

already what i think we can call it an epidemic. many, many people are getting sick from malaria and dengue posted dengue has no cure. malaria does have a cure but there's also no supply locally of malaria medicine. we've had to go and set up medical camps to deliver malaria medicine to pple. to deliver chlorine tablets because the water is so putrid and polluted. one of the immediate effects is gastroenteritis. probably within the first few days. fungal diseases in the first few days as well. children -- malnourished children are not able to heal and recover quickly from skin diseases, and that is something we noticed as well. not only were there waterborne diseases happening, but there were already conditions such as

malnourishment present in our society that was preventing a lot of children from naturally healing. amy: according to the climate change risk index last year, pakistan ranked eighth among countries was to vulnerable to the climate crisis. despite contribute in less than 1% to global carbon emissions. can you talk about the issue of climate reparations and the connection of what is happening to the climate catastrophe around the world? >> yes, yes, thank you for asking that. one, i think it is infuriating just to know that figure. the idea of reparations, of course the most record of measure would be to canceled their debt to the mf and world bank.

projects that have exasperated the situation. that also funded highways and bridges that have done the exact same thing. more than 50 dams have broken during these floods, leading to more catastrophe. and we of these people a debt. in terms of reparations beyond that, we have to think about is the pakistani government responsible? where will the reparations go? willhey go in the hands of the 30 plus million people who have been displaced or they simply go back -- that exacerbated the situation. there been toxic debt swap that the imf with infrastructure projects to help the country, but the imf infrastructural projects inside and outside

pakistan, projects have been anti-pork, anti-nature, anti-indigenous, and anti-people. i wonder if they have had a change of heart and if they have, maybe that is a solution to this climate reparation discussion. nermeen: i want to ask about the worsening crisis in pakistan's health care and medical facilities as they try to cope under these horrific conditions with increasing numbers of people seeking help. patients in makeshift hospitals have been getting sick from a lack of drinking water. >> yes, that is a primary concern. when we go and say, ok, let's bring medicine, we also to think, ok, we also need to bring water because there is no safe drinking water. i have been several times and

every time i go back, of course we have to drive through the floods and the water went from a sort of clear blue gray to sort of reddish-brown. putrid smell everywhere. we have to think in mind, almost a million cattle have died in the how is our little with the bodies of dead water buffaloes, which is somewhat ironic. but they have just been swept away for the bodies of dead donkeys and dead goats, did she. there is the human tragedy of it all. people have lost everything and in order to deliver medicine, they need water to take that medicine. so this is also a challenge that many, many people are facing right now. nermeen: who exactly is providing the most assistance? we hear about the pakistani military, which is vastly overfunded and the most powerful

institution there, but first of all, what exactly are they doing ? compare what they're doing now compared to what they did during and after the 2010 flood. and what about ngos that are workinin the country? >> well, no, the pakistani military has been quite late to respond. talking about the difference between government and military. they were the first of the two. remember sing the military on my fourth day while i was there. that is not to say they weren't there, but there were the most visible when the clouds had cleared a bit and the rains had gone away. the military was much more active in 2010, which was another record-breaking flood. these let's have broken that record as well. 2010, catastrophic as it was, it was easier to manage because it

was primarily glacial mountain so you can predict where the water was coming from as it flows north to south to the arabian sea. in this case, it is not the same. we have glacial melt happening after rainfall, so it is overwhelming. you mention the government. people are extremely angry at the government especially in certain provinces where they don't feel their representatives are actually their representatives. many people in pakistan, democratic system, unfortunately quite faulty. they are intimidated and devoting for ruling parties. -- into voting for ruling parties. people are not seeing the representatives. they are angry. in terms of ngos, there is definitely a very large presence of ngos that they themselves are spread thin.

legal aid society is going from legal work to going on both and distribute in rations of food to people who cannot get access. and there is one that has been several ngos. a lot of ngos that might be able toake up the labor of doing this, have not been able to. amy:, shot people to know there's more glacial ice, more glaciers and pakistan than any place on earth outside of the polar region. and in 10 seconds, if you could comment on your being critical of the imf for bankrolling massive dams and barrages that have broken during this flooding? >> you know, as you said, the glaciers are pakistan's water storage. there is been this idea that water should not goo to the people. what happens when water does not go to the sea as it does not

reach the people of the sea. in the first, refugees in the 1960's -- amy: five seconds. >> when imf -- amy: zulfikar ali bhutto, we have to end

(soft chiming music) - [narrator] this is what the future of hyper intelligence looks like. most people no longer own cars. instead, artificial intelligence operates fully electric network self-driving vehicles. as a result, air pollution and traffic congestion plummet across the planet. self-navigating aerial drones are on the front lines for disaster respoe and search and rescue missions. most people live and work side by side with self-aware androids. these ai companions boost productivity and libere humans from tedious tasks, completely revolutionizing modern life. - feel like i'm in a superhero movie.