i mean the joy you'll favorite if you're away from your television just doesn't matter with your mobile device you can walk jog see anytime anywhere. you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how fabulous i'd love. to eat i mean the town i know that i mean it seems really messed up. and we're all very slow motion leopoldo it's the worst you're going to go right out soup of a. radio guy minestrone could probably work well for about six years you never seen anything like this i'm told.

i'm abby martin and welcome to breaking the set so today i had the rare opportunity to share good news for once to start the show samaras solve policy and political prisoner will end his eight month hunger strike in exchange for an early been released from israeli jails esol was first arrested for taking part in military activities against i.d.f. vehicles back in two thousand and two and was sent to twenty six years in prison he was then released as part of a prisoner exchange but was arrested last july and since august of two thousand and twelve salvi has been protesting as the tension by refusing food and only taking water vitamins and sugars for two hundred and sixty six days for the last two months of his health has been a period in his heartbeat slowing forcing him to put on artificial ventilation at the same time the unrest among palestinians with escalating to the point of fear of a third intifada samara was allowed to die well the. great news of his early

release prompted assad way to write a victory letter in which he states quote now i plead for continuing of the popular movement and its escalation on all fronts in order to struggle for the political prisoners and i also call for the continuation of the political and diplomatic mobilization to internationalize the issue of political prisoners and to turn into the international criminal court ordered indict the judges of the occupation under international law for the crimes that are being perpetrated against the palestinian people it's so great that israeli authorities understand the need to release samaras so we but even though he will be free soon there are thousands more palestinian men women and children being unjustly detained there still deserve our attention so let's go on with the struggle and let's break the set. of the two. or should i mean like.

if you've been watching the corporate media then you may have missed a devastating tragedy in its coverage of austin bombing and syria's chemical weapons scare but this story should not be overlooked because it affects everyone in the world that wears commercial clothes on wednesday a giant garment factory in dhaka bangladesh collapsed due to a severe and massive crack in the building's infrastructure and since then three hundred people have been confirmed dead from being trapped and crushed by debris at least nine hundred more are still unaccounted for and sadly the death toll is only expected to grow not to mention the one thousand plus left injured however what's even more devastating than the single incident is that this is anything but uncommon in the southeast asian country just this past november another garment factory in bangladesh incurred a fire that killed at least one hundred twelve people and that's not all and only the last five months there are thirty smaller incidence of fires and workplace deaths in the country's clothing factories in fact prior to this latest incident

seven hundred apparel workers have died in preventable factory fires and building collapses since two thousand and five according to international labor rights forum . this new should be particularly disconcerting to american consumers because according to b.s.'s the bangladeshi news service the u.s. receives twenty three percent of the country's product more than any other nation in the world including one of the most popular retailers in the u.s. . yet despite the slick advertising there's a dark and disturbing reality on the origin of these products the fact that these companies are not ensuring safety standards the effect of which directly results and these mass casualties that's why human rights groups have stepped in calling on

the. brands and retailers to sign on to the bangladesh fire and safety agreement which would establish a system independent inspectors and force the proposed changes into effect but unfortunately this agreement is not gaining as much traction as it needs to be because of some company's refusal to sign on and quoting gap inc so help me gain some insight on the latest disaster the contagion the conditions of these factories and how they could be improved by teresa director of communications for the workers rights consortium thank you so much for coming on three cents so devastating tragedy what exactly happened because i've heard reports of the workers that already pointed out there was a severe crack five stories long and they didn't want to work and also some of the other companies in the same building had already been evacuated why didn't they leave that's correct and so actually the day before the collapse took place on tuesday there were noticeable clear cracks in the building and workers pointed these out to officials and in fact other. other people in the building who worked

at the bank that was in the building people who worked at the market in the building noticed these cracks and actually those businesses were closed the following day wednesday and police had notified the factory of these serious problems and advised them to close and yet the five garment factories that were in the facility continued operating throughout wednesday even though workers had voiced very serious concerns about their safety in the facility. how did the building owner respond when they did speak out because i read reports that they actually said you will be docked for a month of pay correct workers were threatened with a dock of their pay. terminations other things like that if they were refusing to work in the factory because of these concerns because ultimately managers want workers to continue working as much and as quickly as possible for fear that they might deliver an order late and somehow lose business from brands and retailers sourcing from these facilities. really really devastating especially since they're

kind of prison of this catch twenty two where they don't want to lose a month of pay i mean these people are already living on a very small wages paycheck to paycheck and of course they they feel like they don't have a choice essentially this makes the factory owner criminally culpable i mean knowing that the building is on the verge of collapsing and forcing the people essentially to work do you think that will see these people face prosecution that are involved in this in this factory we have seen arrests and criminal charges filed against factory owners and managers in previous fires the fire that happened back in november the smart export garment fire that happened in january where eight workers were killed there have been charges filed and arrests made in those cases and i think it's quite likely that we will see something similar in this case and the infrastructure is just one aspect of these conditions what the actual working conditions give us a sense of who is working in these factories and what conditions they work in so bangladesh is now the second largest export of the us and it is

a garment industry made up of about five million mostly young female garment workers in their late teens or early twenty's who are struggling to survive on a minimum wage of thirty seven dollars a month which is an extremely low wage even by bangladesh living standards and they are subject to incredibly long hours eleven twelve hours a day six days a week. there are very serious fire safety violations going on other health concerns in the factory verbal abuse physical abuse is quite common as well. really really long i mean it's almost a quite a bit of slave labor when you're looking at you know no benefits i mean religious harsh working conditions long hours very little pay pennies on the dollar. in the u.s. united states are proven to have the least amount of work or debts the safest environment for workers is there any sort of movement going on in bangladesh. to unionize and

organize within these factories there is there certainly are efforts and i'm i'm glad you pointed that out because in this country many people may be familiar with the triangle shirtwaist factory fire that happened more than one hundred years ago in this country and it really galvanized a movement among female garment workers in this country to improve conditions and lead to the formation of a number of labor unions towards that end and workers in bangladesh have tried similar strategies but in bangladesh there is an extreme level of oppression that exists towards workers who attempt to exercise these rights about a year ago. the labor union organizer by the name of islam was found tortured and murdered in an apparent retaliation for his efforts to support workers' rights to speak out and that's the kind of attitude that that these individuals are treated with in that country so obviously it's still in a culture of fear and a kind of a chilling effect to not want to do that all this aside i've actually shockingly red state dinners are getting progressively better i mean is this due in part to

the organizing that is happening on a grassroots level i think i think to some extent that is true although what we've seen over the several months is a number of these deadly fires and other building disasters that have led to more than seven hundred deaths just in the past six months alone and so although we've heard a number of statements from u.s. and european brands and retailers about the progress that they're making that has not come to pass and so what laws exist right now to prevent these things that are they not being enforced or there's simply not enough laws they're in place bangladesh actually has an excellent labor because they have an excellent national building code that is based on u.s. building regulations the difficulty and the problem is that those things are not enforced and brands and retailers sourcing from this factory from the other facilities that have burned have their own monitoring programs in place and those programs have proven to be incredibly in effect at preventing and protecting

workers from the types of tragedies. and let's look at the other parties responsible here which of course are companies corporations and u.s. clothing companies we know that twenty two percent of bangladeshi goods are exported to this country what companies are the biggest players in the bangladeshi sweatshops so the largest companies sourcing from bangladesh is the european retailer h. and wal-mart is the largest u.s. buyer from the country there's a number of other big buyers gap is a large player there as well as a number of european intelligence and of course in the wake of the last two disasters as you said you know people are saying we're working on safety standards wal-mart and gap are both pledging money gap is even saying that they're putting a pledge twenty million dollars yet they're not signing on to the green men which would actually ensure that these safety standards are carried out efficiently and you and your organization is that this is not good enough the twenty million dollars so what needs to be done how can we get these companies to sign on i mean it sounds like a no brainer so over the past few weeks wal-mart has announced about one point five

million dollars or so towards a training initiatives for factories in bangladesh and it's important to understand that you cannot train workers to walk through fire what really needs to happen is that brands and retailers need to undertake a program throughout the five thousand garment factories in the country and make fundamental structural renovations and repairs to prevent these types of fires and collapses from happening and that's what this agreement would lead to it would require brands and retailers to make a legally binding enforceable commitments to improve structural safety in the buildings they source from allow access for worker representatives to the facilities and independent fire safety inspections which are largely. not happening in the industry right now and we were sympathetic to the corporations and even the corporation themselves who have this bottom line saying you know it's a really costly to do this it might be a huge cut to our profit margin how much of a profit market are we looking at let's say with

a calvin klein. sure for forty dollars being sold here in the u.s. so an estimate that we have put together is that over the period of five years it would cost about three billion u.s. dollars to renovate all of the factories in bangladesh for fire and building safety and i know that sounds like a large number but it breaks down to less than ten cents per garment which is an extremely small price to pay to save the lives of what is likely to be hundreds of more deaths over the coming years and they're making thousands of percent profit on each piece of government we've got a minute left but to have emerged in china and now they're all going to bangladesh it seems like a vicious cycle where companies are going to continue to chase whatever is the cheapest labor and exploited for the countries that are willing to take the most healthy risks how can we stop this vicious cycle you know that's absolutely true bangladesh is the lowest wage country in the world and continued to flow into the country unabated and so what needs to happen is that we need to reverse the downward price pressure and the race to the bottom that is being driven by

companies like gap and wal-mart n.h. and them and require them to take meaningful steps to improve fire and building safety in their supplier factories in bangladesh thank you so much for coming on breaking on this extremely important story theresa hawes communications director of worker rights consortium appreciate it. you see you can head to our youtube channel at youtube dot com slash breaking ascent be sure to subscribe so you do not miss a single episode we also have all our interview segments tabbed out if you want to catch those separately and encourage or want to check out our interview yesterday about islamophobia perpetuated by the corporate media and also check out every everything we've done separately under tab the section on the top of the page from big brother watch to weapons of mass distraction check out all that and more youtube dot com slash break in the set and i know that to break from my preaching to hear from our favorite comedian activist lead can.

today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are on the day. we speak your language anybody will not advance. programs in documentaries and spanish what matters to you. is a little tonnage of angola's stories. here. i'll teach spanish to find out more visit i to out of.

the international airport in the very heart of moscow. so guys in case you haven't noticed the media has been partly focus on one thing for the last two weeks boston but interestingly enough just before that there were incessantly hyping up the fear of an impending nuclear attack north korea or those . a mobile missile launcher that has been moved within north korea by

train the launcher has the ability to strike japan as well as u.s. bases in okinawa and guam adding to the fears today the young leader of the north said the moment of explosion is coming the moment of explosion is coming so what happen interesting how the media jumps from one salacious threat to the other and how could they just forget about this imminent danger facing this nation my next guest is here to get his two cents on that and a whole lot more right now joined by lee can comedian activist and creator of the moment of clarity web series what is going on leak. you know i'm doing great so we the media say north korea is the biggest threat facing this country two weeks ago what the hell happened. i think they just they just need somewhere to point the frantic america they just want to keep you scared because it's good ratings rates every whether it's real or not it's everything you put on there like be afraid be i always be afraid and then every commercial break do you have anxiety. yeah exactly

because it shows that there is really no threat in this country after all and of course the threat of domestic terrorism take its place really quickly what i'm most interesting is how some lawmakers tried to link it to immigration i wanted to just paraphrase what representative louie gohmert said who said radical muslims are posing to spandex to cross the border and terrorize the u.s. so we should be worried about care dressing up as muslims next of kins oh my god we should this is the al qaeda is finally figured out if they just wear a sombrero and eat it taco that's all it takes to get through i mean is this really the respect he has for our f.b.i. all you have to do to. commit an attack on the u.s. is where literally break t. shirts you know before that before they came out with this hispanic threat all the f.b.i. was looking for was t. shirts that said bin laden is my homeboy. really question how these people or even elected i mean how is it that louie gohmert an elected representative spewing such

nonsense as al qaeda dressing up in sombreros crossing the border to infiltrate and attack this country i mean it's the point of just such absurd and of course let's talk together a news story that's making headlines the opening of the bush presidential library centrally a giant museum glorifying his presidency i mean is it just me or does this historical revisionism terrify you to. i mean i think that everybody in america pretty much appreciates the irony of the least illiterate president we've ever had opening a library it's like the mel gibson center of you know racial sensitivity but apparently the library has like it has a decision theatre where you go in and you try and see if you can make the decisions bush made and i was just trying to picture what that looks like you know like hurricane katrina hit people or drowning in new orleans do you fly overhead in your helicopter and then put a horse trainer in charge of fema is that how you deal with it because it is the

decider because the desire to have that the sit in a room and someone else told me it was hilarious like what is that full of pop up books and and is it just there's just one book that my pet goat upside down in the this it is quite astounding of course hearing all the speeches and you know bush did a little got a little emotional after giving his speech a little wink a little tear i mean you think those tears of joy are that he thinks he has friends again. you know no one spoken to him in many years so i think that's pretty exciting for him and of course the media the corporate media didn't really cover the protesters that were outside my friend and filmmaker dennis traynor got arrested dressed as dick cheney outside the library so i think it was just exciting to see dick cheney get arrested. you know when we would use that dick cheney got a. jazz trainer june dressed as dick cheney got to. say dick cheney was noticeably absent and you finally got

a citizen's arrest made on him like i have been hoping this whole time and as you know each living president was there and then you think about you know what i've been doing since they've been leaving office jimmy carter is in haiti working with his hands building houses for the poor bill clinton with his foundation and in a recent interview bush actually revealed what he's been up to let's take a look at that. two or three hours a day i'm shooting here analyzing that you have and trying to figure out if i can the next date to you what are you serious yeah this will permit resolution maybe a touch of. white and on the other side. maybe a little. dark and so i can reflect the light properly. i'm sorry. is this is it started yet to respond and who says he lacks cultural or cultural awareness or intellectual curiosity i mean i also i want to

get to his painting by speaking about something else he said which he said that dick cheney and he don't speak anymore and i was thinking like that makes a lot of sense because if you think about it when they when a puppet tear has a television show or a play or something and the play ends the puppets here doesn't keep speaking to the puppets in the green room like it's over that's you put the puppet down you move so what is the puppet do he goes to paint he goes to paint his feet in the bath and themselves look in somber in the shower is this a sign that bush is using painting as a therapy to reflect on all those were crimes he committed yeah that's why it's all about the obvious trying to wash off the blood of innocent people i wonder if he's painting by numbers i mean it's just amazing i can't wait to see his next series of shower paintings and you know the latest news that i wanted to bring up is this infamous have first break up of course that whole that's at santa cruz just sprain everyone sitting down in a chain he's got off scot free don't you anything wrong but you don't really make

an kelly on fox says that all these kids are just getting worked up for nothing let's hear what she had to say about it. social pepper spray that just burned drives right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product right. but i want to i want to see her sprayed with pepper spray during one of her broadcasts and see how well that goes right it's just it's just a condiment this is a car and then just i mean just it just sprayed all of your food every day making kelly a complete idiot thank you so much leek can always a pleasure to have you on they for making me laugh on this friday comedian activist creator of the moment clarity web series thanks for having. her. so we've been hearing a lot of news about syria lately talk of syrian president bashar al assad using chemical weapons which is drawing an airy parallel to the war drums leading up to

the iraq war no doubt this is a disastrous situation where eighty thousand people of needlessly died in just the last two years in the tragedies occurring there certainly deserve the world's attention. however when the corporate media focuses so narrowly on one subject usually signifies that there's a larger agenda play and that singular focus distracts us from so many other events unfolding in the world that are crying for our attention take for instance or government officials recently block the u.n. torture investigator from visiting the country in the wake of a spike in anti-government protests it's the second time a visit has been cancelled by government forces who have been brutally crushing dissent across the nation since the protests broke out in early two thousand and eleven human rights groups have cited kidnappings murders and thousands of arrests at the hands of the regime the violence on the streets is all accompanied by

several reports of torture being used against political prisoners however the corporate media has been mostly silent for that matter so is the u.s. government who relies on the trains a willingness to host u.s. navy's fifth fleet which serves to place strategic u.s. pressure against countries like iran u.s. support of the brutal regime is the root of american double standards when it comes to addressing human rights abuses and another tragically overlooked story that continues to unfold is the persecution of rohingya muslims in burma since the second massacre took place last october the world has continued to ignore what more and more officials are referring to as a genocidal ethnic cleansing conservative estimates suggest that over one hundred twenty thousand people remain homeless after buddhist extremists caused mass ours. and violence and a string of massacres that resulted in at least two hundred rohingya muslims needlessly slaughtered unfortunately

a media blackout in the country is helping the world to ignore the plight of people who've been acquired by the un is the most persecuted minority group in the world. independent journalist assad begg my recently interviewed from the ground in rangoon i'm sorry in rangoon burma recently wrote about the woman who will be being taken hostage by the burmese government and there's growing evidence suggesting that the military is keeping these women as sex slaves it's important that more visibility is given to this crisis before countless other innocent people die. and finally i want to talk about guantanamo bay prison currently ninety three of the prisoners were just more than half of the inmates at the prison camp have now joined the hunger strike is reaching the end of its third month the sort of frustration among detainees is a realization that congress and the obama administration have fully turned their backs on the idea that get motion be closed the detainees at the camp path of whom

have been declared innocent and cleared for release are losing hope that they will ever be set free and they're literally killing themselves right now as a plea for help. to add insult to injury us corporate media has also conveniently taken the same position as obama choosing to look forward not backward on the crimes of the bush administration despite a sworn declaration obtained by truthout just recently from colonel warble percent said that bush cheney and rumsfeld all knew that the vast majority of prisoners they get no where in fact innocent that they were afraid of the political repercussions of their bad judgment still the corporate news remains silent on the fact that more prisoners have died to get now and actually been convicted setting a truly troubling precedent for human rights standards. on the us but these are all examples of stories that you won't hear on the mainstream easy to get sucked into media black hole so take these stories and share them and help me shine

a light on this world of darkness. ok going. i. wrote no way things are going the republican. better off in the state of. texas has got its own life. has got all the oil and gas and everything in me. ever to me but the rest united states would save the earth. with a mind that it was. striving for a brit and an independent future. republican texas analyse.

she good laboratory. to build on its most sincere security which fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything mission to teach me reason why you should care about human to

endure. this is why you should care what your only job. is to leave you to. leave. poisonous politics a little u.s. hands that intervention in syria is a possible option suspecting assad government used chemical weapons but struggling to point to any evidence. heading to the polls in

this second to general election says the financial question of two thousand and eight when the country let its banks fail but it later made a stunning turnaround job growth weeks ago is successful story. and americans say no to t.v. news networks a recent study shows the audience is the major. plummeting we try to find out why.