hey guys i'm abby martin and this is breaking the set on this day last year new york and new jersey were getting rocked by superstorm hurricane sandy overall the storm cost the city's sixty five billion dollars and took months of cleanup efforts no doubt it was a devastating storm but as we look back one year later what have we learned for the next time a storm this size hits we do know that the subway system will probably be shut down again due to massive flooding keep in mind there are still hundreds of people living out of hotels because they don't have a home to return to i'm sure congress eventually agreed to send fifty one billion dollars in relief to the victims of sandy but we don't know where that money went according the national center for disaster preparedness only twenty three percent has been the first of the agencies directly involved in the relief efforts and only fifteen percent of that has actually reached the hands of the victims but a lack of financial aid isn't the only glaring problem here those who were

fortunate enough to rebuild post sandy are doing so in locations that are red zones for flooding related disasters in the future basically they're setting themselves up for disaster all over again which brings us to the elephant in the room and no i'm not talking about chris christie i'm talking about climate change half of the politicians out there want to stick their heads in the sand and keep denying the obvious fact that climate change isn't only real it's already happening and thanks to sea levels rising at an alarming rate we sure to see some hurricane sandy style flooding or worse much more frequently according to a recent and no a report meanwhile our do nothing congress wants to do nothing about climate change or carbon emission problems while the country they're representing continues to suck up twenty five percent of the world's energy and until we all wake up and acknowledge the serious problems on the horizon disasters like sandy could become the norm. in the book please

please take a look very hard to take a. look. at that act with that her right there the. elite. monsanto has made its presence known in nearly every corner of the world from europe to australia. has attempted to force its genetically modified seeds and pesticides across the planet one continent at

a time except for one africa that's quickly changing monolithic monolithic industries like du pont's and monsanto are moving in and threatening to destroy traditional farming practices that's why seven african countries including ghana participated in a stop on santo march back in may so despite this company's claims that they're increasing crop yields and helping a combat poverty and hunger local farmers say that's far from the truth earlier i spoke to a representative from one of the leading african organizations fighting this take over food sovereignty ghana his name is all a mouse mahdi and i started by asking him why monsanto is only now making the push into africa. from further up to full. value noone. based on the logical its rejection by the civil society. and also on the

basis of not accept tons on site scientific grounds we also have seen. brawled popular sage against the germ was in latin america brazil the farmers have sued monsanto you know there are so many problems i who see a turd with health in india. what do you call it recently ruled that the supreme court. committee of spits have. called for imposed an indefinite moratorium in fact before there was a ten year moratorium it went to the supreme court and the supreme court's the technical community based on very serious scientific evidence committee of its best decided that there should be an indefinite moratorium so it looks like.

it's only africa that is left for them and you've compared the entry of g m o's in africa to a new wave of colonialism why well i mean if it were just a matter of the new ip of colonialism would have accepted that it is worse than that it is even worse than slavery and here is why. dr henry kissinger once that food is a weapon whoever controls the food controls the population. and i think this is what we are seeing in africa they want our resources they want not only the food it is access to everything that they need and want in africa they don't want africa to stand in the way so if because starve us to death or make us succumb to what about the months they are imposing on africa the best way to do

that is to the control of our food. and let's zero in on ghana which of course is what your focus is very now these giant ag corporations moving in talk specifically about what you're concerned about as a relate to small farmers and the food buy in public. oh you're ok in fact. i don't movement this what do you call it bio safety act put in place and that bio safety act calls for a bio safety authority and here we are in a situation where we have this promoters of german. citizen on the biosafety committee gruet the german crops and what do you call it that means bruce we are going to have what you call another law coming to. you poor complainer client by

i believe before parliament now it doesn't really go into the first reading and by the end of november it will be go into the second and the third and try very hard to impose the plant breeders bill on gun ins. and this automatically gives to the. motel six. chemical biotechnology companies signed determined by us and i just don't have. access to a gun if this will indeed destroy local agriculture and gone out why do you think we can a government is moving forward with it so what we have to do is that the government is in competition with the most rabid elements of our political class to own accept whatever the cost to gun is gonna so

that they cannot undermine dog can also be accepted by the international community . and all the many people believe that g.m.o. produce more yields to withstand droughts floods and that they're good for sustainability in developing countries do you disagree with these alleged benefits and what other health things should we be concerned about with these foods there's a big dichotomy if you look at the. issue there's a big dichotomy between promise and performance. the promise is that we must be climate change. we will reduce the use of pesticides it will increase you know when you look at. the use of pesticides there are a lot of in america north america in india and other places where they have tried. the. increase in the use of pesticides. because the.

crops developed superbugs supposed which require more tech sick chemicals to do so in fact you lose too much more use of it's exercise and pesticides on the long ropes because they don't have. those programs that are says it will live to the levels that we see with the group again in terms of you know. the new groups have been seen to be. because of the. controlled in the first few but then after after at least three years in between a fossil the bytecode them there was a sharp decline after the fall and today we have less than fifty percent of people using it because it's previously is there a middle ground to be found i mean when your organization support the introduction

of g.m.o. crops if there was proper regulation and mandatory testing and the labeling of g.m. as. well. our bottom line is that we want to eat good food we are not just like guinea pigs for multinational corporations to experiment with. we don't have to complain and eat whatever to give to us and find out later in the route if everything is all right but it's not what you call it in fact the g.m. technology so it's almost becoming obsolete today we know that the mechanical identification of a gene that confers certain properties for. the plant is not correct and that it is a family of genes that work in the morning also we produce the beneficial effects.

there are several no. and i'll grow ecology that doesn't require genetic modification and i've gotten used to additional and selection to produce to do much more effective and more small powerful feats but what we get from jim was so important we do you believe in it taking ownership over our food over our lives of our communities thank you so much for breaking this down for speaking out against this issue all a must madi chairperson food sovereignty gonna thanks so much for coming on. after the break one of america's staunch allies is a horrific track record when it comes to human rights abuses. turn. his lover into an amazon. that had been my dream. but he couldn't hold on to the research thing as i was growing up

a teacher and now she runs her own factory with a screw down a challenge to men there's no alcohol no smoking under even coffee is forbidden they worship the sun. and learn martial arts. will he ever be able to wind up. man versus woman on o.t. if we look at the history of the o p c w and it's indeed in the past with the united states there is a history all let's say intimidation on many collation of whatever you call it if indeed we find that president assad is lying or cheating and i doubtful if you'll do that because his life was really on the line in the life of the whole regime then of course then i think a military strike could take place. and

. the. economic ups and downs in the final months they would learn to deal sang i and the rest because i hate it will be every week on me. as much as we hear the government preaching about human rights abuses in iran iraq and afghanistan there is one middle eastern country that continues to be omitted from the discussion and it just so happens to be one of america's closest allies in the region saudi arabia and see this country governs under strict sharia law the strictest interpretation of islam and is perhaps the world's most oppressive

patriarchy unlike other u.s. allies such as qatar that puts up the guise of progressivism saudi arabia as unabashedly repressive when it comes to women believe it or not it's the only country in the world that forbids women from driving a vehicle but before you start judging or a little study arabia there's a very good reason why just check out one saudi cleric had to say on the matter. she should have been good. without them we're in the month of the whole of the. oh so it's not p.m.s. it's just that i've been driving too much thanks mr clare clearing that up all kidding aside though this outrageous discriminatory policy has sparked a protest among saudi women for the second time in just three years dozens of saudis have taken their cars and proudly driven through the streets of riyadh but

as shocking as the forbidden practice may sound the western ears this ban on women driving actually has no legal basis in the country which is part of a larger system of customs meant to ensure that women as stay in line and are obedient servants to their male counterparts. to get money or you know. the first thing you need to understand this as a woman you are the pope either your father brother or you this money is your god it's his job to the. it's your job to do your book. now is amnesty international trying to bring the light to the seriousness of the situation and study arabia every woman has to have a male guardian women need permission to do almost everything travel work go to school get medical treatment and talk to the opposite sex so the actions these women took were incredible considering how they are challenging the entire saudi culture not just a fantasy law the state of women is only

a microcosm of the larger human rights epidemic taking place in the country appallingly enough saudi arabia is only one of only five countries in the world that still practices public executions including beheadings by sword and stoning to death according to saudi arabian law the following crimes are deserving of death adultery armed robbery blasphemy burglary drug possession engaging in homosexual acts witchcraft and sorcery the methods of execution very however in the great country of saudi arabia after you're killed you can also be displayed on a giant cross in a public square next to your head for all to see although exact numbers are near impossible to report because of a government blackout on many of these executions amnesty international estimates that at least seventy nine people were executed in two thousand and twelve alone but it's not just murder for petty crimes of witchcraft or sex that we should be concerned with considering that fifteen out of the nineteen nine eleven hijackers

were saudi the saudi government and gauged in a sustained assault on its citizens in the wake of the attacks on the guise of fighting terrorism that sounds familiar according to a two thousand and nine amnesty international report thousands of people have been arrested and detained in virtual secrecy all those have been killed in uncertain circumstances hundreds more people face secret and summary trials and possible execution. one of the names of these people have been this close given the extreme secrecy of the trial. but we do know that a majority of these prisoners are prisoners of conscience or simply targeted for criticizing the kingdom in fact just today a saudi arabian human rights lawyer was sentenced to three months in prison for the mere act of signing a petition critical of the country's judicial system and it's not just citizens that are being persecuted there it's millions of foreign workers from bangladesh indonesia and elsewhere who are battling this terror ran to their credit rule these

people basically live in indentured servitude with no limit of work hours and extremely harsh conditions physical and sexual abuse is rampant in this industry and as of january forty five foreign maids were facing death row according to amnesty. so given this horrific track record why has the u.s. remained such a staunch ally of a criminal theocracy while the us still depends on the persian gulf for thirteen percent of its oil oil usage sorry not to mention that this country needs in order to carry out its secret drone assassinations in yemen and pakistan say the cia's recently revealed drone base there is one of many u.s. military installations scattered across the country maybe that's why we haven't tried to democratize saudi arabia and liberate its women just like we did in iraq right. united states works to help build a more hopeful and just society dream of the world and in particular the middle

east in iraq saddam hussein once used rape rooms to brutalize women and dishonor their families. today because we acted direction women voters voted in a free and democratic elections they live under a constitution that protects women's rights you know bush is right and theory according to iraq's two thousand and five constitution twenty five percent of parliament must be filled by women the fast forward to today according to multiple reports the. for women with regards to everything from my financial security to legal protections to violence and sex trafficking are worse now than under saddam's rule look i'm in no means defending saddam's brutal dictatorship but the facts speak for themselves it's clear that the countries that are designated our allies or anime's have absolutely nothing to do with their finity for democracy or human rights but as obvious as this hypocrisy is so many americans continue to lap

up the propaganda and fall into the political trap of manufacturing their consent hook line and sinker. there's a famous lyric by the clash that goes let me tell you about wayne and deals with cocaine a little more every day until the da lock them away it's a line from the song jail guitar doors and it was written about the target of a band mc five when kramer his self described a life of crime law to move the two year prison sentence after he recuperated and rejoin society he's been working on an outreach program for other prison inmates who need a musical outlet for their frustrations within our two tiered justice system today when kramer joins me live to talk about his nonprofit organization jail guitar doors thank you so much for coming on wayne happy to be here thanks for the

opportunity so wayne what got you involved in this tell me how you got passion about the issue well from the time i was released i'm a archetype of drug war prisoner i watched as first tens of thousands of people just like me went to prison hundreds of thousands and today millions of our fellow americans are under lock and key two point three million ten million under direct state law enforcement control and. i just felt like this was. an embarrassing international embarrassment and a national disgrace and that i believe you know one person can make a difference and i think that these kinds of changes happen from the bottom up and so i got with my fellow musicians and i joined with the great billy bragg the true troubadour from england he had started doing this work in england and they were

calling it jail guitar doors after the same clash song and i said i'll take this on for the united states so now today we're in about forty prisons in america we have a waiting list of fifty more wow and we have programs in their cook county correctional system in chicago in texas and in new york and in los angeles where i live is just so incredible that you don't really see art and music programs for prisoners in the in part of the rehabilitation what's been the feedback from prisoners and also talk about what the program consists of well the the. the program and simple what we do is we donate guitars mostly sometimes some other instruments and the idea is that if we can get a guitar into a prisoner's hand and task them with writing a song tell me your story in this song about how you got here maybe write a song to your mom to your daughter to your son that that process is transformative

it's the beginning of a change of heart that is necessary for the hard work of rehabilitation because ninety five percent of the people in prison today are going to be released they're going to live next door to you and me so it's in our own interests to help people change for the better while we have them in custody if we don't help them change for the better they will most certainly change for the worse why do you say that. this prison kind of spit you out worse than you were when you went in prison is is . in its architecture itself is designed to tell you you are worthless that you have no value in the world and the creativity of art of music of painting of acting of dancing and of writing all this is a great argument against that worthlessness it's the first step in rebuilding that integrity and self-respect that you lose on your trip to prison and how have

prisoners been reacting to the program how do you seen a lot of progress with people you know do you visit the prisons back and kind of see these people tell me a little bit of the experiences from media it's amazing. there is no downside to it first arts and corrections programs are incredibly cheap we have empirical evidence now through some scholastic studies longitudes longitudinal studies that prisoners that participate in arts and corrections programming have lower recidivism rates it also lowers the level of tension in the yard there's something about when music comes on the yard that everybody kind of chills out a little bit and some prisons we've been in have great music programs but that's the exception to the rule with the coming of mass incarceration in america this disgraceful mass incarceration. rehabilitation programs went away all they could

afford was more cells more guards more beds that's it i think there's a slight shift happening now i'm seeing a little change certainly on the state level the state prison systems where corrections professionals realize the value of arts and corrections programs the efficacy of the efficiency of that the federal system is another thing where the real heavy roadblock at the end of that whole other battle you know you're as you're talking about this you know art and music having these amazing therapeutic effects and really just a source of great out. for people why do you think that these programs are the first to be cut not only i mean just and normal everyday things that are in prisons but in education systems across the country i mean considering how integral it is to someone's development and mental stability hey i'm with you it's indefensible it's it's. it's suicidal you know art is the thing that puts us in touch with our humanity it's the thing that connects us with each other and if you take that out

what are we left with more products to say. exactly you know as a former prisoner what other systemic issues do you see that really need to be dealt with in this prison system i mean it is that it's really an epidemic fibrous on the world's population twenty five percent of the world's prisoners what's going on here well like senator jim webb. there's only two possibilities either we're the most evil people in the history of the world or we're doing something terribly wrong as regarding in the administration of justice you know this drug war this thirty year drug war is the greatest failure of social policy in our country's domestic history i can go out on any street in america and buy a higher quality cheaper cocaine and heroin today than i could thirty years ago when they locked me up so this is an abject failure and it's at this point bipartisan the right and the left both see it you know this was a this was

a terrible error in judgment when they passed these mandatory minimum sentences and these severe drug sentences half the people in america's prisons are our nonviolent drug offenders they have no business being in prison in the first place prison should be the last resort for somebody i couldn't agree more and now we're seeing of course the prison industrial complex that turn into a massive industry we have about thirty seconds left but talk about how people can get involved and help this organization flourish yes. well you can go to our site jail guitar doors dot org you can read everything about what we do there or there's film for it is the president. and you could even make a donation if you wanted to help us we really see what we do is kind of a new york anarchists in the coal syndicalist that you know we want other me we have other musicians in other cities around the country who all do the same world

let's keep it going grassroots bottom up thank you so much wayne kramer co-founder jail guitar doors thank you so much for having me. and that's going to do it for us tonight you guys thanks so much for tuning in the set all over again tomorrow. some of the sixteen percent of imports came from illegal fishing. the european union is ironically taking fish from some of the poorest nations on earth so this is a very serious and very urgent problem that needs immediate international action.

with the territorial waters they fish they load the fish into the ships and leave for europe. to day illegal fishing just taking the bread out of our mouths. to meet the national security agency that has taken months of scandal embarrassing lies to get obama and his administration to this point what is clear is the following. obama is unaware of the extent of n.s.a. surveillance or he remains untruthful with the american people and the world in the end it's all about trust press and media freedom. when it comes to the interests of multinationals we have a media that is corrupted by power mostly by corporate. corporate ownership from the trough of corporate advertising coming in from the side we have this

advertising and. a documentary filmmaker is being sued. for the truth is being told a private investigator something. happens people buy and sell. hundreds of million dollar industry needs to protect its reputation a few million being spent on it on a campaign to do just that is. money well spent. so what will be the verdict. good lumber tour. was able to build a new most sophisticated. fortunately don't amount to anything turns mission to teach me the creation of why you should care about humans and. this is why you

should care only. calls for reform grow louder among washington's political elite but intelligence chiefs remain defiant warning of drastic consequences if the spying program. with officials in washington to demand an explanation over the n.s.a. sweeping spying program. local intelligence services actually helped these surveillance. independence or security in london threatens to deny access to intelligence. votes yes the separation from the. canadians get to the first of a bit to coin a.t.m. digital codes for cash global users are turning to the unstable currency.