the u.s. the u.k. and france carry out strikes against the syrian government in response to an alleged chemical attack in eastern good at the intervention came just hours before international inspections were due to arrive to investigate the claims. united nations security council holds an urgent meeting on the attack and rejects a russian draft resolution calling for an aggression against syria. u.k. prime minister of praises the joint military operation against assad's government as limited targeted and effective. and in other news russia's foreign minister claims the international chemical weapons watchdog may not have correctly identified the nerve agent used to poison the screwballs in england last month.

r.t. dot com is the place to go for more on all of the latest stories but up next on international it is going underground but in the u.k. and ireland sputnik is heading your way stay with us. seen as demonstrators march ten months to the day of a catastrophe when the poorest of one of the world's richest communities on earth but to death in london we speak to hip hop artist loci who saw the grunfeld. firsthand but before that here is a next up from his song ghosts of grunfeld featuring michael. changed. me. in

a flash. where memories drown confuse of poison. futures well in the imagination of children carson's in the sky. where both the extraordinary and the mundine will live to become forever. oh you political. so so. well joining me now is loki ok thanks for coming on going underground i got to say a lot of the world even mainstream media talking about the threat of world war three will get onto around the imperialism in the second half of this show but why is today's march so important when it comes to addressing the political class and corporate power well i think the massively significant thing about the march is that it has spread to bristol it's spread to liverpool you have people in manchester also doing it you have people in ireland now apparently doing it

obviously the message today from some in southampton where they will be doing it the point is is that there is a confluence of three issues which cause the grandfather fire and these three issues actually relate to why white sectors of society it's not simply something that can be atomized in place specifically at the doorstep of one single thing it's kind of the prayer the end result the tangible end result of a kind of incremental and a traditional form of violence that was pursued following the eighty's when thatcher took what were three hundred plus pages of building regulations and replaced them with around twenty plus pages now it has been a kind of by bipartisan orthodoxy of neo liberal network politics and what we're seeing is you know in the silent march a form of peace for. resistance and rebellion against that war so when we look at that period in the thatcher era when you had this gradual weakening of. building

regulations what it led to is it led to a period where john prescott basically approached as deputy exactly in two thousand and three approach something called approved document b. which was in the building regulations at that time and that opened the space for something called desktop studies number one but also the ability for construction companies to interpret the rules on cladding to be of class oh rather than of limited combustibility which is the other classification which the government following the ground for fire claimed you know you had philip hammond come out four days after with an andrew marr and say this is banned in this country you had in the twenty second of june the government come out and say all cloning should be limited combustibility rather than class zero now let's take into account that in scotland following the gun fire in you know in two thousand and ten they said that . there should not be used combustible materials in building construction you know and the thing with the factory era is it changed the regulations from

prescriptive to performance based and so the important thing was is not the components of the of the structure but what it does and so the basis of testing on cost zero which is what the construction companies claim for the cladding is it focuses on the surface so the initial cladding you have our clinic and its. brand of our clinic and what it is you have a point six millimeter layer of minium and then behind it the core is no point six millimeters of pulley ethylene and then behind that is another of the many and this was on ground fell after that you had the insulation which was still a tax or a five thousand which they're now not selling of course which you know undoubtedly is flammable and failed all tests fell for limited combustibility now what you had in the press corps era was this kind of changing and this ambiguity and it's you know within that bureaucratic violence that neo liberalism really flourishes you had the potential. for two things we are rebuilding research

establishment you know that was founded in one thousand forty eight but then was privatized of course in one thousand and seven what that ended up doing was them allowing companies to come to them pay them fifteen thousand pounds and test themselves and then describe the tests and the point is that did a test on there are a five thousand insulation post and pretty grim fell and it failed now the point is they came out earlier this year and said they actually missed describes what the test had been because the point is the onus is on the companies under this existing system to describe the test and say what happened so they've come out say we missed the scribed so the point is is that this movement and weakening of building regulations led to a point where not only on grunfeld but on three hundred social how housing towers in the country you have this only seven of them they're starting to take care of untold amount of hotels untold amount of private blocks untold amount of scraping and hospitals right now in this country people are sleeping in death traps and the

point is is that you're seeing an attempt to obfuscate so you're seeing the government on one hand saying it's because of the way that these companies have interpreted the building regulations then on the other hand you have a situation where local government have kind of been converted into conduits of corporate power so in this situation and this is why this march will achieve such a wide encompassing appeal because you have lease holders in croydon you have nice holders in capital key in greenwich who are in a situation where they're being told they have to pay forty thousand pounds service charge to get this poisons clothing removed from their block now they're really in a terrible position because they can't sell their properties and they can't afford to get the stuff for all those places in london yes i'm sure the government will immediately respond by saying that's where they've instituted inquiry and drugs are major congratulated for that you actually saw the fire when when it was going on a lot of you job in the did you immediately think of. the emblematic nature of

a new liberalism engineer is certainly not apocalyptic what we were seeing and we were just trying to cope with the reality that was in front of us the important thing to know as well that this you know the third issue that this is a confluence of is you know a situation of austerity you have a thousand jobs cut from the fire service you have one hundred million pounds cut from the fire service you have ten fire stations close twenty nine fire engines going fifty percent defund it in the world because it's in chelsea despite the fact they have a surplus they had a surplus of three hundred million pounds despite the fact the fire that's what by twenty percent so that led to a situation where not only with a fire brigade coming in and keeping to the stay put policy which was absolute disaster risk moreover they were coming in with walkie talkies that didn't work now we know after that can fly out in which six people died and one of them was a three year old child it was recommended that you fit sprinklers in all new places but also you retroactively sprinklers in other places or is it because you. will be sitting on that like

a yes and you know it would have cost them around one hundred thirty thousand pounds for them to do but this is the same bar where you have three hundred seventy million pound refurbishment back in a pallet in this program has come under attack politicizing as. other members of the jeremy instead of cabin of politicizing this catastrophe here you said you knew people who died and perished in the grenfell disaster how is it both personal and political that well you know this is the way that you know they say infrastructure is invisible until it malfunctions so this is the way that violence which starts on paper manifests into people's lives and you know what we are in the position of doing is having to close that gap and say ok this is where something happened you know when a society reaches this level of complexity of the society that we have these kind of things you know are almost an inevitability to some extent but the point is is that you have to be able to. build those mechanisms. which can protect people and

so what we're seeing is we're seeing local government and national government converted into you know tools really of corporate power and it's weak schools that the reregulation not the regulation really regulation in the interest of capital against the interests of the human to which those corporate executives would say yes but it's an accident of fact that people died perhaps of cyanide poisoning is a chemical attack on the poor ethnic cleansing this was just an accident ok well the fact is this we know that after the kyoto agreements cell attacks and kingspan were actually boasting to the extent the celtics put on their website in two thousand and eleven sela takes now enters government and is shaping building regulations to maximise benefits to our industry the fact is they knew that the kyoto agreements would mean the british government were in a situation where they wanted to insulate more buildings and that was something lobbied for that wasn't something accidental that just happened it was something low before specifically they also knew and had liable cases against other companies who were coming out as early as two thousand and seven saying our risk five thousand burns israel attacks the insulation insulation i should say the other

point by the way story about desktop studies which they are now lobbying kingsmen for example to keep when it's under review now they're looking to keep their stocks you know what this looks like these mean is they mean that when you have a cloud bank that has no point six millimeters of polyethylene in it and then you have. insulation rather than actually testing them together which is done in scotland now by the way because after the gone gone up by this would not happen it's got an after two thousand and five story you're in a situation where you don't test these things together you do something called a desktop study and a desktop study means that someone who's not an expert can take the information from one test that's been done right on the clothing and then another test that's been done on insulation put them together and estimate the danger is this really is this really rational or is this really logical we did a senior executive from the company that makes that insulation work alan is a advisor to the government on building regulation they should say this they said i'd like to confirm that in morgellons or all the technical. same debate in the

u.k. and ireland he played no part of the supply of other tax products in relation to the refurbishment of so there is a separation here between those advising the government on building regulations and the manufacturers and of course there's not of course there's not if i'm advising you on how to regulate the industry which i'm a representative of i'm going to advise you based on my interest the governor as soon as they get them they're experts because they work in the field know they're not they're biased and as soon as we start to attribute agency in these situations we get told it's about a conspiracy theory well no it's not and should be such a job it should issue a statement about that why is it the technical director of saying go back you know which sort of texas subsidiary of right can be advising the government on building what i say and this is a chinese wall of some kind but this permeates throughout many industries and this is indicative and symptomatic of the violence of neo liberalism and it's not and it's not just socially violent it's actually socially murderous these policies because when you're in a situation where the company knows they're selling stuff which actually is highly flammable as evidence by the fact that they're bringing libel cases against other

companies they're coming out online and saying this stuff is flammable and yet they still sell it and yet we're now in a situation where literally people are sleeping in death traps all across the country this is a systemic problem and that is one of the silent march and one is called a silent march we will not go quietly into the night be absolutely clear about this we lost one person died in one nine hundred fifty nine right that led to the notting hill carnival after that we could hear jones and the free school and they were planting seeds for trees they wouldn't sit in the shade all right that was on the strength of the caribbean community in lab what do you think we are going to be able to build after many generations after an intergenerational struggle off of the basis of minimum seventy two people dying well and it will be nationwide ok well the march is on at six pm in kensington and chelsea this evening we're going to have more from looking on imperialist foreign policy after the break but here he is and the people affected by the tragedy addressing the borough council and chelsea in london in his song ghosts of going to. make me cringe. can

see some of the shows where we see a scene of the one where is his brother where is his sister where is their mother where is the plaza where we were a german where his office was when he's going to choose a yes he'll go slowly up. to the sun when it's a adult. his mummy is still struggling to say. we're sorry i'm the worst where's. your son. is declare his money to pay the. bill to. save the son. lives to lead. us to. this relentless there is such

a place to live there is some of. it is. just sleazy spice. son. cut. cut. cut. cut. cut. cut cut where are the speeches. where are the speech. to phoenix we will. notice someone you know. they'll be asses. like

a phoenix which. is. if you are competing like the auto insurance industry why four thousand dollars a year can i be protected against all these medical emergencies that take place in

my car therefore we know that the price of having medical insurance or be a thousand dollars a year about thirty thousand dollars a year they're overcharging about forty thousand dollars where's that going is going to oligarchs american oligarchs. welcome back with still here with loki for this special episode of going underground and as we deal with western imperialism in our second half let's begin with a verse from loki's and song lord's will. just in shuttles and streams of the face behind screens. and the listing of. just the not the sacrifice the good mood symbol of the world from silk guns from silk forms to cure the world's poorest people go from guns to go forward so that a few of the world's poorest people suffer some more should be in the street. in the street for the substrings things the people to speak to ship the suffering the spirits see ships suffering the same some strange things.

an excerpt of the nords of war by loki and their low key we seem to be on the precipice another war in syria i know you've long predicted one forget the weapons sales of weapons look said to be used how do you characterize british and american policy in syria well i think we're living through the convulsions of the us empire dying convulsions and we're in a situation where a kind of mccarthyite attitude is being stirred up amongst the public but if we actually take the facts into account who is it that has nato troops within miles of their border doing exercise exercises who is this in a situation with in the last hundred years so within the memory of people's

grandparents invaded you know in one nine hundred seventeen that was the british the french the americans the japanese they invaded russia you know trump recently wanted to add fifty four billion to the us yearly military expenditure which was seven hundred billion so that's seven hundred fifty four billion now that fifty four billion that was added is eighty percent of russia's military expenditure yearly so you're talking about a massively massively an even situation so while that empire is in decline it's a lashing out in kind of acts of micro militarism and even when it was the big ag is asian all mainstream media here in britain is the asymmetric warfare conducted by vladimir putin in russia against people in britain in salzburg. what do you make of that narrative well i'm a head of the latest why of course we're in a situation where we have a foreign policy foreign secretary who's come out of not only been untruthful and basing statements on not enough evidence to make that statement but more of he's

somebody that is attacking germany corbet in a manufactured idea of anti-semitism let's be clear the only racist person in that equation is boris johnson he was talking about black people as pickaninny is used talking about. watermelon smiles and that's not been forgotten you know jeremy corbyn has a flawless record of anti racist campaigning bill johnson has called in his speaking from the kremlin playbook i mean this is classic building on mccarthy propaganda you know that has been latent in some ways in this society and in the united states but of course it's being. unfortunately exploited and potentially to disastrous and you know what trump has been saying about iran for quite a long time we had a national security advisor on here talking about iran before he had to resign how is it. that syria would be a target alone whatever's happening as regards his buller in west beirut being a target in lebanon well i think it's really never to bill that the u.s. military has military bases you know the majority of countries in the world now has

a presence of some kind you know even within this country there are those that estimate there's one hundred four u.s. military installations in britain. of course the military's that are not in that. kind of area of influence are in some ways going to be targeted so it is an inevitability that that would happen and what do you make of the standard media narrative here is something must be done that we've seen those images on that you tube video of a chemical attack and i should say tourism a now urging some caution of all people on the c.w. investigations into what happened in ghouta something must be done what do you know of course. those images are harrowing you know but the fact is that there's extreme double standards within the sort of liberal interventionist agenda when we look at for instance the fact that the british government sell components of the sniper. rifles to the israelis and recently we have seen snipers in the i.d.f.

shooting people who are merely trying to practice what is their right under un resolution one ninety four which is return the israeli government says that it will conduct an inquiry into the sniper yeah but you know moreover you have the british government basically working with an israeli arms company to make the drones that the naval protectors that also buttress the siege of gaza so there is extra a double standard so that there's extreme double standards in this you know you've been there i know you've taken some time away from your music and even your music from a few years back often referencing histories that aren't taught in any british national curriculum or i know you're doing education and you're doing a must is that why do you think they're not in school history books here in britain i think the fact in your music what we have a conception of history from the curriculum starts with ten sixty six william the conqueror it sometimes goes to the magna carta it fast forward to the second world

war and what that allows us to do is in vigil in visit ourselves as rather than being occupiers of twelve million seven hundred thousand miles of the globe as we were at nine hundred fourteen rather than being you know a mongrel nation as we were you know from the normans basically establishing the. you know the huguenots coming and you know angles and saxons and different you know mation of different people what it does is it builds a vertical solidarity between people here between their ruling class who despite the fact that the economically traitorous ruling class since the thatcher era era since the loan from the i.m.f. in seventy. six have been economically traitorous they've sold off key state assets to the state companies of foreign countries but they are able to by creating this narrative by imbuing the young people with this idea of a kind of permanence to englishness they're able to build this idea that you know

we weren't conquerors you know that britain never ever shall be slaves but we're of course we know that when britons were mentioned in the by the romans period when the romans occupied britain in the stablish london is a military base you know the first mention of britain's was a slaves in the market so all of these kind of mythologies act to kind of create this idea of britishness in the english and it's often in order to buttress acts of state violence unfortunately well given the events in palestine the past twenty four hours it was the leader of western europe's largest socialist movement jeremy goldman has made some of that history and in all his political career but he's been talking about it's a weapons sales to israel they need to be an inquiry. considered to be someone else certainly in mainstream political narratives as buttressing of anti-semitism in britain where of course that is just a complete manufactured mantra by the corporate media in order to try and get people away from. more over to try and bully him out of his. pro justice

stance shall we say but we cannot ever forget the fact that you know britain is inherently intimately linked to israeli violence from the point of obviously the balfour declaration which led to the establishing throughout the mandate period of the apartheid system but moreover you had in one thousand nine hundred six heroic one of the longest strikes that have ever been in recorded human history of the palestinian people in ninety six you had wind gate who went there and trained what were at that time zionist gangs and militarized them even more you know of course who was the implementer plan that in one thousand for the ethnic cleansing of palestine said we are when get children to britain has been intimately linked to israeli violence since then you had harold wilson in one hundred seven sell hundreds of british tanks to the israelis and that allowed them to go ahead and occupy the west bank and gaza and so forth so you know it's not just that relationship it's the current relationship where you have one hundred companies that have offices in britain that actually sell on to israel you have the watch keeper and it's two ways the bones over arms between britain and you know you have

the watch keeper project which is systems and be a systems which is a billion pounds project you know the biggest drone project in europe you have on top of that you know just weeks months sorry prior to the two thousand and fourteen gaza campaign that cost over two thousand palestinian people's lives you had the british selling seven million pounds worth of military components to the israelis and then within weeks of that said campaign the british selling four million pounds worth of weapons to the israelis and the situation where under the international arms trade treaty the any government that does this has to assess before they do it whether these may be used for human rights violations or we have seen repeatedly israel has bombed u.n. compounds has bombed schools you know they are at the moment in terms of in you're in a situation where not only do you have the electric electrified fence you also have a watchtower that has a remote controlled machine gun on the top is controlled by all female battalion in the negev desert but on top. that you now have snipers shooting at people that like

i say resit un resolution one one for those people have the right to return home as i said israel's or there's going to be an inquiry and of course they said they're bombing of u.n. shelters was all part of a legitimate campaign because of human shields this information you're giving me and in your music the whole history as i said no available in schools the b.b.c. is sending in people into british schools to combat fake news this was in the context of course of the banning of this television station. should we trust our media well i think it's having an awareness that you know there's a popular perception of there being an inability to be objective but let's be absolutely clear. alice the middle one who was the director general of the b.b.c. in the one nine hundred eighty s. was in a situation where duncan campbell who at that time was making a program for the b.b.c. found out that the government and specifically michael heseltine the defense minister at that time were. passing around internal memos about the campaign for

nuclear disarmament and also they were again coming back with this mythology of c.n.d. somehow being tools of soviet propaganda as it were now the point is at that point when it was clear that massive things were about to be exposed about the government their. special branch raided the b.b.c. studio alice the moon was forced to step down as the director general and the program never aired and this was really an interesting period of time because you had these interests clashing in a major way we also of course were over the situation with david kelly as well you know these. these platforms which claim to have objectivity already peddling an absolute fantasy ok thank you thank you very. well we'll have music from lucky in a second but we'll be back on monday with. one of the international community squares up to major nations threatening an all out war catalyzed by you tube video

purportedly from damascus suburbs of syria to let. you know monday hundred ninety years to the day of the death of the spanish entry barriers paid to a lawyer and here is working with us from his song the death of neo liberalism. history face to the complete just basically. just when the same. city as. they please what is clear. to me to see just. to see you would see. losing the city of. my own. potential long summer season is. coming to play in.

the pool should be so i. won't miss it i feel. i. should go. to sleep i. long. for. thank you thank. you.