time after time if you know what you're going on the ground while we're away for christmas we're screening some of your favorite episodes of this season coming up in this show with up to eighty five thousand children under the age of five dead as a result of man made starvation in yemen we all scuffled the drone operator of britain is complicit in war crimes and unicef on the ground and u.k. weapons dog to yemen gives us its take on the world's worst humanitarian crisis britain's biggest police force advises not to drive into london but it's not because ten thousand die each year in the capital because of pollution buzz it's happening now stop it because he won't work no britain's parliamentary speaker didn't publicly right off to raise a maze of bricks at dealing in pews all the civil coming up in today's going

underground the first in a week when britain's intelligence services admitted they didn't act accordingly to stop the bombing of the ariana grande a concert in manchester which killed twenty two are others continuing to be killed because of so-called u.k. intelligence this in a week of college and british involved conflict from afghanistan to yemen i'm joined now by skype from one town in the northwest of the united states by ordering whistleblower and former drone operator brandon bryant brandon thanks so much for coming on the show now we have in one analysis a third of those killed in drone strikes in yemen this year have been civilians including children. much surprise i would say that probably the numbers are a lot higher actually. in terms of the reports that are coming out you know my leadership one of the first times the mistake happened and i went to my leadership for a reconsider the asian my supervisor told me to pretend it was a dark so imagine that i kill the child at that point and imagine.

the you know if they're being forced to report on this they're being forced to give you a number they're going to give you a number that they think is reasonable and i don't think one life is reasonable at all and mean in any case according to the united states constitution we should be giving people fair and free trials in front of juries and we're sitting there just demolishing an entire nation or britain exporting arms of course but sharing intelligence with the united states for the targeting of these drones. given perhaps what you are saying is an outlier if well should britain be sharing intelligence well i mean this is where six secret compartmentalised information kind of gets needs to be brought to the table because this is where people who should be men and take responsibility for their own action and if britain is giving intelligence for the consummation of these people's lives then yes they're held

responsible for it there's no question about it they've they've they've participated to it and so if britain is going to do something then they need to restore their honor then they need to fess up to it on the other hand as our report that britain which it's denying that they are being linked to the development all fully automated drones you might have to describe doesn't what that what they are the u.k. i should say has no intent says it has no intention of developing them and does not possess any fully autonomous weapons that's a troubling trouble one because the hardware had already been put in to the drones when i entered even in the software had not been developed and now we're eight hundred. or twelve years later and we're looking at how they were already in the process of developing it look at how much our technology has gone so we have artificial intelligence is algorithms that know it's better than god or santa claus and it wouldn't surprise me if these technologies are being used over in yemen and

even tested on people. civilians and why do we want to give autonomy to any of this right why would we want to give any of that to be out of human beings hands. it but it blows my mind i was at a geneva convention actually. and they were they were placing drones in the town and it's warfare loosely under cluster miss cluster munitions and land mines and i'm the only non lawyer there and the guy who opens the thing is like we must discuss what means you can't discuss what law means when lives are at this stage and this is one thing that i keep a officer told me once he said you know i always stand up no matter what rank they are because a stupid decision is a stupid decision it's a stupid decision and and the reason why i used and up to them is because lives are at stake lives are at stake lives are at stake and i really definitely think that

none of these politicians or people who are developing these technologies understand that lives are at stake they're just they're just sucking off the blood money well the government or the military might say it would also provide more accurate targeting and it's good either way that i go to private problem it's not the accuracy that they're worried about because the accuracy like if we're going to look at just the imagery that is produced online most people it's an illusion it's fake like most people are fascinated by kim kardashian and trump's hair and they're just fake it's just fake right the real myths of the situation is that they want to develop this technology because robot isn't going to hesitate a robot isn't going to have feelings a robot isn't going to sit there and wonder how what this person's life is like they've already tried to develop human beings into that position they've studied studies that since world war one they've increased the probability of someone shooting and killing someone from twenty percent to ninety five percent fire and

kill rate with a five percent margin of error and we wonder why there's twenty two veterans day they kill themselves and then we punish the people that are speaking out against this we have julia son she's trapped in the ecuadorian embassy for holding true to power. and he's just asking questions he's saying look this is what these guys are doing why isn't anyone stopping them and they're punishing they've taken my son there they've put zero zero whistleblower in jail someone who is dedicated to serving her country reality winner is in jail for showing that there were interference with our elections and no one's doing anything about this here in the u.k. professor michael clarke of the u.k. parliamentary terms group says the u.k. military personnel could be prosecuted for complicity in u.s. drone strikes but if we forget for a minute the complicity and of course all the all the deaths because of drone strikes what about the mental health impact on those that do the killing or facilitate it so this is this is something that i have spent a lot of time researching into because you know as i as i realized it specially

sense you know more than one third of the deaths that were can we participate in it's like so i read this story afterwards my my my therapist actually gave me the story where in the bombing of dresden. you know the pilots were just pushing the bombs out of the back of the aircraft and afterwards they just thought they were hitting targets right and afterwards they were shown pictures of the destruction and the people that and lives that they were affected and many of them were committed afterwards that had flown mission and she said you know and i've read victor frankel's man's search for meaning at one point in you know it's all about we do cause a lot of destruction and what we should realise in this is the harm that it's caused to us is because we're separating from the intrinsic value of humanity we're

not looking even like this interview we're doing it over skype great technology is wonderful but most likely the better connections between people are you know beyond voice and image or in person and if we're taking the. the very sacred act of taking another person's life in battle if were to if were destroying that ability to look or opponent in the eyes and saying you are worthy of my blade or worthy of meeting death and i'm worthy of meeting her as well on this battlefield and only one or neither of us are going to survive we're taking that from these people and it's only a matter of time before it just. backfires well and a venue were given an envelope when i got out it wasn't an envelope it was this what happened was i. i knew that we had participated we had a database and. i had read my final e.p. are getting out and there was a number of associated with actually there's

a number associated with all these things and i killed thirteen people i know it i mark myself with it i understand it. but i didn't understand again the amount of devastation that comes with it and i thought that my in my participation it would only been like a couple hundred but it ended at the. one thousand six hundred and twenty six individuals named and the jewels and seven hundred forty eight i valued individuals so that's over two thousand four hundred people that had been personally that we we've tracked personally to be eliminated through this raid and so i can only imagine that people's lives to. you know i hunted down and were on a lockie who was in a mom he was killed by the americans and with his son to us that's correct his son

at durham on our locky was killed two weeks later and they killed him because they didn't want him to be a. a rally point for cause and about six months after his death i met my father for the first time on easter and. he's a very much a religious man and very very passionate about god and i could only see his mirror in and want to lucky especially since my little brother at the time was sixteen year old sixteen years old and i saw no difference between them and then what it's all if i had for me was when i was when i held my son. after. he was a year old now i was looking at him and i was i held him in my arms and i know that i've denied that. from another man and from the other families i have talked

to a woman who asked me personally she asked why did my brother and my husband have to die and i've shared in her sorrow and her grief and and you know those are the things that motivate us to continue speaking you know those deep. personal interactions are what causes us to talk against the people that are in charge that they don't they don't understand and they haven't they haven't looked at this stuff this tragedy or suffering in the face in trying to mend it. and you know this is where mr rogers we have this guy named mr rogers in the united states and he has this quote about always finding the helpers and my grandfather was a helper he was a minister and i want to be a helper and you know we have people like stanley who just died and we honor the heroes that he's created by living as those heroes would expect us to live right we

know we are inspired by those things and part of the reason we have so much mental health problems not only in the military of twenty two veterans a day that are reported killing themselves from all this of these conflicts if more than one third of the civilians in yemen are being destroyed or more than. civilians if i make sure it's closer to ninety percent imagine how many more veterans when they realize the tragedy of what they participated in like how they feel about themselves in why they're killing themselves it's it's it's a tragedy all around the brunt thank you and we'll hear from unicef on the ground in yemen a target of u.s. u.k. backed high tech weaponry after the break as well as this we tried modules we tried to fisherman's we tried everything small protest and now we feel it's necessary to take to the streets and disrupt today's culmination of two weeks of protests across

the british capital which have seen police advising people not to drive to long and u.k. pm theresa may again accuses jeremy called with of not reading at the m.p.'s all the similar going on but to have going underground.

welcome back the u.s. u.k. backed war in yemen is arguably being one of the leading causes of what is now one of the west humanitarian crisis in history with eighty five thousand children dead from famine according to a report from save the children fourteen million further risk for a defacto british backside. in that war well i'm now joined via skype from sanaa by unicef's resident representative in yemen. thanks so much for coming on the show hopefully un the only boy martin griffiths meeting with the who think community in the summer result in a ceasefire i hope so because i don't think that the children of yemen can wait for much longer eleven million of them are already in dire need of humanitarian a suit and as you have seen in the media recently more than four hundred thousand children are suffering from should be acute month dition so this country needs peace now does the latest save the children they say conservative estimates of

eighty five thousand children under the age of five dead since twenty fifteen does that sound reasonable as far as unicef thinks. well we know that the under five mortality in the country east fifty six thousand children thirty year dying of preventable causes those are children on the site many of them can die obviously from on the position on monday edition related courses. and it's on the media appearing to be a dying of natural causes this is natural causes this famine no we mention preventable causes preventable causes like. like diarrhea like lack of food lack of nutrients those are preventable causes children dying of bucks in preventable diseases so they are not natural causes that month maybe someone made that very clearly and while the children getting food supplies the money to the crisis is so

enormous that despite everything that the uni disses are doing the funny thing is they don't have any more income they don't have any more food no job the super service has not been paid in more than two years there is no more people working in agriculture and these catastrophic immunization the economic crisis is increasing the prices of the very basic goods such as fuel and food so you can imagine that families don't have any more money anymore to even buy the very basics you see the saudis say that you don't need to import food via the data which is why they can the poor can be bombed with british warplanes and british weaponry because there are other ports to import food from well the main force in the country so they that everyone knows that eighty percent of the humanity that in the system is coming from the the century that the port keeps functioning is open not only for food but also for fuel and feel is translated into water and water is just waiting to life

if you will is not coming to the to the country from what they actually feel what the facilities we not be walking and quartered are we good. in the media again why do you think every time unicef or other agencies talk about all of this the bombing creases on the boat of a date of an hour leaves for the parties in the conflict to seating the table tool to take a more of that because the children of yemen are dying so it is that the moment right now for the bikers in the conflict then all those that are supporting those parties to please find a solution to these countries that negotiated agreement good to people on the on the table and on on moving forward because the children can not wait any more the you do congratulate the british government in giving lots of aid to yemen what even while it supports selling the bombs and warplanes we sank all day all the countries that are contributing to the to the to the humanitarian crisis in in yemen mean

dump shal see the funding that they are providing to the humanitarian response and if the u.n. doesn't make a breakthrough with their own boy wasn't privet well we need peace so it's see it's not too they need to be to morrow because they the urgency of the country and the hard to explain you that the urgency is there that that many more children are going to die if peace does not take place in the country even if an agreement does not reached. thank you well protests in london this week haven't been about nuclear weapons out of the war in yemen they have been about the end of the scotland yard issued a warning not to drive into the capital so severe have been the disruption from grassroots protests environmental campaigners extinction rebellion brought parts of central london to a standstill this morning the group wants the government to treat climate change and species extinction as a crisis fossil fuel economy is leading us towards not just the distinction of

animal species we're losing about two hundred day with the possible extinction of human life on this planet and in that circumstance the possibility we have to do everything in our power to stop. young people old people a lot of people just worried about climate change. i think specially young people because they're going to be around to see the consequence is actually something like concerning the whole world and we need to do something about it at the moment people are just trying to go about their day to day lives you know and destruction that. that's not that's not benefiting no i don't believe in climate. change i think use protest it's not one hundred percent justified some people are angry others are very supportive and very one young woman search to make a very happy i'm in a rush by a delayed me a little bit by give them some voice is that from this week's extinction rebellion joining me now is someone who has been arrested four times this year for environmental protest clarify are all clear thanks for coming on the show what's

the key inspiration behind well today's call with a shot of these protests of the police a mean that people should we driving into the capitol well obviously we had a big celebration last saw last weekend and taking those bridges and celebrating in love the idea of today's protest is that we come together in grief this is very serious situation. i think that the extinction of all of life on earth deserves a solemn response to so that's the approach we're taking so i was being arrested four times for going to change it was i was taking part in nonviolent direct action civil disobedience with a group of people we were doing that to try and bring attention actually to the air pollution crisis in london which we all know is preaching legal limits and has done for most decade ten thousand a year yeah and forty thousand nationwide it's the world health organization believes it's one of the greatest threats to human life currently on the face of the planet. it was something that we did with great dedication and

certainty that we meant what we were saying and we did it a time when there was that open consultation on pollution with city. can's government in london so we took a protest to his office repeatedly committed acts of disobedience to try to raise awareness about that situation and to get a meeting with him it's nice to have a labor man it would be nice to have a greener labor mayor we actually got a meeting with his policy advisers but not with him personally so you can say it's a partial partial success and that from you were longer stretches of i went on hunger strike as well this summer that was over the expansion of peter or paul that was a campaign that was directed to the they were party which we understood was the pivotal party in whether or not that the vote would go through fourteen days ok well forty thousand dead nationwide today said provision for the police or the more broadly or

rather than drawing attention to a global average do you have bring access to emergency vehicles what do you make about well we can do is apologize for the inconvenience that's being caused by these actions and again i don't think that any of us take it lightly that we're disrupting people's lives that were making things difficult for anybody on the emergency services no i would like to add that we gave the police four days notice that we were going to block those bridges they were bridges that routinely blocked for other events we left mones open and the understanding that that would help and in terms of safety you personally go over for help the holdover train you design ideas jackets probably not just for safety just about well we i thought from working sustainable fashion and lecturing on the topic for a long time so we decided that i mean there's a huge problem in waste textiles waste clothing in general in this country and we decided that because i know a lot of high visibility clothing gets thrown away to waste and

a lot of it branded people want to get rid of it that we could repurpose that so the process of when i go into my private contractors yes as you work with a lot of the body politic what exactly is the. so that's something i work on with a friend of mine is project which we developed together to turn the body into a place for political messaging and expression so that you can be embody a message we're trying to courage people to serving embody positive resistance what about the dangers of security service infiltration because there's an ongoing investigation into surveillance of jerry corbett and greenpeace and other problem viral mental activist groups i think these days people understand that they're potentially under constant surveillance anyway we've all got a microphone in our pocket most of the day that apparently can be accessed remotely with the right equipment let's say so you know the idea behind working the way that

we have with extinction rebellion is organized everything above ground you might know that most of our events go up on facebook we hold public meetings there's very little that gets kept a secret so as far as i'm concerned an infiltration to this movement that only find out what they can find out already if you know criticism or other messaging some criticism in mainstream media that you are the activists from extinction of being responsible for graffiti. yeah we have not been enough to me use chalk spray which is a kind of pigment spray paint washes off very easily in fact if you spray it on to a window and then somebody enters the seeing to wipe that off we have had police walk towards them and say you're destroying evidence so please can you stop cleaning that window the point is to present something which is very soft which is disobedient enough to qualify as something that people might say that's illegal that's criminal damage but you but you open up a died in the space when you make it something that actually it really isn't

serious serious criminal damage that the case with the energy department the bombing of energy yeah that spray paint was all chalk so it would have just washed off with a window cleaner sponge because that was of course about fracking i don't know whether you've kept up with this week there's been quite a lot of concern about nearby nuclear waste removal of the new christian road. what's your view of how the government is treating the whole fracking process up there i mean the government has sort of gone going to force fracking on to communities that said that they didn't want it they forced it through when the public didn't want it the council didn't want it and as an energy policy therefore start on to communities so i think obviously not only is that. morally. opposed in a democratic country but it's also the emissions of methane that come out of a fracking site that the poisoning of people's local water supplies the damage to

water tables and the ground i mean it's you know there's so many reasons why fracking is not a good idea and roger liz's actually none of us have quakes it will be minor yet of course they would like to say that. i don't believe that half our thank you. well u.k. labor leader jeremy corbyn this week said environmental protection is critical and then he breaks it deal and he had a chance to draw macdonald says the queen could intervene to allow goldman to form a government if to resume fails to pass deal in westminster about how regal is to resume as well becoming corbyn leading in the u.k. opinion polls said as much of the role of bricks at secretary of state pm queues prime minister is apparently heading off to brussels today but the new breaks it secretary is another non travelling breaks it secretary who is apparently not going with her i wonder if the post is now over to the post is now an entirely ceremonial one. corbin then drew attention to another minister only just appointed minister

for northern ireland critical given may's dependence on else to party she offered a billion pounds to in return for this deal is a fight yeah it fails the prime minister's redlines fails labour's six tests. to impress the new ones trying to impress the new northern ireland minister and the new nose on our minister who just hours before he was appointed said the deal is dead tourism a said goldman didn't read enough all he wants to do is to play party politics. these. days. calling kettle black into the minds of m.p.'s drazen may try to survive a story leader let the pm but she did resume transmission the right honorable gentleman is playing party politics he's opposing

a deal he hasn't read not read dead deal or not be and he is also took place as news came in about another suspected u.k. spy overseas this time on iran university ph d. student matthew haiti's was arrested when he was leaving the u.a.e. how he completed his research into the impact of the arab spring on the u.a.e. foreign policy he had. been sentenced to life imprisonment for spying for the united kingdom a number of us will know the irony of a former m i six officer who works in the outer office of the rule of the j. fox a ruler of the u.a.e. he seemed to be referring to form a british soldier will tricks but then and my six does not comment on its former agents let alone those who serve tony blair perhaps a question for the u.a.e. maybe why it appears to be copying the us democrats trying to destroy donald trump employing former u.k. spies givens i guess cripple and then exiled to live i think oh they certainly take on considerable personal risk but that's it for this show will be back on monday when we investigate the future of everything and why it wasn't the russians on

facebook that was to blame for breakfast until then people just by social media will see all of the forty two years to the day of the release that make the in the u.k. by the sex pistols. desperate for a single purpose. they have a superman. they start training very young. eight months of intensive school. rats. and they save lives. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of

the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. washington. since the world's largest economy called the ninety day truce there are more coming up on the program. women hold their own demonstration that ends in another week with. the joint. space station. visit by the head of russia's space agency is a blog.