the venezuelan opposition leader. rallies his supporters president with the robe was its military forces who remain loyal to the government. israel bomb dogs more than one hundred targets in gaza killing at least four people in response to cross border rocket fire. and the u.s. school is considering whether to paint over a mural dedicated to founding father george washington saw for the artwork was traumatizing black americans. but i just almost always had to

come stay with us now though for going on the ground looking at the trial of the song you want to go some u.k. sputnik is next. time after time see we're going underground just hours after world press freedom day punctuated a week that's all advocates of free speech all around the world down what they saw as britain's persecution of wiki leaks founder julian assange coming up in the show we speak to wiki leaks is joseph hour long form a london ecuador. about how his u.k. court proceedings of julian assange will go down in british legal and constitutional history and from wiki leaks one time part of the guardian one of the world's greatest cartoonist steve bell on the life of attacking power. plus

a week of electoral victories and mainstream vilification by jeremy corbyn does the prime minister agree with her secretary of state that it's the policies of this government that is meant in one of the richest countries on this earth food banks and now handing out fourteen million meals a year to people some of whom are in work who simply haven't got enough to eat all the more coming up in today's going underground the first straight to this week's alleged attacks by british authorities on wiki leaks we spoke to wiki leaks chief christian reference and straight after julian assange u.k. jail was considered for extradition to the usa the empire is now striking back and it's not on the basis of of of law it's on the basis of the events and politics and i'm afraid that the u.k. government is taking part in that i don't have a lot of belief in the the authorities here or the branches of government but we will fight on and we believe that the general public is starting to see how serious

this is and they will pressure their politicians to pressure their government to actually take part and take a stand take a stand for julian assange and we should especially remember that we are heading into tomorrow which is the world press freedom day. i think a lot of sounds of that day joining me now as we get exam bastard joseph carroll and former ecuadorian consul in london fidel nowheres who worked at the london embassy for six of the seven years the julian assange was under detention there welcome to both of you for the injures of the boy when we get to julius son should we leaks appealing to the former defense secretary disgraced defense secretary gavin williamson for information and i think what the point there is. we have our. in a prison for having published classified information and there seems to be no call or or realisation that why is that not the same for for chris evans the editor of the tele. if if he's been publishing classified documents there's

a dis connect your response then to this week's activities julius and chanted more or less the maximum sentence by u.k. judge debra taylor and of course there was this extradition request we can tell me explain what happened there from the time that you're doing was informed of the extradition which was the day that he was arrested the u.s. has sixty five days to give a full charge sheet so that is what has been pencilled in for the twelfth of june we saw on wednesday when he was sentenced for for a bail issue he was given a maximum sentence. double what the soap or so-called speedboat killer was given who was only given six months to get was given fifty weeks it should be noted it's punitive you know jordan has been persecuted throughout his time in the embassy by the government it's a very politically motivated situation but why do you think deborah taylor ignored

all your. editors clemency pleas all the mitigation a little history deborah taylor felt none of that mitigation was worth even looking at whereas we said outside the court after her judgment we would actually call on everyone to read the submissions that we submitted in court they're not long and to make up your own mind she she went so far as to completely discount the united nations saying that the ruling that the united nations had given twice saying that both sweden and the united kingdom had a duty to let your innocence free she said was based on misconceptions of fact and role and had no bearing in her court it was an extremely dismissive thing for her to say jews and i know they're not removed journalists here on the international so many other international organizations have expressed concern about what's happened to your editor i've got to ask you obviously how he is because we have press freedom advocates sources have told us they fear for his life what is his health

how is he facing these new prospects of to being in the embassy for that long and now in the so-called guantanamo britain exactly so you have to remember that he lived in in a building for seven years with no access to the outside we saw when he was forcibly removed from the embassy that he he he had deteriorated compared to when we had seen him go in and so he went from one virtual jail on top of on top of it initially being a safe place and his refuge turned into something far more hostile went from one virtual to joe to another now when we saw him in court on wednesday when he was presented and i noted that he would significantly lost weight. the conditions in belmarsh prison are not good two to a sturdy measures and cut backs. the prison population is forced to be in their in their cells for twenty three hours of of the day which is tantamount to

solitary confinement in fact it is a definition of solitary confinement un report or in terms of visiting yes on torture there is and in fact the rapper terror terror trial has requested a visit and is going to visit him in belmarsh next week the conditions are poor or a little very strong person and he will he will survive it but that doesn't take away from from the extended campaign for many years to break him down fidel you must be watching out of the mainstream media in this country is covering the case you knew julie was six of those seven years what have you made of him being portrayed basically as a as a poor house guest is that the story and why are they covering it like that was he basically tortured in europe i think there is contained to smear julian i think is complete and therefore to distract their attention from the main theme which is that journalists claimed to be extradited for police into full information

which was their reason for he's political asylum the fact that julian assange is now fighting extradition proves that there was. no and that he was always right asking for the asylum so. and handing him over to his prosecutors has committed is in a sense a crime so in order to distract from the trying and smear campaign media reports always told where the luxury vehicle dorian embassy what conditions was during the sanjay in seven years but the embassy is very very small apartment with not. windows that allows sunlight was very very difficult conditions not at all not privileges for julian assange even under these conventions the guarantee is as. they cut off his communication in the last year

with the new government of learning more and not julian assange jaws basically isolated and communicated that was the start of trying to break him down in order to force him out of his own will which failed. didn't have internet he didn't have access to telephone he didn't have access to visitors apart from his lawyers. can attest to that because even i wasn't able to go to us he says he's last year. at the embassy so. they tried to break him down they failed and they need to bring. their side undoes why they are alleging behavior the relationship between julian assange and the diplomatic stuff and the other minister of all the quadrillions was very respectful very respectful from him towards us and from us towards him always and the u.n.

was special rapporteur was supposed to visit about the ecuadorian embassy yes the special repertoire on trade was to go and visit your son and his asylum was and before that visit was able to take place probably because they knew that. the conditions were so appalling. that there would be a very negative element coming out of that visit now the u.n. recognize that he was basically a political refugee and so on did you did you know he was being spied on it was always difficult to have privacy in the embassy less not forget that the embassy was the most surveilled place in the planet so it was at the beginning right to still cameras inside the embassy in order to safeguard the political leslie and the embassy staff high but with the change of government that same equipment became basically spying tool against julian assange and you suspect lenin merino is under

pressure because of the i.m.f. and the cia base in monterrey absolutely absolutely i think there's a combination of two elements for this edition of the book in the asylum the international pressure coming from the united states the new foreign policy of ecuador is not sovereign anymore it's completely sold out to the to the united states. was noted when when he actually allowed foreign countries policeman into the embassy absolutely absolutely and before that there was. there was not much coverage about that but in january this year. the u.s. prosecutors. in. something like fifteen diplomats. in london in the embassy in london not exactly in the embassy but in the commercial

office which is part of the diplomatic mission. regarding julian assange who was supposed to be protected by acquittal so that shows you the kind of obvious alteration the corporation between the court and they called it in government with the americans in order to hand over julian i saw your replacement in london on the show of course the your former media partners the guardian which is arguably more exercised about rape cases as channel four news just told me about the reader information request that the italian journalist. revealed to us in ritzy vs c.p.s. she had received three or four investigations which she put in to freedom of information requests both to. the crown prosecution service in the u.k. and the prosecuting authority in sweden was able to put together a correspondence between the two in that we found that paul close was

instead of acting as a c.p.s. should have which was british crown prosecution service and this is at the time the killer storm of the shuttle director secretary instead of them acting merely as a conduit in order to progress the swedens case which was almost a non case because they refused to challenge your opinion. was actually giving strategic and legal advice and and pushing sweden to continue the case to not question him in the u.k. . pushing sweden to to keep the case going for as long as possible to the british authorities were trying to persuade sweden to uphold accusations well why do you think judge debra taylor this week didn't think much of that being relevant to him skipping bail today that she didn't take that into account she didn't comment on it but why do you think that is i mean we have an independent judiciary in this country presumably it's as i said previously it's an extremely politically

motivated situation it's. do we have an independent judiciary when you see that the c.p.s. is suggesting on how to progress or not progress the case of another country quite above them julian just suffering arguably all those developing nations. secrets were exposed by wiki leaks for the benefit of those peoples we mustn't forget as was josie manning who is in soldiery confinement as well as julian's underwear the josie manning is also facing a long stay in prison yesterday and was aware because that happened before chelsea was put in into prison before korean was arrested before his asylum was forcibly and illegally removed. she's put being put into prison for saying that she is refusing to testify against her again and let us remember that she is already being

tried she's already served a sentence she's had her sentence commuted this this displays that the future for journalism and the future for julian and the vehemence with which the u.s. administration is trying to get him is going to be setting a very bad precedent for journalism in the future but also that they would definitely be he would not be facing a fair trial. if you were to end up in the united states consulate. thank you after the break a caricature or to follow one of the world's greatest daughters is steve bell on censorship and a lifetime's work on the track and her russophobia sign a phobia the boss of britain's foreign affairs select committee accuses china of nesting dragons in the u.k. and p.n.p. all of them all coming up a bunch of going underground. so

what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be an arms race. spearing dramatic developments only. i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and talk.

welcome back it was may day international workers day this week when u.k. labor leader jeremy coleman have been in the impact on workers struggles around the world of. whose pleas for clemency were rejected this week by judge debra taylor in a london court that's just bite messages alleging that cool beans choice for breakfast secretary precisely did over attempts to prolong the gods are a. of the world famous journalist and publisher corbin did within an hour of assad being sent down attacks resume for austerity where does the prime minister think this government has gone wrong when we've reached the point where people now expect to live shorter lives may said corbin was the problem i say the right honorable gentleman that first of all that it is not the case that people are now expecting to live shorter lives and they have done in the future maybe the only feels that way at every stage of life we are ensuring that we as conservatives are improving

people's lives and in so many of those areas that right on the right of agenda has done nothing but those against the policies it's got to have good governance. elsewhere this being international workers day the boss of the u.k. foreign affairs select committee put the boot into china and chinese telecoms company while weigh the decision that has been discussed in many parts of the world at the moment is the possibility that we will be nesting a dragon that's tom two going to have to cause this channel a hostile agent carrying out information warfare comparing the u.k. business relationships with the superpower of the twenty first century to nesting dragons well someone not afraid of using the dragon motif is one of the world's greatest political cartoonists steve bell who draws for the guardian he joins me now steve welcome to going on the ground before we get to how dangerous you're as a human being it has always said you know as an as an office let's go straight to this just take us through the iconography here well it's obviously going to be is

from the screen grab from the it was a radio that you look the rock you look with you with your fixed camera. because i gather they were out twenty well there are. so many go to hear this and that's it's such a powerful because the first is the shock of him this all bearded bloke point his finger like a sort of completely wrong all right so unexpected so the photograph which are obviously produced of the screen is quite shocking and then i do the other because of course it's all about. extracting him to the story so. the metaphor for the states is of course trump now that there is a question or a story we're going to be where you exams are but on the other trump is such a disgusting receptacle i. quite useful that is for you trump is a toilet sharpest because i think believe the defenders are tories too card to.

really i think he's beyond the he's you know creeping towards the realms of fascism in the not not just creeping towards these galloping towards it i think he's he's dangerous as well as you know he was the us ambassador in london. that well i was sure they were but it's just the idea of. kowtow to these devolves to for him to be extradited on. whatever charge they have charged him on yet or charge of either party carries a five year penalty until they decide to change it i should imagine i don't think he stands a ghost in a cat hell's chance to get a fair trial in the states and the judge in this country is already disgraced himself by calling him and also it's just. that's fairly unnecessary. and i think. so we like about assad and that he's done vital and necessary things that this in a way does raise the question of television being

a visual medium and the two political hay their political good terms of the nineteenth century. even competition with the image i mean there you take you know you know i you know i thought plunder. photographs all the time i thought it was so plunder works of art and old cartoons as well. i'm fascinated by the visual medium we are surrounded by because we were so out of it we were drowning in imagery so how do you know how do you navigate how do you articulate these images and that's what's fascinating about cartooning is that you actually are one of the few professions it's actually allowed to tinker and play with. and interrogate imagery one thing you have to admit about corban is easy to democratic policy to be lectured by nine times as an m.p. and that's that shows at least some kind of commitment that he's depicted in the public prints i think the press and all the rest of them as

a kind of terrorist somebody who's out to undermine you hear these. half wits like mark francois such remarks or start by how to borrow money to talk to boxers which is. just so stupid nincompoop is thing to say it's because you depicted them is the mona lisa by davinci. in the sense that people don't really know what global audience will or he is in some ways spectacularly and mysterious because he's a he's an i'll be eighty with a snaggletooth and he's got a staring right. whereas tony blair had a staring left out of those there's not much significance but have a think about staring eyes oh yeah it definitely it was very important if. every because that's a thought i had the staring left and it was an element there was always an element of madness about thoughts which i think i caught on to fairly early on in the eighty's early eighty's and i was doing it every prime minister depicted by you as

an heir of madness there we. were definitely definitely the heir to that it was blair but the main here a fact it was that was definitely an element of believing her own kind of propaganda she finally went off the rails when she introduced the poll tax and against all advice pushed and pushed and it drove a party really off the rose of julie over the i was i was grew up with the vietnam war was on the coverage of the footage the documentary footage on the news every day was horrifying and it was constant it was really graphic stuff about what was going on in vietnam which of course turn people against the war by the time the pope was capable i think the state at large it's less of the dog you keep. keep the details cause you control access so the concert is there here is a chance for a cartoonist to sew a mad serial strip peregrine's

a sort of nuclear ahmed sighting so it's quite an opportunity to make actual serious comments about the whole process i mean you've insulted so many politicians of all different political persuasions and being so i suppose their relatives would say up pulling to them and yet it was israel out of all the different subjects that you have finally spike for one cartoon or if you've been sensible though of been sport before that. so what would the recent thing which is the erosion of the us in you know city of magic held by israel says. i mean i notice that it was so shocked by it for so there's this image of her as it is of a ruler who would with a headscarf and i wanted to do a tribute it was a desire to make it because. it was being forgotten and i looked in the look did

a search of the go there was no there was one story i was one mention of and this is this this is happened several days before i was quite shocked at this so i wanted to. netanyahu is on a visit to downing street so i took the traditional image in front of the fireplace which is where. heads of state meet the prime minister entertains with a flag out of the fireplace in the middle paper overlaid a meaning they said this is a reference to the gas ovens of the of the second would i i was so shocked that they should've taken that firstly it's eugene read what he here but also it's based on a fundamental truth bit of racism in the sense that it identifies all of them and if you boys netanyahu as representing all jews i know history of that which is what he wants people to butt out on them and the man doesn't even represent the israeli state he represents he's own interests he's corrupt he's a he's

a more well the guy i'm not my own he's a silly proceeding and yes. you have been indicted here he's unspeakable so it was a sort of heartfelt and but the paper sort of stopped it and the worst thing was they wouldn't discuss why i had it and it was closed down it just didn't go out and i was very disappointed about it and of course the thought is once the folks of that semblance of you know is running and people are you know there's a kind of. groupthink takes over and it's very hard to make once one of the idea that it's a reference to gas ovens of course he's and you know oprah of so people are on the side of caution and the the the cartoon was lost i've been there for. coming up to forty years i think you know thought thirty years this year but working for them. and you know they generally i do it send it occasionally there's

a not for some reason usually taste and decency or. it could be law able that's another thing it's obviously but when you learn how to steer around somebody the bit about juggling with high explosives but it's not it's also it's important in the speech so i think cartoonists we have the opportunity to do that but i have to quote this chomsky quick censorship is never over those who've experienced it it's a brand of the imagination that effects the individual is it forever. you don't feel that censorship you're still with all the strictures you just outlined whether it be liable and no i don't i don't feel so you know i don't feel i'm heavily said satori no no i i mean i don't mind my vote on my most vigorous editor you are the one who takes decisions on your troy these attesting things you go you know you push the good things getting away with things if you like but you're always doing it i was so responsibly only going saga like bricks. does it get more and more

difficult to come up with your original out of goals and dimensions to the story the thing about things like bricks is it becomes it takes over and weirdly people get more interested in politics at that time was boring it's ridiculous it's endless trying to find a new a new metaphor for treason most useless niceties it's difficult it's one of those issues i've always felt sort of fairly neutral about oddly enough yet it's whipped up into a kind of divided the whole of the society between louis was a rebellion which i think is absolute it's not it's a do dog person practical politics we've been diverted from politics for years now because of this stupid internal tory quality norms and every day of the world it was on the b.b.c. you get ten different brands of tory m.p. talking giving us their views as if politics is just about what happens in the tory party i mean it's such a such an irrelevance it's i love i love it for that reason but it's very funny

it's very this is a very stupid deeply ridiculous. seatbelt thank you that's it for the show will be back on monday with a brazilian philosopher or budget under who once told barack obama until then he would not try socially just you know monday. ten. international memorial awards twenty nine. media professionals are eligible whether you're a freelance journalist media or part of a global news. published works and video. in a world of big new things a lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that

mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks.