plus forget coronavirus will breaks it all doubts on multinational chemical companies catalyze mass insect extinction all this more coming up in today's going underground but 1st what was it actually like to sit in a london court last week watching an alleged travesty of justice as arbitrarily detained and tortured wiki leaks founder julian assange for for his freedom one international observer was the deputy leader of the left party in the german bundestag 7 dag dillon who along with 32 other m.p.'s from 12 different e.u. countries witnessed arguably the most important trial of the century so far thanks so much for coming to australia in london rather live in. even before the trial doctors were saying he may die at any moment what was it like in court. terrible in many ways it's just you know i am really appalled about the situation and the conditions even for us international observers i've seen so many trials worldwide and i'm really outrageous about the conditions for us international

observers in the public gallery for observers they are just $24.00 seats 6 for the family members and 18 for international observers and we always have to queue there and wait for about 2 hours just to make sure that we can really go and follow the case in the court room and not in a media annex room where you cannot listen we cannot hear something from the courtroom and in our other way it's terrible too because to see how the conditions are which julian is facing i mean he is a really gentle human journalist who haven't had to done a crime and he's treated like a top terrorist behind behind a bulletproof glasses. in the back of the court of the court which

is just because of him and he cannot follow the court and he cannot hear the court even just hardly he can hear and listen what's going on and i think these conditions are not adequate for a stage which is saying the rule of law is totally accepted well he did commit a crime a minor bail violation and the person who is about to perhaps lead the labor party after jeremy corbin said he has absolute trust and faith he took time. in this court process that you were hatch well i wrote i would. invite him to be in the court with us with part of interiors from different countries of the european union it's not just me as a german member of the parliament with some other germans we are from ireland we are from italy well from spain we are from portugal from france and some other

countries i would really be happy to have british colleagues from the british parliament here i was wondering where are they because it's so such a case where do you have international attention and interest and it's not just us parliamentarians who are observing this case it's the. parliamentary assembly of the council of europe the human rights commission of the council of europe there are so many parliamentarians worldwide why are very concerned about this case and i really don't understand to be frank what's going on in the british parliament with my colleagues that they don't have there was not one british politician with you know and i mean if they are so secure and so secure about the case that the rule of law is accepted and the conditions are ok with the rule of law why

they don't just come and see what's going on in the court room ok i mean i just don't like them i invite the candidate who is running for the leadership of the labor party come with me as a calm rate and see what's going on in the court room well it again convenes in may of course depending on the health of julian assange the magistrate vanessa borate. she's an impartial woman deciding over the court proceedings as well. it was very weird what happened last week when we came together to the court and she just asked in the afternoon julian if he can concentrate on the trial and the proceedings and because it's in the dock and he cannot very well hear what's going on because we had this really does problems from the beginning on

monday to the 24th the trial started and we had this julian and the media and the observers had the problem to follow sometimes because. sometimes they don't speak into the microphone sometimes you cannot hear the judge at all because she doesn't spoke to the microphone or even she started the proceedings while julian was not in the courtroom i mean he is a defendant you have to wait till he is coming in to the courtroom but then they started just a proceeding sometimes and that means this is disrespect about the court and the trial at all and then she asked him in the afternoon if she he felt good and he's well being and can concentrate but julian wants to wanted to speak up and she didn't allow it she said he has to speak to his lawyers and then the lawyers will

tell the court but the problem was then julian said what's the point of asking me if i can't concentrate if i'm not at all can participate in this courtroom and she said well you are a participant like any other defendant and then he said well i am as marge a participant of my own trial as i am a participant in the wimbledon because he is in the dark he is a beehive he cannot have. confidential communication with lawyers there are everywhere cameras they are spies there are microphones he cannot we are caught communicate privately he says of the other side the us the prosecution has 100 times more hours to communicate because in the back of the prosecutor is there are representatives of the state department of the u.s. and there are representatives of the u.s.

embassy they can communicate they can exchange immediately while the proceeding is going on but julian cannot do this and even the prosecutor was ok to say we are neutral we are not against that jordan assad can sit next to his lawyers to communicate with them but the judge refuses and this was really bizarre some said that the prosecutors representing the american government the united states government if they became worried that a mistrial could happen because she appeared to be unfair she also said phyllis operates she could do nothing about the fact that. after day one in court. sandra's hanker after 11 years stripped naked twice and all his defense papers were taken away from him yes and he had to change 5 cells within this night and i mean i know jordan personally since 2012

and i was pretty much shocked when i saw him on they want. what did you make of the judge saying she couldn't do anything about that that's up to the prison that isn't yet connected to this court yet that's i mean that's absurd on are from my point of view that's absurd because she is the judge of this trial she has a responsibility that the defendant is in health that the defendant is not mistreated by the personnel the staff of the prison she is a responsible person that this trial is under the rule of law and if she is not intervening as a judge that means that she is coming along with the situation. were you there when suddenly they are asked is the editor of in chief of wiki leaks

christian or have incentives in the court and for no apparent reason they wanted to throw him out the court yes it was just you know another shocking moment we were waiting in the entrance to the public gallery room together with kristen and i mean i have to say and add every morning it's the same procedure with the staff of the prison and the court it's actually the court every morning we have the argue as international observers every morning we have to show our diplomatic passport and that we i have to show the letter of the government the minister of justice that i'm on the list as an observer and i can go through and every morning it's the same procedure they deny and they don't leave me go through to the court every morning and this morning we had a discussion with kristen as well at the gate and then after that at the door to

the public gallery the staff was asking him if if there is the chief editor of wiki leaks and we said do you mean in editing or someone special and he said yes someone special kristen hof saw and he said yes i am here and i said. the staff then said you're not allowed to go into the public gallery you have to leave the building the court the whole building you have to leave and you say why and who set this form who comes this decision they said from the court and but i don't know why so he had to leave the building of course britain says this is independent of the united states. which one are you about to tell me that you think the united states which says we kill it is a terrorist non-state actor yeah well no one explained it is the. john ship than the father of julian he want our to with all the other family members to make

a protest on this and he said we're not going to into the trial again if kristen halfs on as a coach the chief of editor of the caveats is not allowed to go with us to this trial and then after a while they said the staff of the court ok you are allowed to go in the representatives of the reporters without borders organisation they were totally outrageous about this issue as well because they say that's an attack on press freedom of course if the chief editor of the killer leaks is not allowed to go to the court to the trial against the founder of the kids see the european union has said nothing about this case do you expect that because they don't want to intervene in nations although they arguably intervene in

catalonia they intervened in france by allowing only normally i have to say of course it's good if governments and european union the commission is not intervening into the internal affairs of other countries of soaring countries that's a good thing actually but then we have to be fair and don't do with in other cases as well but in this case it's the council of europe and united nations yes and the thing is now that it's not it's not an intervention into the internal affairs officer brain country if you say we have concern about these attacks on press freedom by the trump administration. because of the spanish act he is prosecuted and we are concerned about fair trade a trial here. if the. rule of law or is now respected

that's not intervention in the internal affairs and that's what the parliamentary assembly of the council of europe did it's in the majority a vast majority said julian assange has to be released from prison now and he must not be extradited to the us and it's the same with the appeal in jamie where 10 former federal ministers all liberal parties social democrats all green they all say he has to be released some judgment thank you. after the break 24 hours ahead of the un's world wildlife very natural to c.e.o. of conservation charity bug life explains our major chemical body nationals on the plane to swarm the u.k. with anti insect regulation all this is all going on but you're going on the ground .

showdown in syria as the damascus government continues its drive to liberate the country turkey's illegal military presence has created a major international crisis there no one is between a rock and a very hard place. welcome back has pushed back to trade talks get underway in brussels how will the european union deal with the massive insecticide multi-nationals looking just waterway regulation and nearly even free u.k. according to conservation charity bug life 40 percent of insect species are threatened with extinction with insecticides raking in billions c.e.o. of bug life met charbonneau thinks it's time for best control chemical companies to bugger off he joins me now matt welcome to going underground i'm going to ask a question that arguably maybe more pertinent to you perhaps don't think it is or you think it's out of context hundreds of thousands of children will die this year because of malaria and yet your own organization that is lobbying against the mass

extinction of insects intakes of course is distributed malaria why overseas it's not just the malarial mosquitoes that we're talking about we're talking about the whole breadth of animal life on this planet over 70 percent of the species live on this planet are invertebrates and the a few of them do cause problems when mosquitoes don't murder people they're not doing it deliberately they just happen to be a vector or something else and hopefully science can find solutions those sorts of things are capitalism to be called actually i thank you for that but i've got to also was about how there is hope in your campaign unique it annoys recovered on going underground and it's very early episodes of this show and you've been successful in other activist groups and other green groups here today when it took years so you have to remember these chemicals are out there in the environment all over growth for fields all of the. you there still will of agricultural fields in

other countries around the world harming the babies and causing long term damage in the u.k. over 40 percent of the bees they studied they went extinct in more than 10 percent of the places that they were living as a direct result of using those chemicals and they quite right we managed to get great steps forward with getting most of the worst ones banned it's never quite that simple though why is it not quite simple they haven't been having an idea in this country so they banned the worst ones where there's lots of evidence they let it out on the most evidence of harm to the environment to butterflies to be ultimately to worse and to ask betty to produce food and to to to feed ourselves so you know that they've got rid of some of the absolute worst ones but they continue to approve new ones that may be just as harmful as the old ones that they're not testing them the other issue is that they have banned all uses so it made a cooperate which is one of the oldest and most persistent of these incredibly toxic insecticides is still used on cats and dogs and when this gets on to the

bedding that the cats and dogs are lying in it then gets washed into the search system and into the rivers around the country where it causes damage there and at the moment the people who are buying these products don't even know that it's potentially damaging to freshwater life i'm sure the manufacturers of the pet medications don't going to agree at all that it's completely safe in fact as you know the chemical companies which have huge lobbies are in the european union. for so long rejected unique engine oil as being a bad thing what do you make now of the crop protection associations are a member of the e.u. funded european crop protection association claiming a post bricks it u.k. can reintroduce maybe glyphosate unique huge annoyance one of these called chlor p. rose and. they have such crazy names you might almost think that but those names that

we wouldn't talk about the money. so yes the multinational companies the biggest ones are massive massive corporates and of course they're in the game of us playing one country off another and about a 3rd of countries around the planet don't actually have proper pesticide regulation at all and those sorts of countries overseas open to exploitation by those who are trying to abuse their naiveté if you like and i'm sure our politicians would say they're immune to the lobbying of big multi-billion dollar multinational companies taking them out for dinner. well i wouldn't believe they're guessing you wouldn't believe that i'm guessing it's not people who i don't know if we're going to believe that are they so so that you know that they're very much playing one country off another and that means that even when they know that something causes harm or that to the environment or to people they have to keep going with saying that it doesn't because otherwise those other countries might

twig that actually they're being sold something that's damaging their phone features and when groups like yours secure victories constant vigilance i noticed that a group calling itself the gleick for seed renewal group i'm not sure that's an appeal to conservation relish funded by bayer which owns them in santa anson guenter campaigning for the e.u. reauthorization in 2022 of life estate and we got life is a bit a different issue so the evidence of the say it is around human health but obviously like all herbicides it does take out flowers of the insects depend on so over use of herbicides that's bad for wildlife but it doesn't surprise me in a way that you know they're seeing braxton's as an opportunity at the regs it could be an opportunity which means that we're away from the corporate lobbied e.u. politicians who arguably watered down legislation that destroys intercultural i've seen less of that so the european parliament recently voted to improve the test

testing regime to make it safe for babies which the commission has failed to do and the parliament just voted over 500 votes to 60 votes in favor of strengthening the protection for babies by improving the regulation of insecticide so you know the european parliament is definitely on the side with we're not in the right place the european commission often tries to get there but the member states have actually been the big ones holding back some of this progress and you know obviously when we come out we've got to potentially do more of our own press side regulation. and in the u.k. there was and the difficulty we've got here is that at the e.u. level they have a thing which is it which is called. taking risk assessment and risk management and keeping that arm's length so your scientists are experts over here doing their scientific job and which they're saying well these are the risks that we face that information is then made public in the document and it goes to the decision makers

and the decision makers then make a decision about how to monitor and manage that risk which might be banned its use in small quantities use everywhere that's their decision in the u.k. we don't have no separation between the minister and the bottom civil servant there's just a weekly line liberalism is industry that often talks about that as well they lobby for their chemicals yeah use risk based quite often after a group like yourself to ban the press like companies would agree with us that our current system of committees and expertise that we have in the u.k. is not up to scratch for a proper regulates really approach to how we're going to look after chemicals in the future serve the next 10 months and we'll jump thing we'll have to change if we're going to actually have a proper regulator to which boris johnson's old friend michael gove says we will strengthen it and in fact the introduced the environment bill and yet you along with greenpeace client and other and others write a letter expressing concern that this new office of environmental protection. it

raises concerns about information transparency so when we are in the e.u. we used to be able to rely on the european commission to some extent to hold our government to account for delivering on the environment and when we come out of the year as we have done then that option isn't available so there's a potential that we weaken the solutions where we have this new office of environmental protection or is that just answerable to the minister not the public but this is the problem. in the year of paying commission system they're not appointed by the ministers but they're talking about appointing the ministers are going to be appointed the people in charge are holding the ministers to account well that's there's a fundamental conflict of interest there if you appointed by the people you're supposed to be held in holding to account and again it is the problem we've got in the u.k. of not having enough separation between knowledge and expertise and the decision making and at the moment those sorts of things if anything getting pushed closer

together of course a lot of debate over breaks it has been about fishing rights which certainly fishing industry here believes absolutely that europe the european union membership has been a catastrophe for. rachel carson and silent spring the killing of insects will end fishing do you think there's a big irony there well the main roads are certainly in 8 years of the media is a fishing stuff and you've had recently a massive collapses in fisheries associated in lakes with in the nick would you say there's no doubt that mimics and other insecticides could cause problems for fisherman. oversee the whole issue about fishing and they use a complex one i'm not sure that every single fisherman would agree with you i think there are some fishermen who understand that the fact that we've got a european markets and we sell that norway lobsters we sell almost all of that abroad to the continent to europe so you know there's 2 sides to that equation what

i'm getting at is the the the. the domino effect of the killing of insect should affect everyone watching this program yet we were taught all about pesticides but it's a whole range of gamut of issues so it's the fragmentation of habitat it's climate change then forcing those species out of their range so making places to drive to hot to wet wildlife is coming under immense pressure and the little things the bugs the most abundant things are the ones that are disappearing fast and we've seen across northern europe scientific study after scientific study showing over 90 percent or 80 percent declines in the biomass of the abundance of those insects in northern europe so where we used to have thousands of bugs sit in the car windscreen is now hardly any and even just recently in the u.k. in in kent they found a 50 percent decline in the abundance of insects hitting the front of cars and

people can remember going back to the eighty's when they used to be so much more life if we lose all that we lose the birds lose the food we lose the color out of the countryside. the planet with a much poorer place and will struggle to survive if we the trend that we currently see around the globe of insect populations continues as it does now we've got to get our act together we've got to fix pesticides climate change light pollution very briefly there are obviously. people who run multinational companies in the city of london investing in companies are producing these pesticides they want to live they want their children to live do you think and indeed all of these companies deny despite out of court settlements and are fighting. accusations that their pesticides are killing people an insect why do you think they do it. why do they do it knowing what they want people who believe stuff when they said and

a lot of people working for southern street firmly believe that they're helping the planet by feeding people more and there is an element of truth to that but that can become hooper and often you see them getting running away with the idea that because this is a good thing it's more important than everything else and it isn't when when they stop spraying insecticides and all seed right the yields actually went up so the yields perfect the amount of oil being produced in the u.k. and that was high after they banned the insecticides why because we need the insects the insects controlling the pests the predators the insects the pollinating the crop without the insects we're in really deep trouble thank you and that's of the show will be back on wednesday 2 years for the day of the alleged not the job poisoning of former m i 6 by surrogates for paul and his daughter yulia neither of them have been seen in public since that day until next time you try social media join the underground by subscribing to going underground on you tube.

and we're going to fulfill the promise you probably. to the people i promise to be there with pots to. be. pretty. much. pretty good. now you want to. know 5.

you know we talk a lot on the show many years about economy and currencies and what makes a currency usually what makes a currency is scarcity for example gold is a currency it's money because it's scarce that's the primary reason people use it as money keynesian economics or a socialism is usually unworkable because the people who are organizing it think that well you can just print all the money you need you need a program print more money there's socialism for banks on wall street as was pointed out recently one of the big presidential debates you know a bank gets in trouble just print more money well what's the ultimate scarce commodity what is the ultimate scarce commodity you think about it would is the ultimate scarce commodity.

2 am here in moscow headlining at this hour the path is clearing for us democratic hopefuls as 2 candidates. to judge drop out of the race and for the 2028 presidential election. the taliban says it will resume operations against afghanistan's security forces that is after the country's president refused to commit to a peace deal between the u.s. and the islam is really elsewhere. greece warns of a threat to its national security of turkey allows thousands of desperate asylum seekers along the country's shared border athens is accusing of exploiting refugees in pursuit of its cool.