all you. see is my. goodness. we have to be on our side in solitary confinement in the prison for terrorist oh wait you don't have a live person. i don't see him dying. and . that's what he's facing. i'm afshin rattansi and we're going underground on the one year anniversary of boris johnson's 1st full day as prime minister a premiership so far defined by the alienation of potential global trading partners accusations of dropping the ball on perceived foreign threats and having one of the

worst capita coronavirus death rates in the world coming up on the show as some labor politicians in the u.k. call for the closure of this t.v. channel we investigate the stories not covered by mainstream media all around the world from china to syria to yemen with the gray zone smacks belittle and then does russia controlling peers in the house of lords as the u.k. intelligence and security committee appears to allege we asked conservative piano about formally of the lords international relations committee how many of putin spies sit on the red benches all this and more coming up in today's going underground the 1st u.k. prime minister boris johnson claimed that this week's you gain teligent in security committees so called russia report showed allegations of russian control of elections in britain was just froth it was left under attack from members of his own body of a money and anti semitism to ramp up the cold war rhetoric and arguably call for the end of a free press in britain the report also highlights serious distortions in the

coverage provided by russian state and international broadcasters such as russia today the high court has ruled that russia today broadcasts actually the potential harm just the prime minister agree with me that it's time to look at good but the licensing for russia today to operate in the u.k. johnson rebuked him for talk of defacto banning r.t. television in britain referring to appearances by stars and predicts as a jeremy corbin having appeared on this show but that hasn't stopped britain's state mandated media's fixation with the russia report who else to turn to them for analysis but the gray zone. max blumenthal author of the management of savagery joins me now by skype from washington d.c. max thanks so much for coming back on so i guess 1st of all what do you make of this report the expert witnesses in russia christopher steel and the intelligence services own institute for statecraft richer helps journalists get to the truth in the 1st place it was really remarkable for me to see someone who is been fully

discredited in the united states in christopher steel appear as an expert witness just 2 days before we learned that steele had been an expert witness on the suppressed and overhyped report the senate judiciary committee revealed that several sources that steel used on his notorious dodgy dossier had called into question his credibility and said that they couldn't really attest to the legitimacy of the report that it was all over the place and then you have chris donnelly who is the head of a covert troll farm operating under the under cover as illegitimate institute for statecraft think tank that was actually the integrity initiative and was organizing clusters of journalists and friendly cold warrior politicians to meddle in other countries affairs including spain to destroy the careers of diplomats and national security officials who are cozying up with russia in their

view who are actually just to pro peace and was being secretly funded by the u.k. foreign office this is a figure who you know should not be called out into public as an expert witness but provided testimony apparently for a report that ultimately failed to come to the conclusion of the hardcore russia gaiters and cold warriors and so now we're being told that the scandal is that the m i 5 just simply didn't work hard enough to come to the highly politicized conclusion that russia oh. behind brags that we have by christmas feel and donnelly on the program it should be said that both of them deny anything like that and in fact the integrity initiative says they're protecting our national security here at home i should enter jack that i graze on sent a reporter to the institute for statecraft and who is our reporter mohamed el mozzie encountered chris donnelly he slammed the door in his face in a jacked it in from the office so we've given him the chance to comment as well and

they obviously aren't fans of transparency well obviously our intelligence and security committee in the house of commons disagrees with you in fairness the committee did say that the written evidence provided to us appeared to suggest that they have majesty's government and not seen evidence of successful interference in u.k. democratic processes all our activity that have a material impact on the elections nevertheless it does talk about this t.v. channel what do you make of circus dhamma saying one response to the report should be to look at the license many people see that as a seeing to ban this channel this program from british audiences here we have another instance of care starmer performing his designated raul as a servant of the national security establishment which groomed and cultivated him when he was at the crown prosecution service and there are a number of unanswered questions about here starmer who we see him in for saying the. semitism code of silence on anyone who questions u.k.

policy towards israel palestine as israel moves to annex large parts of the west bank and there are unanswered questions about his role in the persecution of julian assange i would like to know still why here starmer met with the head of the m i 5 for informal social drinks in april 23rd teen the year after he decided not to prosecute the m i 5 for torture myself sama woodruff usual. he would say of course he would be close to m i 5 because he was the director of public prosecutions so you have to have a close connection to a security state or i'm sure he would say that but what we have here is a case of here starmer now acting in a political leadership role in forcing one of the in forcing the agenda of the security state which is to silence this broadcast there which presents a counter hedging monic the un gives

a platform to voices that otherwise wouldn't be heard in the u.k. and that threaten their political imperatives well he's controversially got his people to send a letter to the independent regulator here about our license meanwhile he was of course d.p.p. during julian a songes. case with sweden before his torture currently going on according to the un in belmarsh prison an espionage act is one thing that is come out of this report and tell me since you have won already of course your innocence is wanted individual room for espionage how a foreign agents act could could benefit britain let alone an espionage act as regarding national security well i think a lot of people have forgotten we had an espionage act on the book until on the books until the obama administration began prosecuting a record number of whistleblowers people like jeffrey sterling thomas drake john kiriakou and then you know we saw the 1st publisher journalist transparency

advocate in julian a songe being prosecuted under this act and so it's had a chilling effect within the national security state on people who consider themselves public servants and now it's having a chilling effect in the media people are afraid i can tell you from my own experience in washington in just the mood among the press here that people are afraid 1st of all the speak out for julian a songe and 2nd of all they're afraid to publish state official secrets. and that is the intended application of the espionage act it's a completely outdated act i really fear for the u.k. if you're going to start bringing this across the atlantic well your a secretary of state might bump visited this week just as all this rusher aboard stuff was going and he congratulated the foreign secretary dominic grab for blocking while away from. him to the progress in this country i understand that you

have some doubts about the information we're getting about we get concentration camps we have the images we have nathan law on this program i understand he's actually had tea with my company with the u.s. ambassador's house in regent's park this week what doubts do you have about the story we're being told about millions and millions of we go muslims being maybe killed let alone tortured by the communist party of china i don't have reason to doubt that there is something that there is something going on in jinja that there could even be repression but when we hear these constant stories that anywhere from 112th to one quarter of the entire population are in concentration camps we have to go and examine the evidence and the data and at the gray zone we have done just that we examined the source data on the claims of millions of leaders in so-called concentration camps and we found that it boils down to 2 sources one

a figure named adrian sense who is a german evangelical who has no ability to speak chinese i don't believe he's ever been to china he's declared that he is on a mission from god against china is only published book is about the rapture and it is filled with homophobic. language about diversity being a say tannic plot and this is a character that the victims of communism a moral fund a right wing organization has brought to washington as its key expert and his. own data doesn't stand up the other group is the chinese human rights defenders which is funded by the us government and which took interviews with 8 week or as engine jan and extrapolated from the population of their villages the finding or approximation of anywhere between 250001 1000000 people in concentration camps china's admitted that it has education centers but we haven't seen the evidence for

these massive claims and of course why are we hearing about this all now at this is all the language the hostile language of a cold war weapon izing a minority group who has a lobby here in washington under the auspices of the world we are a congress which is funded by the us government through the cia cut out the national endowment for democracy in the interim says that the burning at the houston consulate alone is evidence of something suspicious being done by the chinese just to quickly let's get to portland because images are being transmitted on some even some mainstream media outlets and one of the is going on in portland up why is the army on the streets there chad wolf who is the acting secretary of the department of homeland security who has not been confirmed by the senate and probably will not be justified this entire presence of. troops this trumps personal praetorian guard what some of called his guest stop 0 on the basis of graffiti

being around portland they've been attacking and initially mostly peaceful protesters and what their presence has done is stirred up an actual physical confrontation with people in portland and this is what trump wants it's obviously an election ploy to start a culture war in the united states and there's a deeper problem here which is that the president does have some authority to play this out because of the establishment of the department of homeland security and all the power that the secure. the state was granted after the shock of 911 and it was only a matter of time before president define his domestic political enemies as terrorists when he does he does we tweet you of course famously don't trump and henri tweet me you know is really in that presidential record of donald trump hey look this so many templates that gray zone covers from venezuela to yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis british an american arms company involved things that we've

tried to cover on this channel which as i said this letter on molding show to the labor party babs doesn't want covered e's one template syria because james the missouri a who was found dead outside a window is one of the white helmets they were backed i think they may still be backed by the british government the british taxpayer and alone the american taxpayer what do you make of the latest allegations that he was corruptly using that money have presumably money from the british and american taxpayer as he led this humanitarian group in syria i always thought the real scandal with the so-called syrian white helmets who are actually run by a british military intelligence officer and james them or syria or from southern turkey was that this money from usa id and the british foreign office was being used to cruise to establish an ancillary of jihadist organizations extremist organizations that were committing human rights atrocities and making life miserable for syrians but now we've kind of reached the denouement of this

organisation with the mysterious death of them or syria and dutch media confirming that apparently lemmer syria was committing some sort of fraud that led to a suicide and there had been some theories that he had actually been killed because the fall from his window didn't appear likely to have killed someone but the issue is that limb or syria was not operating aboveboard he was deceiving donor governments possibly for years and then when donor guy. hermance found out about this fraud according to this dutch media report they concealed it from the public this is one of the biggest scandals of the last decade the white helmets and the syrian proxy war as a whole and i think this is inappropriate dating i'm all for such a scandalous and arguably criminal operation the white helmet who we have the boss off they refuted any allegations of our work with al-qaeda and i says day ask

course when we invite the foreign office and the state department to stand up their record to get funding of the organization next blumenthal thank you. thanks for having me after the break conservative peer lord bell weather of law to be a putin as spies in the house of lords as the u.k. intelligence and security committees russia reports appears to allege. all the support coming up about to have going underground. syria has been engulfed in civil war through almost 10 years it's cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions more no one foresaw the peaceful protests of 20 of them is collating into a complex conflict between various armies geopolitical interests rebel groups and

just. how they are needed in the book on this. but if you tell us if you say you hate the. message look cool. you know deep down to look. at them on. an ordinary i sat down i. never statham as the mother and then as she did what i did i miss the hate here. welcome back the long delayed russia reporters called out the arguably most

contentious chamber in the u.k. parliament out the lords for allegations that some of its members of business interests with russian companies linked. the kremlin joining me now from london is lord valve conservative peer and former member of the of national relations committee at the house of lords thanks so much labelle for coming on so what do you make of the russia report in the fact that it clearly states that arguably a shadow is cast over britain 2nd chamber not quite saying that it's a nest of putin spies or see jackie sages or some members of the 2nd gerry have connections inhibitions sense to russia i mean stadium exception isn't it seem to forget that the russian earns a major money by the evening standard so things a bit vicious going on at once directions i'm sure the evening standard would say has nothing to do with driving we have putin and in fact what this is referring to . is russian power in london grad as named in the report and

therefore doing the business of the kremlin deep in the heart of the palace of westminster rather than assessing rank. rating you know there's also different interests. elisi hoops here i mean after all we're putting my house because we know something and i just think 5060 years or marched even with foreign affairs beyond might result would not some opinions and it would be remiss of me if i didn't repeat it while i'm here to get my advice they can ignore it. you know that's what they get. you're kind of echoing the words of the prime minister berthe johnson any truth do you think him in what johnson was saying he said this is the big the report is basically a failure of remain in the desire to say the brics it was. was created in

effect by the russian government well if it was you're not the russian government doesn't it to you that much to do with any foreign governments is to do with the patient xenophobia of the people who teach leave the euro. i certainly. don't blame russia for us losing the heart well their own. country. well the report attacks m i 5 you say for saying that the reason why the intelligence and security committee couldn't find any evidence for election meddling is because we didn't look enough for it some of said it's a bit like a santa cause argument what do you make of the i ses explanation that the problem here is that we can't prove something because we haven't tried hard enough to prove it or we make it look the job they are my 5 serves is to crack down terror which costs lives on 3 and to shut down the people who

are perpetrating or planning these terror attacks if not friends we go out looking for evidence all male may not be. you know red now for years ago but as you know the british government says the terrorism did occur on british soil and soulsby because of the russian government. yes the new times nish the period you know and event there is a gin shot the. way they get it right i mean so spears into sauce dissolves i'm always the russian government deny that they have anything to do with it. however says that all of this shows the close links between the tories and the russians and in fact points to the fact that there are references to this channel although in fairness to the committee they said the

president is an individual shows on r.t. and not culpable of the charge of being putin's mouthpieces starmer saying they want an immediate meeting between their people this is a letter i'm holding from joe stevens the shadow sector is they've a digital culture media and sport with the sagittarian dependent regulated to discuss the loss of license here or not t 2 broke us in britain and this is from r.c. this house is one of each member's george orwell who fought for freedom of speech here comes the call broadcast during the war iraqi. top echelons of the policy trying to boost the use of oxy because that will do you refuse raw saddens me

i don't know fox news i don't know what some of the things that go out in the united sense and what's actually report done by snappy dave's matches over year ago which concluded that all g t v should be left alone so you know. i'm wondering is the lighter passing out signs they say it's no longer in favor of free state. well we await the higher figures this agita regulator has generally said that he is broadly in line with other broadcasters which all say they do abide by partiality norms as as. in the in the legislation here i mean what do you think it says about the labor body then that it says that he could do actual and potential harm i think he's overestimation you friend treat your fairish to this artsy with great respect with you here in. which you do a lot of r

r i think i should be locked up. you know this is rich. ok but then those who are worried about russian influence in our politics talk about the big money boris johnson 160000 pounds for a tennis match tory donor donations because of that what about having there and there's no mention of the names of any russian oligarchs in this report surprise there isn't because i know there are loads that are links to russian business and russian money should we not be worried about the. well i mean it's been various i think. this well let's see what are we actually saying oh we signed boris johnson agent. because he's accepting money for his political party i'm from russian so seas are always signed each name eve because he's trying to

undermine established by prime minister you somehow manages to chauny out of russian. history for really easily knowns. what if off come the regulator did respond and said we're going to meet with the drama's people and we're going to talk to him about why he's concerned does that mean that it's a sham this independent group custom regulator a kind of ally and actually we don't have a free press well how is rubbing off on to be quite happy to meet with the leader of the major opposition athlete and not beyond. trying to leverage what he sees here on the report produced by manchester you know this last year which was quite just in included on the respects left a lot to guess dhamma may well say that you are russian stooge for appearing on

this program he's banned his entire front bench from this program and from this channel. so who is there a problem in the house of lords you know the press are attacking that as a lords right now for the fact the you just said that 323 pounds you're going to get presumed cool to. a to do legislation in this country what do you think of the criticism that you and your lords and your colleagues. unfairly take in cash of the taxpayer for what you do in there's a lot. these learned already very hard for my money here i am generally here in the middle of the morning are so relieved and so well into the thing and you know i was doing your all most of my life has been strange and foreign policy i do have views on russian which i'm not seeing a cold with those of the majority feeling at the moment in britain

but we're very not reflected in the past and i think russia is a part of your and no one suggests behind math form a miracle in building a new relationship with russia it's as simple as that i think on mine if the group says it needs to count they're going to be located in far east russia or is part of the european family and he's far from perfect and in that he chases wassim cone with many other countries but we are all of the politi cool europe we somehow got so might keep work when you get as i am nearer to each even 2nd sorry you don't worry too much now people think of you you know well just finally if clearly dumber is being accused of cold war attitudes against china and russia wanting to maybe ban this shuttle how susceptible is boris johnson to cold war style paranoia

is sending an aircraft carrier to china's maritime borders i think we do have problems with china and i think we should might clear that we're not any so fighting on all fronts we don't have any actual major problems with russia that can't be solved by negotiation and a piece of good will that's why i support it russia coming back into the all eventually assembly of the council of europe i think there is a lot of work to be done there are many in. we disagree let's disagree and diane or not some auslan out the truth of each other i'm stirring up things which are russia east all europe forget it and as ram my 5 you mentioned they're there to protect us from terrorism how do you think it'll go down because they're often in the shadows there's

a fairly so how do you think it'll go down with them that the and intelligence and security committee have been saying that my 5 just hasn't been doing its job properly i think it's a pity that we have seen a full 100 actually all i can understand why we haven't seen it but you know how much i have to learn to do a certain amount of things and i think keeping bruton street site is not higher priority than looking around to see if flu russians try to influence a handful of votes you know referenda that will regret the result i regard as being a fair referee. introduce ition which is being. action which sacked me we must now accept that my time is doing jol club elf thank you thank you that's it for the show on the eve of cuba is a month out a day when fidel castro's 26 of july movement 7 train the cuban revolution they were defeated continues to defeat the united states designs on the sovereignty

despite nearly ending the world will be back on monday with one of the world's greatest geographers professor danny dorling will tell us which country he thinks will be the best ones in livin in the world until they wash your hands and join the underground when you put a sound cloud instagram and facebook. problem drugs don't always come from unscrupulous dealers but from pharmacies to in every state in the united states we see means very sharp increase in the number of people seeking treatment for addiction to prescription opioids and invaded america under the banner of medicine persisted with the pain but instead of trying to wean him off though she just goes after dose after dose after dose and really became his

drug dealer so who's to blame patients doctors manufacturers all the governments. u.s. china few to escalate says american agents break into the form of chinese consulate in houston hours after its vacated on washington's orders that after the u.s. states called on other nations to join forces against china something fears a new cold war began. both of those protesters burn turkish flags in the greek city of to saloniki outraged by turkey's decision to turn high as the fia back into a box. this is it's totally barbaric an uncivilized moved.