it has got palestine in the wake of a un international day of solidarity this while israel is being blamed for aggression not just against the palestinians but also iran after the assassination of the middle east oil superpowers top physicist most and death joining me now from ontario in canada is the un special rapporteur for the human rights situation in the palestinian territories occupied since $967.00 professor michael link thank you so much and michael for coming on i want to say that when you were appointed special to you probably didn't think you were going to be thinking of the illegal occupation in the context of a global pandemic how bad is coronavirus in the occupied territories that alone gaza. look at the very beginning it appeared opin when the crown of virus 1st hit in march it appeared that the that the occupy palestinian territories were going to actually weather this extreme rather well in part that's because of a negative situation other such limited freedom of mobility. and movement with respect to the other gaza strip in particular and that many you know

a huge number of the palestinian population in the west bank is also extremely limited freedom of movement around behind the the wall and as really checkpoints what's happened with respect to the 2nd wave that we're experiencing now is that cases both in jazz or the west bank and including east jerusalem are rising exponentially and i've just been on the on the line with u.n. officials in the occupied territories talking about their worries of this endemic increases one's of cresting you know the next several weeks that the very limited health care systems we have in the occupied territory with particularly in jazz are are going to be overwhelmed they suffer from a shortage of hospital beds they suffer from a shortage of doctors and nurses who can whine about caring for the for the ill they want to suffering from a lack of respirators and particular you know that and gaza they. have 10 to 12

hours of power a day they have a very poor water supply and they've had an exodus of nurses and doctors leaving gaza because of on paid salaries going to places where they can get security employment elsewhere in the arab world so there's every indicator now that the coronavirus is going to leave a devastating path in its wake in the occupied territories and particularly in gaza will there be a knock on effect through the top administration's cancellation of funds to unravel and other n.g.o.s that are trying to help medical facilitation in gaza of course you know when you consider in particular in gaza. the 2000000 doesn't the palestinians that are behind the gaza blockade that israel has imposed for the last 13 years or for around 1200000 of those are registered refugees with

with a hammer so iran is providing a huge number of resources education and health and welfare to the population of gaza and yet it's because funding was cut 2 years ago by the trumpet ministration it's now announced in the last few weeks that it's run out of funds it's going to have to be paying partial salaries over the next several months unless and until they can one of securing new bridge funding from the international community this is a this is a significant crisis on top of a crisis that the palestinians are facing and that under a as an institution of all of its 70 years of operations under very difficult political and social circumstances in the middle east this has to be one of its very worst moments ever. of course 40000000 need death food in the united states and get it from food stamps there's no evidence to suggest that this cutting of funding has incited militancy increased militancy in gaza though well this is one

of the worries that micah my conversation with the u.n. officials has indicated that you know the palestinians don't see a peaceful path to self-determination to freedom from an alien rule and a living with the same dignity that everybody else in the world is and is entitled to if legal roots or peaceful groups or political processes to wind up working for them then you're inviting people to to engaging in not peaceful violent reaction to to entrenching occupation that's been there for 53 years and shows no signs of going away i mean perhaps you can forgive the u.k. mainstream media they will covert they go break said but how difficult is it as a special to get information out on to the media say in the united states or or britain i mean maradona the great argentinian football player said in my heart i am palestinian that wasn't really quoted in any of the television

a bit curious how difficult is it to get your mandate out to the world as it were. when we it's actually the palestinian israeli conflict the 53 year old occupation by israel of this palestinian territory is really an exercise in irony on the one hand this is the most international of conflicts and as well it's one of the best covered. conflicts in the sense that there are numerous palestinian and israeli non-governmental organizations and a number of u.n. agencies that produce a pleat top drawer work research work advocacy work of what's actually going on in gaza in the west bank in east jerusalem yet there is an. there's a gap between the wealth of information that i and myself rely heavily on and what actually gets translated into the international media it may well be that the media

at any time when it publishes a critical article that it tends to peel back some of the areas of onion rings on what is actually happening in the in the occupied palestinian territory winds up getting reaction back. from either political sources or from organized or from organizations who don't like their their critical commentary and the matter winds up getting dropped the same thing happens my own country canada where you see very little coverage that's critical with respect to what's going on with an occupation that is becoming ever more entrenched ever more prominent and where an arising for peace and prosperity is drifting further away from the never where you say reputable of course israeli officials accuse a u.n. organizations of basically being had the semitic biased institutions on the side of the palestinians you know and i've i and he's made jazeera and i'm one of the

targets that frequently arises with respect to commentary with respect to this you know the criticism is why are you picking on his real why are there so many resolutions of the general assembly or at the human rights council with respect israel and my response is actually that resolutions aren't devoted to israel they're not focused on israel they're focused on israel's occupation of the palestinian territory which they're of which there is almost wall to wall international consensus at least at the diplomatic level that this is a this is an occupation that is israel's an occupying power that israel is in violation of a number of the basic tenets of international humanitarian law so what we have with this particular conflict is an enormous gap between promise and and performance. how quick was the world to respond when there was. no invasions or other international human rights crises say in me m.r.

or in or in africa yet with when it comes to israel and and the occupation of palestine there is virtually no movement at all with respect to a holding israel accountable to trying to end issues with respect to defiance and impunity in this particular case and this occupation will not die of old age and if you listen to liberal israelis or israelis with conscience they say the same thing that there is no political appetite within the israeli political sphere of doing anything but continuing with deepening the occupation is only when the international community will wind up. telling israel that there cannot be an occupation and endless occupation without some costs attached to it that you'll see a reversal in fortunes you don't scare personally and have you not become homeless camp personally you saw what happened to bunny sanders when he raised the issue of a u.n. security council resolutions germy coleman has been that odd with anti semitism due

to get attacked a lot. i do receive critical comments on the work that i produce i i do receive not so flattering e-mail as well but you know and i say this is a special rubber tour i say this as a law professor you know i try to ground my work in international law i try to ground my my we're in the numerous un resolutions that come from the security council in the general assembly and i look closely at the writings of the you know steamed scholars who write on this particular area there is no conflict in the modern world where international law has spoken with such frequency. and such steps with respect to the so i am i feel that i have who i can act with a fair amount of confidence by citing un security council resolutions remember that the un security council is the is the formals diplomatic and political. chamber and

deliberative forum of the international community i ground my my commentary on the illegality of the settlements or the illegality of the of the wall and its location or the commentary with respect to the illegality of an exemption and what these un bodies have set and. the last thing i'll say on this is i remember being told as a when i 1st took this position for to have years ago by one of my previous answers he said you know there's 2 things that you have to want to be fearless you have to be able to speak truth to power with respect to this but the other thing he said is you have to be responsible you have to make sure that your facts are as much as possible accurate that your reference to law is well grounded but just finally and very briefly condolences were paid from the gaza government and the palestinian authority for the alleged must have assassination of iran's top

a physicist. obviously states wanted assassination is illegal under international law do you think as some may be suggesting that israel may be repeating what happened as regards costly the 22 day gaza war 1400 civilians killed ahead of the obama presidency as a warning to joe biden. look i think what this tells us is that there are a number of complicated issues in the middle east that are on the world agenda and will be the top of the genda when there's a new american administration when joe biden become becomes president you know i guess what i can say is i very much want the american administration to be actively and bit and gauged in trying to find a fine. just in general solution with respect to the israeli occupation of palestine and an evil calloused an insult to terminations you know what i what i fear is that there are a number of competing issues in the middle east including iran especially iran and

that the for the presidency of the job i mean consider that that may be where they want to expend their limited political capital in the middle east and devote their efforts to try to reengage iran as they should and try to see if a new avenue or revised agreement can be entered into with respect to the development of nuclear power as it should but i hope that doesn't take precedent over the need to find and bring to a just in general and the palestinian israeli conflict and allowing the palestinians and israelis to have a shared future that's going to be based on their own prosperity and human rights and equality in the holy land. which i thank you my pleasure i offer the right monopsony capitalism is a british brand top shop promoted by working class fashion icon kate moss collapses threatening tens of thousands of jobs could nato nation supply chain super charged a global working class that ends sweatshops forever paulism or going up about 2 and

going underground. to. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics small business i'm showbusiness i'll see that. at this point no one knows when the cold crisis we invade whatever it is undeniable that this cold price is as negatively impacted the economy what does it mean to return to normal is that even. if it will the divide separating the rich from the poor continues to live.

on by can you make happy any way you. look like it would if he does must think you know the. causal goodness will come it is the it took. you can go google have me a hire. somebody that come with us on that. machine that can handle that the terms and then he also. need to get. them involved. what's going on back i'm now on a little while back about about one noisy. part of a. lot of people to tune in to. some of the.

welcome back in about 72 hours one of britain's biggest clothing groups arcadia is announcing chemical trade anymore threatening the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers and some predict the collapse of many more household names because of the impact of coronavirus is the whole global economic model for manufacturing changing and woodwork is ironically be the winners joining me now from london to talk about his new book monopsony capitalism is dr. welcome to going underground this sounds to me and i'll be up to mystic book for anyone worried about that train is being from sweat shops what is monopsony so the best way to look at monopsony is as a kind of. an inverse of monopoly monopolies you have say 2 shoe companies or 3 shoe companies and they have equal parts in a market and then let's say one takes over another shoe company and it becomes 2

thirds of the market that means they have 2 thirds of monopoly of that market monopsony is the relationship between that shoe producer and the various parts of the supply chain so if you have a high degree of monopsony and you have many suppliers it's a buyers market right you have many sellers of the buyers or a lot of power if it's low monopsony it's a few few sellers so it's not necessarily the case so producers of shoes and shirts for since the formation of industrial capitalism you know 10150 years ago have relied on this uneven relationship of high degree of monopolies you have let's say nike and adidas own 60 percent of the casual and sports shoe sector and tens of thousands of potential factories that they could put downward pressure on and so that is a high degree of nazi which means that they have an incredible amount of power because it's basically like a bottleneck and they're you know the suppliers are fighting like crazy to get the business of very few ballistic ayers as your book makes clear as there are

being tragic catastrophes related to some supply has and as i have been successful workers struggles the number of supplies is decreasing which means that ultimately. capital will be threatened yeah i mean look across the kind of ideological spectrum whether it's. classical marxists keynesians there isn't a fundamental understanding that firms move to word centralization because there's an underlying law you could say that of competition that means that as firms fight for profits some firms go out of business and other firms gobble up their business and become larger. if you apply that to the principles of the sweatshop the way in which that has remained limited in the swelling of the sweatshop sectors so clothes and shoes and toys and furniture is that you had. a

a way of geographically relocating firms so they're never able to get enough profit at the buyers are supplier side to invest and expand and become these kinds of larger firms but because of these kind of because of limits on globalization you know you've seen the cost of producing in so sort of pervert delta region of china for the last few know basically from 2005 to 2008 half the shirts in the world are being projects we're going to church in the world are reproduced in these 3 provinces that's the problem as the price of producing their lineup it sets these kind of geographic limits and as you said those geographic limits capital so i didas are nike or h. and m. can't just find geographic ways to put to increase profits and put downward pressure on suppliers and workers so as that happens smaller firms go out of business bigger firms become bigger. and as that happens that bottleneck that you

don't like it is used to put pressure on these firms becomes looser and looser because there's fewer and fewer people competing and that that opens up the possibility for workers to potentially make demands at the point of rushing we're already seeing that in certain parts of the 2nd i should say out of as and you know as you deny any switch involvement in there a supply chain but a you mentioned china there you talk about the fact that china has seen more wildcat strikes in any other country in the world we don't hear about this there are workers fighting for rights in these factories every day if you look at china because the state doesn't necessarily sanction. you know the ability for works to withdraw their labor power in the same kinds of ways or strikes in the same kinds of ways. places basically all the strikes in china are wildcat strikes but the number of strikes that are happening in china especially in certain parts of the china south eastern parts of china are phenomenal i mean you saw 50000 strikes

spontaneous strikes at specific factories on word from 201-415-1617 that's a combination of factors and there was a plan to basically the state central government is a clear division between the central government policy of the communist party in china and provincial governments and there was a kind of forms of devolution over the course of the last 20 years to the point where the central government was felt like it was not in their interest to continue to have these kinds of sweatshop sectors thriving at very low wages and they were trying to basically advance more technologically the regions in the country that were most developed specifically the periphery delta region but the provinces had nother had another plan in some way so you have you know there was the hue yen strike in 2014 in one joe and express has sent jan this isn't a perv at all to region and this is the largest tricolor private sector firm in the

history of china and it's to largest producer of shoes in the world you know in their studio one in 6 shoes were probably produced in a few yen facility exclusive producer for i need to send 90 the state at the time their policy was going to 50000 workers in this facilities and spreading going on strike at the time the state's policy was basically like don't cares in the factories don't force them back to work in the same ways but the province's had something else in mind so they're also rent seeking they're also in the pockets of these more more more more monopolistic suppliers so that it's a day it's a complicated story you have these larger suppliers which means that workers can actually organize and demand more from not just the sort of low margins. players but also these larger suppliers have a lot of authority and power over state authority over provincial authorities or you know the ability to withstand strikes for longer periods of time but just to be clear it's these kinds of actions far more and the actions of

a headquarters of these big brands that have a more more impact than fair trade code by nike had it as an reebok shop or shaming for people who buy brands that are accused of violating worker rights i mean look these codes and been researched and cold on it regimes multi-stakeholder agreements all of these things that lots of them are corporate some of them are n.g.o.s some of them are state. all of them have been thoroughly researched extensively and rigorously over the last 3040 years and what we find is that overwhelming glee in the preponderance of evidence shows that they have made absolutely no difference you haven't seen these kind of they're a way to raise your window dressing they're not worth the paper they're printed on because they get what we see is wages successfully go. whatever benefits a firm will get from not having sweatshop workers is outdone by the profits that

they can make so you can see that there's a liability for for example run a plaza the worst natural accident in the history of the world have to do it on 13 in dhaka over a 1000 women mostly women crushed to death from prada prime markets produce their what's happened to the bottom line of those firms nothing so any liability that could come from quite literally the murder of a 1000 people in bangladesh is outdone by the profits they can make by ensuring the lowest lowest wages and downward pressure and score of race the bottom obviously this company is the door for money in recompense they said that there was no wrongdoing on their behalf i'm going to ask you quickly practical question because in the book you say the real median wages growth in china has risen 17 percent says 2009 does that mean that he also quote a figure of a just 2 percent of the price of a t. shirt goes to labor from i was a bangalore $20.00 or for for you are we seeing a rise in the amount that is going to the workers the maker clothes so in these

sectors it's very heated there's different parts the sectors that that become more and more technologically advanced than other sought a producer that produces blouses is different from a producer to produce issues so shoes are now seeing waging peace is high level of consolidation men's underwear denim but in other parts of the sector which are still very much geographically relocating very small firms very much. so lots of firms producing for very few. there's you're not really seeing wage growth so but what he does is these these particular parts of the sector are indicators of a larger change ok well it was certainly from reading your book and some of the w t o codes it's not the world bank code it's not. it is workers that are pushing this and this mechanism of the market which reduces the number of suppliers just tell me how it seems to be conspiring workers all over the world not just the ones at the

lowest end of global labor if you look at so for example china you give the example of china you exceed you know a say in the book lots of strikes and a strike action that's happening in certain parts a sector that inspires people across the supply chain in those sectors and that hugh yen example i gave you not only inspired workers there but inspired workers you know hugh young facility to make the same demands in vietnam and and there was a large a strike of a private sector employer in vietnamese history and they want all their demands by the state it inspires people in all different parts of the world that's that that's what that's what capital for years a lot of times with strikes and with labor actions and industrial actions it's not just the benefits that those workers make at that at the point of at that point of production it's a wage in which winning their inspires and spreads in other places you talk about of the great successes and fruit of the loom one of the providers he had no honduras of course. that could decide yes that despite all these workers excess is

a return to obama era. manipulation in honduras and alone the next president of the united states. trying to intervene kind of on behalf of capital can that neutralize worker or resistance to poor wages all of what happened in honduras pre-date to a large extent what obama did you know in. the loom which isn't meant undergarment and undergarments produced or the big 3 they are entire supply chain is basically a large portion of supply chains base and under arrest of the largest private sector employer in honduras and workers you know based on an international campaign organized those workplaces and organize the entire sector and they make you know 1718 percent more than the other workers in that region and also you know they're they get lunch you get transportation paid it's fundamentally different there than really anywhere else now in the region but it is a matter of for that company. a company at all it was based on the struggles of

workers at that at that at the company and the complete company capitulated to the demands of workers but it's primarily because of the changing composition of capital and workers' workers' demands and the the fact that you know you have an obama who is very much much more sympathetic to trade deals over a trump who is at least overtly at least a spouse and more critical critical perspectives on trade deals i don't actually think that in terms of the sweatshop conditions of workers fighting it will make a difference we just have to look at history you see clinton wrote you know nafta cast you saw the trade deals around driven by obama the real difference is the changing composition of capital the material conditions and the subjective agency of the working class to self organize and meet demand at the point of reduction the gradual come up thank you and that's it for the show when we buy them saturday which you haven't. school busing president biden bucks 65 years to the day of the

montgomery bus boycott sparked by the arrest of rosa parks refusing to give up bus seat to a white man in alabama black women in the usa would not get the vote 10 years later in 1965 until then catch up on all our interviews are not human follow the underground on twitter facebook instagram. show it's seemed wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me that needs to get to shape out these days to come to advocate and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

financialization has its limits the accounting tricks of stock buybacks in money printing have their lives and in saudi arabia we see a brilliant example of what happens when a country decides to go into financialization instead of let's say diversifying into actual productive economic activity. always be polite never engage with the negative a good or confrontational. don't get into any conversation or start answering questions just. to survive and. definitely don't want to. jump ship one. you're more likely to walk free if you're rich. or if you're poor. you've got 2 eyes

2 ears and one now. so you should be seen here and a whole lot more in your sand if you don't take that advice easy going to dig yourself. russia's president vladimir putin gives an order for nationwide vaccination against the 19 with the sputnik v. job that's going to start next week. francois pulls with a crisis of public trust in the police force and brutality cases as the ruling party is forced to withdraw or a bill criminalizing the filming of office says. i knew your opinion that these restrictions with the upcoming christmas celebrations there are concerns this could spark a not the wave of in 1000 faction. 27

live from the russian.