action returns here we're going underground of the narratives, the so called mainstream media won't give you coming up on the show. on the eve of the anniversary of the dismantling of berlin's iconic checkpoint, charlie, why does joe biden spend more than the next 10 highest spending countries on war went around 40000000 need food aid? to each in the usa, we analyzed the new 2021, global peace and ex report. and what can historic atrocities teach us about war and peace. today, we speak to the bbc's form and idea corresponding about the phillips to investigate them in bronze is artifacts looted by the british of a 100 years ago. they sit at the center of struggles against imperialism, colonialism, and racial violence. all of them are coming up in today's going underground, but 1st, the annual global piece index is published. it's finding to 2021. showing mobile peace has deteriorated for the 19 here in a row and military spending is ramping up. joining me now for analysis of the report from sidney is the founder of the global piece index. steve kelly, thanks so much for coming on. you say the report covers 99.7 percent of the entire

world we've. we've covered increasing violence on this program, palestine, yemen, iraq, across latin america and africa. global bees index peaceful is just fell point 07 percent doesn't sound like a lot. now actually it's not, it's the 2nd lowest drop, the 15 years within doing it. but what was found is, what's interesting is 87 countries improved in 73 countries. deteriorated what is highlights, but it's much easier to fall in pace than it is to improve and improving and paste as a much more gradual process. but of course, time and time again in the report cove, it is mentioned as a factor. yes. now this, this is correct and in some ways it had a positive effect on pace in the early days because for locked downs came in. so fall and crime decrease, we saw a homicides decreased civil wrist like demonstrations in such the christ,

but that was short lived. the 2 biggest picks from cobra romney level of civil on risk, particularly express violent demonstrations and political instability. and so those increases in fall and demonstration are up 10 percent compared to the prior year. but it does cover a trend now which has been going on 3 decades where you had a 151 percent increase in fall and demonstration. although that's, that's not a cause uniform. frances, more peaceful perhaps because the yellow vespers protests were 4 and a half 1000 people in france were wounded. obviously, the best protest as we didn't see. and of course, 11 people died reportedly that there wasn't so much of that. yes. now look at the pairing from country to country if we're looking, but it's the ball and demonstrations of global trend. there were 5000 pilot incidents is related to co, but actually india had the highest number,

but the next highest area was really concentrated around europe. and sort of the us as well. a lot of the protests against loc dance, but we look in fall and demonstrations the globally lots of different grace. and so for looking down in the u. s. for example, black life matter, smith at high number. there we go to india. what you find there is, against the agricultural way was which are coming into the indian firm as bell roost. obviously, you've got the unsettled political situation there. if you went down to way mind if you move down to less than america in many countries, there are lots of the protests against the various economic conditions in those countries. i mean, you mentioned, likewise the purchase. it must be nothing compared to the gun violence in the united states. what 40000 people a year killed in the united states from gun violence. it would dwarf anything in

violent protests, i presume. oh yes, no, definitely. i think there are a number to the indexes can structure the 23 different indicators. homicide is one of them. the homicide rates, the u. s. from memory or to poor 200000. that's high compared to the other west democracies bed did see low compared to the really highly violent countries in the world. so if you went down to latin america, for example, if you find the most fall and countries in the world, el salvador could be ragged towards the thought of the, probably the most startling fact. there's, if you look at mexico, the 5 cities in the world, the highest homicide rights all reside in mexico, mexico, it so has overall, did not cost on the side, right? a context really taken into account, arguably as regards the immigration from the size of the rio granted to north

america. yeah, because on your, on your index, you've got 5 worst security countries impacted by nato afghan as donvan israeli evans out to iraq. well, it was a violent crime. the united states is just below f canister. and worse than su, done, and it was all those 5 have us troops or u. s. foreign policy involvement in the us ranks 22 on the global pace index. and so that's a for the 2 places. the fall in the us was really related back to a issues related to increases in fall and demonstrations in the political instability. soci. i'd get the last election that hand now philosophically definitions of what it is to be at peace, obviously change. and during corona virus, some people have been accusing richard countries of vaccine apartheid. have you taken into account the how the way the global south, the accuses rich countries of the vaccine war in britain?

apparently, a lot of political argue it's about why britain is not donating more vaccines to the global self for the global pace index. we use the definition of pace, which is called the absence of violence or peer violence. and so to construct an index, you need to be able to get data which you can then take across the various countries of the world. so we got a $163.00 countries, we measure their up, so it's not an absence of premise. joy. death is $32.00 minds that works on one is internal safety and security. so that's obviously discrete homicide. and the ball and crime, it's such a battlefield, dis, come into a death through internal conflict. you dine demonstrations and title comes into it as well. so the range of different indicators clean. if you come back to weigh militarization just measures the levels of militarization and position of the us. perhaps the us at the highest rate has double the capital gun ownership compared to

2nd place in the world of yemen. you don't take into account excess deaths through economic policies. oxford university of daddy darling told us one on this show, the number of excess deaths because of us 30 after the bank may lead to 28, maybe around 830000. that's an order of magnitude, similar to the number who did so far from go with in britain, is certainly look at, look like poverty and went down to africa. for example, the number of people who die down there. it's a exceptionally high, but we haven't got the data to really be a way to calculate those kind of things into the index to finance ministers. escape scott free after reading this report when they go to trial policies and reduce government spending. the largest deterioration. your report is between 29 and 2900 . is libya? i mean, do you think the nature of country leaders will read this report and realize the

nato intervention under president obama has been a disaster. feel? look, i think they middle age to spend. certainly trouble ok. now coming round to be. so if we looking at the middle east, elastic i did speak very, very trouble. but what we find is the for the 5 year lease plates will countries in the world actually improved. so we've recently looks like it's been a pe still struck and libya so hopefully that only proven that'll improve at a time as well. nothing. no one would really like the situation which has occurred and will be around the last few years. and why does is there be no improvement in syria given that has defeated isis and very large portions of syria? it seems to have no change in terms of peace. you know, it had not changed ranks but has had an improvement placed on us. the issue is way

napkin, understands now the least place will be come back 3 years ago. you would have found that syria was the least place where did its place has improved in the last 12 months. and may have mentioned that keep going. one of the things you find with an index like this, when you get down to the render scribbles fall, it's really stretches that say there's big gaps at the bottom of intakes between different countries. and so i mentioned earlier on takes time for countries to improve proof, minutes in place of much more gradual deterioration in television media terms. the lack of peace was most noticeable, arguably because of the 11 day war in palestine. you say palestine is more peaceful than russia. how? how do you arrive it that would? well, you get there simply because when we're looking at race, pilots in palestine, the fill out saw the measurements for the sheer cuts, the 31st of march,

the measurements we do. so imagine next year you can find that by palestine and israel began to fall on the index. but obviously the excess deaths because of the siege of gaza. you can't factor those in. then we only work with data sets, we can get which we can cover globally. and when we're looking at people who die through lack of now nutrition, particularly in sub saharan africa, we haven't got the ability to be the measure it accurately. now, i don't know whether you think there might be a direct correlation here. you mentioned military spending. so the biggest weapons spend is u. s. u k, fans, germany. and now it's korea. yeah. and so they're big weapons vendors. and of course, those countries are the ones that weapons are in the countries or deployed and used in the countries which are make the countries with the, with the least amount of piece is you me an exact balance there?

well, certainly the supply of the industry is the good the list which gets out in the country between conflict, obviously the place at bay. and there are certainly many proxy wars which i get right in different parts of the world. but certainly one of the driving factors the last 5 years, it was know, in the last 7 years, it's been the rise of bias and why it moved through syria through what you get i rock and day. so certainly that you do need weapons to part to the toxic right. change like that. if we're looking over into this whole reach mom and we can see arise that elements of isis there. so again, i think they certainly having a better regulations around a weapon. so i think so really, really important. that's really but that's the responsibility of thing. you went

out to be out of it or right, but i mean, but the scan and the sub, so our region and so on is far less than i don't know the, the opioid crisis is what half a 1000000 dead between 992019 the venezuelan government says 40000 dead because of sanctions by countries like britain in the united states. do you think you can factor in in the next report? venezuela? now claiming that the kovacs broberg program is being weaponized to prevent life saving vaccines for a country like venezuela. like this stage we can see is including a lack of faxing. so in a pallet, you know, the availability back saying it's being part of the global pace index, again comes back to the data and i keep saying the data which you can get to do the index is limited. the limited availabilities and i great 100 percent with you, the death 3 way health issues and a bad and sort of particularly when this lack of food. but the lack of food,

china is very, very complicated. matter and conflict can fall into it in different ways. but there are a whole range of other things which can just come down to simply incompetence within the gum c career. thank you. great, thank you. joy bang on after the break, after germany agrees to return their benign bronzes looted for more jury by british troops. we look at what the british refusal to do the same says about its approach to racial justice, imperialism, and was in the name of capital. all of them all coming up and part of going underground. the. the news welcome to maximize your financial survival guide. looking forward to your benjamin

this is what happened is the benches in britain tell us it's apple. watch kaiser report. always be polite, never engage with an aggravated or confrontational office. don't get into any conversation to start answering questions. just ask for an attorney to survive and interrogation. you've gotta be ready. you're definitely don't want to be going to throw in the jump suit, one cups. you're more likely to walk free. if you're rich and guilty, you are. if you're poor and you've got 2 eyes and 2 ears and one mouth. so you should be seeing and hearing a whole lot more than you're saying. if you don't take that advice, usually going to dig yourself a whole welcome

back. and when we heard about the decade deteriorating piece in the world with can anything really change of nations responsible for centuries of bloodshed refuse to reckon with their crimes? is one of the questions of the center of a debate around the beneath bronze is artifacts looted by the british from what is now. and jerry are in the wake of a brutal invasion. so while germany has agreed to return its bronze is, what does it say about the you can the u. s. that they have so far shown, no signs of really doing the same. joining me from london, his bond to be phillips, former bbc nigeria correspondent. and the author of lute, britain and the benign bronzes. thanks so much fun to me for coming on. obviously, statues of racists and slave trade is coming down across britain. tell me how the money in bronze is links. you can colonialism militarism. the economics let alone the global fight for justice against relates. i think the ben in bronze

is, had become emblematic around the high in the charged argument over colonial due to doc, which is being played out in britain, in europe and in the united states. and there are probably, i would argue to reasons for this. the 1st is that they are really spectacular works and there are so many of them thousands of them. and they are very prominent in the great museums of europe and the united states that in the met there in the british museum there in berlin, there in the me, a k, bradley in paris and so on. and i think the other reason is the way in which they were taken in $1897.00, which is right towards the end of the period that we call the scramble for africa. the initial territorial grabbed of africa is just not that long ago. and it is perhaps, as a consequence of that very well documented from the british side,

the ref latches, there are journals, there are photographs. and so the story, at least from the british point of view, is very intact it staring us in the face. if you care to look for it, i want to get to the bloodshed in a 2nd. but given that you are a long standing, a journalist you covered cover in the book about i think the sort of oriental is hedge, a monic power that went on in 18. 97 about the journalist reactions to the exhibition in the 897. i mean, they were all baffled. we even those that seem to be anti colonial are going well this copy, black african. that's right. the been in bronze is go on display in september of 897. they, they've been looted in february of 1897 from benny and that 1st. busy great exhibition takes place in the british museum in september and it causes a sensation. you're right. the words which the join us use are baffled. remarkable,

amazed because what they are feeling challenges at that conceptions that prejudices and not just the justice class because sections but the prejudices of, of late victorian england, of course, because they are seeing wax of extraordinary beauty. and they are likened to ancient greece. they likened to the finest works of the italian nations, and yet of course, africa is meant to be a place of barbarism and a place of savagery. and indeed, bending in particular has been portrayed as a very right bark for a barbaric place during the british military invasion, some 6 or 7 months earlier. the other thing, of course, is that africa is meant to be a place without history. and yet here, all these bad and bones, blacks, you can see fabulously details or trails of early portuguese explorers soldiers, sailors in alma, from the 15th century,

which means that they are themselves almost hundreds of years. and of course, points to what is that i guess or contract for the british $997.00, which is the bending kingdom, has enjoyed a peaceful relationship with successive waves of european explorers and traders, including british traders, portuguese dutch, french for some 400 years. and here john, this can see that the time saturday was june, the teen celebrating a form of freedom in texas. that was granted how important is the link between these bronzes and the genocidal slave trade? it's a complex connection between, between the slave trade and the band in bronzes. the, the bending kingdom remains a powerful kingdom throughout the period of the trans atlantic slave trade. and to some extent, it is on the periphery of the slave trade. it's true that at its height bending

does supply thousands of slaves for the dutch, for the british, for the portuguese. but it doesn't get some been, to the extent that other kingdoms do say on, on what was called the gold coast and the slave coast. and so on, often, in fact, the commodity that is most prized in bending is ivory. and that is something which the dutch in particular take out a penny in huge quantities later. of course, in the mid 900 century onwards, the british having been enthusiastic opponents of the slave trade have become zealous in trying to stamp it out. and this is used as one of the arguments for food for ending that means independence and for the invasion, which is from the british point of view, a desire to end the slave trade and to end what they're calling the barbaric practice of human sacrifice. i'll get to humans back to humans in a 2nd,

but you are and the elephant protection initiative. after all, you just mentioned the ivory. what is the scale of killing of elephant? what, what was the scale of this commodities trading? the scale is astonishing. the situation in the area of the elephants today, it is probably the might be about $400.00, maybe 30 in a small forest left near bending. but when you see what successive european powers took out of at benny for hundreds and hundreds of years, a single dot ship that was sailing down the bending river to amsterdam in the 18th century, had more ivory on it, probably much more ivory than there are elephants in nigeria today, and this would have been a journey replicated thousands of times. the great west african herds were destroyed primarily by european demand over hundreds of years between the 15th and

1900 century. we're going to make it clear that when we talk about beneath, we're not talking about the country of been in this is in jerry or if anyone's watching and confused used to go to an atlas. why do you think it is? then when you went to school, certainly when i went to school, none of this story was there about i mean, not even really the transit, i think, slave trade, let alone the great civilizations of africa. i feel an important part of why our understanding has changed on the, on issues of, of colonial art. but i guess on the slave trade as well is, is the composition of all societies. and if you look at the kinds of crowds that are milling the streets around, bloomsbury around the british museum in the center of london, they are very, very different to the sorts of crowds that would be walking through london in the 1940s or fifties. let alone the 1890s. and so institutions

like the british museum you will have to, this is where i was actually i was so he much more recently. i mean, that's good to get on to when i did i, we've kind of shocked me that we've had liberal interventionism libya of chemist on syria. and you talk about one of the most famous oriental is seen as an anti colonial person. richard burton and others who ironically prepares the way for thee should i call it savage, british empire, a destruction of society in beneath knowing nigeria, richard burton had an extraordinary career. and one of his last name rhodes is that he's, he's a console on the, on the island of fernando po, which is, which is today, equitorial gimme. and so he has a responsibility for that knowledge of delta coast. just at the time when british

control is starting and you're right, he makes a trip to bending at that time some 30 years before the invasion by the british. and he helps implant an image of penny in which is dug up very successfully some 35 years later by the british, which is the bending. it is a place of sovereignty. it is a, it is a degenerate civilization. is it a place that has decayed that may have been great in the past? and i think that that lays the foundations for the justification of what happens later. absolutely. the big story, i mean we have jeffrey robinson qsc about his book of the organ. marbles is, of course, whether the british museum should return them. the british museum says it has an excellent long term working relationship with the jury and colleagues and so on. why do you think britain is refusing to return some of the particular bidding

bronze is located in the collection in bloomsbury the fussing option as, as you know, different institutions in britain that have different rules. are the rob, small, university museums, local authority, museums, and so on. which is saying, actually they're quite open to the idea of returning that. been in bronze is the british news in like any big institution, it is full of people who don't necessarily agree with each other. and perhaps if i went into this project, thinking of the british museum as a, you know, a large, an arrow going monolithic establishment that never changed. i think i've come away with a slightly more nuanced image of, of an institution that doesn't, that, that is divided that particularly right now at the time of the pandemic fields on the back foot, financially reluctant to take on the british government. and of course,

remember the political context, the british museum, is constrained by something called an act of 1963, which makes it impossible for it to hand over to d, accession for ever. objects needs collections without a change in the law. now, of course, laws can change them and to change along with morality and ethics and laws have changed over national law collections over not see looted are they changed over human body parts in the to the british museum can get, can disposal or hand over those items and so, you know, in theory they could be putting pressure on the government to change the museum act of 963. but if you look at this conservative government, we've got in the u. k. at the moment with the secure majority in parliament, i don't think that changing the museum act so that national collections can be de accessions and returned to countries like nigeria is part of its cultural agenda

very quickly. the range of the book is so big, so, so new on 7, you talk about the british drug dealing in china and where mary ross and one is suppose in the royal navy g. do you think that beneath massacre which might have come up in history books in the 900 eighty's when the british soldiers were killed? is kind of that generations saddam's incubator in saddam hussein's w m. d. the. these kinds of captures of material and regime change and so needs a massacre to catalyze it. to be honest, this is what is so fascinating. empathic is you can read it still a 125 years later in lots of different ways. vice counsel james phillips, a man to, i'm not related by the way, is killed on route to been in city with 6 of the british officials and traders, and indeed hundreds of or maybe hundreds we did. we don't know. nobody counted them

. that's the tragedy about thousands of, of african porters and carriers who are within and this, if you like, provides the pretext for the british to invade, been in city. but it's also clear that the all people in london in white or including the prime minister, who think the idea of invading been in city, is going to be expensive. you said lots of white soldiers to the, to the white man's grave as west africa still is. they still don't know how the area is caused, and white children is going to die of fever. it's going to cost a lot of money. so people are reluctant in to this, this event happens, this tragedy from the british point of view. and of course it has to be seen in the context of great jealousy and rivalry between the european powers. the german newspapers gloat over the british defeat at banding. and so i think the as to be seen in that context, there is a scramble for west africa and different imperial powers of staking that claim.

bungie phillips, thank you. plaza for the show will be back on wednesday when the united nation discusses jo, buttons continue, economic commercial, financial embargo against cuba during the global corona virus pandemic. and then keep in touch with social media. tell us if using britain should return the money and brawn just to niger ah, rather driven by remove shaped by those with the in me thing. we dare to ask me.

ah ah ah, and i had lies this monday, the dozens of criminal cases opened and under the web pages removed as russia battle de booming fate vaccine certificate market. i'm found down the risks of trying to obtain one for himself. so they put all the information that i gave them, the faith name, date of birth. let's face it. i was scammed and i've lost my money. sexual abuse claims surrounding the you funded migrant detention camp in libya. gone teenager from somalia going on rec code about what allegedly happened to her and 4 of the girls. so the american public's left divided by 2.