in repertoire, um torture, who continues to allege the world's most famous publisher is being tortured by u. k. authorities and his cop 26 gets underway in glasgow. why did you k p. m lawrence johnson's x, goldman sachs, chancellor, just slash taxes on fossil fuels and champagne in a country where one in 4 children live in poverty. all the same, all coming up in today's going underground. but 1st, let's go straight to the case of the world's most famous publisher. joining me now from switzerland at this pivotal moment is the un repertoire and torture niels meltzer, whose evidence has been used in julian sanchez defense. thank you so much, niels for coming back on you have been told by british politicians, i understand not to interfere with our court. the system in this specific case are we now know that the joe biden administration's a crown prosecution lawyer here, proxy lawyer here had james lewis, qsi says julian assange, his health is fine. he can be expedited to face a possible 175 years in, in the united states in jail. as you are traveling back on the show, i'm, you know,

obviously you would expect to say that right. ember, appealing be a 1st instance decision i can talk. you know, based on extensive a medical evidence that by the way, corresponds exactly to the findings. stats are, you know, we can to, with my own medical, cheaper visitor julian. asunder bel martian month of may 2019. she's in no position to be extra either to a prison system or, you know, as the one in the us. and, you know, i just like to take a step back here. the actual discussion is that he should not even be in prison. why? why is he being, you know, and neither in the 1st place, given that he's not committed any crime was, you know, this is what is better. uh, better as you know, he's a flight risk because he sought to political asylum and gained it in london. and all his journalism, as it were, does not protect him from the u. s. espionage act. that's what judgment as a breakthrough said, that's why it's only is help. that's

a consideration. i'm really glad you mentioned that because that's the scandal in the states. if you look at that 1st instance judgement, that was, that's not a victory for the julian sanji. you know, campbell for during the suns himself or for press freedom, one for that matter. it is a truck because in a legal proceeding, french tradition always goes through 2 or 3 instance by not extra riding him in the 1st madison court level. what that did legally speaking, is that he puts the us in the position to appeal. otherwise, have you been extradited than julia sans would have appealed and he would have brought all those questions of press freedom of political offence, political motivations in that prosecution. the attentive fascination and kidnapping, all those things, he would have brought to the high court level, very f judges, which much stronger independence and expertise. but it was quite smart by the u. s . the u. k. 2 to have it arranged the other one. so they don't extradite him. in

the 1st instance, they basically confirmed a whole narrative attack that concessions of everything and set the precedent criminalizing basic the journalist for that matter, what they will only bring those questions that they want to have to consider. but just to name sandra, state of health and their prison conditions, and now my new their prison conditions is absolutely in their control. they can make diplomatic guarantees at any stage of to any extent to neutralize those concerns. they can offer medical services, they can offer no guarantees when they go to the conditions of retention, which makes it very difficult for the high court. now to refuse extradition. yes. james's cuz he seemed to be saying, we have a psychiatric asylum. we can throw julian sans into if he has mental problems once, extradited in, given what you just said. is it sensible for wiki leaks, lawyer edwards, gerald, you see to me way excepting the criminalization of journalism and appealing to

the judges. all right, and burnett that look nice, shouldn't be extradited because of that early a judgement. and this is what it is you, you know, the global south, you know, cases of torture all around the world. isn't it more normal for a defense barrister to be claiming this court isn't even as something that you me should we respected you already criminalize journalism, your judicial system? we shouldn't accept anything from this court. well, the question is that the moral stance? but the question is, how much is 2nd to help julian, the sounds of the legal proceedings, and yes, it is a scandal that you know, the espionage acting. the u. s. in itself is campbell. the official secrets act in the u. k. in itself is a scandal because both of them criminalized the disclosure of secret information, irrespective of public interest. the high court cast changed and they can certainly they can certainly, you know, be reasonable and apply the law to the the medical states that you know junior

passengers and they know exactly what the prison conditions are like in the us. as far as i know, the defense team has also crossed the peel. it's just at the cross appeal, which then brings all those other question before, but that obviously will only be dealt with if the u. s. is successful in it's. so before we get to that stage, just to be clear as things stand right now in london, if you were about to suddenly, i dunno. and show me a tv set of reuters journalists being gun down by helicopter gunship. both of us could be tortured. we could be subject to a u. s. secretary of state claiming that we were a non state or sal actors worthy of assassination on the streets of london. that, that precedent is or already been said and could be extradited. that that's all fine. is just the suicide risk. well, you know, think about the murder of george floyd,

which was recorded on video and only because of that video check that that clip. we had the evidence that george floyd was actually murdered and there was no, you know, that was not a medical crisis. it was not a case of self defense or something. it was just, no, no, just the cache. and, but in back a, a public protests against santa police police brutality which, you know, the authority is not being able to avoid prosecuting those officials. unfortunately, in the case of collateral murder, there are simply has been a completely different narrative of the u. s. going out parents and you know, fighting terrorism and so on, that it's very, very difficult for an average citizen who doesn't have privileged access to, you know, what actually happens behind the curtains of policy making. they actually believe that narrative, very difficult for lane lay people to actually understand that full picture, i believe what the mainstream press is this talent, you know,

when you started your special united nations investigation into the case of julian assange, you were, you weren't alone there. lots of supporters of judy and such, but there weren't so many groups to day. every major human rights and free speech organization in the world. a backs your allegations arguably have. why then do you think it's not a big a mainstream media story? it is here in r t. i cannot speak for him. i think it's a scandal that it isn't. because i mean, this is the absolutely key case on press freedom on freedom of expression, but far beyond on human rights and human dignity on the integrity of our rule of law. institutions of our judiciary, independence of outer, destroys the transparency. right? to know that people have a right to know what their governments are doing with the tax money and the power

that we, the people delegates to our government. this is about our rights. you know, it's about your ability to oversee, to control you know, the integrity of, of, of your government. because if that becomes a crime, we're doing an essentially done, you know, nothing that he has been accused except receiving and publishing evidence for less. you have been proven, you know, this whole section allegations have been dropped by sweden, not because it's, you know, expired or something like this, but because they didn't have enough evidence. even charge of any offense whatsoever . after 9 years, this was instrumental iced to demonize. you know, this, the thing about human having blood is, i mean, it's a ridiculous claim because we know that the u. s. government for, you know, what an a decade has not been able to advance

a single case individual who may have been put in danger because of those publications. even know now that during the central, not even the 1st person who published those under directed files. but he made them accessible on wiki leaks as well, after they have been made accessible by a passer being published by 2 guardian journalists and stayed in the weekly journal fi talking in germany. and she did so only after he had taken contact with the white house and tried to do damage control because of the, the leaks by those other actors. so what we know is that the evidence that she has that's not about people being threatened, that people being portrait, people being great. people being murdered, you know, under front of her running camera. and these people have never been trusted. have never been how to account and so this is really what this is about. it's about protecting to impunity. criminals of corrupt politicians. this is what this is

about. so we want to intimidate the person who has come up with a general idea how to use the internet to allow whistleblowers to remain anonymous while transmitting, you know, millions of files that prove a government misconduct. obviously if that proliferates and the half of the only one we can leaks that we have $15000.00 which leaks around the world. then you know, the kind of security establishment, but they're secrecy. they can pack up and leave with their business model. they really have to start then applying democratic principles being subject to democratic oversights, respect to rule of law, and that's just not today's reality. his finely and i don't know whether that means the journalist themselves, their minds are arbitrarily detained. but i don't know whether you caught glimpses of julian assange at the trial this week. he doesn't look well. his partner selim,

or as his father john shipped and they, they will look worried. what will it mean for whistleblowers and publishers in the global south on torture? nobody detention what would it mean for, for journalism v if he, if he does, it's probably die. now when we start asking this question, if he dies in london under the jurisdiction of british authorities here. well, if you should dying prison, he has effectively been tortured to death. that's the reality of it. i mean, i am not exaggerate, it has been working in areas of war. i have long history of visiting prisoners and i've been doing this and, and i have to specialize forensic doctors with me in a psychiatrist evaluating him for hours and no be all independently from each other kendra's conclusions. at that time his life was in danger, and he sure enough, a few days after we left the prison he entered the downward spiral. during the sound is not mentally ill. yes, he has a slight form of autism,

as you know many people do, but he is very resilient, intelligent man. and so he does not belong in a mental institution. right? so if he has a mental issue now it's because of abuse that he has suffer and you cannot you cannot get someone to recover from torture by continuing, continuing to torture. and that's exactly what they do. they isolate tend to keep in back limbo. busy and just put his record straight for everybody doing this and not serving a sentence. he's not even accused of a any anything that will be criminal. he is being held in extradition detention to, as you said, to prevent his escape in case he said, yes, dr. young, but he does not need to be in belmar prison for that. even if you, even if we assume for the purpose of the argument that yes back extradition

proceeding as a did image, we have to somehow secure his presence. it can be in house arrest. that's what it is, it was the pin or say he was protected by the u. k. government to put them in a bill on my does. hatcher visited him and brought him misty. and as soon as he, you know, a doctor attested that she had some problems to concentrate and had slight forms of amnesia. he was fumbled out. maybe not even facing a dutch do. his son who has a great, you know, medical harm has been close to him in the last decade to that, to a constant. you know, i solution defamation and abuse, and up i come from anxiety that he suffers and he's being isolated absolutely unnecessarily and therefore unlawful. so she is continuously also arbitrarily detained. it would be a tragedy if she lost his life in those circumstances. he went special opportunity . thank you. thank you very much. after the break,

the queen putin and she may not be going, but why did the budget of the boards, johnson government, just sabotage. net 0 targets ahead of the weekends comp 26 conference. well the to more can we have about to have going underground ah ah ah, ah ah, ah, ah, with ah

ah welcome back. eyebrows raised the head of tomorrow's cop 26 summers in glasgow. ambrose johnson's goldman sachs employee turned you k. chancellor richie sooner accused his budget to cut taxes on car driving little and a sledge taxes on champagne. joining me now from suffolk in england is an award winning advisor to governments around the world. the director of primal policy research in macroeconomics and peasant and thanks so much for coming back on big argument going underground headquarters. i have to say, because when you watch the television, they're saying, you know, not a bad budgets and a lot of slides of hand. some were saying, you know, one and 4 children are in poverty in this country, but i guess it's called 26. so i've got to start by asking you, why is they worth johnson, chancellor ritchie, swag, incentivizing airplane travel and car driving. i think that's one of the big

disappointment. if i miss, she said i key seems to think that the financial system and the pastry fits of heart from something called the ecosystem, the environment. and it doesn't, it's very much a part of it. so what the shows here, that the graph, the gravity of the climate breakdown of the crisis that we face of climate breakdown and biodiversity that gravity hasn't yet reached him. and that's extraordinarily worrying. but boy johnson had to sign off on this and his wife certainly is a keen environmentalist to be fetch the conservative government. they are going quite a lot further than we expected them to you and we have to ruin that that markets such it was one of the 1st to raise awareness of the climate crisis at the united nation many years ago. so it is possible for them to be aware of this, but yes, not to undertake the policy, a reforms that a needed to actually adapt asked to this threat. well,

he did say the minimum wage is going up. i mean, is that emblematic of the slides of hand this age boost ensures we're making work and keep us on track to meet our target, to end low pay by the end of this parliament without really figuring out what effect that'll have on say the lowest wages of the taxi national insurance. so some of the paper, some people on some of the poorest households will see their incomes rising. but then the total effect of the other reforms, the reforms to the benefit system means that their incomes will in fact fall. so it's, it's a really difficult thing to untangle and what he is trying to do, and what i think is interesting is that this conservative government is trying to cover up if you like, the mistakes that have been made over the last 11 years since dark george osborne's budget in 2010 and, and it cuts to the public sector that has been inflicted since then, and del,

enormous damage to the economy. then to get in to try and cover up the back that be getting to try and reverse that. and again, in ways that are unfortunate, still quite shallow. so for example, expenditure on education is going up, but it's intended to reach the same levels. it was in 201210 level of investment in 2010 by 2024. so and have are, is a, are trying to improve on those cut so that, that austerity it's, it's really minimal. yeah, but i mean, you know, he is cutting the bank levy surcharge by infect 660 percent. why do you think he's doing that? we're getting 2 thirds of those on the welfare universal credit, which he cut money from. no extra benefit from from the call. the tape or our international viewers will wonder, wouldn't earth we're talking about. but why?

i mean, is he trying to cut taxes on banks or that they remember him when they drive by british debt? what does that, this is a populist government with an atc majority and they want to maintain that majority in those constituencies where there are no for a lot of poor people and very few goldman sachs bankers. but at the same time, they of course are in hoc to the city of london and to their donors who are, you know, we're not from the red wall seats. so they've got him bounce this, these, these different challenges. and they finding that difficult. but for me, the really worrying thing action is that actually what they're doing is damaging the economy further. so from the macroeconomic perspective, you can do give, you know, tax breaks to the bankers, but by increasing taxes on average owners,

essentially by, by building up the level of taxation to 36 percent of g d, p. you are, in fact taking money out of the economy are taking spending money out of the economy and simultaneously wage is not rising relative to re inflation. so we see a real cut in incomes. this combination of falling and stagnating comes on the one hand and tax revenues being taken out of the economy on the other. while investment levels of investment remain low and all gain to remain low as long as the threat of interest rate sells. that means that the macroeconomy is not going to expand is not going to be increased economic activity over the next period. and that poorly because the poor people spend every money they are when the rich things keep it in the bank or by offshore property. arguably, you know, we talked on this program, sheffield, but also because of breck such of course, the ongoing impact of breakfast on the british economy is going to deepen the

damage or failure to exploit brakes that have your brakes. a tier of history, jeffrey elizabeth, is vito said, the city of london cost british economy $4.00 and a half trillion between 1995201570000 pounds, a personal tune of years of output. i mean, we've set it on this bro. instead of reducing taxes on the city of london, oh, would it be better for the economy for it to me, burned down i had to be honest the, you know, that the city of london is a major source of tax revenues for the government. and so, yeah, that showed it isn't the chevy university. so it was clear that if you add it all in all the hidden subsidies to the city of london, you add in all, obviously there we have the bailouts from january. they are a net loss to this economy. there is no point in them being that's true, but that's also true for the globally can action. it would work. yes. so, but,

i mean, i, i'm, as you know, i'm, i'm, i'm well known as the fact that i think the city of london is unhelpful to the stability of the british economy. but, you know, it's, as it is, and the government is determined to support it. and to defend it, as is indeed the governor of the bank of england and, and at the same time neglecting, if you like the real economy where things are made and grown and expanded. and that neglect is going to make it harder to keep land as an attractive venue for, for the global financial, for those active in global financial system. what do you think of how the mainstream television media cover budgets in this country? there's been a lot of criticism of the stimulus package in the united states and book barrel politics. so as they have a struggle over here, i mean, people going, this is a sanded labor torrie type of budget, which, you know, he's showing himself to be

a keynesian, and so on is it is not far too. right? this is a left wing budget. well, i mean on the one hand that is being fed, and it's also the case that tory back bench is a very unhappy with the level of tax. right. and this is a tax and spend gum. and by the way, i, i resent the implication that it's keynesian kits, kansas is not a tax id, ben. but the fact of the matter is that this is a government that is behaving very differently from previous conservative governments. and i think the media don't fully understand how to handle it, but it's definitely, you know, there's definitely a populist government that is trying to appeal to much broadest way of the electric then with taxes and champagne and beer. i mean, because it was clear that when the minister was asked on television about whether this will raise the standard of living, they didn't want to be drawn on it. and one resolution foundation,

things said that everyone is going to be worse off in the next few years. yeah, that's true. i mean, that there's a lot of contradictions analyst. there are a lot of contradictions in what this government is trying to do. but i would argue that it is popular in the sense that it's trying to deal away. and this distance itself from the 2010 to an 2016 torrie government under georgia, osborne and distance itself from that kind of policies that were attach, right? we really difficult to separate yourself from the david cameron government, which is reduced expenditure to, i mean, the cuts were more than more than napoleonic wars. well, the point is that, i mean, i think it's ridiculous that they are pretending that there are different government. there are different political party, but i've seen political parties change their, their colors in the past, and this is what they're trying to do well with us before labor,

privatization time. again, i know you advised those governments under the you to advise mass privatization just to help our viewers here in britain because they'll see the officer budget responsibility. what is, what is that? because it's treated with such respect my journalist and getting you treated out as well. danny blanch flora, a friend of the show was on the monetary policy committee. said the officer, budget responsibility is repeatedly got to say group productivity growth, wrong time and time and time again. and yet journalists go, let's go straight here for more information on every once in the future for everyday life in this country. well, i think in, as i agree with you, the o b r is incredibly orthodox in the way it approaches these that the british economy and has made an awful lot of wrong predictions is danny blanche as shown. and i think it is beginning to lose credibility with media because it got so much wrong in the spring of this year when it predicted said so things were going to be far worse than they've turned out to be. so i think you're being

a bit unfair to the media because they do, they have noticed, i notice this and i think it's quite ha, under its new management for the o. b, r to uphold its reputation as, as a sound, a sounding board for the government. we've all known all along the u. r is actually just an extension of her majesty's treasury. there's never been there is a really detailed detail, 5 year forecast for the economy. the forecast company, the budget, a corporate via by good tax, the very standard statement we got for we, we are being very kind to journalists, i have to say just finally quickly on the aid and what we've covered on this program. our aid has been used to arguably a al qaeda link rebels in syria. it's used as a arm of the foreign office here and even the intelligence services they persuaded him to say, look, we will go back to point 7 percent aid so that the more aid can be used as

a foreign policy tool by government as the host of the of of cop trench 6 and it's climate conference. the government has to pressure other governors into coming up with a $100000000000.00 a year, which has been promised to poor countries to help tackle climate breakdown. and the fact they've cut their own or source their own grants to poor countries is as proved incredibly embarrassing and tories in the house of lords have objected to this story party has objected to this, so they beginning to pull back up. but you know, this again is just an example of the kind of chaotic and very difficult to understand politics of this, of this government. but it's cost of this package of, on the $1.00 hand, contracting the economy. on the other hand, you know, doing a you turn on age to low income countries and certainly just ignoring the

security threat to the british people of climate break. and the extraordinary thing is that in the opinion, polls is still maintaining public support. i'm hm. thank you. that's it for one of your favorite shows of the last season. we'll be back on wednesday, the 12th of january, but until then stay safe. and you can watch all our interviews by subscribing to our youtube channel. i'm falling us on all our social media. ah. join me every 1st on the alex, summon sure. i'll be speaking to guess of the world politics sport business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. mm ah it say it has to be rash

to be able to afford enzyme and find the luxury that for sure. despite having the most expensive health care system in the world, we have poor life expectancy. we have higher infant mortality. we have more deaths from treatable causes. so americans are suffering every day from it. it's as if these people don't count as how, how they can choose your customers and dump the sick tone also. right and satisfy their wall street investors. no parents have to see what i saw if you're denying payment for someone's care, your make life and death decisions and determine to get to live and who dies to me . that's best getting away with murder.

ah violet clashes between protesters and police resume and fabric stopped at the administration building in the country's largest city. now under attack, that after fury over spiraling fuel costs lead to the government resigned to present the manual mach wrong results of foul language. to take a swipe, it isn't saying that he wants to annoy them. his inflammatory remarks came in the heated debates in the national assembly on whether or not to bring in vaccine passage and challenges against former governor of new york. andrew cuomo have been dropped. he was accused of under counting care home death and sexual harassment relative to what kind of society or.