thomas, professor of philosophy and max, professor -- oxfam international. further discuson, go to our facebook page. you can join the conversation on twitter. for the whole team here, goodbye for now. ♪ [music playing] wes avilla: end goal once i saw that i can pay my own rent was get a restaurant. like, i didn't want a food truck. at that point, food trucks were dead. when i got ru

collective responsibility for infectious disease in london max lawson is head of inequality policy at oxfam international very well welcome to the program thanks for joining us here on inside story i'd like to begin with you samantha america as we read saying is about to receive control of a patient of basically the technology which is at the heart of several coronavirus vaccines can you explain that for us and what it might be. so i think we have already lost some opportunities to apply pressure on pharma companies to open license and we know that already but there there is a chance that the governments like the u.s. can now apply pressure to have more transfer of technology through their ownership on things like this. so this patent is i guess molecular engineering this is this is being described as the last best chance that we have for equitable access what do you think thomas pogge do you think this is the world's last best chance do you think that the world will take it will the us use this opportunity to pressure the drug makers. but i don't think it's the only chance that we have a k

but will make a huge difference when it comes to the humanitarian efforts that organizations like oxfam are involved in in places like yemen or the democratic republic of congo. the u.s. senate has passed a compromise by democrats and republicans on federal benefits for millions of unemployed americans politicians have approved additional weekly unemployment aid of $300.00 until the start of september they remain 2 of becomes one of many obstacles to president joe biden's net 2 trillion dollars covert 19 relief bill and gallica reports from miami. said it will come to order in the u.s. congress evenly split between democratic and republican politicians passing president biden so-called american rescue plan was never going to be easy the senate debates been delayed by hours long readings american voting session and compromises by democratic party to pass biden's 1st piece of major legislation republicans who support isn't needed to pass the bill so it's a wasteful parade. of leftwing projects $200000000.00 for the answer to the museum and library services what's that got to do a co nothi

joining us now is robbie silverman from oxfam america. gray tabby with us.cting to hear -- great to have you with us. president biden will say every eligible adult in america will able to receive the vaccine by may 1. what is the main thing that can be done to address vaccine inequality echo is a great point. we're in a situation where a lot of areas for optimism in wealthy countries. we are now administering vaccine doses at the rate of one per second. that is an amazing achievement. if you look at the rest of the world, there are more than 100 countries that have yet to administer a single dose. we are seeing this vast chasm of inequality between wealthy nations and the rest of the world. there a number of things we need to do to address this inequality. it comes down to, we need to share the technology behind the vaccine to open access for everyone. we are not leveraging the full capacity of the world's vaccine manufacturing facilities. we are really focused on slicing the vaccine pie more finely. we need to share the recipe so everyone can have enough. h

it would cost about $140 billion to vaccinate the world according to oxfam. that is the juxtaposition that we are looking at. the commenting that these billionaires have, the ones that are really extracting enormous windfalls, is their main street busiss commerce competition has been shut down. take an example like amazon. the main street bookstore and retailer is shuttered. they are consolidating -- these bigger billionaire owned companies are consolidating their ownership in certain sectors. the things we need but also a diversion. snapchat, gaming -- online gaming. all of those things have also -- there's a huge amount of wealth that has been extracted from these companies that own some of the online gaming firms. the united states billionaires only account for less than one third of this global wealth. there's a tremendous amount of new wealth in china, on kong -- hong kong. what they all have in common is they benefit from the adversity and the artificial conditions the pandemic has created in the marketplace. amy: i want to go back to jeff bezos. earlie

the cuts couldn't have come at a worse time dannie source come the rajah is the chief executive of oxfam for great britain he joins us now live from london these cuts have been described by some as a gut punch to the world's poor is that how you see it. absolutely in fact you know the united nations secretary general talks about the yemen cases being a death sentence for the people of yemen know one of the proudest things about britain's approach to international aid recent years is that it's become the 1st country in the world to legislate that point 7 percent of national income would be spent on international aid and that's been a crowd commitment of showing international solidarity with the world's poorest people but what we've seen in the last few months has been wrenching just as the world is shaken by this global pandemic as we're seen humanitarian need to rise across the world britain is counting. on eye on these aid budgets in the sort of countries you've listed and that's going to lead to loss of life to severe economic and humanitarian consequences point 7 percent does not soun

assistance to syria by 2 thirds and lebanon may lose nearly 90 percent danni's risk on the roger is oxfam chief executive for great britain he says the budget cuts if they happen will lead to loss of life. but there's no denying that this pandemic is wreaking havoc across the world including in countries like britain but you know what developed countries spend on aid is a tiny proportion compared to what they're spending propping up failing industries in terms of their own trillions of dollars spent on on supporting their own economy and you know what was great about the british promise on the point 7 percent of its income when i was it was a promise made at the best of times but it is you know as the archbishop of canterbury said here in the u.k. recently it's particularly galling that this promise is now broken in the worst of times and the no a few hundreds of millions of pounds will not save the british exchequer a huge amount will not make a tangible difference on the fiscal pressures on the u.k. government but will make a huge difference when it comes to the humanitarian effort that

them bring in our guest joining us from london is max lawson who is the head of inequality policy at oxfam international and with us from new delhi is russia. on an intellectual property lawyer and legal counsel for not co pharma and joining us from barcelona is jeffrey lazarus who's the head of the health systems research group at the barcelona institute for global health thanks for joining us welcome to inside story max let me start with you you say there is huge support to remove intellectual property or ip and this movement is gaining ground when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine tell us why you say that and what you're basing that on well i think when you see that number of countries now supporting example pricker in india the government yard 100 countries you're seeing people at the party print a very private group we're hearing brontë this. things that cracks are appearing in some of the richer countries governments nancy pelosi had of the democrats in the senate came out in favor of just last week so i think we are seeing momentum building and it's no surprise really because the

but will make a huge difference when it comes to the humanitarian efforts that organizations like oxfam are involved in in places like yemen or the democratic republic of congo. pakistan's prime minister imran khan is one of those of confidence in parliament after suffering a surprise setback in senate elections column's governing p.t.i. policy won the most seats but his finance minister lost to former prime minister opposition can the use of frozen golani khan called vote on saturday after the opposition had demanded his resignation. the us has condemned new veto powers proposed by china on the hong kong selection of election candidates saying it's a direct attack on the territories autonomy beijing revealed the legislation on friday at the opening of its largest political meeting of national people's congress the changes will effectively dismantle hong kong's opposition by giving a beijing appointed committee control over who can run for office the white house is warning of a powerful cyber espionage campaign that is targeting microsoft exchange email software the so-called half the m

oxfam put out a report that said if jeff bezos had given everyone of his employees a bonus of $105,000ould have been wealthier at the end of the pandemic than he was at the beginning. it is not just wages. it is working conditions. despite the wage that amazon pays, it has extraordinary turnover of more than 100% a year because people can't take those jobs at any cost at the way they're being abused within the workplace. amazon dehumanizes and mistreats its employees. it breaks them down and uses them up, and then just replaces them with other people. the working conditions are terrible. and that is what really needs to change. amy: i want to go to a very significant anniversary that i'm sure you been the labor leader here in new york have been observing for years, stuart. thursday marks the 110th anniversary of the triangle shirtwaist factory fire, the deadliest workplace accident in new york city's history and a seminal moment for american labor. on march 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, jewish and italian, died after a fire broke out at the factory. many

but will make a huge difference when it comes to the humanitarian efforts that organizations like oxfam are involved in in places like yemen or the democratic republic of congo. the u.s. has condemned new veto powers proposed by china and hong kong selection of election candidates saying it's a direct attack on the territories autonomy beijing revealed the legislation on friday at the opening of its largest political meeting the national people's congress changes would effectively dismantle hong kong's opposition by giving a beijing appointed committee control over who can run for office. here's some of what's still ahead. south africa wants to vaccinate most of its people by the end of the year but the plant is running into problems. and a small but significant step we'll tell you about things trademarks on the red planet. in sports a crucial victory for the 2 time olympic champion aiming to win and not the world cup title. the front edge version mall when it blast down the gulf brings dust and sand with it and there it is it found that slice and that's in the empty quarter and there i

the wealth gap, which by oxfam's account, is the widest of all developed economies in the world as well reform. and he was chief executive, there was this vision tomorrow. he wants to reclaim a lot of land off the west coast of the hong kong island and build no income housing and more land because of the high price of living in the city. he says perhaps he has signaled in the interview as well that land reform should now be one of the top priorities for this revamped legislative council and the government of carrie lam in, let's face it, her final year in her first term, at least as chief executive. now that the national security law has been promulgated onto hong kong, electoral reform is tackled. now perhaps the big challenge is land reform. one thing that they did announce yesterday, that the postponed legislative council elections that were supposed to be held last camber, delayed by a year because -- under the -- well, i guess the reasoning was the coronavirus outbreak. of course, the pro-democracy camp, which resigned en masse, said it was likely because of the electoral reform ch