Beijings role that t. V. Is a pal and has more from hong kongs. Chief executive had said that she had already sought or approached beijing to make a decision on these 4. After they were disbarred from Legislative Council elections earlier this year in september those elections were postponed, but the 4 remained sitting lawmakers. And so a decision needed to be made. Whether they were allowed to sit in hong kongs Legislative Council until the next set of full actions. Now the n. P. C. A standing committee, the highest position, big making body in china, has decided that they are not allowed and told some paragons government to completely buy cat past the legal system. When it comes to this parring, lawmakers from hong kong, the military operation in northern ethiopia is threatening to spill over the countrys borders, and there are fears it could lead to a humanitarian crisis. Several 1000 people have fled the region since Prime Minister ahmed ordered the offensive last week. U. S. President elect joe biden says Donald Trumps refusal to concede the election is an embarrassment. The Trump Administration is filing lawsuits to contest results in battleground states and is reportedly unwilling to help bidens transition team. In south africa, 7 People Associated with the governing a. N. C. Party are appearing in court on corruption charges. Theyre accused of pocketing millions of dollars which were meant to fund asbestos removal. From more than 400000 homes, Russian Peacekeeping troops have been deployed to the disputed region of magog following a deal to end 6 weeks of fighting between armenia and azerbaijan. People in azerbaijan celebrated while those in armenia. Call it a disaster. Mass protests have been taking place across peru after Martin Vickery rose was voted out as president. Has fought with Police Outside congress, where a new president manual merino was being sawn in. Those are the headlines coming up next. The story. If we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. So no matter the news and Current Affairs that matter to aljazeera i have a real k. Enjoying the stream today prison pandemic. People are trapped inside u. S. Prisons infected with corona virus, but should they be . We want to hear your thoughts on this one, tweet us at a. J. Strain or leave a comment in our live chat to join the conversation. Prisons are supposed to be some of the most secure places on the planet, but despite the high Security Prisons across the u. S. Havent been able to keep the coronavirus that bad. One notorious covert 1000 hot spot is californias san quentin prison, the outbreak that is the subject of a new film by al, desirous for its have a look. One of americas worst coronavirus called bricks from a prison in california, after infected inmates were transferred from one facility to another, no ventilation, windows or welded to everyone is breathing the same air all of the time every day for a week straight then result is called man down, man, down, man, down, man, down all day, all my problems asks who is responsible for making prison some quentin operate on a joining us from california to discuss the issues of covert infection in u. S. Prisons is a cofounder and Co Executive Director with the restore Justice James king, hes a state campaigner with the center for human rights and danielle harriss. Shes a managing attorney with the San Francisco public defenders office. However, place really good to see james as you watch that for you took part in that documentary. It was just a short period of time between when you were incarcerated and when you were released i will break how. But when you put all of that together, what he said, and maybe for me, its been an incredibly nerve wracking, just like think about the fact there are quite, id made it out maybe 90 days prior to the largest clustered outbreak in the, in the country. And it was in many ways just good fortune. To marilyn down on me, it could have been anyone. It should have been several people. So just like knowing that there was nothing this state about needed, they created their timeline just the way things lined up. That didnt happen to. Ready prevent me from going through it while thousands of others did have, has been really hard to reconcile. Frankly, theres a moment in the documentary where an os, his walking at san quentin anonymously explains what happened. I just want to play back because it will stress frightening. Harry, how to listen. Everybody around her. There are critics who are, were very, very sick during her little boy. Do we believe that the early for her was good. You could call her earlier urging her to put her own good cooper there. And then i was about 7 months ago with the string that had to take a fight because a cousin would tell about the fact that was about the risk of outbreaks and prison. And he was talking about cover outbreaks in prison. This was a expect to hold people about in the rubble advocates. What went wrong . I mean, one thing that went wrong is that they didnt listen to the advocates and the experts and texas disease experts, the doctors, the people who are formally incarcerated lawyers, they the people who are in charge who makes these decisions, did not listen to the experts and that is exactly what we are, what went wrong. And in the midst of all of this, we had a huge botch transfer of incarcerated people from one of the deadliest prisons in Southern California to san quentin. That created this outbreak. This one, the largest tragedies in, in the prison system that im aware of been recent history. And that is actually a problem that were seeing nationally is people in charge in these positions of leadership are not listening to the experts. It was a facepalm moment. What happened a sequential present was up until then, the cases had been as far as well, no. 0 cases than what happened, trying to pick up the stock. And i know youve got friends who are still in san quentin. Absolutely. And one of the things that i think about is we dont know that there were no cases within san quentin prior to that out. What we do know is there was very little testing occurring. And the plan when, when people, when they finally started testing, because so many people were going man down. And it was requiring them that within 2 weeks over a 1000 people were became infected. So you can imagine, and thats out of a population at the time of about 4000 people. So one in 4 people within 2 people in this very small clustered gated facility prison became infected very quickly and there was no room to put them. So everyone, if you were in a cell, the cells are 4 feet wide by not a foot wide, and your cell mate became infected. Then that cell mate stayed right there and you just waited for the inevitable. You would have it shortly. And that was the understanding the expectation and there was nothing to do about it because the prison was so overwhelmed so quickly then, you know, im just looking at something half and the on my laptop, the office of the Inspector General independent prison of a side just skin to skin down here on my laptop says have a California Department of corrections and rehabilitation. Distribute it and mandate mandated to use a pass the protective equipment and cloth face cutters that nuts like they know what they have to do. How did it go so horribly wrong the department of corrections, which is the agency that oversees san quentin and all of the prisons in california makes a lot of policies. But they are less adept at insuring it here and to policies by their own staff. And so what the inspector, what the office of the Inspector General found, and thats sort of a Watchdog Agency that has the power to inspect the prisons. Unfortunately, not the power to mandate any changes. But what they found is that the department, which is massive 63000. 00 employees, were talking about a department that spent half a 1000000000. 00 last year on overtime alone. So it is a massive organization. And what the found is that they werent in forcing masking requirements. So when, of course, when we put folks in prison, a lot of folks, as we have done, we remove from them the ability to take care of their own basic needs. So when we do that, we not only are punishing people which we certainly are are, but we are the state is taking on a huge obligation to care for the daily physical needs of these individuals, their food, of course, and their health care and to protect them when Something Like this pandemic happened. So if staff arent doing what we all know, it least those of us who are willing to listen to the experts. If theyre not Wearing Masks all the time, when they are at work, there is no doubt that that is going to contribute to the spread in the prisons. Because theres no such thing as social distancing in prison in california. Even if you are placed in a cell by yourself, at least at san quentin, and you can see here what their structures are. Theres in most of the buildings in san quentin. There are 5 levels of open cells. Each cell has bars and nash on it, but no solid door. So its not just the person in your cell who you cannot social distance from. Its anybody walking by. And its actually folks on the tears above you too because of the shared air and the terrible then to lation that doesnt really allow the era to get transferred in and out of the buildings and as a voice. And at that. Yeah, yeah, i just wanted to add one thing today that daniel makes several excellent points. But one thing that the vast majority of those 60000. 00 employees that daniel just mentioned go in and out of the prisons every day in 8 hour shifts. So the idea that these are somehow prison outbreaks and that this can be isolated, suppressed prison incident is a large part of what weve been advocating against each one of these outbreaks. And theres, when you just look at incarcerated people, there are outbreaks at 20 different prisms right now. When you look at staff, theres an outbreak in every prison in the state right now. In each one of those Staff Members and outbreaks, those people get off work. They take their uniforms off, they drift into the community, and there are no parameters set in place to reduce the kind of you get settings that are acting is a can act of super spreaders in the larger communities. So i want to put this to you, james, you add them because as theres an empathy gap on right now, so north of town says 9 schools may if they are imprisoned, they stay in prison until that time is up of this story. Another one along the same lines short says, since when is a crime, death set us to conversations going on that they all say mentioned the stock that was open the present at the new pickup that because yeah, i think i want it and its a gap though so i stopped as well to have to i want to, i want to add to that. I mean, i think that if people are only looking and we need to protect the staff and not incarcerated people, i really feel like that this is a very individual question. That we need to ask ourselves as human beings as the person that we want to become. What is it about us as individuals that want to harm others regardless of what theyve done . And the other thing is that our understanding of safety and well, who commits crimes, why crimes are committed, how to restore people is totally lost on society. What we believe is ok, you did the crime, you do the time. No one ever understands what doing time truly means, and if that is whats providing safety, not just for people who are in society, away from people who are incarcerated or people are coming back to society. But its true. Safety is really is people who are coming back into society, making sure that they are safe. Make sure that im safe, that james is safe and still safety isnt 0, a one sided road. Its and we cover this showing that if i have coded and im Walking Around in the streets and in your Grocery Stores and in different areas, in your malls, are you safe . No, youre not safe. So safety is not just keeping james away from a nun or keeping danielle away from james. Thats not what safety is. Safety is restoring the humanity in people. And i think i will say that by the time i was 17 years old, i was a parent list, Homeless High School dropout at the age of 18, under those conditions and with layers and layers of trauma and abuse. I committed a crime. Im not excusing my crime, but what i am saying is that when i got to prison, there was nothing in prison that told me to say, sorry, no one in prison told me to be accountable. No one in prison asked me to be to, to apologize to the victims to make it amends. No one asked me that. And so when we look at safety, people completely misunderstand what safety is because its been sold to us as a product, but policing and prisons. Thats the problem. There is a voice that is missing from this conversation and its a tricky for us to get not the California Department of corrections and rehabilitation. Look here on my laptop, because i do have at least some current figures here. And if you look at this chart, it tells us how many people in the state of california who are incarcerated colony, half cunto had kovi. Its a cut in custody. Over 700 active cases of just over 400 people have been released while they had a covert result. Thats an interesting word, isnt it . Result that means that they probably are recovered from kovi. Im not sure that thats a choice and resolve. And this figure here, 18 deaths. So how many people who have actually had a covert in the California State Prison system, 1000 people, we couldnt get their voice in this conversation for lines also try and here is my colleague, dana, to corey on the efforts that she also made to see if they were talk to out as theyre in an email statement, a c. D. C. Or representative said they implemented unprecedented measures to address the coven 1000 outbreak. After transfers from c. M. Tested positive, they set up a 220 bed alternative care site, provided all staff and the incarcerated population live and 95 respirators, and sent hundreds of additional staff to san quentin. Dont you . Theres a tweet here that you shat in it says 10 days ago, and this was in july, i wrote 60 People Living in san quentin offering advocacy. Todays return mail. Let me just screwed up and just see, look at this one from you. What help did they need to go ahead . So they needed to know that people were paying attention that people cared that people were working to try to better the situation for them. I think its interesting that c. D. C. Are continues to say that they took extraordinary measures as if they did all they could not withstanding the fact that the court of appeal has said that the in action in san quentin by those same officials, has been, quote, morally indefensible. We have a situation where the measures c. D. C. Are took may be unprecedented because were in the midst of a global pandemic. The likes of which hasnt been seen in, in the lifetime of anybody living today, but is been grossly inadequate. And thats why we are in the situation. We are in where there was an explosion of co that at san quentin. This stammer and in july, people began dying at san quentin. Those 29 people, 28 incarcerated people. And one staff member who have died should be alive today that blood is on the hands of the c. D. C. Are officials. And the reason that they dont speak really publicly, i think, is that they are used to operating in complete secret with complete impunity. And there is no accountability. 29 people died at san quentin. And where is the accountability for those deaths . Our prison system is built on this notion that people need to be held accountable for the decisions that they made. In june, a team of independent experts told c. D. C. Our officials that they needed to cut the population of san quentin in half. Who were people were going to begin dying. And they refused to listen to that advice. And 29 people are dead. Where is the accountability suggest . Lets talk, lets talk lessons and maybe where we are right now. I want to have a listen to adam and he introduces himself. He tells the story. I just got i leaving to go at my name as adamu chan. And i was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during the height of the crown of Virus Outbreak that happened there. And at no time during those months, did i feel like the health and safety the incarcerated population was a priority for the administration or for c. D. C. Or officials. And what i witnessed was that the vast overcrowding in san quentin and all the prisons across california was a huge factor in kind of exacerbating the spread the virus through our population. And so any solution has to start with mass releases mass rally. Im going to put this question to you from james. This is from last. How willing to release present us law says james, i would start by saying that California Department department of corrections is unwilling to release anyone in response to this pandemic. They have fought this tooth and nail every step of the way, even though every public expert, every medical expert legislators, the judicial branch, Community Members and advocates of all weighed in to not only say that that releases are the safest thing to do in response to this pandemic, but also that we are standing by to support those releases. So they have all of the information. They know that it not only politically viable, but that there is support for it like material resources. And yet they still are resistant to, to conduct any type of times why. I think that the bottom line is that this is a our lives in our addiction upon incarceration. As a means for social control has been part of our society for, for decades. Upon decades, we have 35 prisons within our state that hold close to 100000 people. Right now you dont get there without being devoted to that ever policy and has Priority Issues that we are going to incarcerate our ways out of marginalization disenfranchisement, a lack of resources and resource sharing in our communities. So there is a very specific model that california believes in it, which is that incarceration keeps us safe. But says advocates are saying that is false. That is categorically untrue. What keeps us, they are having basic affordable housing. Just having an income, a reasonable living wage, having access to reasonable medical and Mental Health treatment when needed. Those are the things that actually keep communities safe and build communities. And our government at this point has a different philosophy. James, im just looking as honestly as far as it says, then ill come right back to some the advocacy that you were to when he says no transfers, town halls. Sadies coming up at 9 am from new york and i say send stop. San quentin outbreak coalition. And i, i want to know if this may well be an opportune as it happens. So many protests, so much advocacy. And im just putting this last common app and then you jump off the back of it. Governor nissen and c. D. C. Are have an opportunity, and that is to stop the further spreading of kogan 1900 by stopping our prison transfers, and also stop dropping people off in ice detention centers. Sadly, we cant go backwards. We cant correct terrible decisions already made. But what we can do is we can stop making terrible decisions. We can understand that there are many people, many Vulnerable People within a vulnerable population with comorbidities, who have loved ones ready for their safe release, who have organizations planning for safe release. And this is a place where we can all lean in and understand that we have an opportunity to save lives. 8 months into this global pandemic. So many Lessons Learned a lifes last apple and now want thats what i was going to bring a family. Thank you for saying that again, Lessons Learned and lessons have not been learned. And there is a clear example with the chart you gave earlier right now. And corcoran, which is a chance for california, i spent 5 years there. Theres 392 cases, active cases, recorded right now. And like you said, 8 months into a pandemic after 8, thats 16 over 16000 recorded or reported. Cases in California State Prisons alone right there. That what youre showing now, what lessons have we learned . If you look at the left side right here, 150 active cases in the, in the last 14 days, 392 cases in the last 14 days. And these are 2 different facilities, and we are 8 months in a pandemic. That means 8 months without visits. So family programs, volunteers have not been coming in. So who has been bringing in, taking cold out of these facilities for the past 8 months and who are talking about theyre not Wearing Masks properly. You cant social, this is or physically distance in prison and weve been saying that since march and why, you know, for us to repeat that in november on election day, i bet it just is just mind blowing to me. And so when we talk about accountability and society can constantly blame people for coming in crime and you do the time you do that, you do the crime, you do the time, stay in prison. Well, the truth is it for asking people to be accountable for the crimes that theyve committed by and for breaking the law. Well, we as a society and as a government have a legal responsibility to provide Adequate Health care for people that we incarcerate. That is a law, so its very hypocritical to tell people or, or bad, started to, to demand accountability from people, and not hold ourselves accountable to a law that we have to be governed by. So theres many discrepancies here that continue to contradict themselves when people like myself, james and danielle, talk about kogut, and when the government and the governors talk. So what has stuck 392 cases right now, actively as were talking. But theres a, but we cant, you know, highlight the super spreader events on the, in that the rose garden at the white house lawn. We talk about that, but we dont talk about the 392 cases that are happening right now. That half staff like james mentioned coming in, you know, that prison every 8 hours into our communities. I dont know about that at 9 and james and danielle, thank you so much for being part of todays program at night. And there are so many more questions about what happens if you release people right now during a global pandemic, which is why im really glad that youre going to Instagram Live guests a little bit later on in about 30 minutes from now on t. V. At a. J. Stream that is, well, youll find him. And if you dont have time to do that very soon, youll find it any time. So have a look in my laptop, because we have been talking about the new 4 documentary pandemic imprison the san quentin outbreak. You can find it online, and you can also find dates on aljazeera t. V. As well. Thanks so much for watching. Im femi oke a next time life and food for celebration. Food for reconciliation and food from ancient civilizations. Aljazeera wild goes on a mouthwatering. How to read jenny from spain, to the middle east, to discover the Hidden History behind some of the regions best loved dishes. Savoring the hottest on out is the, im dissecting the headlines in the midst of a pandemic. Lets start with some of the all new ground realities affecting the news coverage. Whats the lay of the land . Theyre stripping away the spent reaping story about president ial corruption. It is real reporting. Its not if youre challenging assumptions and the official line, we all decided we need to cut our score like we dont want to listening post on aljazeera, the future of hong kongs opposition to the government disqualifies 4 politicians accusing them of being a threat to National Security im fully back to boyer watching aljazeera live from doha. Also coming up. Fighting in ethiopia, asthe gray region forces thousands to flee into neighboring sudan u. S. President elect. Joe biden tells the world america is back and calls Donald Trumps refusal to concede