A fair trial you know that so if youre in this situation this constant threat to be extradited there and then to receive a draconian punishment of 175 years or maybe to reduce it to 120 in prison in the Supermax Prison and we know what the conditions are like there this is this crosses the line of cruel inhuman and degrading treatment thats not just my opinion thats a consistent opinion of myself my mandate my predecessors everybody thats actually seriously deals with that thats the threat scenario he faced for years is not being taken seriously hes been ridiculed by the press hes been mobbed by areas authorities hes been accused of all kinds of things but not given a fair chance to actually defend himself we have a swedish proceeding that is in a preliminary investigation stage for 9 years well yes the media care in fairness to them said this is. Thing to do with the revelations of war crimes people have seen the video that julius and his organization released of the cold blooded killing of journalists is not about that its about this we didnt. Allegations and i understand you claim there are 50 perceive process violations by the swedish authorities in this case yes well i am all eyes meticulously all the documents that were made available to me including the original 1st questioning d of Police Reports of the alleged victims the older the email correspondence that has leaked between the Crown Prosecution Service and the swedish Prosecution Service internally emails to Swedish Police where they adapted witness statements without consulting the witnesses in order to be able to reopen the case once it was 1st closed so i had a lot of questions about 50 questions where i said these are factors that in in my view prove that there was due process violations and the swedish authorities had nothing to say to basically answer to no one page letter saying we have no further observations now were talking about the state responsibility for potential torture and treatment so responsibility means that your response ability youre able to respond to questions to be asked so if a state cannot respond the refuses to respond to the questions of a un special rapporteur thats been mandated by states to monitor their compliance with the treaties they have signed then im seriously concerned about where were headed well were amidst a general Election Campaign here that are bogus in restrictions but you mention in the c. P. S. Which of course was run at the time by the. Secretary. And when you talk about u. K. Authorities responses to your concerns of course the tories are the incumbent what has been the. Reaction from british authorities to your reports that right now in effect he has been psychologically tortured ives i visited tunis and more than 6 months ago there was a 9th of may 2019 about 4 weeks after his arrest and 2 to medical doctors and this is all been out there i mean it was clear concerns that he showed all the symptoms that are typical for psychological torture that the pressure on him needed to be alleviated quickly and both doctors said otherwise his state of health will enter a downward spiral very quickly so the u. K. Authorities did not respond for 5 months after him at that it and i made an urgent appeal for urgent measures to protect the innocent as health and rights and dignity. On the same day i received a tweet then foreign secretary jeremy hunt accusing me of interfering with judicial authorities in the u. K. And basically claiming that the right to interfere with his but then he invited me to conduct that visit to report he is my counterpart so he had to expect the report now if it turned out negative and then also obviously claiming that it could have left him at any time to which then i responded in a tweet which i would not usually do but when a foreign secretary all they can do in 5 months is to send a tweet to my official report or i answered in a tweet that in my view he was about as free to leave the embassy as someone sitting in a rubber boat in a shark while no other people are saying that the world is witnessing the slow motion execution of going to visit him before his next Court Hearing will be able to well i have to say it its actually exceptional that a special rapporteur on torture can visit individual prisoners usually with his visits entire countries obviously have to cover 190. 00 plus countries so its difficult for me to to repeat individual visits until its absolutely indispensable and nano it is up to the authorities according to the convention against torture article 12 they have an unconditional obligation to investigate promptly and impartially as soon as there is so called reasonable grounds to believe that an act of torture could have been committed but that doesnt need to be evidence if the un special rapporteur on torturers conclusion is not reasonable grounds i dont know what is all relevant you reject all your allegations there are no mean. About a judge involved in the case judge. That she has links to the u. K. Ministry of defense her husband or not want to see strategy a company in which a codirector was the former boss or m i 6 John Scarlett basically people that. Knew in the wiki leaks cables that oversaw the release of. What did you make of these connections i mean here just as in sweden every single step in the judicial proceedings be to bill violation proceedings or the extradition that president s have been tainted by. Of his Due Process Rights one of them is that you have already received surely no actual violations well i think no absolutely there have been violations of his Due Process Rights and severe violations he has not had access to his legal documents for months how can you ask a defendant in an extradition trial to respond to the u. S. And that meant that he has not been able to eat. With any excuse the authorities give here saying if youre innocent at a computer in jail you could bring the western worlds intelligence agencies down that is that just doesnt work lead well i dont think you need a computer to read an indictment how is it being denied paper documents as well yes well it seems that now his lawyers have been able to negotiate that but were now 6 months into his detention he has served his entire sentence. Without access to his legal documents. His swedish lawyer when he visited him a couple of months back from stockholm flying in from stockholm had a 2 hour slot reportedly to see him and unison was brought to him with one hour and 45 minutes late so he had 15 minutes to explain to him a swedish legal document of 300 pages but could not leave it with him and no translation to him so. How is that rule of law well of course in court he said it was differential what was going on but if your report raised eyebrows europol of raised. As a measure a stand in the way that you talked about the british media scene you appeared to be saying the part of the psychological torture of julian has been committed by. Newspapers like the guardian of course the newspaper that supplied information to they recently had an editorial and supportive but they said you dont need to like him why do you think that newspapers that received information from continue to emphasize the fact that you may not have to like his character its very difficult for me to understand how the Mainstream Media has such an important rule for the integrity of institutions of state institutions as a 4th estate how they can not be interested in this case i can say that i have offered to b. B. C. For example to heart talk with them so i dont have to agree with me you see if you dont agree with me to a heart talk with me ask me all the difficult questions and expose me if im wrong but if im right then you need to report on this i represent a un mandate if i ask official questions according to diplomatic protocol and states refuse to engage with that they no longer respond to my questions which is sweep everything under the carpet well. And what does that mean we have a huge black hole where there is no longer any control over how power is being exercised but what will it mean for britains standing in the world of indeed. Dies in belmarsh prison as i say look no further from here after the un is warning the British Government i think it was an absolute be an absolute tragedy 1st of all for to listen to yourself and for the cause he stands for but also for the British Society and their system and the credibility of the British State as a rule of law state but we also know that the reasons the us wants to extradite him for is a classic case of a political offense and the u. K. Law prohibits extradition for political offenses the European Convention against human for human rights would prohibit it the convention against torture would prohibit it the International Covenant on civil and Political Rights prohibits it there is no discussion that this extradition could lawfully go forward to in my view this whole detention now at present has no legal basis we invite the u. S. Investors london ambassador johnson on the show to see if we can refute what youre saying special thank you very much after the break the foreign minister of ecuador graham long who helped grant Julian Assange just try limit his embassy in london on the socalled slow motion british execution of the wiki leaks founder as well as evidence of a defacto 2019 british backed military coup in the lithium rich nation of bolivia called the civil coming over by doing going underground. As a report the 1st episode of 2020. They say there are not going to have really special guest dr Michael Hudson you know back in the seventys 19 seventies there is a movie. Called death wish with Charles Bronson remember that remember that we could do a remake and you were the star you play the Charles Bronson role as called way. And youre a vigilante banker economists that goes around new york blowing away bad debt we think i love it ok ill set that up. Thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the countrys military and the decision. Every song came to a complete. The day that i was right. To hold a shot what they kill me and i see how it destroyed my life any screamed at me and he made me come in and you graham my arm and he write me. If you take into account that women dont report because of the extreme retaliation and its probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have now been sexually assaulted in the us military rape is a very very traumatizing tat happen but ive never seen trauma like ive seen women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape is more likely to get the victim punished from the offender and almost 10 year career which shows very invested in and i gave a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry this is simply an issue in violence male sexual predators for the large part of whoever is there to prey upon whether thats a man or woman. Welcome back 60 doctors a written to the British Government warning that wiki leaks is australian founder Julian Assange could die in a british prison as he awaits extradition to the cias home state of virginia of the. Veiling u. S. War crimes in iraq before his imprisonment in britain he was granted political asylum by the south american nation of ecuador he was in the countrys embassy in london for nearly 70 years joining me now from washington d. C. Is the ecuadorian foreign minister who helped to give him asylum im wrong thanks so much from a foreign minister for coming on the show your country gave asylum of course to assad i want to get on do events in your country in your hemisphere but your reaction to the 60 doctors warning that the sons may die for revealing u. S. War crimes these are tragic news and ongoing injustice for Julian Assange and i think all this. Proves that ecuador was right all along. During a songe was. Running a risk of facing what hes facing now ecuador gave him asylum for fear of persecution for his activities as a publisher at the head of we can leaks. I remember actually interacting with british officials and british officials telling me that we were deluded that it had nothing to do with we could leak nothing to do with freedom expression nothing to do with publishing it it had everything to do with the swedish case. And now were seeing that we were right all along it had nothing to do with the swedish case and everything to do with this possibility of an extradition to the United States and i think its an important global cause that we must all defend freedom for julian yes nowadays even the New York Times and the guardian supporters do you cant imagine who those british officials were that was a ng you were deluded about a grand jury in the United States that was going to maybe imprison assigns 175 years in america generally speaking all our interaction with british diplomats with the British State. Where the their argument was that there was a near european arrest warrant that he should go and be questioned in and sweet. And we of course argued that he could be questioned by sweden that should be done and in the Ecuador Embassy that ecuador was abiding by the International Rules of asylum and there were lots of off the record conversations but every time they wanted to bring it back to the swedish case we were very suspicious of this we felt that there was something behind that and we were proven right it just shows that it was all about we can leaks from the start condemnation of crimes against humanity and wrongdoings of powerful nations in the world do you know if you are embassy in london was being bugged when you were the foreign minister of ecuador you probably read that according to police in spain your embassy in london has been bugged by a cia linked Companies Like to a man called David Morales of undercover global. Was it bugged when you were foreign minister did this come about when lenin merino was elected president of your country and i have evidence as to whether it was bugged when i was a foreign minister but we were certainly. Very much that we were. Diplomatic personnel was living in or working in an embassy under siege i mean certainly we felt absolutely. We felt spied on we felt observed we felt surrounded it was very very hostile working. For ecuador and diplomats of course for mr sunshine self now we know we have the proof as you just said that the embassy was bugged. When this started exactly i dont have the exact date i dont have the exact evidence but certainly we have a lot of hypotheses and suspicions a good julian has helped Edward Snowden escape u. S. Authorities for blowing the whistle on mass surveillance and amidst all of that the bolivian president of the. Plane was brought down in europe trying to get a hold of Edward Snowden. Evil morale is gone your reaction to the coup detat or as british of the British Government says the proper judicial removal of president evo brothers of bolivia or you can get much more of a coup than what happened in libya you know middle class uprising turning violent a police mutiny and then the army the military is actually saying mr president resign thats pretty much a textbook coup and i think it was prepared i think they was you know they were able morales had a lot of enemies you just mentioned some of the intermediation he was a victim of many opportunity came the oas ran i think a. A mission of electoral observers that had a mission and that was to discredit the. But it in elections the think tank the center of economic policy. The economic the center for economic and policy research that i work for has just published a paper that ive coauthored actually showing that they were no evidence was provided by the oas to suggest that there were fraud in elections well as i said that narrative completely at odds with obviously the organization of american states but also obviously nature governments like britain Like Washington who say it was evil morale is for acting on guns judicially do you think one of the one of the context we should understand the coup is that bolivia has the largest sources of lithium which is used in every phone battery every laptop battery in the world i think there are a number of elements. In the model is government was always nationalist and sovereign to defend its National Resources it nationalized its National Resources particularly its gas resources. Years ago so i mean lithium may have been an element. But i think more generally this bolivia. Morales government was a part of what was often known as the pink tide of leftist governments in latin america during the 1st decade and a half of the 21st century and if you look around in them its fair all those governments have been heavily punished by. You know industrial states that sort of countries from the global north for having dead to question the germany that they were subjected to few look around you know brazil with lulas incarceration ecuador with cortez exile in all sorts of pressures against the left in general in argentina and now the coup in bolivia youll see that. You know i think the elites and their International Allies and some International Powers were waiting for the right moment to to to hit back and to make sure that governments that were dose and that were acting you know within the sort of traditional in. Monro ism of the United States ally into the National Security doctrine of United States and following the call of sort of bilateral Foreign Policy as opposed to wanting to integrate and having regional integration having more unity in south america in particular those governments and those leaders being the victim of serious attacks and the latest example is the coup in bolivia songes also an ecuadorian citizen he was given a good durian citizenship tell me about would you characterize the situation in your country today because let him or ino said you know it was nearly as being a problem for ecuador it was your governments refusal to allow the cia base in mentor bay what weve seen over the last 2 and a half years in ecuador is a very sharp uta. The government is actually governing now with all the advisers all the people who were on his president ial opponent the contender in the elections in 2017 elections has contend all these advisors over those people are the people who are in cabinet posts. What in has really done a 180 degree a youth and governing with the elites with the right with. You know essentially moved away from his electoral promises from his Electoral Program and their number of ways it has been expressed through economic policies through the i. M. F. Coming back in and also as you mentioned through sort of Foreign Policy and National Security doctrine and the edge of the geopolitical behavior of ecuador so granting an airstrip. U. S. Military and the sacred Galapagos Islands thats quite shocking after having been the Largest Military base u. S. Military base in the region and banning it actually in the 2008 constitution the ecuadorian constitution bans Foreign Military presence on our territory if you look at every single issue in the western hemisphere in latin america you know ecuador moving away from a much more sort of nonaligned Foreign Policy with diversifying its ties with the world to what is happening now essentially just you know trying to be try to be the best people in the us in the us both in the class is essentially trying to be. President trumps best friend thats how i would characterize ecuador right now just finally you mentioned the Galapagos Islands of course the environmental repercussions of that will shock many people its known for Charles Darwin but you mention the i. M. F. Just finally you championed Chinese Investment in your country do you think because then in marino as years of the i. M. F. Is lend he will in the way that. So many developing country leaders have ended. Basically having to be on the run because once you take money from the i. M. F. Or government theres a limit in those applied a very aggressive new liberal Structural Adjustment Program from not quite from day one but soon after. Coming to power. And hes decided to do this with the company mint of the i. M. F. So a 4200000000. 00 loan with a lot of conditionality the same ones the disastrous. Recipes of the 1990 s. That caused so much economic instability and chaos in latin america there be repeated now in latin america by the i. M. F. In ecuador and elsewhere actually and and were seeing people fight back because people have lived through something that you know for 10 years 15 years depending on which country that american ecuador was the 10 years during the presidency of i 5 corridor where we had very healthy growth rates with a lot of redistribution reduction of Poverty Reduction of inequality without the disaster recipe book of the i. M. F. In fact without the near liberal austerity policies so people have been through some experience Something Different and now that the i. M. F. Is kind back with this kind of age old fundamentalism of of you know slashing wages and making people poor and all that the balance the books people are fighting back so we just had a wave of protests in ecuador in the month of october i think the bloggers protest possibly in ecuador in history certainly in my generation. President having to flee the capital city to where your key you know and basically being rescued by the military and he. It was a very very close call as to whether his government with great survive on the very briefly the do you think clearly merino as you say he had to flee the capital he will finish his full term in office well well have to see what happens and whether he still stubbornly tries to. Pushed these these very aggressive poll pro Business Economic reforms has just tried to do it again through parliament but if he does them like he did it like he did the 1st wave by decree hes likely to have people out on the street protesting protesting these measures but certainly people in ecuador not in latin america are seeing it chile were seeing it were seeing in argentina through elections fortunately protesting these neo liberal packages supported by the i. M. F. Which doesnt seem to have the lessons of history and is just repeated the same old repeating the same old mistakes of the 19 eighties and nineties thats it for your favorite shows of the last season we will be back with a brand new cd going on the ground on january the 8th and bill that gives you hope is a shield social media and you get this is going on the grounds you have a good you know. What politicians do. They put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. So when you want to be president and you. Want. To go on to be close its like the 3 of them or people. Interested in the why. They should move. On this edition of crossfire we answer questions sent to was by you with the viewers we received quite a few questions here we do our best answer some of them. In the United States president ial candidates debate the future of the u. S. The world. To get into the burning questions of this election cycle. Every week. Student. Was money. Mother who used to leak school was lonely. Please. Please please. Please. Please when youre. In the desert that i could pull the soda look at that is to close most of the book you need to use a bag. To school still its about seeing me out there. Just for a little shot at. The big cost so it is because it makes us. Look. The. Other. Day that made. The headlines in our to us forces reportedly view state gas to Disperse Protesters outside the American Embassy in baghdad a day off for a crowd to try to stay. That is washington sends more troops to iraq in response to to say attack on the compound also to come. And you decades upon us we look at how cities across the world in seeing in 2020 plus. I. Actively stage a huge protest in hong kong. For night marj by