and again, this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. people have been demonstrating outside mammals embassy in bangkok to mock 2 years. and submitted to seized power bites, creep, st, nearly 3000 people have been killed since the could back in 2020 wind. the genta is planning to hold elections in august. last week it announced a new election law which raised questions about the fairness of the process. tony chang, asthma. their mandate for emergency rule has actually run out to day, or we think they're going to try and extend those emergency powers. but under the 2008 constitution that they wrote the they shouldn't really be allowed to. that said they do have no control over the could complete control over the legislature to protest. but they want to then the near of legitimacy over their rule. and i think they are very keen for those elections to be seen, to be taken place, particularly in the seo and region around us. so they can get back a certain amount of legitimacy. a committee has been set up in pakistan to investigate security lapses. and the push our police compound targeted in a suicide bombing on monday, funerals have taken place for some of those killed in the attack which took place in a mosque. the bombing happened during prayers. more than a 100 people were killed and more than 220 injured in australia and missing a radioactive capsule, considered a significant public health risk has been recovered. after a major search operation, the hazardous cesium 137 is believed to have fallen off a truck as it was being taken to a storage facility and mining company. rio tinto has apologized her right now. hope frances is holding mass and the congolese capital kinshasa. he is the 1st roman catholic leader to visit democratic republic of congo since the 1980s. earlier, the pope condemned to the suffering and exploitation of people in many parts of africa. new zealand, the largest says he has been lashed by more torrential rain flooding in oakland, forced road closures and cause to landslides. the city remains under a state of emergency that was declared after unprecedented downpours on friday for those the headlines next to the stream. oh, we can look at the world's top business stores from global markets and economies to construction and small businesses to understand how it affects todd daily lives. counting the cost on al jazeera did with welcome to the stray mom, josh rushing public opposition to a plan. police training center and the u. s. city of atlanta is growing after the police killing of an environmental rights activists may national and international headlines. community environmental activists have for months sought to block construction of the facility, as highlighted by a recent a j plus film. occupying this forest is how activists are resisting the construction of a $90000000.00 state of the art police training center protesters call cops, city. the facility will be developed on one of the largest green spaces in se, atlanta, which has a history of oppression. they just want to go in and bolos everything in the right . the history, the way, the way they want to write it, the fate of the force is up in the air as a police and force defenders both refused to back down. hi, joining us today from atlanta, cml, franklin, his executive director of community movement builders that the collect of a black community residence of active us advocating for neighborhoods next to the plant facility. also joining from atlanta is jaclyn michaels co founder of the self river watershed alliance. that is trying to protect the land in which the plan police center will be built. and joining us from new york ana cook is a film producer ha, plus, who's been covering the story. also, you are at the table. if you're watching this on youtube right now, see the common thing over there. we have a lie producer there waiting to get your comments to me so i can get them to our guest. so i invite you to be a part of the screen with me today. all right, let's start with anna anna. what drew you to this story? yeah, no this, there has been a lot of attention on cop city and have been bubbling since, especially after 2020 the nation wide black lives matter protest where people not just in atlanta but nationwide called for a d fund and the police and, and to police brutality, but then in atlanta, we saw with this opposed facility, an increase in funding for the police. and so that do a lot of attention. obviously a lot of opposition and people have peacefully occupy the forest as a way to protest against building this facility. but i think what's so interesting about this cop city is odd, it's drawing a lot of national and international solidarity and attention because it's not the intersection of environmental as and no racial justice indigenous rights. it's also just bought a lot of grass roots, community activism to try to protect the forest. you know, they want to nurture and preserve best part as public park in forest for the benefit of the community. well, let's start with as close as a to the communities we can, and then we'll work our way out through these issues. i want to play a clip from your film. this is actually where the local resident president to live near by see they were blindsided by the cities planned to expand the massive police facility lubbock. your no no one has reached out to me and i do see when asked for votes to them in may not be of ours, but to some i. yes it does me some it's the same is true. one results is another man's treasure. but these and the reason the same, it is only we live in the community, don't live to community, i don't care what they care. they don't care. and all these sayings to the counselor would you allow and in your career, you know, come out on a pair that was something that i was reading on yet. i think it's on the atlanta police foundation website. we can actually go to my computer and see it here. i'll highlight one of the goals that they've set here is to set a national standard for community engagement, neighbourhood sensitivity and devotion to the civil rights of all citizens by law enforcement. now listen to, to that gentleman who was in the ha plus film and it doesn't seem like, ah, they're living up to this particular one. come our can, can you touch on this? sure. i mean, they're not only, they're not living up to it. their job is to use that as propaganda, as they basically rip shaw over this community and put this facility where no one has access board. as a prior speaker said, this facility was jammed through via the city council and mary's office. no one in actually of unity was acts or, or, or interviewed about wanting to facility there. over 70 percent of the respondents who caught in when city council pass this resolution were to give this lease said they did not want this facility built over 90 percent of the people who lived directly adjacent to the fours have said that they do not want this facility built instead, the city of atlanta, the atlanta police foundation at the atlanta police themselves have basically jammed as down the throats of this. not only the citizens next to the force, but every wine in atlanta coming out of the 2020 uprisings. so this is in itself is a slap to civil rights. all meant to not only the black community, but in our estimation to the larger movement, which part of this facility is meant to stop a future organizing against police violence. it's almost overwhelming in the way they describe it and not just social issues, environmental issues as well. i'm going oh and i just want to note here we did, asked the atlanta police foundation for a comment here. got no response from him. we also asked the city of atlanta and got no response also, but i'll let them speak for themselves like they did on their own website there. this year. if we go to my computer again, this is from the city of atlanta. it actually has the south river park highlighted on here, and they're called, it's called part of the lungs of atlanta, jackie, we touch on that the environmental importance of this area and what's at risk with the center? sure. this is one. this is the largest piece of green space for remaining inside i to 85. you know, that's the belt line around around atlanta. so it's, you know, $300.00 plus acres. so it's a massive piece of property. and he, so from that standpoint, it is vital to climate change it to dealing with the effects of climate change from the standpoint of air quality from the standpoint of protecting interest, recruit that flows through it, you know, just from a quality of life standpoint. so yeah, atlanta is developing rapidly, you know, it's, it's very a very pro development town and is losing is tree canopy and alarming rate. a more trees are being destroyed every year than to be the plan. and even those that are plant are, you know, too much cal over, so it'll be a long time before they are really any, any viable use as relates to, to impact on the environment. ok, so yeah, this, this green space green space in southeast atlanta is, is critical to the city itself, not to the residence of se, atlanta, south, the care county but, but to the city as a whole. hey, i want to bring an audience here. this is g girl and she says, who owns the land originally and, and that's touched on in your film was play a clip here about the history of this land alara's proposal to construct a police facility. sheri speaks the lands painful history. the site was a prison farm until 1995 prisoners there were subjected to harsh punishments and slave conditions including poor sanitation, you trisha, and over crowding. some critics say claims of unmarked graves have not yet been properly investigated. before that, the land is thought to have been a plantation that enslaved at least 19 people. it was originally stolen from the muskogee who lived there until the u. s. government forcefully displaced them to oklahoma. to day, both activists and tribal members have reclaimed the indigenous name as will lonnie peoples park. a fascinating history for this fuselage. anna, i'm curious, is the muskogee nation. are they involved in what's going on there now? and anyway? yeah, so i mean, as you can see, this piece of land has a really, you know, painful past. and local advocates and community members have told me that there has been basically no effort, no genuine effort on the city's behalf to try to make amends or try to even study this past and the potential crimes that were committed on this land by the u. s. government, right, and by building this facility on this land, they're really trying to cover up this past not make any amends at all. and so the muskogee people who are based in oklahoma, they have been frequenting for, you know, trying to explore the idea of getting their land back and trying to reclaim their homeland again. but i think that the u. s. government, the city has not reached out to the indigenous tribes. and so they have failed in that way. but also the people who are protesting and occupying the forest, they are trying to, you know, help the muskogee tribe, you know, get this land back. so that's why that they have named it lonnie people's part, which is the original muskogee creek name of the forest. yeah, we actually read as well and they were going to provide comment today for the show, but they're being hit with a massive winter storm right now. this knocked out a lot of power, their schools are closed so they weren't able to do it. i'm sorry, i jumped on you. there are no, not at all. i just wanted to add really quick to and so the, the composition of the opposition ability in cop city is really wide. not only is it from was for folks, let's go gay nation that used to be there, but it is from the black community. it is from the environmental, this is as you stated from people who are defend to force folks, it is from civil rights advocates. it is from people from the community. so there is a wide breath of folks who have been supporting or demonstrating against the building of cop city sensitive re beginning. and we should mention that since the very beginning, the police have used violence against protesters. the stop. ah, every, the stop folks in protesting and demanding that this doesn't get it built. huh. even at our earliest protests that we had in 2021, the police were arresting people. we had over 17 arrests. people were throwing down to the ground, pepper sprayed, people were given charges of disorderly conduct during that phase of the, of everything. and then now we've moved to this new phase where they are actually giving charges of domestic terrorism. and as we talked about earlier in january of 18, they actually killed a protester. and so that's the city, the state and the federal government have been engaged in a multi level task force, which is meant to destroy any movement to stop cop city. and instead to allow the police to build this facility, which again, rena will be used against the black community in particular. and we know will be used against organizing, organizing in activism in the future. yeah, i wanna ask you about that with the murder of manual turan, the police said that it was in self defense, but they were all wearing body cameras. has that footage been released and if not, why not? there's no body cam footage according to the police of the shooting, which we find highly dis believable. right? the police this task force is made up of the atlanta police, the cap county police, the georgia bureau of investigation. some news reports even placed the f b. i there the, in particular, the atlanta police are required to have body cameras on when they have encounters with the public. and so for them to tell us that they have no body camera image whatsoever is immediate. sus immediately suspect the fact that they would weave a tale that says one shot was fired by the protester, and that it was a return fire. our report, some folks who are around the force, was that there was a sudden burst of fire. it makes no sense that one individual in a tent to express no interest whatsoever of being in a duel with the police, was somehow shoot 1st when over $20.00 to $25.00 officers of various strikes were there met telling them to get out the test. it just seems ridiculous on his face, and as we know, the police have been known to lie in their reports as they did in george floyd as they just did in memphis. and as dave continually dine, ah, to tell one story and only later, what does the truth come out? did you say that something you're looking at an a p photo of atlanta swap members, and they're all wearing body camps. and you're right just this week. we've watched him memphis how police murdered a man and then lied about it in their official reports at someone's got to produce this footage to say there's no footage is, is beyond belief. what were you going to say anna? yeah, no, i was going to de claim that there is no body cam footage. and that is the exact reason why they're having growing calls to call for an independent investigation to be done into what actually happened here. but i think another thing that come on mentioned that's really interesting is just the kind of dangerous precedent. these domestic charges, domestic terrorism charges are going to create, you know, through about who is a protest or forest occupier that we follow in the film. we were notified by a story in the movement that she was one of those arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. and you can see in the film, but he is peacefully protesting. also in the film you can see in our interviews with city politicians, you know, belatedly admitting to us on camera for months now they've been actively pursuing these protest, sisters, for domestic terrorism even before investigating or arresting. so this sort of like a dangerous example for future protesters, you know, civil rights are saying by they are using the charged politicized marginalized groups to kind of clamp down on protesters and the for the future of protesters in the us. i don't agree with certain things, the government or the police is doing this is a dangerous example that they're setting and of course, dissenters protect it. they're supposed to be brought up to clips and we actually have both of those ready. so let's start with the 4th defender and is this the person that you were just talking about? force defenders have demolished equipment that they see attempted to destroy the forest deployed problem with the bush insurance or corporate with the principal ones. it's why not everyone agrees, but the way defenders have been resisting. some of them have embraced militant tactics, vandalizing police and private contractor vehicles. other critics say they do not represent the communities living in se, atlanta ok risk. we don't see eye to eye on everything, but we are here trying to defend the forest. and so, yeah, so you should have been arrested or good. yeah. so the 2nd protester who is in that clip has now been arrested. and i mean, both of you and lana, you guys can speak to this, but now there has just been less presence in the forest because of the increase police activity. you know, i think it's interesting in the beginning of the club, we saw that i said, you know, the state of the forest is up in the air, but it seems now that as police are clamping down on these protestors and arresting them aggressively. does seem that they are going to move forward with this construction of the facility and they were very clear with me on the city of atlanta. i know it didn't respond to you guys, but when i was doing their report, they responded to me and said that they planned to finish building the facility by the end of 2023. and now that it's the beginning of the year, i think that is the reason why they have really ramped up this type of aggression towards protesters. when i was reporting on this, at the end of last year, i saw video footage from those occupying the forest. they had a video with the police, you know, rating the area, cutting down trees as these people were sitting inside, trees endangering their safety. so i'm sort of like not surprised to see the rise in aggression from the police against the protesters. and i want to go for a really quick i just said this is what i wanted to point out earlier, that the violence from the police have started at the very beginning of the protest . and they've only escalated their tactics. all the folks arrested in so far we've had a 19 arrest. now f people charged with domestic terrorism. all the folks who are arrested in the floors were arrested while sitting in tree or a tree high and near their camp sites. none of these folks were engaged in any activity whatsoever that can be closely connected to any acts of so called terrorism, or even vandalism. at that particular stage, these folks or arrested why they were in treat. these folks were at most committing the act of civil disobedience and nothing more. and so these are just scare tactics to criminalize the movement against a cop city and nothing more than that. and i think that is what we're at the stage . we're act where i agree with that or that at this stage, what they want to do is to criminalize the movement, get everyone out the fours and so that they can build as fast as possible because they see that folks are beginning to watch and to see what's happening call in awe, protest even more, both in atlanta, nationally and internationally. and the last i think is important. they try to keep talking about that the protesters are outside agitators. and these are the very same public officials who, less than 2 weeks ago were honoring dr. king. dr. king, who did what, who went around from city to city, from state to state, protesting, unjust laws, committing acts of civil disobedience. and those very same authorities of that day called dr. king a what an outside agitator i a criminal or even a terrorist even. so the fact that they're trying to use the language of southern segregationist ms. in fact, for us, a ploy to try to switch the intention from what's happening in terms of that militarized police space that no one wants on to what's happening in terms of activists coming from out of town. who we welcome to do protest and organize against comp, city. yeah. inside know, for international audience atlanta where you guys are sitting as the home of dr. king jackie, want to bring you when, cuz i know that there's the water shed there and i know that that's protected by a clean water act laws. what, what's going on with that part of this we've been approaching, you know, actually stopping this project through the regulatory channel, which is at this point, not the best, the best route now to actually to actually stop it. and further the conversation about, you know, alternative sites because it is also what we've been promoting that the creek that flows through the, the site it is on the states impaired water. so give me just a few seconds of what the issue is, the creek. it impaired it. it's impaired because of the impact of sediment on the fish and michael and burke and macklin verbage population in the creek. and so as a result, there it has. there is a limit that's been placed on the amount of sediment back in the creek on by georgia apd. and it's also supported of course, by the clean water act. so we are at this point, pursuing the regulatory angle that pretty much support. i mean, it does directly support our claim that the creek cannot assimilate any more sediment. plenty of sediment will be produced by the construction and therefore it will violate the clean water act. so that's what we have been pursuing for, for, you know, several months now and, and that's what we will continue to pursue in terms of when they issue the permit appeal. and yet through the channels that hopefully we in the and we'll be successful in terms of protecting the creek. ah, and protecting the land around it supports the crate. i want to get 40 bills in here. we've got few minutes left, and i want to show this clip from the doc of city officials and how they responded to anna's questions. why did you vote to approve this facility? it's gonna be a big recruiting tool. we have an a duty i think, and an obligation to provide our employees with the best in class of everything. but you also have an obligation to listen to what the community is saying, right. do you feel like you've done that? yes, i feel that i've been there. i'm a city wide representative. i move around the city constantly for multiple chances for the public to speak. i've never been to him. they were planning in a meeting or neighborhood meeting. or i have been told we don't want this come out just to make sure you heard the end. that was dustin hill is i think is his name. he said he's never been to a planning committee or community meeting where he heard someone against this plan would. it's a joke of estate me again on the day that they voted up. they had over 1000 calls that came in over 70 percent of those calls were opposed to the building of this facility. again, pose again, taken in that neighborhood directly adjacent to where this force is going. this, this cop city is going to be built at said that they are opposed to this facility protest after protests, civil disobedience direct action. they know that people are opposed to this. i come out, i'm an interrupted, only got to and that's and i want you to respond to this on their website, the atlanta police foundation. it says that they're doing this in partnership with the national center for civil and human rights. do you know anything about that? i know that the national center for civil and human rights is funded by coca cola, which is why and why at one wait was one of the corporate sponsors. one is facility . i know we have to go through, but on this facility, they're going to have a black hawk helicopter landing pad. they're going to have a where it doesn't firing ranges. they're going to have a place to detonate explosives, they're going to have mach cities. this has nothing to do with policing, this has everything to do with the militarized thing to place it. our communities has nothing to do with trying to for public safety. this has everything to do with stopping uprisings and continuing the militarization of the police against black communities. and i left a port. yeah, i just wanna add that, you know, as you can share from come out there is such a deep mistress between bach neighborhood and the city because they are telling me that it's the name of public safety, right. they really believe that this center can improve public safety and if they believe so, i think it's up to them to communicate transparently with the community, which they have clearly failed to do so. and you know, the bought communities a believe that this will lead to further militarization of the police. and again, the, i gotta, i gotta stop you there in slide to game. we're going to lose the show. the city of atlanta said that they are going to build this facility and is going to happen before the end of this year. we will continue to watch it now. desert and go to al jazeera plus to find an a cookie excellent documentary on this. ah ah ah ah ah ah ah! beneath the waters off the guy and east coast lies a newly discovered bounty of oil, enough to transform a country with the poverty rate near 40 percent, according to the world bank to an oil rich republic. now, the nation's newfound oil wealth is funding an energy project that is electrifying the rural landscape. while guyana is just beginning to export boil to the world, president here fun only wants to replace carbon based fuels at home with renewable energy. with the goal of cutting the cost of power in hand nations, energy planters are harnessing the rain forest rivers to 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