Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-09-22 Tuesday

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Democracy Now! Tuesday, September 22, 2026

New York, this is democracy now. It's climate change. Is it going higher or lower? Whatever the hell happens, this climate change. It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion. Last year at the U.N., President Trump called climate change a hoax. He says the same about the threat posed by AI. As he addresses the UN today at the start of the General Assembly,

Climate Week also begins here in New York. We'll speak with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and former Amazon engineer Kovita Stunemurthy about the links between AI data centers and climate chaos. Then millions are left without power in Cuba after another nationwide blockade. We'll be joined by Cuba's deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Casilla. and to a new documentary about the Revolutionary Brazilian educator Paolo Frere, who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The new film is called Reading the World. Before this school came, I didn't even know how to sign my name because I had never gone to school.

No one cares about poor people who don't know anything. They taught us that if we studied, we could be citizens. Paulo Freire, for us, was a symbol of kindness in our lives. I had the seeds of education planted in my chest directly by him. We'll also talk about the upcoming elections in Brazil and President Lula's visit with Mayor Mamdani this week. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org,

the War and Peace Report and Mimi Goodman. World leaders are gathering in New York for the United Nations General Assembly with the climate crisis. escalating wars in Europe, Africa and the Middle East topping the agenda. President Trump's taking center stage with an address to the General Assembly today. It's expected Trump will defend his decision to attack Iran. Trump's speech comes a day after a UN commission fact-finding mission on Iran presented a report to the Human Rights Council finding the U.S. was likely responsible for war crimes and two strikes, February 28th. assault on a sports center in the Iranian city of Lamard killed and injured 22 civilians,

while a second strike targeted a school in Minab. This is Sarah Hussein, chair of the fact-finding mission. This building, a readily identifiable primary school, was struck by two cruise missiles, resulting we have found in 157 people killed, including 123 boys and girls, according to credible sources. We found reasonable grounds to believe that the airstrike conducted by the United States amounted to the war crime of making a civilian object, the object of an attack. The UN fact-finding mission also found the Iranian government responsible for gross human rights violations amounting to crimes against humanity, including the murder, imprisonment, and torture of civilians during protests that erupted across

Iran last December. In Yemen, the UN's refugee agency warns up to 230,000 people could be displaced a fighting continues between Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and Iran-backed Houthi militias. On Monday, Yemen's military said it struck Houthi soldiers and supply lines near the Baba Mandeb Strait. The claim came as video showed a massive explosion at a market in Yemen's southern Lange province. A second explosion tore through the same area an hour earlier, an hour later. The Houthi said the blasts were the result of Saudi air strikes, while Yemen's government blamed Houthi ballistic missiles. Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting President Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare strikes on Yemen after a call with the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman last Thursday, only to reverse course at the last minute Sunday, even as soldiers were loading bombs onto war plans. The New York Times reports most of Trump's inner circle was either deeply skeptical or outright opposed to joining the Saudi fight against the Houthis.

Paramount has reached a settlement to resolve an antitrust case with a dozen U.S. states that sued to stop the Hollywood Giants $11 billion takeover of Warner Brothers. The Writers Guild of America also settled its own lawsuit over the merger. If the settlement's win court approval, the deals would remove. the last major hurdles to the mega merger, creating one of the largest news and entertainment companies in history. A combined Paramount Warner Brothers would include two major film studios, Paramount and Universal dozens of cable channels, the CBS and CNN News operations, and competing streaming services Paramount Plus and HBO Max. According to the New York Times, Paramount agreed under the deal to establish a board of journalists to ensure what it said would be, edit.

editorial independence at CNN and CBS News, as well as other concessions related to film production and distribution. Paramount is led by David Ellison, son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, both father and son are known to be major supporters of Donald Trump. This is California's Attorney General Rob Bonta. We got a strong antitrust outcome. More production, more choice and guardrails that keep this industry competitive. I don't think these two companies should merge. But that's not something that we are focused on with our resolution here. Jessica Gonzalez of the Media Reform Group Free Press said in response,

we're disappointed that Attorney General Bonto went back on his promise to enforce the law and protect consumers and workers based on all reports this week deal, contains nothing but unenforceable, empty paramount promises. It abandons the thousands of creatives and workers who risk speaking out and the tens of millions of consumers the attorneys general should be fighting for, unquote. Four of the nation's major TV networks, ABC, CBS, Fox News, and NBC, suspended their coverage of President Trump Monday after he expelled CNN from the White House TV press pool. The five TV networks issued a joint statement saying, quote, the public has a vital

interest in receiving accurate and dependent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting, unquote. When the White House attempted to broadcast a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Trump's new helipad on the White House lawn on Monday afternoon, the president's work. were inaudible. The moment was captured by the right-wing news outlet, Newsmax. Okay, so there is no microphone because there's no microphone because the pool cameras aren't there. So maybe, Tim, this is one example of it backfiring just a little bit. On Monday, CNN, MS now, and Politico sued the Trump administration, arguing

Trump's efforts to ban them from the White House violated their First Amendment rights. In Illinois, authorities are investigating a case in which a U.S. citizen was hospitalized with injuries on Sunday after they were detained by federal immigration agents. On the same day, A. ICE shot and seriously wounded, a door-dash driver in Austin, Texas. 28-year-old Wilbur Rafael Gosses Perez still has a bullet lodged in his back. Petez said doctors didn't remove the bullet because it's near his spine. According to him, ICE had demanded he be released quickly from the hospital so he could be transferred to a detention center. He received no pain medication or treatment there. According to Perez's attorney, he's back in the hospital. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani hosted President Trump at Gracie Mansion as the United Nations General Assembly begins.

The two reportedly discussed housing and immigration policy, particularly the revoked. of temporary protected status for many immigrants, including Haitians. Trump and Mamdani also discussed a proposal to build a new housing project atop a vast rail depot in Queens, known as Sunnyside Yard. About is 12,000 homes, 30,000 jobs, the prospect of an entire new neighborhood in a city where housing is the number one cost. And I appreciate the president his interest in this. And we also know the president, not just as the least.

of the country, but also as someone who has built quite a lot of housing here in our city. In Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed at least four Palestinians. Among the dead, Ismail al-Bardawiyu, an 11-year-old boy who was reportedly shot in his chest as Israeli forces open fire on tents for displaced people in the Almwasi area of southern Gaza. Israel previously designated the area as a so-called safe zone. This comes as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. reports Israel's block the importation of more than 900 wheelchairs donated by two charities to help children in Gaza for more than a year and a half. According to the UN, Gaza has the highest concentration of child amputees in the world.

As many as 4,000 children have had limbs removed after being injured in Israeli attacks since 2023. California will drop all felony charges against five Stanford University students who participated in a campus protest against Israel's war on Gaza in 2024. The students were among a group that barricaded themselves inside the Stanford president and provost offices for hours demanding the university divest from Israel. In Vermont, a man has been convicted of attempted second-degree murder in the shootings of three 20-year-old. students of Palestinian descent in November of 2023. The attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington left Hisham Aortani, a brown student, paralyzed from the chest down, and his two friends, Tassin, Aliyah, Mad, and Kinan Abd al-Hamid wounded. Two of them were wearing kaffaias. They were speaking Arabic when Jason Eaton shot at them from the porch of his house.

three testified at the trial. Eaton faces life in prison to see our interview with Elizabeth Price, Hishamawartani's mother. Go to our website, DemocracyNow.org. And here in New York, Senator Bernie Sanders delivered a major foreign policy speech Monday evening at a packed historic Riverside Church and Harlem warning the rapid rise of wealth inequality around the world threatens democracy, human rights, and the environment. Sanders also warn that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat similar to nuclear weapons, and he called on President Trump to begin negotiating a comprehensive treaty to pause advanced AI development when Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.

And Senator Sanders called on the U.S. to end all military assistance to Israel. We must continue to speak out against the extremist government in Israel and the genocide they have committed in gossip and why we in the United States must end all military aid to the Netanyahu government. And a clarification from our earlier headline that Paramount Warner Brothers merger would not include Universal Studios, which is owned by Comcast. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, or the Warren peace report.

I'm Amy Goodman. It's Climate Week here in New York. as world leaders arrive in the city for the UN General Assembly. This year, Climate Week comes after months of extreme heat in North America and Europe, wildfires in Africa, flash flooding in Asia, and a record-breaking El Nino. Today, community leaders fighting AI data centers are gathering outside Amazon headquarters in Manhattan to protest the links between expanding AI and climate chaos, even as President Trump has called

artificial intelligence a hoax. Amazon signed a climate pledge in 2019, promising to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040. But it's now building out a natural gas burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas that could become one of the largest sources of climate pollution in the United States. We're going to take on this issue today on the show. We'll also be speaking with Cuba's deputy foreign minister, and we'll talk about a new film on Paulo Frere. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

For more on Climate Week here in New York, we're joined by two guests. Bill McKibben is co-founder of 350.org and founder of Third Act. He writes the substack, the crucial years. And his latest book is titled, Here Comes the Sun, a last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization. Kavita Stannamerti is a former software engineer at Amazon and a member of Amazon employees for climate justice. We're going to talk about this major climate protest in front of Amazon today. But first, Bill McKibben, lay out what this week is all about. Climate activists from around the world have come in and why it's done in conjunction with the opening of the UN General Assembly with leaders around the world also coming in.

This has been many years now. This week in September has been Climate Week in New York. And I think the theory is that perhaps the leaders of the world might like to take action on the single greatest threat that our species has ever faced. that part of the equation hasn't worked out so well over the years. It's been a while since the UN has really done very much to advance the climate movement, but it's become the place where people gather to plot strategy for the year ahead. And of course, this year it really is inflected by this new emerging threat on so many fronts, including the energy and climate one AI, that Kavita has done so much. to dramatize in recent months.

And Bill, I wanted to ask you, give the European Union's climate agency last month said that last month was the planet's hottest month ever recorded. An estimated 35,000 people died in heat waves in Germany, France, and Spain this summer. You talk about the significance of this, especially in light of the fact that we still have a president who claims climate change is a hoax. One, you ain't seen nothing yet. The next 14, 18 months are going to be not just the hottest that Europe's ever seen, but the hottest that our species has ever seen. I was writing yesterday about the latest data from the center of the Pacific, where temperatures are now higher than they were at the absolute peak of the strongest El Nino that we've

ever measured, and it's got a couple more months to keep on growing. The, Effects are going to be chaos in Europe, in, well, in the Himalayas where we got to watch the appalling pictures of lives swept away as glaciers start collapsing on the world's third pole, but all over the world. That this coincides with the reign of a person as idiotically foolish as President Trump is a great sadness and a great catastrophe. mostly because it also coincides with the moment when we could be making extraordinary gains. All of a sudden, we have a tool in this fight, cheap energy from the sun and the wind, that's easily scalable, that helps people at the most basic level everywhere, that offers us a way not to stop global warming,

too late for that, but a way to blunt its worst excesses. And the fact that our president is campaigning against the use of clean energy at all times is something that should make, well, I mean, we all have plenty of reason to be embarrassed as Americans at the moment, but this is near the top of the list. And you mentioned this, the renewable energy, but the critics are always claiming they're putting on misinformation, the solar and wind power are intermittent, that they can face disruption. but as we've seen, the fossil fuel that powers much of the energy around the world is also subject, especially with these thousands of miles of supply chains to constant disruptions in that supply chain. The line I've been using the last few months is that sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz. This should be a breakout moment for these technologies and around the world.

the rest of the world it is, the key thing that's happening now, if the last five years were about sun and wind, the next five years are about batteries, above all. And they convert sun and wind into firm baseload power. They're precisely the kind of thing that places like Texas are developing in huge numbers, which makes it all the more ironic that the tech overlords planning our AI future can't think of anything more interesting. interesting to do, then burn a lot of 18th century gas and oil. I want to bring Kavita Stunnamerthy into this conversation, a former software engineer at Amazon, a member of Amazon employees for climate justice. You're here in New York. Both Kavita,

you and Bill McKibben will be speaking along with others outside Amazon headquarters in New York today. Why are you, how are you connecting this to Climate Week? Yeah, thank you for having me here today. I'm really excited to bring the perspective of workers who are fighting against Amazon's greenwashing, quite frankly. Amazon is able to make these ridiculous claims that they are 100% renewable and in the same breath create massive data centers like the one we're seeing in Picos, Texas, with 35 gas turbines. And the way that they are doing this is by lobbying groups like the Science-Based Target's initiative and lowering, standards so that they can buy renewable energy credits and basically pay to offset these massive fossil fuel-based A-A-Centers and, you know, have it powered by solar that's happening maybe in a solar farm in Arizona, but that does not offset the gas that's being burned

in Texas at night. And so, you know, we are really concerned that this company is getting to write the rules. And I think that should frighten us all. And there was a protest in front of Open AI yesterday here in New York, tomorrow, Google. Today you'll be there at Amazon. And you say, while we hear a lot about Open AI and anthropic, Amazon is the heart and the funder of it all. What do you mean? Exactly. And so, you know, Amazon is at the heart of this AI buildout. They're pouring billions of dollars into open AI and Anthropic. At the same time, they're spending billions of dollars primarily in data center infrastructure buildout for a technology that the American people,

quite frankly, are not asking for. And a worker shared with me that Amazon is developing AI in order to do the jobs of roles like executive assistance and technical project managers. So not only is it, you know, taking us back to the days of fossil fuels and building that out, but it is, you know, it's not a leap to say that Amazon is looking to replace these jobs as well. And, Kameda, can you talk about the fact that Amazon publicly claims that it's using 100% renewable energy for its electricity? Exactly. And so, you know, a few years ago when Amazon made that claim that they are 100% powered by renewable energy, we look at. laughed, right? Amazon employees for climate justice, we did our own independent research and found that it was closer to 22%. And the way that they were doing that was through those renewable energy credits that I talked about. And so what you have is Amazon and these big tech

companies lobbying and basically bullying these standards so that they are able to make these ridiculous claims. You're also deeply concerned. about Amazon Web Services, the Department of Homeland Security, recently awarding them a $2.6 billion contract to provide cloud services at the agency. Talk about how Amazon fits into the immigrant crackdown in this country. Yeah, Amazon Web Services proudly displays its partnerships with groups like Palantir, and they have hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts with ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. And we can directly see the way that they are aiding this military surveillance state. In 2021, they signed Project Nimbus, which allows the Israeli government

to surveil all aspects of Palestinian life and continue their illegal occupation and genocide. And workers are really concerned about this. Over 1,200 workers signed onto a letter saying that Amazon needs to stop providing solutions for mass deportation, mass deportation, surveillance and war, and that Amazon needs to build data centers with 24-7 energy so that we're not falling into these traps of building fossil fuel. And lastly, that we need workers, voices in the room and communities, because, you know, Amazon and all of these other places like to say they're democratically building the solutions. But what is democratic when they hide behind a non-disclosure agreement or a shell company? I just don't see how they're enacting

any of these values. I'd like to go back to Bill McGivin for a second, Bill. The Trump administration recently confirmed that Brazil and Argentina will be allowed to import a combined 300,000 tons of tariff-free beef into the United States over the next three months. You've written about that in a piece for the New Yorker. Your response? Can't wait to eat it, Juan.

It sounds really enticing. This is some of this stuff that they. didn't want to let into the EU apparently because, and now we get to eat it just another, just another prize from the Trump administration. This is the sort of combination of tawdry nonsense like this attempting to somehow drive down the inflation that he's created, combined with the all-out efforts to let oligarchs do whatever they want, is really starting to take. a toll. Kavita was talking about this huge project in Texas. If you flesh it out, Bloomberg had remarkable numbers last week. If you add up the gas that all these data centers are going to

burn, U.S. data centers are going to be burning more gas than any country except the U.S., Russia, China, and Iran. It's as if Donald Trump is helping invent a whole new country to burn fossil fuel precisely at the moment when our system is about to break. So whether it's, you know, gross beef or disgusting natural gas or whatever else, he's got it on the menu. People should check out our interview with Eric Schlosser, who wrote Fast Food Nation, about the mystery meat we're talking about today. But before we go, Bill, I wanted to ask you about the midterm elections.

There are almost 40 days until the elections in November. You've written you plan to visit swing states helping to support your groups, and you can explain them, Third Act and Greypack in close races. Talk about what role a potential Democratic Congress can play in addressing the climate. Well, Amy, it's actually, I'm in New York, and it seems almost relaxing to be in the same place for a couple of days, pretty much on the road all the time now and through November 3rd, because Third Act, which is this organization, And we've built with, you know, for old people like me who are, I want to work on climate and democracy, we have about 125,000 members now. And we have a pack, gray pack. So we can, you know, throw an elbow or two in this political fray.

And it's very exciting to see people around the country really mobilized. The degree of interest of desire, almost fervent desire to get out and vote is one healthy. sign in our otherwise unhealthy country. Are the senior citizens the highest percentage of voters who vote? There is no known way to stop old people from voting. That's one of the reasons that we work so hard at the Third Act. Look, the Democrats in control of one or both houses of Congress, won't have power to do new things.

Any smart idea they put forward will be immediately stomped on by the White. House. But they will have power to start being able to draw attention every day to these outrages. And that's, we have to hope, going to be important in and of itself. And let's be clear, these elections are also starting to set the groundwork for 2028. And that's going to be, at least in climate terms, probably maybe the last election that happens in a time frame when we still really have an opportunity to affect some of the outcomes of these things. So our politics are desperately important at the moment, and that's why it's so good to see people young and old signing up to really help. I'll just add, it's not as if we can't still get some stuff done.

Third Act managed to sort of lead a coalition of people that got 12 states this spring to legalize balcony solar. And the places where we can work, people's demands for a new energy future are really impossible. We just need to push and push hard. We're making big announcements tomorrow of a big new global push for we're going to do a global sun day in the summer solstice next summer. And so across the world, we'll have people celebrating this promise of renewable energy Remember, we now live on a planet where all of a sudden, the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That should allow us to make extraordinary progress finally and quickly. We want to thank you both for being with us.

Last question, 20 seconds. You just wrote a piece on your substack this morning about what the former vice president, Al Gore, said about AI downplaying AI threats and data sets. centers. The man who won the Nobel Prize, he had the film Inconvenient Truth. Well, he's right that we're going to have to come up with more power to air-conditioned the world over the next 20 years than to run data centers. In America, data centers are the overwhelming new use, but that reminds us that most of the world has actual needs for energy that we should be fulfilling. That's the challenge, not to figure out how to power to power. some technology whose proponents tell us we'll take half our jobs and run a 10 or 20% risk of

killing us all. Are you surprised that people around America are pissed off that someone wants to put the local outlet for that kind of nonsense in their backyard? Bill McKiven, co-founder of 350.org, founder of the organization Third Act. He writes the substack, the crucial years. His latest book here comes the sun. A last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization. Kavita Stana Merti is a former software engineer at Amazon and a member of Amazon employees for climate justice. Coming up, millions are left without power in Cuba. After another nationwide blackout, we'll be joined by Cuba's deputy foreign minister. Stay with us.

As a new river flow in the night. And somewhere, honey, some old stomping on. the ball like a free like a free stream of life heart jump straight to because you're pretty

party nose and you're fat and you sing like to kind of heart jump straight met you young New River Blues by the late folk legend Michael Hurley performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace

Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, Juan Gonzalez is in Chicago. As world leaders gather for the United Nations General Assembly here in New York, we turn now to look at Cuba, which is facing a growing humanitarian crisis amidst an escalating economic war waged by the Trump administration. On Friday, millions in Cuba lost power and what was at least the sixth major black since President Trump cut off fuel shipments to the island in January. The fuel blockade comes on top of the six-decade-long U.S. embargo. Residents of Fana say they have no water or electricity in their homes. It's very bad for everyone because everyone gets desperate in a house without water and without light.

It's a phenomenon that isn't seen anywhere else in the world, only here. And when people don't have water, look, I myself was without water for 15 days, without water or life, 15 days. The luck is that I could bathe over here and bathe on the other side. But tell me what does someone do who doesn't have that possibility? Meanwhile, the CIA recently formed a new secret Cuba task force as part of a widening U.S. effort to pressure Cuba. According to the times, the CIA is adding case officers who recruit and manage spies, as well as officers who conduct cyber operations and specialize in covert influence operations. The U.S. has made many attempts to overthrow the Cuban government over the past 65 years, hundreds of attempts.

In 1960, the CIA formed a Cuba task force that oversaw the failed Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961. The Guardian recently reported allies of President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have already begun vying for control of Cuba's assets if the Cuban government falls under the U.S. pressure. The Wall Street Journal just published an article headline, the backroom meetings in Miami where Cuba's future is being plotted. To talk about all of this, we're joined by Cuba's deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernandez de Casillo. Welcome back to Democracy Now.

Thanks so much for being with us. I'm glad we're within the 25-mile zone that you're allowed to travel in in New York. Great. 24 miles from Columbus Circle. Number one, if you can talk about what is, as the foreign minister addresses the United nations, what's the Cuban government's message to the Trump administration as it tightens the economic sanctions and embargo? We will be speaking to the international community at the UN, not necessarily to the U.S.

government, but the U.S. belongs to the international community. We live in a world which has become very dangerous, or expansionism, the ambition of domination, the attempts to take over the natural resources of developing countries. has come back to the stage. The UN was created precisely for that not to happen and has developed precisely for not that to happen yet as reality today as a result of a foreign policy that is conceptualized as peace through force,

which implies imposing the will of the US through intimidation, aggression, coercion, and so on. So that's one point that we need to talk. We need to talk about the plight of the people of Cuba because the aggression of the United States against Cuba today has a very serious human face. You spoke about the total blackout that occurred just this past week. That is an incident in Cuba.

More serious than that is a daily life of Cubans when you have two to three hours a day of electricity for many months already in accumulation. And weeks without running water. It's hugely uncomfortable and detrimental to the daily life of our community. And then we can speak about its impact on health, on education, and if we had time, I could expand on all of that. So it's something we want to raise. The UN has had a long-standing position on a topic that is titled, The Need to Put an End to

to the Economic Blockade of the United States against Cuba. Yet it continues to be there, and it's reinforced. Cuba is ready to engage with the United States on talks, which is proven, traditionally we've done it, but to solve bilateral issues, not to discuss about a takeover of Cuba. or the control of Cuba, as is being claimed in Washington frequently. Deputy Farron Minister, I wanted to ask you about this Times report about yet another CIA task force. Has the Cuban government identified cyber attacks in recent months or years, likely from the United States? Yes, we have.

We have been used for decades for the CIA to have task force, teams, mercenary armies, terrorist organizations, all kinds of schemes to try to overthrow the government of Cuba. So we wouldn't be surprised by the creation of the new task force that's being talked about. But yes, we've been a subject of cyber attacks. Also, the State Department accused a Cuban government of, quote, waging a sustained campaign and subversion against the United States. And it claims that Cuba is backing groups, like the National Lawyers Guild, Code Pink, Pastors for Peace,

your response to those claims? The report of the State Department, if you read it, I don't know how many people have read it, seems like a fable. And it gives a Cuba credit for things that it's impossible for a nation of Cuba to carry it out. And it discredits the genuine movements for justice, the genuine movements for civil rights,

and the genuine movement, even for freedom that have existed in the United States for decades. So it's an exaggeration to try to place Cuba and the absurd position of being a threat to the most powerful nation on earth. And it's also a way to blur a very clear and undisputable truth that between Cuba and the United States there is one country that is the aggressor

and one country which is Cuba that is under aggression. And that's the aim of these slanders reports and claims by the U.S. government. So according to the Times, the CIA is adding case officers who recruit and manage spies as well as officers who conduct cyber operations and specialize in covert influence operations. The Guardian recently reported allies of Trump and Rubio have already begun vying for control of Cuba's assets.

If the Cuban government falls under U.S. pressure, it sounds a little bit like what's happened with Venezuela. And I was wondering if you can comment on that. We're not that far from where the Venezuelan president and his wife, the first lady, are imprisoned. Schemes like these have occurred several times in the past 60-something years. They always end up in a fundraising and sometimes end up in hoax. People want to earn money saying that they promise that they're going to distribute land, that they're going to provide this bank, and that they're going distribute Cuba. That will not happen. That would imply taking over Cuba, and we will do all we can to stop any nation, the U.S., or any nation, from taking over Cuba.

And have there been any further negotiations between the governments of Cuba and the Trump administration on the sanctions or on the oil blockade? We cannot say that we've had negotiations with the U.S. We've had contacts, and we've had some meetings. But these do not progress. You cannot say that there is any progress or any advancement in these meetings if the U.S. on a weekly or bi-weekly basis continues to impose sanctions and coercive measures against the people of Cuba, punishing the people of Cuba. And until the U.S. is capable of reaching a point in which it respects Cuba for what it is, a fully sovereign nation, and we can work together on bilateral issues that are of interest.

of our peoples, of our nations, and could be meaningful, and could, in spite of the huge differences, it could be meaningful and beneficial to both countries. But that requires a serious sit-down and really talk about in a responsible manner of issues of a bilateral nation. What about the bombings? The U.S. has proudly touted of ships in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, boats of vessels saying that these are narco-terrorists, announcing they've killed well over 200 people. What is Cuba's position on this? And have you talked to the United States? We have a clear public position. This is state-sponsored terrorism. Assassination sponsored by the state. And even though none of these vessels are Cubans

or none of the individuals involved are Cubans, the U.S. claims that these are traffickers of drugs without any evidence, without any hearing, without any charge that just kill these people. It shouldn't be the way law enforcement operates anywhere in the world. That's what we call it state-sponsored terrorism. But the most important claim in the case of Cuba is that they use the same tactics

to harass some shipments that are heading to Cuba with fuel, for example. They don't attack them. but the harassment, and this provokes fear. It provokes intimidation for totally legitimate commercial activity related to Cuba. And it is an extension of the economic and energy blockade that the U.S. has imposed in Cuba. I'm also wondering here, the UN General Assembly is starting this week. And I'm wondering your concerns, the Cuban government's concerns about what is happening in Latin America as one,

right-wing government after another comes to power and welcomes the United States in so-called war on terrorism that's suddenly been shifted over to Latin America as well. Your concerns about the impact on the region? We strongly reject the Monroe Doctrine. There's a history of Cuban patriots opposing the Monroe Doctrine. And we've had, we have no problem with right-wing or left-wing governance being taking power or being elected in Latin America, if they are the result of the will of the respected people. But the U.S. interference in different countries and different governments in Latin America, and trying to choose or influence who is the leader of those countries, we look at it with

great concern, and we see it with great concern the ambition declared by U.S. politicians that the natural resources that belong to the people of Latin America and the Caribbean are under the domain of the United States. I want to ask you finally about UN experts, comparing Cuba, calling it a silent Gaza. You have what's in August, UN human rights experts condemning the blockade on Cuba, urging the international community to avoid, I should say, a silent Gaza from unfolding. Infant mortality in Cuba has more than doubled. Your final comments and also, speaking of Israel, the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran. Well, first I should say that we have a huge sympathy, solidarity with the people of Palestine.

And the genocide has been committed against the people of Palestine, basically in Gaza. And the numbers are appalling. That's why we try ourselves not to make comparison. But the approach in the case of Cuba, in different dimensions, is similar. Try to asphyxiate the people of Cuba into submission, to cater to the interest of a very narrow influential group in the United States, not to the interest of U.S. citizens as a whole, not to the interest of the national security of the United States or the well-being of Americans,

but of a narrow and influential group, mostly concentrated in southern Florida, even though not only there. And it's trying to, again, to impose the will of the U.S. through asphyxiation and starvation. Now, the child mortality rate, the fact that is almost more than double from 4 to 9.4 or 4.5, implies that there are newborns that have died in the past 2 to 3 years that should not have died. In a robust public health system like the one that Cuba has, those children would have been saved. And this is not collateral damage of U.S. foreign policy. It's a deliberate damage and deliberate harm caused by design by the U.S. government. The Secretary of States has said that he will shut any vault that the Cuban economy has to try to overcome the current situation, which implies shutting an evolve of oxygen

to affixiate the people of Cuba. We reject strongly the aggression by Israel and the United States against Iran. We reject aggression in general around the world. We are a country of peace, and we believe that peace and understanding among nations is the only future that the UN could look at if it wants to survive and have a sustainable world. Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Colcio, we thank you very much for being with us. Coming up, a new documentary on the Revolutionary Brazilian Educator Palo Frere.

The film is called Reading the World. Stay with us. This is just another skin simply slips away. You can rise above it. It will shed easily. and all will come out fine I've learned it line by line One desire

Rolls on ahead Like a ship in a bottle Held up to the sun Sales ain't going nowhere You can count everyone until it crashes unto the earth simply slips away. Open. I just disappear at all I've learned it line by line. Grateful, performed by Patty Smith in our Democracy Now studio.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We end today's show with a remarkable new documentary about Paolo Ferreira, the acclaimed Brazilian educator whose revolutionary approach to teaching connected literacy to critical thinking and democratic participation. In the early 60s, Ferreira led an adult education in northeastern Brazilian town of Angicos that help hundreds of rural adults learn to read and write in just. just 40 hours. Faredi rejected, wrote memorization, instead favoring culture circles, where students and educators drew on their own lives to learn vocabulary and develop critical consciousness. But the experiment was abruptly halted in 1965 when Brazil's military overthrew President Joam Goulart in a U.S. back coup. The literacy campaign was dismantled. Students burned their books out of fear of persecution. Palafuri himself was imprisoned and forced into exile.

16 years. The new documentary reading the world drawers on rare archival footage of the 60s, Brazil, and weaves together the memories of farmer, students, educators who took part in the culture circles. This is the film's trailer. In Angicos, a small town of Rio Grande do Norte, next to an old railway station, a revolution has begun. Before the school came, I didn't even know how to sign my name because I had never gone to school. No one cares about poor people who don't know anything. They taught us that if we studied, we could be citizens. Paloferi, for us, was a symbol of kindness in our lives.

I had the seeds of education planted in my chest directly by him. At the time, Brazil was living through a period of great political fervor. There was a desire to change things, a desire to try. transform the country. And this is another clip from reading the world. It features Paolo Frere himself, speaking in 1975. At that moment, the literacy students realize that transforming reality through their work, actions, and reflections,

is a way to create and recreate the world. And they take on the role of the role. of a transformer, not of an object. The film Reading the World, or Lendo O Mundo, focuses on a time in Paloferi's life before he wrote the famous book, Pedadjugogy of the Oppressed. If he comes as Brazil prepares for its general election next month, President Lula Anasia Lula de Silva is up for re-election. His challengers include Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil's former President Jaya Bolsonaro. who's now in prison for his role in the 2022 coup attempt. Lula and Paulo Ferreira were longtime allies.

For more, we're joined by Catherine Murphy, co-director of Reading the World, which recently premiered here in New York and will air on PBS World Channel, October 9th. And we're joined by Maria Luisa Mendonza, a consulting producer on the documentary, director of the network for social justice and human rights in Brazil.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now. In fact, President Lula just met with the New York Mayor, Mamdani, yesterday here in New York. Tell us about Lendo Omundo. Tell us about this amazing documentary reading the world. Well, thank you so much for having us. You know, Paulo Frere was one of the most influential educators of the past century and is still widely studied all around the world.

But the studies often focus on his ideas, his philosophies, his books, and much less is known about his original praxis, the beginning, those early on the ground in the trenches, grassroots level experiences that Paulo Fréi had in the years leading up to writing Pedagogy of the Oppressed and his other first books. And that's exactly what we ask in this film. We explore these years leading up to writing his first books. And we ask who were his closest collaborators? What was that collective that he was working with?

And importantly, we ask who were the students and how can we look at this experience through their eyes and through their words, their voices, and sort of see them as co-creators of this methodology that continues to make impacts around the world. Brazil at the time was highly feudal and colonial. 1% of the population owned the vast majority of the arable land. In the Northeast, 70% of people were illiterate, could not read and write, and if you couldn't read and write, you could not vote. So it was also prohibited to do any kind of rural union organizing. So these were these institutionalized intersecting ways to keep the majority of people outside of any personal and political empowerment.

And this was the Brazil that Frere and his collaborators were seeking to change. And Maria Liza, could you talk? What was revolutionary or unusual about Paulo Freit's methods, his pedagogical methods? Yes, I think one of the most important point of his philosophy is that everyone has knowledge. So when he started this group teaching farmers, farm workers that sometimes didn't even pay with money, sometimes they just worked for food in a very poor area, very remote area in the countryside, in the northeast of Brazil. when they gathered together, they felt that they had knowledge. So the key point about Paulo Freire's philosophy is that everyone has knowledge.

And teaching is about exchanging knowledge, and it's about seeing the world around you. So teaching needs to have meaning, and learning needs to make sense for people from the concrete reality where they're. leave. And I think this is something that is very needed in all levels of education all over the world. And Catherine, as Brazil prepares for its elections in this year, what does your film show so powerfully in the lessons of Pablo Fréry that are necessary to keep alive today? Well, I think it's important to understand that the demands of the grassroots movements, in the early 60s when Paulo Frii was working, remain the demands of grassroots movements in Brazil today

for a more democratic and more just Brazil with greater access to quality education, with expanded voting rights with political representation through people and sectors of the society that have been historically excluded, women, Afro-Brazilians, and indigenous people, representing themselves and the country, the real Brazil,

also advancing labor rights and labor relations, and importantly, this land justice and land tenure issue, which is still such a huge problem in Brazil today. So these issues, which were the core of the early 1960 movements, are defining at the core of the presidential debate now and what will be the future vision of the nation. 1964 coup. What happens to Paulo Frere? So Paulo Ferry was arrested soon after the coup. He was taken to jail for 70 days and forced into exile, during which time he lived all over the world and started writing his books and wrote his first books, pedagogy of the oppressed and others. And explain pedagogy of the oppressed? The seminal work. Yes. So Paulo Frey's seminal work, pedagogy of the oppressed,

was really largely based on this Angico's experience and his first experiences in Brazil, looking at how to democratize education to democratize the entire society. And after he left Brazil, pedagogy of the oppressed circulated clandestinely in Brazil during the years of the dictatorship and circulated openly around the rest of the world. But then Paul O'Frey also engaged with a number of adult education. projects around the world during those two decades that he was out of Brazil, notably in Guinea-Bissau, working with Mario Cabral, in Nicaragua, working with Fernando Cardinal, and working with grassroots social justice educators all over the world, including in the United States. I want to end with Paola Ferri and his own words from the film reading the world. I said that we had to challenge the illiterate adults and the groups of illiterate adults

challenged them with certain representations. Of the concrete reality they experienced. That's Paolo Frere. Catherine Murphy, co-director of reading The World, the film is about him. Maria Luisa Mendonza, consulting producer, the documentary will air on PBS World Channel on October 9th. Happy birthday to Jackie Sam. That does it for our show.

I'll be in London in Copenhagen and Berlin, Germany in this next week. Go to DemocracyNow.org for more information. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.