Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-09-28 Monday

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

Democracy Now! Monday, September 28, 2026

And this is democracy now. What we're demanding is that the rental market be regulated because rents are unaffordable and people simply cannot afford them. There are abuses taking place that can leave vulnerable people out on the street, such as Marie Carme, an 87-year-old woman with a disability who has no alternative housing after living in her home for 70 years. In Madrid, Spain, a protest encampment, growing following the forcible eviction of 87-year-old Marikarman.

Demonstrations over housing are spreading across Spain. We'll speak to a member of the Madrid Tenants Union and a member of the Spanish Parliament. Then, as we broadcast in London, we look at a new Channel 4 documentary Britain's Gaza Secrets Exposed. If there is even a question. Whether domestically or internationally, that a state that you are selling arms to might be conducting a genocide, then the time to be discussing whether they might be in breach of IHL is way gone. We'll speak to the documentary's executive producer Ben DePere. He also made the documentary Gaza, Doctors Under Attack.

which the BBC refused to air. Channel 4 picked it up and it won a BAFTA, the British equivalent of the Oscars. Then longtime national security reporter Sharon Weinberg, author of Valley of Death, how big tech is fueling the future of war. Unlike during the Cold War, when the government paid for and owned the underlying technology for weapons, We now have billionaire funded companies, venture-funded companies that are developing weapons with their own money, which means they own and control technologies that were once the preserve of governments. And we will ask Sharon Weinberger about her Wall Street Journal piece, The Hidden Debt Apple O's to the CIA. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman. today we're broadcasting from London. Police in Southern England have arrested five men on suspicion of terrorism after they allegedly approached a military base carrying explosives. The men were arrested after a farmer called police to report three vans blocking her driveway near the Royal Air Force's RAF's Fairford Base and, quote, a large group of hooded and mass men, unquote, who ran away when she spotted them. Dozens of people were evacuated from nearby homes as a bomb squad deployed robots to search the vehicles.

In a statement, counterterrorism police said all five men are British nationals in their 20s and from London. It's not clear whether others were involved in a plot to attack the base and a motive remains unknown. The U.K. has allowed U.S. bombers to launch long-range strikes on Iran from R.A.F. Fairford since March 1st, a day after President Trump ordered the U.S. to join Israel in its war on Iran. At their summit in Washington, D.C. last week, President Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he would like to buy U.S. made weapons. That's according to David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, speaking to Fox News Sunday. We sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President C. would he like to buy some? at one point.

In a statement to the New York Times, the State Department said, quote, U.S. law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China, unquote. The White House Friday night blocked CNN from Air Force One, preventing the network from covering President Trump on a Saturday trip to Tennessee. The four other major television networks, NBC, Fox News, CBS, and ABC agreed to resume that pool coverage of President Trump Sunday, even though the White House continued to block CNN from participating in the pool. This comes after President Trump banned MSNN, and Politico from the White

House earlier this month. Soon after, a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the White House to reinstate the outlets for two weeks. OpenAI's artificial intelligence reportedly went rogue and meddled with the websites for the Education Department, the Commerce Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer without the company's knowledge. This comes as OpenAI, Anthropic, and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps that outside evaluators would consider problematic. That's according to Axios, which reported Saturday, the massive number of incidents dwarfs the dozens of previously reported cases of frontier AI models escaping containment

and hijacking websites. In an interview that aired Sunday and Meet the Press, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates called on lawmakers to regulate AI. AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths. In Yemen, the Houthi-run health ministry said seven people were killed in airstrikes and 40 injured, including children in Thais province, on Sunday. Yemen's government said its forces had targeted Houthi military camp and vehicles in the area. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 700 people have been killed in Yemen since fighting escalated last month. Government forces are attempting to reverse recent Houthi advances along the Red Sea coast.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has surpassed 74,000. That's according to Gaza's health ministry. Since the so-called ceasefire last October, 1,145 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. On Sunday, two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on downtown Gaza City. Here in the UK, Foreign Minister Ed Miliband has called the actions of the Israeli government to, quote, stain on the conscience of the world. Miliband drew a standing ovation for his comments as he addressed the Labour Conference in Liverpool earlier today. And I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been

moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people, we hear you. You were right. We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out the evidence of war crimes in Gaza. We call out Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and we match words with action. We will ban the import of goods from illegal settlements. We will disrupt the supply lines of British finance, British construction and British services for illegal settlements. And when it comes to the attempt to destroy the two-state solution, this party, this movement, this government says, we will not let you succeed. The UK foreign minister, Miliband's speech came a day after police arrested more than 50

protesters outside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool with demonstrators non-violently urging support for the banned direct action group, Palestine Action. Among them was Robert Del Naya, frontman of the British. hip-hop group, massive attack. They were arrested for holding homemade banners reading, I oppose genocide, I support Palestine action, unquote. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the number of confirmed Ebola cases has topped 8,000 for the first time.

This comes as the World Health Organization confirmed that the virus has spread to two additional regions of the Northern DRC. This is the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adonome Gabriasis. Then there is no incentive for people to come forward because there is no vaccine, there is no treatment. But there are now advances in trials also vaccine and treatment. Without incentive, it is very difficult to attract people to the centers. Because, okay, why would I come? You isolate me and then I die alone.

The U.S. Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to roll out a large database of sensitive personal data, including citizenship status and social security numbers that states can use to identify ineligible voters. In a dissent to the court's unsigned emergency ruling Friday, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, wrote, quote, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm the government experiences when it's, prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take, unquote. States can use the database on a voluntary basis. Current law also prevents states from purging voters from their roles within 90 days of an election. In Chicago, the former lead prosecutor assigned to a high-profile case against six anti-ice activists

has resigned in protest accusing the Trump administration of ignoring, her legal advice as it pushed unwarranted felony charges. In a scathing resignation letter obtained by the Chicago Tribune, the prosecutor, Sherry Mecklenburg, accuses U.S. Attorney Andrew Butros of threatening to discipline or fire her if she attempts to defend herself against misconduct allegations. She writes, quote, you sent an office-wide email laying out responsibility at my feet for a felony prosecution that you personally directed over my objection that the case was better suited to misdemeanor charges, she said. The Broadview Six were indicted for protesting outside a nice jail last year during President Trump's immigration crackdown known as Operation

Midway Blitz. They faced felony charges for allegedly blocking an ICE vehicle with a maximum sentence of six years in prison. The case was eventually thrown out. by a U.S. District Judge who cited gross misconduct by prosecutors during grand jury proceedings. A federal judge in New York has issued a permanent injunction condemning the dreadful, quote-unquote, treatment of immigrants detained at the ICE jail at 26 federal plaza. The order prohibits ICE from indefinitely detaining people in overcrowded holding cells, saying detainees often had to sleep standing. It also requires ICE provide adequate medical care, sanitation and hygiene, proper meals, as well as free and unmonitored phone calls to lawyers, and access to counsel.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in the ruling, ICE imposed inhumane conditions, quote, to inflict punishment on detainees and induce them to self-deport, unquote. This comes as ICE arrest soared to record highs this summer. with more than 50,000 immigrants detained in August alone. Meanwhile, Amnesty International's called on ICE to be abolished and widespread human rights violations. And in Ukraine, a guided Russian aerial bomb injured, 22 people, including children, striking an apartment building in Kharkiv. This is a resident of the damaged apartment building.

Glass scattered and a column of smoke began to rise. The children were asleep in the other room. My husband and I, I realized there was glass everywhere and doors, so somehow we managed to squeeze through. We grabbed the children and got out of the apartment. Thank God the door hadn't jammed. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report.

I'm Amy Goodman. Today we're broadcasting from London, tomorrow Copenhagen and the rest of the week from Berlin. But we're turning now to the Spanish capital of Madrid. A protest encampment over the cost of housing and housing instability has entered its third day as over 600 residents are now camped in front of the regional government headquarters at the Puerto del Sol Plaza to demand new protections for tenants. tens of thousands of people marched in the streets of Madrid Saturday, demonstrations are also occurring across Spain. Protests began Wednesday over the eviction of 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal Martin, referred to just as Marie Carman, who was forcibly removed from her home of more than 70 years

after an investment fund bought her apartment building and more than tripled or more her own. rent. Police broke down the door of her home and removed Muddy Carmen, who is 87 years old, on a stretcher as hundreds of supporters gathered outside. She later released a video message to supporters from her hospital bed. My home has been my life, and now I have to leave it behind. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep fighting. Protesters camped in tents with sleeping bags in the Puerto del Sol Plaza say they won't leave unless meaningful government action is taken. What we're demanding is that the rental market be regulated because rents are

unaffordable and people simply cannot afford them. There are abuses taking place that can leave vulnerable people out on the street, such as Marie Karming, an 87-year-old woman with a disability who has no alternative housing after living in her home for 70 years. We are going to stay here until things change. There's talk of a decree on Tuesday, and we will remain here until measures that we consider sufficient are adopted. We are protesting so that we could claim, and so the government listens to us. Listen to a society that is tired of speculation, tired of corruption, and tired of a system that sidelines the vast majority of the population. This is why we are here.

For more, we go to Madrid, Spain, where we're joined by two guests. Sabina Karau is the spokesperson for the Syndicato of Equilinas, the Madrid Tenants Union. And Tesh Sidi is a member of the Spanish Parliament, member of the Progressive Coalition, Sumar. She's vice chair of the Committee on Economy and Digital Transformation. She is also the first Saharawi to serve in the Spanish Parliament from Western Sahara is an advocate for Saharawe rights. We welcome you both to democracy. Now, let's begin with Sabina in Madrid, your spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants Union. And can you explain to a global audience what has taken place, the significance of the eviction of Mardi Carmen, the 87-year-old tenant who has taken directly to the hospital?

Yes, first of all, hello, everyone. Well, what happened on Wednesday with Marendan is something that has been building up for years. not only for Maricarment, but for a lot of people, but particularly for Maricarment. This is her eviction did not begin on Wednesday. It began seven years ago when she received the formal notice that she had to leave her home if she didn't want to pay or could pay that the rent price of almost three times what she was paying at the moment. So there are generations of people here that feel that from the institutions,

they're not receiving any solution to any of their problems. For something, a problem, such a basic problem as having a roof under which to live. So right now, what we have is a lot of furious people and enraged people that are demanding from the government and from the public institutions that they give us some sort of solution. And we're also demanding certain specific measures that will be discussed tomorrow in the Council of Ministers. Can you explain who the people are in the streets? It's a reminder, it seems, of the ignitedos, the indignant who took to the streets so many years ago.

And talk about the Spanish government's response, Sabina. Yeah, well, a lot of people are comparing what happened on Saturday night to 15-eem, which was something that happened 15 years ago, where another group of people, a lot of people during many days. camped out in Seoul. This is somewhat different. I mean, the place is the same one, but this is something that we have promoted not only the Tenants Union of Madrid, but also different organizations. And the different, but a very basic difference here is that we have a specific goal, which is we want to change the whole model of housing in Spain. We don't only want, We have what we have called the Maricarment Decree, which is exactly what's going to be discussed tomorrow and the Council of Ministers.

But it doesn't end with this. We want to change the whole system. And if you go, if you go to Soil, you will find that there is not only the Tenants Union, there are people from Greenpeace. There are a lot of students that have organized, the whole education union also. I think that we are, this is not only about housing. This has put under discussion a lot of things that also raise a very democratic issue because people are, we're starting to like fight against us. And instead of looking up to see who are the people that are in the power that are condemning us to this situation that we are going through.

I don't know if I answered. Where will Marty Carmen go now? Well, she doesn't have an alternative. Right now, she's still in hospital. There are a lot of health issues that need to be addressed before she can leave the hospital. And we're fighting for that also because she doesn't have an alternative. She doesn't have what to go. Tesh, CD, you're a member of the Spanish parliament.

you were a vice chair of the committee on economy and digital transformation. If you can talk about the government's response right now, what the Spanish parliament is doing. And of course, this goes way beyond Marie Carmen. It goes to the whole issue of affordability in Spain, when to say the least we are dealing with in the United States as well. First of all, thank you for having me. I think the colleague from the syndicato in Clean, as explained it very well. I think it's a crisis in all our system and in our model because in eight years, we have been in this progressive coalition, but our power is not enough to make this change.

We need our like bigger, like the coalition in this case, we are with socialists. So we need socialists to be more fighter for this, to put. the agenda of housing and their right to have a house and the right to have an achievable rent is something we are fighting inside the government to have it and to achieve it. We know that the Marie Carmen cases is the case of so many families and every one of us, especially the class work, class work, is every day closer to be Marie Carmen than to have a house. So that is the big problem.

And a lot of people, especially the regional governments, they are still talking about that this is a generation issue, this is a fight between generation and what we can see in Seoul is a lot of anger, and we have to hold this anger, and this anger is against the regional government, but as well against our government. So we have to hold on this, to work on this. We're still working in this Marie Carmen Decretto, the decree and the council, but we need to fight this model. This model is working class, normal people against very, very rich company who find in housing and find in our right of having this house or not right, they find an investment and very, very easy.

Like in Madrid, but in all Spain, our model is really connected to tourism, really connected to having and buying a house to make a speculation. So people are saying it's enough, it's enough. So we are working really hard to find at least Maricarment, The decree or decree is a small step, but we know we need to fight more and we need to fight inside the government. It's too late, in my point of view, we've been fighting. We put this decree. It's the second time we bring it to the parliament, but we know that in the parliament we have as well the right and extreme right parties that they don't want to help people.

They don't want to fight against investment companies. They just want to open the doors to all these big companies. And this issue is not only happening in Spain. It's all around Europe, is all around the U.S., because what we are fighting is the right to have an affordable life. So that is the issue. And I hold, I've been yesterday on the protests, but I think we need to work more and more as a member of the government. And how does the government, for a global audience, if you can explain Sumard, your junior partner with the governing party with Pejubljoumé, Sanchez's party, how do you protect the elderly and the lifting of the moratorium on evictions

that took place after the pandemic? In 2006, in the pandemic as well, I mean, we've been in coalition on the government the last 80 years. The last time, the last government, we achieved the first step that is a law about housing and the right to housing, to have a house. is in our constitution. This is first of all. But that law is not enough because that law

in Spain we are kind of semi-federal state. So to apply that law we need the regions. We need Madrid, we need Catalonia. We need all our nations to make it real. Do you know? So that is the huge problem we find.

When we make any law or we make any step, we find the fight between the socialism and the right-wing, or extreme right-win parties. But we need to hold with that. We need to work on that, and politics is talking, his dialogue,

and to find a way to solve people problems. So we are in that way, to solve people problems, even if it's the first step, but we need to go farther and farther against this system who is killing our people, is killing generation and is putting people out of their houses, their memories. Marikarmin could be a grandma of any one.

I mean, like, she's a symbol of this crisis, but there are a lot of families every day are evacuated from their houses, from their memories, from their neighborhoods. But we put this problem in during the COVID, and we brought it as well in February of this year. But right and extreme right parties, they, like, just put it down. They didn't vote it in favor of people, so we are fighting that. But I think Marie Carmen is an point of it. Like, sorry, I can. Tash, C.D., we're about to wrap up, but I wanted to ask you a question as the only Sahrawi member of the Spanish Parliament.

The Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, takes pride in being one of the most progressive world leaders when it comes to Palestine. However, when it comes to another occupation, Morocco occupied Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, where you and your family are originally from. He's joined President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in support of Morocco's so-called autonomy plan to make the occupation permanent. In this last minute we have, what is your response? This is an exactly perfect example of how is the hypocrisy of socialism,

I mean, especially of this government when it's related to Western Sahara or related to housing. The propaganda and the marketing they have around is that they are quite progressive people, but the people who hold with them and hold the government and support the government, we know that it's not enough. So the change of our commitment, because we are as well, the colonial state, Spain is the colonial state of Western Sahara. We have so much responsibility of what happens to Sahra people, and especially people like me who was born in a refugee camp.

And one of the commitment why I take a step from software engineering and move to politics is because of that change, because 2021, because I felt like a Spanish person and as well, a Sahrawi person needs to be more committed on politics to change and to have a voice. And I'm very glad to do that step, because since I'm here in the latest week, We achieved the first law in 50 years that, first of all, recognized that Spain has been, were, like,

uncolonized Western Sahara. And I don't know if you know, but Sahara people who were born under colonialism, they lost their Spanish ideas, the Spanish nationality. They took them from them. So with this law, we give it back. But the most important is they're not giving Saudi people the nationality back. The most important things is memory is that we made a little bit of justice, and we put Sahrawi on media and on the table.

And I know as the housing problem, this is only the first step on recognizing Sahrawi's self-determination. Tash Sidi, I want to thank you for being with us, member of the Spanish Parliament, with Sumar, the junior partner with the Spanish government, also the only Saharae in the Spanish parliament. and Sabina Kadao, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants Union, both speaking to us from Madrid, Spain. Coming up, Britain's Gaza's Secrets Exposed. Stay with us. Shield, Sheel, Carrie, performed by the NYC Palestinian Youth Choir.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. The British Labor Party is holding its annual conference in Liverpool. This is British Foreign Minister Ed Miliband speaking earlier today. And I want to say to the millions of people in this country and indeed elsewhere who have been moved and outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people, we hear you. You were right. We call out ethnic cleansing by the settler terrorists in the West Bank. We call out the evidence of war crimes in Gaza.

We call out Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. and we match words with action. We will ban the import of goods from illegal settlements. We will disrupt the supply lines of British finance, British construction, and British services for illegal settlements. And when it comes to the attempt to destroy the two-state solution, this party, this movement, this government says we will... That's the British Foreign Minister, Ed Miliband,

speaking to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool earlier today. He spoke a day after police arrested more than 50 protesters outside the conference for holding signs reading, I oppose genocide. I support Palestine action. Under UK law, Palestine action is proscribed or banned as a terrorist organization. Well, we turn now to Britain's Gaza Secrets Exposed. That's the name of a documentary that aired Thursday night on Channel 4, examining how the British government responded to Israel's war on Gaza, it's based in part on unpublished internal government documents. This excerpt looks at the role of David Cameron, Britain's former conservative prime minister. In January 2024, David Cameron was questioned about the government's response to the crisis

by the Foreign Affairs Committee. By this point, over 23,000 Palestinians had been killed and Israel had blockaded Gaza for three months. If Israel have the power to turn the water back on that they turned off, surely that is a flaking breach of international humanitarian law. Well, I'm not a lawyer. My view is they ought to switch it on

because at the north of Gaza, the conflict is now effectively over there. So you've never had a piece of paper put in front of you by a foreign office lawyer that says that Israel is in breach of its international humanitarian commitments under international humanitarian law? Look, the reason for not answer this question, I can't recall every single bit of paper that's been put in front of me. I look at everything. I mean, of course, there are lots of things that have happened

where you think, well, surely that was something that shouldn't have happened. And so I don't want to answer that question. Now dispatchers can reveal what legal advice David Cameron had received. only a month before giving evidence in Parliament, he had been sent two separate assessments, concluding that Israel's blockade of Gaza was a possible breach of international humanitarian law. An email confirms he carefully considered all the information in one of them.

Have you been made aware or seen any evidence or have reasonable grounds to believe that Israel has breached international humanity? I've seen lots of things that have been deeply concerned. Have you received legal advice? David Cameron evaded those questions 10 times. The documentary Britain's Gaza Secrets Exposed also features former British Foreign Office official Mark Smith, who resigned in protest over arm cells to Israel. These are his words in his own voice, though he's portrayed on screen by an actor.

We've all seen the aerial footage of entire neighborhoods literally flattened to the ground. They've destroyed the vast majority of all residential buildings in Gaza. I've never seen anything like it in my career in my life. He'd been a lead officer on arms sales assessments during the Saudi-led war in Yemen. He was now working as a diplomat representing the UK and Ireland and was shocked by the handling of Gaza. And the nature of the assessment is such that you can kind of make it saying whatever you want, and that is why the system is broken. Because of the scale of destruction, he was concerned about possible war crimes and even genocide. So even without being on the team and having access to the assessments being made,

I could see on the news in broad daylight with the naked eye the most appalling attacks taking place on a daily basis. almost every single school and almost every single hospital in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. How are we justifying our arms exports? If there is even a question whether domestically or internationally

that a state that you are selling arms to might be conducting a genocide then the time to be discussing whether they might be in breach of IHL is way gone. That's British Foreign Office official Mark Smith, who resigned over Britain's policy towards Israel. We're joined now by Ben DePair, executive producer of Britain's Gaza Secrets Exposed. He's produced four films on Gaza since October 7th, including Gaza Doctors Under Attack. The BBC refused to air. that film last year, Channel 4 picked it up and it then won a BAFTA, the British equivalent of the Oscars.

Ben DePere served as editor of Channel 4 News for 10 years. We thank you so much for being with us, Ben. Talk about this piece that came out, this documentary on Thursday night, and what are these Gaza secrets where you got them? Well, it's extraordinary to hear Ed Miliband today at the Labor Party conference rewriting UK policy. I heard just now that you played the clip that he's calling what happened in Gaza possible war crimes or war crimes even and that is a long way forward from where his predecessor was

and where this government has been and the previous government our film focused on the process by which the foreign office our government assesses Israel's conduct its military behavior in Gaza because not only are they an ally of the United Kingdom, but we also sell them weapons.

And we are the signatory of a number of international treaties, including the genocide convention, which means if there is even a risk of a genocide taking place, you are meant to take action as a fellow country under that genocide convention. You're meant to stop the genocide, not aid it, not sell weapons. We're also signatories of the Arms Treaty, which is that you do not sell arms to a country that may be committing, war crimes. And when we got these documents from inside the foreign office, they were the assessments

written by a team who were watching hundreds of videos, the sort of videos that you and I watched on our phones, the whole world watched on their phones of civilians being killed, schools being bombed, hospitals like our last film being attacked, the whole health system taken out, journalists being killed over 200 of them, obviously 73, 74,000 people have now been killed in Gaza, but 21,000 of them are children. In its scale, there's not been a bombing campaign like this century. This century. So we were looking at how our country, which prides itself on having an ethical foreign policy

as being one of the supporting members of the United Nations on human rights, was able to keep selling arms. And basically what we found was a doctored process, where assessments were coming to ministers that were saying, these are possible war crimes, but fairly neutral. And then the ministers were saying, we don't see any cause concern here. Certainly David Cameron said that,

we can keep signing them off. And even as he was, sorry, publicly saying, we were going to take tough action against what Israel is doing. Privately, they were signing off these weapons, sales, licenses, so that we continue selling arms to Israel. Sometimes on the same day. Yes, yes. There was one bombing of the World Central Kitchen,

in which six aid workers were killed. Three of them were British, and that was on the 1st of April, on the 2nd of April, David Cameron came out saying, demanding that the Israelis take action, they do a proper investigation, and on the 3rd of April,

he was signing the latest weapons sales license so that we could continue selling them weapons. It's quite extraordinary, the level of duplicity that was going on in order for us to keep, sending Israel arms. I want to go to a clip that's related to the bombing of the World Central Kitchen. This is from Britain's Gaza Secrets.

It focuses on that attack where World Central Kitchen workers in Gaza were killed. It was seven of them in April 2024. Neil and Trish Henderson's son James had served in the Royal Marines in Afghanistan. From February 2024, he was working for World Central Kitchen, a charity delivering food to civilians in Gaza. We could see what was happening in Gaza. But you think if they're doing humanitarian work, then they're going to be safe.

They should be safe. They should have been safe. Yeah, he wasn't out there fighting a war. He was out there trying to help people. James entered Gaza just before famine was declared by the UN. As a security adviser, he was responsible for the team's safety, along routes coordinated with the IDF. He said, no matter where you go, all you can hear is drones all the time.

When I finished on the phone to you, he said, I'm going to go up and put some more World Central Kitchen stickers on the roof. and that was the last time I spoke to him. On the 1st of April, James and two other British veterans, John Anthony Chapman and James Kirby, were driving in an aid convoy. At 11pm, an Israeli drone fired on them. Seven aid workers were killed, including the three Brits.

I've always remembered Trish just crying out to me, it's Jim, you know, and then you realise that even one of the... And the sudden, that whole day is just a blur, really, in that sense. Killings of the aid workers in the World Central Kitchen strike triggered an international outcry. The devastating Israeli air strikes that killed World Central Kitchen personnel yesterday bring the number of aid workers killed in this conflict to 196, including more than 175 members of our own UN staff.

This is unconscionable, but it is an inevitable result of the way the war is being conducted. I welcome what the Israeli foreign minister said yesterday to me about a full, urgent and transparent inquiry into how this dreadful event was allowed to happen, and we want to see that happen very, very quickly. But that same day, Cameron was publicly demanding answers from the Israelis, behind closed doors. he signed off the latest approval of weapons exports to Israel without waiting for Israel's investigation to be completed. This was just two days after the drone strike. This letter outlines his decision, which was based on the fifth IHL assessment.

The Foreign Secretary does not recommend the suspension of any extant export licenses to Israel. That's a clip from the documentary Britain's Gaza Secrets that just aired on Channel 4. Even the case of the killing of 5-year-old Hinvri Job and her family, the British office, concluded there was insufficient evidence to show there had been a breach of what's called IHL, International Humanitarian Law. Finally, on this, before we go to your previous documentary, Ben, where you got a lot of the documents that you base, Britain's Gaza secrets. There was a court case taken by Al Haq

through an organization called Glan where they were trying to stop the UK government selling arms to Israel. And so in that, there was disclosure of the assessments that were being made. And we managed to get hold of these because they're court documents, but we happen to be the only people who had actually bothered looking through them in any detail journalistically. And we only have a minute left,

but I want to go to your recent film on Gaza that you produce Gaza Doctors Under Fire. The BBC pulling the film weeks before its scheduled broadcast, Channel 4 aired it instead. It then won a BAFTA during the award ceremony, you and your colleague, the correspondent on the piece, Ramita Navai, blasted the BBC. We refused to be silenced and censored. And we thank Channel 4. showing this film. We also want to dedicate this award to Jabba Badwin and Osama al-Ahi,

the two journalists on the ground who made this film for us. They did so amongst a killing spree that killed over 250 of their colleagues, journalists in Gaza. So I'd like a round of applause for them, please. And finally, just a question to the BBC. Given that you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTA screening later tonight? Thank you. Bye. So that's Ben DePere and Ramita Nevae at the BAFTA ceremony, their acceptance speech. Ben, did the BBC air your speeches when they ran just within the next hours? They did, they did actually, and they were very fair to us.

They showed our clips of the criticism of them. They came under huge pressure, especially from the government here over Gaza. the BBC is a brilliant journalistic organisation. They caved in a little bit during the first year and a half of the Gaza war. And they came under, I would say, unacceptable government pressure, and they didn't perhaps react in the way they should. But I see positive signs now, especially that our own government is now criticizing Israel openly in taking a very firm stance or a firm stance,

or a firmest stance, you will see the BBC perhaps given the space to do the coverage that they've normally done over many years. Ben DePere, executive producer of Britain's Gaza Secrets and Gaza Doctors Under Fire. He's produced four films on Gaza since October 7, 2023. He served as editor-in-chief of Channel 4 News for 10 years, has been in Gaza 10 times over the last 20 years. Coming up, Sharon Weinberger, author of Valley of Death, How Big Tech is Fueling the Future of War. Stay with us.

To the misanthropic, misbegotten merchants of gloom who look into their crystal balls and prophesy our doom, let the death nail shine. It's the end of time. Let the cynics put their blinkers on and toast our, decline don't become demoralized by this chorus of complaint it's a sure sign that the old world is terminally quaint and tomorrow's gonna be a better day no matter what the siren voices say tomorrow's gonna be a better day we're gonna make it

that way. Billy Bragg, singing tomorrow's going to be a better day in our Democracy Now studios in New York. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Today we're broadcasting from London. Tonight, the film about Democracy Now called Steal the Story, Please, will be showing in Lewis at the Lewis Depot outside Brighton. at 8 o'clock, and I'll be there with a film's director, Carl Deal, for Q&A afterwards. We end today's show with a remarkable new book about the growing ties between Silicon Valley

and U.S. military and intelligence agencies. It's called Valley of Death, how big tech is fueling the future of war. The author, longtime national security reporter Sharon Weinberger, traces the roots of Silicon Valley's relationship with the Pentagon back to the Cold War when government funding help fuel the development of the tech industry. But today, she writes, the relationship has fundamentally changed. Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anderil are no longer simply supplying technology to the U.S. military intelligence agencies, but also developing powerful technologies that in some cases may maintain control over themselves. Weinberger argues the stakes are enormous.

Take a listen to Axios reporter Colin Demarest. questioning the co-founder of the military tech company and real industries, Palmer Lucky, about whether there's any red line on what he would build. What won't you build? What's your red line? What wouldn't I build? That's an interesting one. Well, you know, I've been pretty public that how our weapons are used are, you know, that's a matter for the DOD.

But you're right, I have control over what I can build. There's things that I can say, for example, you know, that's a power too great for any man. Nuclear weapons? I would definitely build nuclear weapons. I would build fusion weapons. I would build fusion weapons. I think that nuclear weapons have been one of the most stabilizing forces in history ever. In her new book, Valley of Death, how big tech is fueling the future of war. Journalist Sharon Weinberger examines the extraordinary rise of tech billionaires like Lucky, as well as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, who she writes are playing an increasingly central role in U.S. military and intelligence. decisions, but with no oversight or accountability. Sharon Weinberger, welcome to Democracy Now. Before we get to these tech billionaires building nuclear weapons themselves,

I want to turn to your recent article, based on your book, this in the Wall Street Journal, headlined the hidden debt that Apple owes to the CIA. Talk about Steve Jobs being rehabilitated, kind of, when he went back to Apple. and what that relationship was with the CIA. Sure. So about 10 years ago when I was thinking of working on this book, when Silicon Valley was starting to move back into Pentagon work, I was told a story that I thought was perhaps apocryphal

about how the National Security Agency had given a large contract to Steve Jobs company next. This was the company he formed in the 1980s after he was initially exiled from Apple. Company built beautiful, very expensive computers, wasn't doing well. It was essentially failing. And I was told the National Security Agency had bought a whole bunch of computers and it had in effect saved the company. So it took me years to track down the story. And what I eventually did, it turned out it wasn't the NSA that was actually cover for a CIA contract that was buying next computers for satellite analysts to go through imagery. And the story was really fascinated. not just because it was Steve Jobs, but we think of him as almost a counterculture figure, but the idea that in the late 1980s, early 1990s, he was not only doing work for the CIA,

but that it essentially saved his company. The argument was that that gave him years, a few years of extra one runway to prove himself at Next. He leaped fraud back to Apple, took over Apple again, and the operating system from Next became the operating system for modern Apple products. So the argument I would hear from people both inside that company and inside the intelligence community was the CIA effectively saved jobs and saved Apple.

So I want to go to the start of your book, beginning with a Zurich-based company that's a sole secret mission to build and sell nuclear weapons. You write, quote, the entrepreneur's goal essentially was to break the government monopoly over the production of nuclear weapons. It turned out to be an exercise sponsored by a secret of division. of the Pentagon. You write the idea that the Pentagon had sponsored a secret study to see if a rogue billionaire could develop a nuclear weapon fascinated me. Take it from there. Yeah. So in 2013, this division of the Pentagon funded this study to look at whether a rogue billionaire could build

nuclear weapons. I mean, essentially a little bit like what Palmer Lucky was talking about in the clip you played. And I was given a copy of this study. around 2017, 2018, and then eventually went back and interviewed the participants. And it doesn't mention specific billionaires, but when I interviewed the people who took part in it, sort of like a tabletop war game, they're like, oh yeah, absolutely. We were thinking of an Elon Musk figure. And that's sort of amazing. In 2013, Elon Musk was certainly up and coming, but he wasn't the figure he is today.

And the point they made was what they saw coming down the pike when they did this study in 2013, was that technologies, whether for nuclear weapons, for space travel, for other weaponry, it was no longer simply in government hands. It was now feasible for an entrepreneur, for a billionaire, for private capital to build these weapons. And sure enough, here we are in 2006. Elon Musk has his SpaceX built Starlink, a satellite internet communication systems, which was critical for Ukraine in the early days of the war. We have Palmer Lucky, the founder of Anderol, talking about building nuclear weapons.

What differentiates this new class of entrepreneurs from the defense industrial complex of old was the Pentagon never had to call the CEO of Lockheed Martin and say, can we use your F-35? Many of these technologies developed in the private sector now, to include AI, are done with private money, with venture capital, with private capital. The government doesn't own the underlying technology. technology, which is why you're starting to see these disputes now, as you've seen, for example, between Anthropic and the Pentagon, because the Pentagon doesn't own the technology. They don't control it. So in this part of the interview, we're going to do a part two. But what did Trump's presidency mean for the relationship between Silicon Valley and the U.S. military industry?

You write in the New York Times for tech companies, the personality of the person occupying the White House are less important than the person's willingness to buy what Silicon Valley is offering. So what I mean by that is that, you know, it's not that people don't have real beliefs, real ideas and real ideas. I don't want to discount sort of individual agency. But Silicon Valley as a whole, you know, we're all determined by our economic and operating environment. And that was the point of the Steve Jobs story. Like, yes, he was in some ways a figure of the counterculture. But when it meant the survival of his company, he was perfectly willing to work with the CIA. He gave lectures at the CIA.

He was willing to work with national security. And it's the same thing with tech billionaires now. They may have their own political beliefs left or right. But they know that it's more about what is the administration going to do for them. President Obama was very good in many ways for Silicon Valley. He was supportive of the Silicon Valley. There were a lot of personal links between people going in now the administration. he was supportive of privatized space travel.

Biden administration, less good for Silicon Valley. So Trump has done two things. He sort of supercharged this relationship between government and Silicon Valley. But he's also demonstrated when you saw how in 2016 Peter Thiel was this outlier supporting Trump. And then you get to the current administration and you have these tech leaders showing up for dinner, praising Trump for his leadership, sort of going to, going like supplicates saying what they're going to do for the U.S. economy. You know, it's hard to say what they believe or don't believe, but at the end of the day, they're going to do what's good for their businesses, and that's what they're demonstrating.

Sharon Weinberger, we're going to thank you for being with us. We're going to continue this interview, post online at Democracy Now. We're going to talk about how artificial intelligence is transforming warfare from targeting software to autonomous drones. That does it for our show. Sharon Weinberger is author of Valley of Death, how big tech is fueling the future of war. I'll see folks in Lewis outside Brighton tonight at 8 o'clock, then tomorrow in Copenhagen at the Grand Theater,

and then in Berlin at Spore. Check our website at democrysonout.org. I'm Amy Goodman from London.