Common firing right across the world but if it all started on i thought oh. No this march there are now i want to know what its going to take us through cases plus what 100 countries with any place you think if youre just shocked shocked by the hello im Richard Geres bird and youre at the listening post among the media stories that were covering this week china tries to flip the script on covert 19 it has issues with the way the International Media are covering the story right down to where the virus was bore the Film Industry in apartheid era south africa how could it bust equipment. And the subsidy that was supposed to help black South Africans get into the movie business justice delayed can be justice denied but not in slovakia where the murder of a journalist has led to a crackdown on corruption and. Dont be too fact in the poem turn to music video turned online anthem for the me too movement the coronavirus story took a turn last week when a government spokesman in beijing told journalists to stop reporting that the covert 19 virus originated in china ever since last year when the 1st case was reported in the city of han the origin of this outbreak has not been a point in contention not even in chinas state media until now why the change of tack it comes down to the numbers more than 100. 00 countries are now affected the number of cases keeps climbing so does the death toll the cost to the Global Economy is all. Already in the billions of dollars and it could reach trillions those are the kinds of figures that no government wants to be associated with china has been hardest hit by this corona virus but it is also the only country claiming to have brought the epidemic under control now its trying to do the same with the news narrative is making sure that its version of the story gets reported and prevails our starting point this week is. 20. 1000000 new story driven by the numbers the more than 100000 coronavirus case the more than 100000000 people now according to a basic numerical examination of chinas public political response can also prove informative the task force in charge of combat in covert 19 is made up of 9 state officials one of them is a Health Specialist another is background is in economics and there are 2 officials whose expertise is propaganda and that shows quite clearly that from the very beginning controlling the number 800 was the single most Important Mission what a party it doesnt mean that the public house its not important or that the economys important but less important than the rate that would be deal to. Beijings most direct attempt to change the narrative on covert 19 came just over 2 weeks ago through one of its leading scientists is. China was changing its story up until then Foreign Ministry spokesman. Had faced the news cameras day after day after day never once contesting the idea that the city of new han where the outbreak began was also the virus his birthplace suddenly big and me. Thats it controls were saying that the virus could have been carried into china from elsewhere anywhere. In is with chinas state owned english language news channel yet people assumed that it came the virus came from china because the 1st cases were kind of related to the Seafood Market in ohio but this was never scientifically proven there have been media reports coming out to some from credible sources saying we dont know where is patient 0 or where was patient 0 where was this case 1st erupted as china said we do not know where the virus exactly came from but we know that the outbreak started in ohio and we know that china had to take and it did very strong measures to tackle it i think that is really the most important part of the equation there are several steps to this pushing the narrative that the virus originally in the u. S. There have been Conspiracy Theory is going on around the chinese social media of saying things like maybe this virus was a bio weapon developed by the u. S. And it was you know brought to a hand during his military competition that happened there last year and the Chinese State run media will report on. Something. Somebody. Would result. From that saying theyre. Not saying theyre true necessarily by kind of just you know mildly. Overspread of these kinds of rumors in china i mean chinas propaganda offensive is multifaceted and multiplatform its diplomats embassies and consulates launched dozens of new twitter accounts last year since twitter is banned in china those accounts are aimed at International Audiences the diplomats are trying to reassure foreign governments that china now has its domestic epidemic. Under control and theyre offering to share the expertise its developed with other countries joining us to talk more about the virus is chinas ambassador theyve taken that same message to the Mainstream Media beaching estimates its diplomatic corps has conducted more than 400. 00 interviews on the coronavirus and written more than 300. 00 articles Chinese Television is also producing news stories extolling beijings Rapid Response to the crisis which until you have a look at me to get. Us to listen to them to the. Stories that then find their way into the International Media one of the biggest manifestations of that was. The building a hospital and will hunt in 10 days there filmed footage of the construction site that they gave its International Media as well you are looking at a time lapse of the incredible effort to build a hospital in just 10 days can however that in say that it wasnt just like a fall on hospitals it was more of a point in hospitals so those prefabricated building that doesnt have the full functionality of the hospital and then they had terrible leaks from the pipes and there was footage of just water flowing down from the ceiling people who went in the hospital or saying you know this doesnt really look like a hospital its more like a Quarantine Center they are being effective because i do see just in the recent. Days how even you know western journalists and the western experts saying you know maybe china able to do things that we cannot do in democracy we when facing this kind of crisis however every time when i see people say that maybe the chinese system isnt better i would say do you want to be quarantined in china because of censorship there are a lot of sad stories of the suffering and fear and anger we cant see because people cant express themselves we should not forget what starlin once famously said it and i quote there is a quality in quantity to. So when you are swamping the media and the social media space with a particular narrator to the other. That presents a somewhat different picture so even particularly hurt. And time again by a wide range of media a lot of people will buy into that. Just because china is churning out the propaganda does not mean it does not have legitimate grievances with the International Coverage of covert 19 discerning media consumers may have noticed that when news outlets outside of china report on coronavirus cases in their countries be it the us italy or india the accompanying image usually includes an asian face that could pass for china germany is published this magazine cover it came off as more blame game than journalistic and when the wall street journal produced a piece with this headline responded by revoking the credentials of 3 of their journalists and deporting them there definitely has been racism in the reactions to the corona Virus Outbreak in china but in terms of mainstream western media i see more either unintentional racism or offensiveness or insensitivity thats kind of the category that the people are or the wall street journal headline falls and so the wall street journal editor who wrote that headline probably just didnt realize how offensive this was to people inside china because i had been used for years and predating the Chinese Communist party so the government has exploited this kind of racist undertone and are trying to paint the us or the west as being racist towards china. Drug war was all. Going on using that to to fan instigated a nationalistic sentiment within china again for the purpose of distracting their attention on the real issues of the mishandling of the crisis to you know pulling the foreigners racism all the hate hate speech is not a new thing but unfortunately when were fighting this common enemy this has been used to shift the blame to attack china to attack chinas political system this came out of nowhere. Actually given a chance just the way it works the International Media probably need to take a moment as things helping people understand china correct is that in chinas interests or is that in the interest of your own readership your own is also having the general public to fight ignorance to fight violence to fight misinformation in front of a virus truth matter. In that respect china has a point but its outweighed by another one had beijing played it straight in the early stages of the outbreak had its officials not denied the magnitude and the dangers leaving millions exposed and had chinas media apparatus reported the real story as opposed to the state approved version things could be very different today. Regardless of what Chinas Ministry of propaganda wants you to believe. We. Were discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers flo philips flo its been just over 2 years now since the murder in slovakia of the journalist the un could see act he was killed along with his fiance a woman named martin a coup sneer of a justice has been slow in coming in this case but bring us up to speed on the latest legal developments. Richard you remember that was an investigative journalist and he was looking into tax fraud among businessmen with ties to some of the back his top politicians one of those figures was a man named marion koch and could see it revealed that had direct links with police and prosecutors in fact when told police that it was in fact sending him threats the police did nothing a few months later he was found dead in his home at the time tens of thousands of slovaks took to the streets and that led to the resignation of the Prime Minister there well but fico now the new Prime Minister elected this year a man called igor matosi made coup sex case a major part of his campaign promising to root out corruption so why is this legal case resurfacing now so last year 4 people were charged with a motas and marion himself is currently on trial as the alleged mastermind this past week he was charged with the bribery of Public Officials and now 18 of those officials have been arrested 13 of whom are judges while there are shades here in this case of malta and the murder of the journalist definitely cutter want to gurlitz you are there indeed i was in malta a couple of months ago looking into that case and its legal off the mobs that. Suffered years of harassment and intimidation for exposing corruption at the very highest levels of government that she was murdered in 2017 like the protests about her death led to the resignation of the Prime MinisterJoseph Muscat as you say justice has been a long time in coming in both cases but in slovakia some senior political figures on now paying the price kerry thanks will. Were going to scroll back now more than 4 decades and look at a slice of history filmmaking in south africa during the era of apartheid like many governments south africa has offered subsidies to the Film Industry and the subsidy were looking at was known as the b. Scheme an alternative to the a scheme that already existed in order to qualify for the b. Scheme filmmakers who were mostly white back then had to produce films with black casts for black audiences in a black South African language such as zulu hosts. From around 1973 to 989 as many as 1500 of those films were produced but in many cases there was a prevailing theme a larger message one that would explain why the apartheid government with its policies of racism oppression and segregation would help bankroll movies that were made a stand for the entertainment of black South Africans the listening posts Nick Muirhead now on the b. Scheme subsidy and the effect that it had on filmmaking in apartheid era south africa. This is the year to cinema to the black and cinema in south africa its boarded up in a band but during the struggle against apartheid it was a focal point. A place where its a verse of films were shown and activists could organize. This 1973 it made cinematic history in south africa by being the 1st cinema to screen a film called joke with what made it groundbreaking put it was black. How could. A movie in the township that cost so we really like to put more people in the us. Is quite unique for the times because of apartheid no one was really considering producing movies was all black cost members for black audiences. Is a kind of very small on a ladies man coming to the rescue of them but then for the industries as well as you know those who. Investigate their van and martial arts expertise. Black character james bond this kind of guy they wanted to join the fun. So they can win the cup final. And youre. Living in a apartment trying. To get all the things that government didnt obviously want of the population to kind of aspire to. The writer and producer of bullet 20 fundament says that they premiered the film without approval from the apartheid census and that just 2 screenings later it was banned. The sports station theres clearly no. But these are. Says that the decision to banter bullet was eventually overturned but by then it had lost its momentum and would never recover. While the form was ultimately a commercial failure the response from black South African audiences convinced from the mayor and his fellow filmmakers that there was a huge demand in the country for this kind of content or what they also knew was that without the apartheid governments approval these kind of films would just keep on getting bad so they had to make a deal. And they was already a template in place nearly 2 decades earlier in 1956 the part take government to created a subsidy to help grow and national Film Industry for White South Africans the films had to have. Dialogue in White South African languages and typically they would promote the White South African way of life. If that criteria was met the filmmakers would get money back based on ticket sales they called it a scheme film subsidy. 20 from the met for so an opportunity. For. Films with black costs for black audiences in their own languages. Get there and theres a reason why the Party Government went along with. The idea behind the subsidy itself was if we created a vehicle through which to entertain the masses that would keep their minds off of political unrest i know what about moralizing the leisure time of black people because if they not occupy and they get up to all kinds of mischief thank you and. A secondary benefit a plaster you would class was of course the kind of ideological value that. They could get out of it. Partake of and sort the propagandistic in the. Storylines that government favor in these films love to put in. The good will always win over the evil crime doesnt pay. And another thing is i wanted to bring that idea to the black people that you should go to your own land and stay there thats your place and come to the white. Homelands for a small semi autonomy typically under service to end poverty stricken allocated to black South Africans in the apartheid era and that seen that once your work is done in socalled white south africa you go back to the supposed to train quality of the homelands were so prevalent in the films that the genre would come to be known as back to the home that. Evening with. The urban centers what always portrayed as danes the vive black people and black people were portrayed as morally weak they always succumbed to the evil. Of the. The. Thats the current. On the back to the homeland i dont necessarily agree with the notion that they were purely propaganda driven kind of films a large amount of produce filmmakers who are just making movies for the sake of making movies and actually black and the operators sound guys they were the performers in. One of cameras rolled back. To kind of do a blanket brush across it saying that thats what it was all about i think is not a Fair Assessment of actually what happened before mike was. Ok to do what. They knew the things that would would approve of. Would not have enough. People modeling. They were acting authority in the same for the apartheid state and one can understand that i mean im not saying that as a critique necessarily because one can and that they never the part that you know and they lived in a particular time when they knew how they wold was bonded and they stayed within the boundaries very few of the state. And it was a huge financial incentive not to have a step if they filmed well producers could expect up to 600 percent to turn on their investment if a film was bad and producers could lose their investment in time not to a scheme the success of a b. Sc in film and therefore the size of the subsidy it received was based on ticket sales but at the time there were and yeah handful of cinemas that allowed black audiences and certainly not enough to support the industry so that the skin filmmakers created their own Distribution Networks mobile cinemas that they sent out to the townships and set up in schools churches open fields any way they could screen a film that i enjoyed that if for me that. Sounds it was like. The circus coming to town really excited one of the side that the kids books like that and amazing i think because the father was shot mine is a truly i love the title. Not an we welcomed it in that came out when it does movies for us it wasnt attainment we never saw it it will go. Thats all he had to open when you know all the western movies coming through its only that no where we have that this good for us. In the dying years of apartheid the b. Sc in film subsidy was abolished not these because filmmakers where in facing the ticket sales to increase their subsidies today not much is known about it official documentation has mysteriously disappeared and said many of the films beating opinion to find it was the peace scheme and blocked in the South AfricanFilm Industry or did it pave the way for many blacks of africans to enter on the film sp propaganda or are they are lost heritage by modern standards the peacekeeping films havent aged well but look at the story behind them for the better picture of south africa. And finally back in 2017 a blogger named Camille Rainville published a poem about the mixed messages that women are sometimes sent it was called be a lady they said that was the same year the meet to movement got its kick start when hollywood Film ProducerHarvey Weinstein was exposed by the New York Times as an alleged serial rapist a couple of weeks back the alleged part went away weinstein was convicted hes since been sentenced to 23 years in prison Camille Rainville this poem has been repurposed and put the film by a british magazine called girls girls girls voiced by actors Cynthia Nixon and put on line this video looks like its straight out of a glamour shoot but it packs a socio political punch on the pressure that society imposes on women the impossible double standards demanded of them its had 20000000 views and counting well see you next time youre at the listening post. Dont be too fat dont be too thin. Slim down stop eating so much for your sound dont eat carbs are going to die and got you like a skeleton why dont you just give them a sheet if you look sick men like women be down there. Be a double see. Where make highlight your. Blind you think feeling your pride in your. Life. Your hair is too short youre not. Young. Men dont like. Cookies to keep it that simple you make a good life taking me you hyphenate youre crazy. Given children you dont want to go some to maybe. Dont get me dont drink dont welcome. Dont call out they dont and dont get drunk dont smile its just talk a little dont trust dont say yes dont say no just be amazed. Whats behind the recent tensions between pakistan and i mean do you know weve given them the opportunity to engage but not realise its not just politics its the new book walk and lots of free Pakistani Foreign minister shop Mahmood Qureshi talks to aljazeera. Hello im Maryam Namazie in london quick look at the headlines now spain is set to become the 2nd country to put its entire population on the lot down to stop the rockets friday of the coronavirus in more than 6000. 00 cases spain is the worst affected country in europe off to italy which has more than 15000. 00 cases on friday the World Health Organization said europe was now the epicenter of the pandemic and the bob reports on the situation. Its only spain 2nd state of emergency since becoming a democracy and this is what it looks like the countries reported a jump of more than 2000 dead coronavirus cases in 24 hours now people will only be allowed to leave their homes to buy food and medicine to get to work here