A 1000000 people have been if infected in the United States in just the last 10 days, castro has more from washington d. C. Now these numbers are the highest figures. There have been yet the beginning of this pandemic, and theyre translating to see pain across the country in states like texas and el paso, there are multiple mobile morgue units parked behind hospitals in north dakota. Another hot spot that the governor there has authorized medical staff who have tested positive for cobra who are 8th symptomatic to continue working classes, the desperation for nurses and doctors to continue their work. Mass protests have been taking place across peru after martin. This car was removed as president protesters force with Police Outside congress in the capital lima. This current remains very popular despite accusations of corruption that led to his impeachment. The funeral for cheap negotiators will be held later on wednesday. He died on tuesday from cope with 19 complications. Erick has served as the chief negotiator in peace talks. With israel for 2 and a half decades. Russian peacekeeping troops have been deployed to new, going to care about following a deal to end 6 weeks of fighting. The disputed region is internationally recognized as part of but is controlled by ethnic armenians. If European Central government has vowed to continue a military operation in the Northern Region until i number of conditions are being met, Prime Minister made ordered the offensive and almost a week ago, those are the headlines. News continues on out 0 after this realistically, how can you do with corruption in this country . If we listen, if this breaks up and this has implications for the rest of the world, we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that 03 al qaeda and join the story. Today. President pandemic, people are trapped inside us prisons. In fact, we want to hear your thoughts on twitter stream or leave a comment on our chat to join the conversation. Prisons are supposed to be some of the most secure places on the planet. But despite the high Security Prisons across the u. S. Havent been able to keep the coronavirus set back. One notorious covert 1000 hot spot is californias san quentin prison. The outbreak there is a subject of a new film by al jazeera, as for its have a look. One of americas worst coronaVirus Outbreaks of the prison opened in california after infected inmates were transferred from one facility to another, no ventilation, windows or welded to everyone is breathing the same air all of the time every day for a week straight. Then reason, lamb is called man down man, down man, down man, down the all my clients asks who is responsible for making prison quentin operate volunteers. You know, joining us from california to discuss the issues of covert infection in u. S. Prisons at one card is a cofounder and Co Executive Director with the restored Justice James king. Hes a state campaigner with the Ella Baker Center for human rights. And hes a managing attorney with the San Francisco public defenders office, teller. Freeways. Really good to see you james. As you watch that 4 lines documentary, as you took part in that documentary, it was just a short period of time between when you were incarcerated. And when you were released, i will break how when you put all of that together, would he think . And maybe for me it probably just look, think about the character quite. I had made it out maybe 90 days prior to the largest clustered outbreak in the, in the country. And it was in many ways just good fortune to smile and down on me it could have been anyone. It should have been several people. So just like knowing that there was nothing this think about me to they created that timeline just the way things lined up that there happened to. Ready prevent me from going through it while thousands of others did have it has been really hard to reconcile. Frankly, theres a moment in the documentary, a nice, his walking at san quentin anonymously explains what happened. I just want to play back because it all stressed. Frightening harry, at how listen everybody. The was there was a little boy. Do we believe that the earth did you shoot it was going to be our we were going to be the judge could shoot her. You and i was about 7 months ago with the string that i had to take a break because a cousin 19 would tell about the faces show that it was about the risk of covert outbreaks and prison. And he was talking about covert outbreaks in prison. This was xpect to do. You hold people about not that many advocates. What went wrong . I mean one thing that went wrong is that they didnt listen to the advocates and the experts. Then texas disease experts, the doctors, the people who are formally incarcerated lawyers, they, the people who are in charge who makes these decisions, did not listen to the experts. And that is exactly what we are, what went wrong. And in the midst of all of this, we had a huge botch transfer of incarcerated people from one of the deadliest prisons in Southern California to san quentin. That created this outbreak. This is one of the largest tragedies in, in the prison system that im aware of in recent history. And that is actually a problem that were seeing nationally is people in charge in these positions of leadership are not listening to the experts. Was a facepalm moment. What happened sequential present was up until after the cases had been a 0 cases than what happened time to pick up the stuff. And i know youve got friends who are still in san quentin. Absolutely. And one of the things that i think about often is we dont know that there would be ok says within san quentin prior to that out. Right. What we do know is there was very little testing occurring. And the plan when, when people, when they finally started testing, because so many people were going man down and it was requiring them to test within 2 weeks over a 1000 people, what became infected. So you can imagine and thats out of a population at the palm of about 4000 people. So one in 4. Ready people within 2 people in this very small clustered gated facility prison became infected very quickly and there was no room to put them. So everyone, if you were in a cell, the cells are 4 feet wide by an hour a foot wide, and your cell mate became infected. Then that cell mate stayed right there and you just waited for the inevitable. You would have it shortly. And that was the understanding the expectation and there was nothing to do about it because the prison was so overwhelmed so quickly dont you . Im just looking for something here firm the oh i see on my laptop, the office of the inspector, general independent prison oversight. Just going to school down here on my laptop says have a California Department of corrections and rehabilitation. Distribute it and mandate mandated the use of personal protective equipment and cloth face cutters that looks like they knew what they had to do. How did it go so horribly wrong . The department of corrections, which is the agency that oversees san quentin and all of the prisons in california makes a lot of policies, but they are less adept at insuring it here and to policies by their own staff. And so what the inspector, what the office of the Inspector General found, and thats sort of a Watchdog Agency that has the power to inspect the prisons. Unfortunately, not the power to mandate any changes. But what they found is that the department, which is massive 63000. 00 employees, were talking about a department that spent half a 1000000000 dollars last year on overtime alone. So it is a massive organization. And what the found is that they werent in forcing masking requirements. So when, of course, when we put folks in prison, a lot of folks, as we have done, we remove from them the ability to take care of their own basic needs. So when we do that, we not only are punishing people which we certainly are are, but we are the state is taking on a huge obligation to care for the daily physical needs of these individuals, their food, of course, and their health care and to protect them when Something Like this pandemic happened. So if staff arent doing what we all know, in least those of us who are willing to listen to the experts, if theyre not Wearing Masks all the time when they are at work, there is no doubt that that is going to contribute to the spread in the prisons because theres no such thing as social distancing in prison in california, even if you are placed in a cell by yourself, at least at san quentin. And you can see here what their structures are. Theres in most of the buildings in san quentin. There are 5 levels of open cells. Each cell has bars and nash on it, but no solid door. So its not just the person in your cell who you cannot social distance from. Its anybody walking by. And its actually folks on the tears above you too because of the shared air and the terrible ventilation that doesnt really allow the air to get transferred in and out of the buildings and as a voice. And at times yeah, yeah, i just want to add one thing today that daniel makes several excellent points. But one thing that the vast majority of those 63000. 00 employees that daniel just mentioned go in and out of the prisons every day in 8 hour shifts. So the idea that these are somehow prison outbreaks and that this can be isolated, suppressed prison incidents is a large part of what weve been advocating against each one of these outbreaks. And theres, when you just look at incarcerated people, there are outbreaks at 20 different prisms right now. When you look at staff, theres an outbreak in every prison in the state right now in each one of those Staff Members and outbreaks, those people get off work. They take their uniforms off, they drift into the community, and there are no parameters set in place to reduce the kind of you get cities that are acting is a can act of super spreaders in the larger communities. So i want to put this to you, james, you add them because as theres an empathy gap on right now, so north chilltown says 9 schools may if they are imprisoned, they stay in prison until that time is up of this story. Another one along the same lines short says, since when is a crime, wealth death set us to overturn it. Conversations going on that they you also mentioned the stock that walk in the present at the new pickup that because yeah, i think i want it and its a gap though, so i stopped as well. I have to, i want to, i want to add to that. I mean, i think that if people are only looking and we need to protect the staff and not incarcerated people, i really feel like that this is a very individual question that we need to ask ourselves as human beings as the person that we want to become what is it about us as individuals that want to harm others regardless of what theyve done . And the other thing is that our understanding of safety and well, who commits crimes, why crimes are committed, how to restore people is totally lost on society. What we believe is ok, you did the crime, you do the time. No one ever understands what doing time truly means. And if that is whats providing safety, not just for people who are in society, away from people who are incarcerated or people are coming back to society. But its true. Safety is really is people who are coming back into society, making sure that theyre safe. Make sure that im safe, that james is safe and still safety isnt one side or road. Its and we cover this showing that if i have coded and im Walking Around in the streets and in your Grocery Stores and in different areas, and youre malls, are you safe . No, youre not safe. So safety is not just keeping james away from a nun or keeping danielle away from james. Thats not what safety is. Safety is restoring the humanity in people. And last thing i would say that by the time i was 17 years old, i was a parent list, Homeless High School dropout at the age of 18. Under those conditions and with layers and layers of trauma and abuse. I committed a crime. Im not excusing my crime, but what i am saying is that when i got to prison, there was nothing in prison that told me to say, sorry, no one in prison told me to be accountable. No one in prison asked me to be to apologize to the victims to make an amends. No one asked me that. And so when we look at safety, people completely misunderstand what safety is because its been sold to us as a product by policing and prisons. Thats the problem. There is a voice that is missing from this conversation and its a tricky voice to get and thats the California Department of corrections and rehabilitation. Look here on my laptop because i do have at least some current figures here. And if you look at this chart, it tells us how many people in the state of california who are incarcerated colony, half cunto had kovi. Its a cut in custody. Over 700 active cases of just over 400 people have been released while they had a covert result. Thats an interesting word, isnt it . Result that means that they probably are recovered from kovi. Im not sure that thats a choice and resolve and this fake a here, a 1000 deaths. So how many people have actually had a covert in the California State Prison system, 6000 people . We couldnt get their voice in this conversation for lines also try and here is my colleague dina to corey on the efforts that she also made to see if they were talk to out of their in an email statement, a c. D. C. Or representative said they implemented unprecedented measures to address the coven 1000 outbreak us one. After transfers from c, i am tested positive. They set up a 220 bed alternative care site, provided all staff and the incarcerated population live and 95 respirators, and sent hundreds of additional staff to san quentin. Dont you, this is a tweet here that you shat in it says 10 days ago, and this was in july, i wrote 60 People Living in san quentin offering advocacy. Todays return mail. Let me just screwed up and just see, look at this more from you. What help did they need to go ahead . So they needed to know that people were paying attention that people cared that people were working to try to better the situation for them. I think its interesting that c. D. C. Are continues to say that they took extraordinary measures as if they did all they could not withstanding the fact that the court of appeal has said that the in action in san quentin by those same officials, has been, quote, morally indefensible. We have a situation where the measures c. D. C. Are took may be unprecedented because were in the midst of a global pandemic. The likes of which hasnt been seen in, in the lifetime of anybody living today, but is been grossly inadequate. And thats why we are in the situation. We are in where there was an explosion of co that at san quentin. This stammer and in july, people began dying at san quentin. Those 29 people, 28 incarcerated people. And one staff member who have died should be alive today that blood is on the hands of the c. D. C. Are officials. And the reason that they dont speak really publicly, i think, is that they are used to operating in complete secret with complete impunity. And there is no accountability. 29 people died at san quentin. And where is the accountability for those deaths . Our prison system is built on this notion that people need to be held accountable for the decisions that they made. In june, a team of independent experts told c. D. C. Our officials that they needed to cut the population of san quentin in half. Or people were going to begin dying. And they refused to listen to that advice. And 29 people are dead. Where is the accountability suggest . Lets talk, lets talk lessons and maybe where we are right now. I want to have a listen to adam mayes and he introduces himself. He tells the story. I just, i leave him to go ahead. My name is adamu chan and i was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during the height of the crown a Virus Outbreak that happened there. And at no time during those months, did i feel like they helped in safety. The incarcerated population at san quentin was a priority for the administration or for c. D. C. Or officials. And what i witnessed was that the vast overcrowding in san quentin and all the prisons across california was a huge factor in kind of exacerbating the spread the virus through our population. And so any solution has to start with mass releases mass rally. Im going to put this question to you from james. This is from moss. How willing to release press in this law says james, you know, i would start by saying that California Department department of corrections is unwilling to release anyone in response to this pandemic. They have fought this tooth and nail every step of the way, even though every public expert, every medical expert legislators, the judicial branch, Community Members and advocates of all weighed in to not only say that that releases are the safest thing to do in response to this pandemic, but also that we are standing by to support those releases. So they have all of the information. They know that its not only politically viable, but that theres support for it like material resources. And yet they still are resistant to, to conduct any type of times why. I think that the bottom line is that, that this is a our lives in our addiction upon incarceration as a means for social control has been part of our society for, for decades. Upon decades, we have 35 prisons within our state that hold close to 100000 people. Right now you dont get there without being devoted to that ever policy and has Priority Issues that we are going to incarcerate are our ways out of marginalization disenfranchisement, a lack of resources and resource sharing in our communities. So there is a very specific model that california believes in it, which is that incarceration keeps us safe. Well, says advocates are saying that is false. That is categorically untrue. What keeps us, they are having basic affordable housing. Just having an income, a reasonable living wage, having access to reasonable medical and Mental Health treatment when needed. Those are the things that actually keep communities safe and build communities. And our government at this point has a different philosophy. James, im just looking at some of the advocacy it says, then ill come right back to some of the advocacy that you were to when he says no transfers, town halls daddys coming up at 9 am from new york and i say send stop sign crime to an outbreak coalition, and i, i wonder if this may well be an opportune as it happens. So many protests, so much advocacy, and im just putting this last common app and then you jump off the back of it. Governor newsom and c. D. C. Are have an opportunity. And that is to stop the further spreading of kogan 1900 by stopping our prison transfers, and also stop dropping people off in ice detention centers. Sadly, we cant go backwards. We cant correct terrible decisions already made. But what we can do is we can stop making terrible decisions. We can understand that there are many people, many Vulnerable People within a vulnerable population with comorbidities, who have loved ones ready for their safe release, who have organizations planning for safe release. And this is a place where we can all lean in and understand that we have an opportunity to save lives. 8 months into this global pandemic. So many Lessons Learned a lifes last act now and now what . Thats what i was going to bring up. I mean, thank you for saying that again, the Lessons Learned and lessons have not been learned. And there is a clear example with the chart you gave earlier right now. And corcoran, which is a chance of california, i spent 5 years there. Theres 392 cases, active cases, recorded right now. And like you said, 8 months into a pandemic after 80 deaths, 16 over 16000 recorded, or reported. Cases in California State Prisons alone right there. That what youre showing now, what lessons have we learned . If you look at the left side right here, 150 active cases in the, in the last 14 days, 392 cases in the last 14 days. And these are 2 different facilities, and we are 8 months in a pandemic. That means 8 months without visits. So family programs, volunteers have not been coming in. So who has been going in and taking cold out of these facilities for the past 8 months and who are talking about theyre not Wearing Masks properly. You cant social, this is or physically distance in prison and weve been saying that since march and why you know, for us to repeat that in november on election day, i bet it just, it is mind blowing to me. And so when we talk about accountability and society can constantly blame people for coming in crime and you do the time you do that, you do the crime, you do the time, stay in prison. Well, the truth is it for asking people to be accountable for the crimes that theyve committed by and for breaking the law. Well, we as a society and as a government have a legal responsibility to provide Adequate Health care for people that we incarcerate. That is a law, so its very hypocritical to tell people or, or bad, started to, to demand accountability from people, and not hold ourselves accountable to a law that we have to be governed by. So theres many discrepancies here that continue to contradict themselves when people like myself, james and danielle, talk about hope it and when the government and the governors talk. So what has stopped 392 cases right now, actively as were talking. But theres a but we can see, you know, how like a super spreader event on the, in that the rose garden at the white house lawn. We talk about that, but we dont talk about the 392. 00 cases that are happening right now. That half staff like james mention coming in, you know that prison every 8 hours into our communities. I dont know about that at night. And james and danielle, thank you so much for being part of todays program at night. And there are so many more questions about what happens if you release people right now during a global pandemic, which is why im really glad that youre going to be on Instagram Live guests a little bit later on about 30 minutes from now on t. V. At a. J. Stream that is, well, youll find him. And if you dont have time to do that very soon, youll find it any time. So have a look in on my laptop, because we have been talking about the new 4 documentary pandemic imprison the san quentin outbreak. You can find it online, and you can also find dates on aljazeera t. V. As well. Thanks so much for watching. Im femi oke a next time to drive their industrial expansion and european powers colonised future areas of the world rich resources. So free labor and marxist lands were exploited in the name of civilization and wealth until the colonies decided theyd had enough. In a new 3 part documentary series, aljazeera expose the history suffering and legacy of frances imperial posture. Not in tears french to colonise ation. Coming soon with jealousy, they spoke, she just exquisitely, shes very glamorous. Its part of our culture to need to look at our very, very best for a special occasion. And for people who spend money, everything you see on the catwalk, they do it. If there is going to be longevity in the gold, have to come in and tell you things. Obama into the mind. Nigeria on aljazeera the latest news. As it breaks, there was never much doubt about which choice chileans would make. But for now its official. The chileans will be writing a new constitution details coverage through 14 and 15 year old students amongst those facing charges for prosecutors or complicity in a terrorist. Assassination indepth reports from around the world. And while it was the biggest gathering in months, the numbers were not what they used to be last year. My name is not you cause i grew up jewish in america, and i support the palestinian struggle against occupation when politics can pass. And my mom saw me at a protest carrying a palestinian flag. She told me i was no longer her son. Is it possible to be jewish . Im critical of zionism, i do palestinian solidarity. Think its the most jewish thing i can do. What about the treatment towards the palestinians and the occupation about it . Correspondent . I just think its an embarrassment when frankly u. S. President elect joe biden says Donald Trumps refusal to concede will not help his legacy all stop the transfer of power. And this is al jazeera live from doha, also coming up as a very celebrates and armenians protest. Russian peacekeepers are deployed as paul it was a cease fire deal to end the fighting and theyre going to care about