Elites benefit from global capitalism with former greek finance m minister Yanis Varoufakis. Is due book, adults in the room my battle with europes deep establishment. Is a process. You cut government spending, increased taxes in order to balance the governments books but you fail. Yes, you reduce government expenditure, but on the other tax, the economy shrinks so a reduced and your books dont balance a you cut even more. It shines even further and cut more, so it is a neverending downward spiral. Amy then six weeks after Hurricane Maria hit puerto rico, millions still lack clean Drinking Water and electricity. Just back from puerto rico, we will bring you a report from the interior where the storm has exploded t the fault lines of poverty and austerity. My name is carmen. Everything here was destroyed. It is not t easy to be strugglig like this, doing everything by hand. There are Sick Children and elders. That is how it is here. My father vanished. He died. So that hasnt been easy for us. We are alive. We have to thank god amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Thousands protested in catalonia on thursday after eight regional ministers were jailed and accused of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds as the constitutional crisis in spain continues. The regional ministers had already been fired by spains Central Government over catalonias independence referendum and they now face up to 50 years in prison. This is Maria Carrera at a protest in barcelona. Because theyameful have committed a coup ddetat. I want to go to the prison where our comrades are being held. It is unjust because there is done democracy like this. It is unjust because many politicians that have stolen our free and today they are in prison and that is unjust. Amy spanish prosecutors are also seeking a european arrest warrant for catalonias leader carles puigdemont, who is in exile in belgium, along with other members of the catalan government. This is puigdemont. The Spanish Government decision to imprison a Vice President and the cabinet members of the legitimate government of catalonia elected in the polls of september 27 is a very grave mistake. It is an attack on democracy. Imprisoning political leaders anh ample citizen support is act that violates the basic principle of democracy. Amy in late october, spains government seized control of catalonia using article 155 of the spanish constitution, which had never been used before in modern spains democratic history. The move striped the Northeastern Region of its autonomy in efforts to crush catalonias growing independence movement. Isis has claimed, without evidence, that tuesdays s attak in new york city was carried out by a soldier of the caliphate. The attack left eight people , afterany others injured suspect sayfulullo saipov, an uzbek native, reportedly drove a rented home depot truck down a bike path along manhattans hudson river, killing multiple people before crashing into a school bus. He was then shot by police. Authorities claim Sayfullo Saipov has said, at his hospital bedside, that isis videos had inspired him to carry out the attack. In the wake of the new york city attack, attorney general Jeff Sessions is escalating pressure on Technology Companies to turn over encrypted communications to Law Enforcement. Sessions claimed, without evidence, that refusing to turn over the encrypted communications could have deadly consequences. s failure to get encrypted information in a timely manner causes Law Enforcement to waste even more valuable time and resources than it could have potentially deadly consequences. Amy pope francis gave an emotional mass on thursday in nettuno, italy, warning of the world is having heading forcefully into war. He was speaking at the cemetery where thousands of u u. S. Soldis who died liberating g southern italy during world war ii are buried. Please, lord, stop. No more war. No more of these useless massacres. The world is preparing to go even more forcefully into war, no more, lord. Let us pray for those who are dying in wars today and even innocent children. Death is the fruit of war. May the lord give us the grace to be able to cry. Amy former Democratic NationalCommittee Interim chair Donna Brazile says the dnc made an unethical agreement with Hillary Clintons president ial campaign during the 2016 election, skewing the primary in her favor in exchange for money to keep the indebted party afloat. In excerpts of her new book, brazile writes that Clinton Campaign manager robby mook struck a joint fundraising agreement with the dnc, in which back in august 2015, nearly a year before Hillary Clinton officially had the partys nomination. Under the agreement, the Clinton Campaign would raise money for the party and in exchange, clinton would control the partys finances and strategy, including making all final decisions about party Staff Members and the partys communications director. Donna brazile writes if the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as i saw it, it compromised the partys integrity. A twitter employee on this last jobn their last day on the briefly deactivated President Trumps twitter account thursday evening. The account vanished for 11 full minutes. Trump has used twitter to bully and insult women, people of color, and lawmakers. Hes also used d it to ththreato annihilate the entire nation of north korea. In news on Sexual Harassment, the new republics publisher Hamilton Fish has been placed on leave after a slew of allegations of Sexual Harassment when he was the president of the nation institute. This comes after one of the new republics most prominent longtime editors, leon wieseltier, was also fired ovr Sexual Harassment allegations. He was fired from his job with the emerson collective, where he was slated to unveil a new magazine. Meanwhile, two top Staff Members at seiu, the Service Employees international union, have been ousted over Sexual Harassment allegations. One of the national leaders, kekeall fells,s, has resigned; d detroit leader mark raleigh has been fired. Billionaire investor and trump donor Robert Mercer is stepping down as head of his company, renaissance technologies, after a buzzfeed expose revealed the connections between the mercerfunded news outlet breitbart media and white nationalists and neonazis. The buzzfeed report revealed how breitbarts former tech editor, milo yiannopoulos, had collaborated closely with white nationalists to generate story ideas and even to edit the websites articles. In his letter, mercer tried to distance himself from yiannopoulos, as well as from steve bannon, breitbarts longtime head who also served as trumps former chief strategist. The United Nations is warning of an unfolding humanitarian emergency at an Australian Refugee Detention Center on manus island in papua, new guinea. The Australian Government officially closed the Detention Center on tuesday, cutting off water and electricity, but hundreds of asylumseekers are still at the center where food, water, and medicine is growing scarce. The asylumseekers are refusing to leave, saying they fear for their lives if they go along with the governments plans to relocate them to a nearby city where refugees have been attacked by men armed with knives and s screwdrivers. The university of notre dame has announced it will stop covering Birth Control for faculty, staff , and students. The move comes less than one month after the Trump Administration sharply limited contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care act. In new york city, the billionaire owner of the online news outlets gothamist and dnainfo has shut down the websites one week after the newsrooms voted to unionize. Billionaire joe ricketts, who is also the owner of the chicago cubs, fired all 115 workers at gothamist and dnainfo. Hes long been an opponent of unions, even posting on his personal blog a commentary entitled why im against unions at businesses i create. Both gothamist and dnainfo have been important local news sites in new york for years. Among the final articles to be published at gothamist were an investigation into prison labor in new york and an article about rise of antisemitic attacks in new york city. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We begin todays show in puerto rico, where six weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, millions of residents are still living without safe Drinking Water and electricity. Health experts say the storms massive damage to puerto ricos water system is threatening a looming Public Health crisis, as more and more people are exposed to contaminated water. On thursday, the white house finally agreed to release fema disaster aid with more flexibility to try to help rebuild puerto ricos devastated power grid and other infrastructure. The shift in aid disbursement was necessary because of puerto ricos massive debt crisis, which both severely limited the islands ability to prepare ahead of time for the storm and to respond fully in the days afterward. According to an investigation by puerto ricos center for Investigative Journalism the permanent disaster has been largely due to the slow and inefficient deployment of the Emergency Response due to a fatal combination between the lack of liquidity of the government of puerto rico and its municipalities and the federal governments inaction. For the last year, puerto rico has been controlled by an unelected fiscal control board, imposed by the u. S. Congress, whose role is to enact austerity measures to ensure bondholders of puerto ricos debt are repaid. Well, over the weekend, democracy now was in puerto rico. We traveled about three hours into puerto ricos mountainous Highland Region in the interior of the island in order to look at the ways austerity has exacerbated the crisis caused by Hurricane Maria. We began our journey in a town called lares, about two hours west of the capital san juan. I began there by asking demomocracy now juan cacarlos dadavila to tell us about the history of this town. Isso the model of this town streamm inty of t the referencnce to the revolution of 1868 here in the town rereporter can revolutionaries rather did to overthrow the spanish forces from here and declare puerto rico independence. Continues to administer the colony saying the momotto is to subversive. Rsrtoo and try to lares city of the beautiful women or open skies. In a way, to try to erase the history of lares. Streetts go over r to the. It is a revolutionary leader of puerto rico who was president of the nationalist party. Amy i think he was the first graduate porter can graduate of harvard law school. Yes. A very important figure in puerto rico. He stood for the independence of puerto rico. He fough valiantlyly against the United States imperialism. Is that hent thing represents the continuation of that struggle of the revolutionaries fighting against the spanish forces. And for that, he was jaileled ad tortured and many believe amy he was imprisoned for decades. Yes, for many years. Was tortuturedhe and xm i into it with h radiatin him. Amy in n lares, we meet up wita professor at the university of puerto rico and a member of the center for transdisciplinary studies in agro ecology. We had about an hour further to region. Devastated, very much so, the highlands. From another perspective, it also and covered what was already a national crisis. Remember, we had been under austerity measures for, i dont know how long will stop as far as i can remember, it feels like we have been under austerity forever. One of the areas hardest hit has been the highlands. Not only in the terms of economies municipal money used to bring, that people used of access to in the have lost them, but also in terms of just people leaving, migrating. Because it is untenable to sustain a livelihood. Lost marius, where were going now. Marias, were we are going now. One of the five poorest municipalities in puerto rico. And also the ones that have lost most population over the last five to 10 years. Amy innocence, maria not only exposed the fault lines and the weakness of the situation here, but it exploded those faultlines. Yes, that is exactly it. Amy we reach a part of the road where the hurricane has s swept away the eararth below the pavement, which is something we had to be very careful about everywhere we drove. A man whose house itself was precariously balanced between the road and what is now a clip, the earth swept away below. Yeah, it is the main road. You can cross it now, but it is dangerous. If it stays like this, the road will fall off the e precipice. Amamy we keep driving. One of the main, if not the for most of this area, is agriculture. Most of the agriculture in puerto rico has been destroyed or sustained heavy damage. This is a big concern because the cap of agriculture you find here, a lot of it is coffee production. For coffee to grow, you you need at least three to four years before you start producing. Trees thata lot of were adults and were producing and they were sustaining from large to small economies. That has been destroyed. The devastation is immense. I have a lot of friends who are farmers. They lost everything. Many of them are thinking of quitting a moving to the city or migrating. Amy we have just arrived in los marias and coming to a place where doctors are coming to meet with people, bringing water. We passed an oasis where people gathered to get fresh water. And now were going down to the field where the doctors are. What kind of doctor are you . A general practitioner. I am an internal medicine. Amy can you tell us what youre doing . Clinicsve been doing every saturday since the hurricane. Amy what our peoples major complaints . Medicine. Unable to get insulin. Unabable to see the doctors. Hypertension, diabetes. Were doing statistics on how many deaths we had. I know we had one gentleman who died of heart attack in his car. Another one after the hurricane, a mudslide came and took the machine he was working on try to clear the roads. It buried him. Other than that, we got problems with oxygen, homecare care, things like that and all that stuff. Went the people need to know in puerto rico, there are ofe than 60 cases leptospirosis. Amy people died as a result of leptospirosis. People you the food without cleaning and washing it. They get sick from it. Usually, the outcome is really bad. Amy how would you say the state , fema how would you rate how they responded . Compared to george a couple of years back, they have been slow. It is been slow. Been afaffecting usus in puerto rico. There is a lot of misgivings and stuff like that. We have not been receiving the help as soon as we needed it. Amy what did you make a President Trump segment people puerto rico want everything done for them . Is, theirst thing people of puerto rico are u. S. Citizens. It is not people of puerto rico. It is your citizens of puerto rico. They want help. Amy would you say their treatment of you during Hurricane Maria and after was the treatment of a colony . Yes. It was. Florida, look at florida. Look at taxes. They got treated really quick. Theyk to the states threw out paper towels. They should have flown him to see how it was out here. Amy you say President Trump to rolls of paper towels. Do you think if you voted for the president of the united dates, they would treat you differently . Yes, because it is 3. 5 haveon people and we at least two in the senate and five in the house. That is a big vote. The parties we affect the parties in the e states, too. Write me a a 70,000 people who left to florida. Vote. F them do they like politics. Most of them will vote. That will change the politics of florida and a couple of years from now. Amy did you hear about bodies being incinerated in the morgues and those bodies not being counted . Did that happen around here . I i certified eight. Eight certified after Hurricane Maria. Two of them were during hurricane or after, the day after. The others were a couple of days after, a week or so after the hurricane. That is why they ask for statistics. Diedso eight people have since the hurricane. That i certified. Amy are there others . Probably a lot more. Amy to the jones act being enforced, at a time the waiver was inin a place, prevent, for example, medicines from getting an . I patientnts stomach is difficult for them to get insulin. The thing is, if the United States does not help stimulate our economy, we are afraid. There was a joke a couple of years back, they wanted to give us to the European Union and greece to the United States. It makes you