From New York this is Democracy Now. To Democracy Now. Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I'm Amy Goodman on Capitol Hill the House Judiciary Committee will begin impeachment hearings next week into whether President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals Joe Biden and his son Hunter the New York Times reports Trump knew about the whistleblower complaint about his July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian president and that Congress had been informed when Trump decided to unfreeze the withheld $391000000.00 in military aid an Office of Management and Budget official testified to the House Intelligence Committee that 2 of his colleagues quit after expressing concern and frustration about Trump's decision to withhold the aid and an anonymous senior Trump administration official who's blasted the administration said they would reveal themselves before the 2020 Alexion the official is the author of the book a warning and a viral New York Times op ed that was headlined I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration in Colombia anti-government protesters have called for another national strike today after talks between a protest committee and right wing president even did Gates failed massive protests have rocked Colombia for 6 straight days last week hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets for the largest national strike Columbia has seen in decades 4 people have been killed so far including 18 year old student Dylan Cruz who was shot in the head by a police projectile in Chile President Sebastian Pinera has sent a bill to lawmakers that would allow military troops to be ploy to the streets of Chile amidst ongoing anti austerity demonstrations this comes as Human Rights Watch has condemned police and military brutality against anti-government protesters at least 26 people have died in the 40 days of Chilean protests this is Human Rights Watch America's director has. They gonna go through and be meritorious it will be they don't see us so we will fix it so you would know there are hundreds of worrying reports of excessive force on the streets of an abuse of detainees such as brutal beatings and sexual abuse that cannot be left unpunished and should be quickly and it literally investigated and I'm going to supply the children just with Ortiz in Bolivia the enter American Commission on Human Rights says an independent commission should investigate possible human rights abuses against pro morale us protesters following the military ouster of the long time president Davao Morales at least 33 people have been killed since the protests began the military's carried out at least 2 massacres against more Alice's and Degeneres supporters. Secretary of State Mike pump aoe has called on Egypt to respect freedom of the press only days after a Gyptian security forces raided the Cairo office of Egypt's the last independent news outlet Madam OS or and detain staff members who have now been released as part of our longstanding strategic partnership with Egypt we continue to raise the fundamental importance of respect for human rights universal freedoms and the need for a robust a civil society we call on the Egyptian government to respect freedom of the press and to release journalists detained in a raid last week and to see our full interview with Madam asa reporter a long time to mocker see now correspondent Bill could do Skoda Democracy Now dot org In Iran videos of the Iranian security forces violence against protesters are emerging on line as Iran has partially restored internet access which was almost entirely blocked for over a week and Misty International says over $100.00 people were killed in the crackdown against demonstrations sparked by a sharp rise in gas prices earlier this month u.s. Sanctions against Iran have contributed to the economic crisis Iranian officials now say Internet access in the country could be curtailed indefinitely British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has again condemned anti-Semitism after Britain's chief rabbi accused Corbin in the Labor Party of anti-Semitism ahead of national elections December 12th already a very clear separatism is completely wrong within our society policy to make it clear what I was elected leader to Basle. To so much as in the comics that will in any form in our party or our society unseating indeed call for it sympathies and apologies to those that had the self and other British rabbis have disagreed with Britain's chief rabbi and expressed support for korban Meanwhile the Muslim Council of Britain has accused the Conservative Party of allowing us. A phobia to fester in British society British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously written that he believed Islam a phobia is natural Jeremy Corbyn also says he said documents that reveal Britain's National Health Service could be up for sale and a post trade deal with the United States in Texas at least 3 people have been hospitalized after a chemical plant exploded in Port Natchez outside Houston the cause of the explosion at the Texas petroleum chemical plant has not yet been determined Meanwhile an uncontrolled wildfire outside Santa Barbara California has burned more than 4300 acres thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate and the New York City Council's passed legislation that would make New York the 1st major American city to ban most flavored cigarettes This is New York City council member Mark Levine the slow pace that which this country has responded to the teen of it being epidemic has been an epic failure we did nothing as these sleek new devices with an intense dose of nicotine started to hit the market or a shows started to fill up with every food minty Candy is flavor you can think of flavors that are clearly appealing to kids we did nothing when Jewel and other companies started to market their products on social media with stylish young people promoting Julie as a cool lifestyle choice New York's move came after President Trump reversed course and refused to sign a memo banning most flavored they ping products and those are some of the headlines This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org The War and Peace Report I mean make it then and I'm one Gonzalez welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. Today we spend the hour looking back at the Battle of Seattle. Human rights activist. Sure. 20 years ago this week tens of thousands of activists gathered in Seattle Washington to shut down a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization grassroots organizers successfully blocked world leaders government trade ministers and corporate executives from meeting to sign a global trade deal that many cold deeply undemocratic and harmful to workers' rights the environment and Digitas people globally on the ember 30 s. 1999 those activists formed a human chain around the Seattle convention center and shut down the city's downtown police responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the mostly peaceful crowd and the protests went on for 5 days resulted in over 600 arrests and the eventually collapse of the talks as well as the resignation of Seattle's police chief the protests were documented in the film this is what democracy looks like. You've got people here from all over you've got the neighbor you've got environmentalist you've got teachers got children you've got. People of color. And. You know mainstream white American middle class you know working for you got bored you got everybody out here because this hurt people this is bad for people are bad for our job here bad for the people over there in the documentary This is what democracy looks like organizers hop popguns and rice Baker you talk about the brutality protesters face in the streets of Seattle there was so much fear coming out of. I mean we had been shot at. Their border and beaten and sharp. People didn't expect they're going into Tuesday and people had to really commit themselves and reader for their position that night we end up meeting up on the their. Democracy now was in the streets of Seattle 20 years ago doing 2 hours of daily broadcasting during one broadcast we spoke to 2 of the leading critics of the w. CIO the Indian physicist and activists from Donna she will and Lori Wallach of Public Citizen the constraints every country government. Literally the level of food safety it can provide its public or whether or not poor farmers can have access to see whether or not workers can be safe from its best is actually the secrecy. Through which w. 2 was born is apparent in the fact that most parliaments had no idea what was the content of the treaty to the months after it had been ratified and signed in moderate. The w 2 wrote the rules it sits in judgment about implementation of those rules and its rights but inquisition you are listening to Pacifica Radio democracy now broadcasting live from Seattle that was Vandana Shiva and Lori Wallach on to mock Racine now with wind and solace and eye on Nov 29th 1999 during our live broadcast from the basement of Seattle's 1st United Methodist Church does during the w t o protests Well they are joining us again today war Lori Wallach is with us from Washington d.c. And Vandana Shiva is joining us from Rome Italy Welcome back both to Democracy Now Lori let's begin with you you were in the streets of Seattle 20 years ago can you explain why what was happening and then take us through to today. Well. Pardon my voice the w t o I did now instead was having its ministerial in the u.s. . And we knew it was critical for people around the world to see with protests against w t o in Africa Latin America Asia Europe that in the u.s. Also we didn't want this one size fits all corporate rule and so as soon as we heard it was Seattle we started organizing we open an office in Seattle in March of 9099 and the goal was buttoned up the plan w t o expansion and also to signal to the whole world the u.s. Was in this fight with everyone now as we needed different rules for the global economy. And that and she were a few people in the world haven't heard of the CIO at that time even among in the activist community tell us how you came to be in Seattle in November of 1999. I was in Seattle is part of the eye of g. The international forum on globalization which brought together all of us who were questioning gatt which was the precursor of the w t o before the modification agreement was signed. I was fighting that because of the corporations who mentioned at 1st in a meeting in 1907 in Geneva and in a resort outside Geneva and they were talking about patenting seeds and life they were talking about an international treaty which would make it a requirement for all countries to patent scenes and would make it illegal for farmers to save seeds and that this free trade agreement is what they were going to work on and they talked about 5 corporations controlling food and held by the year 2000 that conversation of 87 started me on the part of saving seed working with my government to not allow patenting of seed working with our ambassadors to not allow trips to be designed like Monsanto had designed it where they said we were the patient that must Titian and physician all in one but because I come from India to colonize the country. East India Company was created the 1st free trade agreement was not NAFTA or w t o the 1st Free Trade Agreement was imposed on India by the East India Company 716 so these were very familiar with the use of so-called free trade for corporate rule and having become free after famines killed 60000000 people we didn't want to be recall a nice again and I'm so happy that for that period our former prime minister our former Gatton bastards are joined us as the people's campaign against and we passed laws in that window that defended the sovereignty of the sea the sovereignty of farmers but as the corporate rule continued the monopoly on seeds continued the last 400000 farmers to suicide because of debt burden and Lee a 1000000000 people are hungry and when you introduce the protests going on in Chile and Colombia and other parts of the world I actually see the process of today in every part of the world as a continuation of the fight against neo liberalism a fight against austerity a fight against the permanence of structural adjustment which is what free trade is about it has given us the control of for giants boys and cartel over our seed and our food it's given us the billionaires Bill Gates is a child of w t o he got rules written so he wouldn't have to pay taxes in transborder transfer which is why software wasn't outsourced to India Jeff Bezos shipping goods around paying no taxes anywhere these trillion as are children of the w $2.00 rules and even then we said our world is not for sale we said we are writing other rules movements have written are the rules another world is. Possible we are making it but the brutality and limitless greet off the comfort of corporations and been in this is now really reaching equal sidling genocide limits so 20 years off to see if we need to make a commitment that in the next 10 years we've really got to change those rules and get rid of the rule of 1000000000 s. I want to go to Michael Moore the Oscar winning filmmaker didn't win an Oscar at the time speaking to a reporter in the middle of a crowd during the w t o demonstrations if you will there this is this really was an ordinary leader the organizing group by her and by one since it was organized by your son General Motors and Microsoft you know all the other great bear with you right there because what we're dealing with. Human any violence or any anybody here the boy it's taking place in companies that have been there that there were these people so that's Michael Moore back in the end of November 1909 and one you are and I were in the streets we were covering this for democracy now I make that point and this weekend. Holding a big forum at the people's forum called Media and resistance 20 years after Seattle that University of Pennsylvania your University Rutgers and democracy now helped to sponsor you talked about how here you were working for this major New York newspaper right the New York Daily News but it was democracy now that brought you out there because the paper we didn't want to Page did want to pay my expenses to go out there and then I mean really know what the dubby CIO was about and I assured them that was going to be a big event and that even Bill Clinton was going so it was worthwhile Culver and ended up having to come in the middle of the night because of the mass protests and Madeleine Albright couldn't get out of her hotel room the secretary of state because of the 2. Or gas that was coming under her door and if you could read your column since the Daily News didn't stop calling you once you got to hear it once the process paralyze the whole of the whole city then they wanted to hear as much as I could write and this was the this was the beginning of of a column I wrote in the summer of 1st a baptism by tear gas for America's students and and I wrote a new generation of rebels came of age in America yesterday thousands of young people paralyzed the city's downtown delayed the opening ceremony of the World Trade Organization meeting in a stunning protest that hearken back to the great civil rights marches of the 1960 s. And in another column on December 3rd I wrote quote It did not matter to these diehard kids that the city had been turned into an armed camp that was firmly under the control of an army of cops state troopers and National Guard they had been stunningly successful in giving a black eye to an obscure international organization and had alerted millions of Americans to the enormous power of the w t o wheels in the world and turned it into a household name and side as I said most people didn't even know about to go before these protests occurred. Pendennis Shiva if you can explain you came from India to be part in Seattle of the protests but you didn't know really the level of protest you had already been laying a foundation with the I have g. The international forum on globalization giving speeches about this and for people to understand the w t o the idea that a trans national organization could be used to overturn the laws of democratically legislature democratically elected legislatures say some city council didn't want to have g m O's want to have them labeled they could be called w t o illegal now you have been continuing to speak out about this sense but what difference did that seminal moment make when were you surprised the w t o got shut down. I was not surprised because actually it wasn't just the protests outside it was the 3rd world governments inside who were totally celebrating the ending of the bullying power of the rich countries who were working on behalf of the month centers to protest the trips agreement the related intellectual property rights agreement the car gives who's vice president was deposited to negotiate the agriculture treaty on behalf of the us government that's what that recall to Treaty was a Cargill agreement and a so-called sanitary and phytosanitary agreement was a basically Pepsi call Nestle junk food agreement forcing bad food around on everyone around the world and criminalizing local regional national governments which worked according to their constitutions to protect their sovereignty is and their rights as I mention I woke up to the use of a Gatton w t o to establish seed monopolies in 87 in India we immediately started to mobilize and the 1st very big rally was 850-0000 farmers rally to say agriculture should not be part of free trade those protests are still carrying on Seattle we planned with I have g. Teach in and we had been doing teach ins in the lead up to Seattle we thought about 30000 people would turn up. House and stand up and the young people on the streets would come up to me and talk to me about how they were there because of piracy they were there to stop privatisation of water each of them was there to defend our public goods they were there to defend our commons and everyone was speaking the chorus our world is not for sale our word is now on the verge of destruction and extinction and climate catastrophe because those who make money out of destroying the word want to continue and so the difference really is that those who pushed and body the us into the w t o of the corporations now want to dismantle the w.t. Or as a multilateral body and they want to have bilateral boring agreements. The end result is the same I think it's important for the workers of the United States to recognize that the unions were on the street in Europe right now that the corporations are pitting farmers again against the environment less as if banning pesticides which are killing the butterflies and birds are not the reason the farmers are in debt is not the reason their crops are failing not the reason that their soil is dying it is time to stop the divide and rule that has been created again and again by the money machine and the money makers and this divide and rule is right now taking very militaristic turns very fascist turns so our movement of 20 years ago is now a movement to defend democracy to defend democracy I wrote my book at democracy because all these journalists would say all the anti globalize us know what they're against They don't know what they're for we know what we're for that's what we're here to defend our work our lives our democracy so rooters democracy and I think there is even more urgently the agent of a day what we really need to learn from 20 years ago is that when people. Wake up to the situation and when people are determined in all their diversity that turtles and the Teamsters can walk together to defend the rights of the and I right that's the moment we are in tod