Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Kidnap or Kill: The CIA’s plot against WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange | The L...

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did the cia under president trump plan
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to kidnap and assassinate wikileaks
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founder julian assange's dream
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always maintained he was a journalist
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and that the united states is trying to
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criminalize journalism
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hello i'm richard gisbert and you're at
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the listening post where we don't cover
00:24
the news we cover the way the news is
00:26
covered here are some of the media
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angles we're examining this week
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it's the kind of news story that
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wikileaks has been known to break only
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it was about wikileaks julian assange
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and how far the cia was willing to go to
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put the organization out of commission
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some senior trump administration
00:44
officials and cia executives even
00:46
discussed assassinating assange
00:49
facebook is under scrutiny yet again as
00:52
a new pr initiative backfires
00:55
translation is transformation how
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literature changes as it moves from one
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language to another
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and after 16 years of leading the
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country as its chancellor
01:09
germany is saying goodbye to angela
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merkel
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it was like something straight out of a
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bond film not the one that premiered in
01:17
cinemas this week but a factual story
01:20
allegations of kidnapping and
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assassination plots discussed by
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american intelligence officials
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targeting wikileaks founder julian
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assange on september 26th yahoo news
01:32
dropped an explosive report based on
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interviews with more than 30 unnamed
01:38
former u.s intelligence sources
01:40
detailing what it called the cia's war
01:43
on wikileaks a trump administration plan
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to silence the man and organization that
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unveiled some of the american
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government's most guarded secrets the
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expose rippled through the press freedom
01:56
community because of its implications
01:58
for more conventional journalists but
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like so much of the assange story it has
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received nothing like the media coverage
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it deserves with assange's legal fate
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being decided in a british extradition
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hearing later this month yahoo's report
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could end up before the judge in the
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form of evidence our starting point this
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week is washington
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the trump era ended eight months ago
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leaving the biden administration to deal
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with some of the consequences
02:30
such as this investigation by yahoo news
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some senior trump administration
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officials and cia executives even
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discussed assassinating assange
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the three reporters involved say they
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interviewed dozens of former u.s
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intelligence officials all of them
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anonymous who confirmed the cia and the
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trump white house repeatedly discussed
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the lengths they would go to to get to
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the man julian assange and the
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organization wikileaks that have plagued
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the american government its defense and
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military establishments sectors that do
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so much of their work in secrets
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they claim to have interviewed more than
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30 former us government officials
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including eight who spoke of scenarios
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such as a possible abduction of julian
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assange or even plots to kill him they
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were concerned about possible plot for
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the russians to break julian assange out
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of the ecuadorian embassy and some of
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the scenarios then did involve british
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assistance as well and then also
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discussing
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a rendition operation against julian
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assange something previously unknown
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taking a plane and abducting him from
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the ecuador embassy
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bringing him back to the united states
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potentially interrogating him in secret
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and they redefined the organization
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as a
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hostile entity
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language that mike pompeo used in his
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first public remarks as cia director
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wikileaks walks like a hostile
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intelligence service and talks like a
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hostile intelligence service
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the yahoo team reported the cia stepped
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up its pursuit of julian assange under
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donald trump and was ordered to do so by
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its director at the time mike pompeo
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the u.s government's war on wikileaks
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predated trump's time in office but the
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obama administration had drawn a line it
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faced what it called the new york times
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problem
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the perception that going after assange
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and wikileaks amounted to an attack on
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more conventional news outlets
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yahoo reports that the vault 7 story
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which wikileaks broke in early
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2017 changed the thinking
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because of what it revealed and because
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pompeo and the intelligence operatives
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at the cia's headquarters in langley
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virginia took the vault 7 leak
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personally
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the vault 7 material uh contained the
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cia's most sensitive
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hacking tools how the cia
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penetrated computer networks around the
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world how it penetrated iphones how it
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tracked the communications and
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activities of perceived adversaries this
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was a huge sensitive matter for the cia
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mike pompeo had been somewhat dismissive
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of
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wikileaks role in the 2016 election but
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when he comes into langley in early 2017
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and the vault 7 leak happens on his
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watch now it's his agency
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he's the one responsible and pompeo was
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embarrassed by this he didn't want to go
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see president donald trump and face him
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and have a discussion about what went
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wrong with the cia and in fact the cia
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had laughed at the pentagon as they saw
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that those files from the pentagon
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exposing the iraq and afghanistan wars
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were published by wikileaks
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and they laughed at the state department
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because
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250 000 plus diplomatic cables were
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published from chelsea manning by
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wikileaks and so
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this was an embarrassment and he decided
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that he was going to be out for blood
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and seek vengeance against wikileaks i
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can say we never we never conducted
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planning to violate u.s law pompeo is
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unapologetic he's tried to discredit
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yahoo's sources but has stopped well
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short of denying the story
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beyond the vault 7 angle the more than
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30 sources yahoo had the detailed quotes
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from senior trump administration
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officials the story was not entirely new
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reports of cia plots to target julian
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assange had already made the rounds but
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it took yahoo rather than legacy news
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outlets like the washington post or the
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new york times to put it all together
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mainstream outlets including the times
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which happily published the news
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wikileaks revealed and benefited from
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all those clicks have been suspiciously
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silent on these latest revelations which
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is consistent with their lack of
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interest and coverage of assange's
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ongoing extradition case in the uk
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this particular story has gotten pretty
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wide pick up in the uk now by uh most of
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the major newspapers here although
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notably not yet the bbc um in the us it
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seems to be getting less coverage that
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maybe fits into a bit of a pattern with
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julian assange's case there is a public
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perception of him that is very unhelpful
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at times and i think that has turned
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many people off there has been a growing
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amount of coverage since the extradition
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proceeding started and i think there is
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now growing consensus that there needs
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to be solidarity on the principles of
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this case whether or not uh individuals
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decide that they feel assange himself is
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worth defending the extent of the cia's
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efforts to silence assange
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must send a chill down any national
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security reporter's spine the reason
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that the cia targeted julian assange and
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the justice department later indicted
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him
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is that he solicited and obtained and
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published truthful information on
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matters of clear public concern
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dating back to 2010 to war crimes
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effectively and many of these charges
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could have been brought against and
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could be brought against national
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security and investigative journalists
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for doing their jobs
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unlike his predecessor president biden
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talks a good game on the importance of
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the fourth estate
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on world press freedom day he said
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journalists uncover the truth and are
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indispensable to the functioning of
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democracy okay let's go to al jazeera
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first which landed his press secretary
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in a tough spot when asked by al jazeera
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to explain the disconnect between
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biden's rhetoric on press freedom and
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his administration's continued pursuit
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of julian assange i don't have anything
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new to say on the uh on julian assange
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you see silence you see dodging you see
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evasion from
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the biden administration
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see this as a freedom of press issue
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with respect to assange again i have
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nothing i have nothing to just speak to
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on julian
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and
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every day that the biden administration
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continues this prosecution they are
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emboldening authoritarians or tyrants
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giving them a way to deflect
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any questions about how they treat
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journalists within their own country and
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i'm not saying this hypothetically you
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could cut to a clip right now of the
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leaders of countries
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like azerbaijan
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say
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that they are not going to take
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questions from the bbc
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and address their own press freedom how
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do you
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assess what happened to mr assange is it
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the reflection of free media in your
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country because julian assange is in a
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jail cell we saw this with china's
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foreign ministry who has said that they
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do not have to address concerns about
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how they treat journalists because the
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u.s is continuing the case against
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julian assange
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earlier this year a british judge denied
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washington's extradition request ruling
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julian assange would be a suicide risk
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if put in a u.s prison
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the american authorities have appealed
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that hearing is set for later this month
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assange's lawyers will have poured over
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the yahoo report which may have
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bolstered the case against extradition
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the grounds that the british judge used
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to block the u.s government's request
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for extradition were pretty narrow they
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were about
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the risk of suicide that assange would
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face where he to serve time in a u.s
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prison the british court case doesn't go
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to these larger issues of press freedom
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and potential government misconduct that
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we laid out in the piece now
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there's talk among assange's legal team
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of possibly trying to broaden the
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parameters of that british
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extradition case to include some of
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these allegations the journalists at
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yahoo
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have likely strengthened the case
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against extraditing julian assange to
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the united states through the reporting
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that they've done here the yahoo news
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reporting reveals that u.s officials
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seriously considered taking
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extrajudicial and frankly illegal action
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to silence julian assange and i expect
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that his lawyers will make a strong case
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in defense of the magistrate court's
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decision to deny the united states
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request to extradite him
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that would be poetic american
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journalists through their reporting
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potentially having an impact on a court
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case that has such significant
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implications
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for the future of journalism
11:53
a project that was given the green light
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by facebook ceo mark zuckerberg to push
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positive stories about the company on
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its own news feed has backfired mean
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akshay ravi's been on this meena this
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looks like a pr campaign gone bad
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exactly richard according to the new
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york times project amplify was signed
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off by zuckerberg in august and it's
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been trialled in three american cities
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it pushes stories like this to the top
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of news feeds facebook's latest
12:22
innovations for 2021 on achieving quote
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100 renewable energy for its global
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operations
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the news feed is central to the facebook
12:31
experience it's where users see what's
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being shared it was never sold as a
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stage for facebook's own pr material and
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this is happening when outlets like the
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wall street journal are doing stories on
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facebook that appear to be slightly more
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news feed worthy yeah last week the
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journal published an investigation in
12:49
which it showed that according to
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facebook's own internal research
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problems have repeatedly been flagged up
12:54
with how the site is used for example by
12:56
human traffickers or even disturbing
12:59
data on how the platform affects the
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mental health of teenage girls despite
13:03
knowing the extent of these issues
13:05
facebook has never done enough to fix
13:07
them project amplify was all about
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enhancing facebook's public image and
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then there are the problems that social
13:13
media sites like facebook like instagram
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keep running into down under in
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australia yeah cnn has now decided to
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disable its facebook page in australia
13:23
and this is after a high court there
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ruled that publishers are legally liable
13:27
for defamatory comments under the posts
13:30
of news organizations or any media sites
13:33
cnn asked facebook for help to disable
13:35
the comments function in australia but
13:37
the company says it cannot do location
13:39
specific comment disabling if you switch
13:41
off comments on a facebook page in one
13:43
location or in one country you
13:45
essentially disable it for users around
13:47
the world who come to that page
13:49
this high court ruling has significant
13:51
impact on australian media companies
13:53
many of them just don't allow comments
13:55
on their posts any longer because
13:57
moderating or policing a comment section
13:59
takes too much time takes too many
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moderators and just too much money okay
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thanks mina
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it's something you see in news coverage
14:07
all the time or hear the voice of
14:09
translator and they don't always get it
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right
14:13
the translation of literature from one
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language to another is an even trickier
14:17
business
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literature is much more subtle than
14:20
journalism it's less direct and
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languages come with particularities
14:24
audiences with their own cultures and
14:26
expectations
14:28
the language most frequently translated
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into english by american publishers is
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french followed by spanish
14:35
when it comes to arabic and persian
14:37
translations have been known to come up
14:39
short leading to cultural
14:41
misunderstandings the kind that reading
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the texts of the other are supposed to
14:46
correct
14:47
in many cases foreign language novels
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are selected for translation by
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publishers because they can help explain
14:53
a country's politics or its current
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affairs
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and when translators or editors fail in
14:59
their jobs context can be sacrificed and
15:02
stereotypes can get reinforced the
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listening posts tarakanaphan now with a
15:07
look at what gets lost in translation
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the most important part of literary
15:20
translation for me is to capture the
15:23
voice of the text that you're working
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with you're not just translating them
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across languages and across cultures
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you're translating them across time
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nuance of course will be lost but also
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nuances can be rediscovered that's part
15:38
of the alchemy that is literary
15:40
translation
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one thing that's poorly understood about
15:44
translation is that when a text moves
15:46
from one language to another it is
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transformed
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it is almost never word for word so
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translators become cultural mediators
15:56
balancing faithfulness to the original
15:58
with the needs of a new audience
16:04
there's this old world
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notion of translation as a kind of
16:09
sterile
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mechanical process
16:12
that involves a direct
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reproduction of a text into a target
16:17
language that is more or less
16:19
faithful to the letter or spirit of the
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original
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but that's not the case and it's almost
16:26
never the case i don't think there can
16:28
ever ever ever be a totally faithful
16:31
translation
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because any translator coming across
16:34
anything has to read the text and then
16:38
decode it and
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put it back into another language and
16:42
all languages are different
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translation is
16:46
the manipulation of a text into not only
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a target language
16:51
but a target culture a target
16:53
consumption environment
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and
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consequently this process
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will be impacted
17:02
by
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power imbalances by ideologies
17:07
by perceptions preconceptions
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misconceptions
17:13
in the 19th century an era of european
17:16
imperialist expansion
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a group of western scholars painters and
17:21
translators known as orientalists took
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an interest in the middle east but their
17:26
reimaginings of arab and persian culture
17:29
were often detached from the realities
17:32
of the people that fascinated and
17:34
beguiled them
17:35
richard francis burton was an archetypal
17:38
orientedist an explorer soldier scholar
17:41
and spy who once smuggled himself into
17:44
mecca disguised as an arab
17:46
burton is also responsible for the
17:48
translation of one thousand and one
17:50
nights and the kama sutra
17:53
another englishman edward fitzgerald
17:55
took the poetry of persian polymath
17:57
umarkhayam and transformed it beyond
18:00
recognition on its way into the
18:02
anglosphere
18:04
so you have this power dynamic where the
18:06
the westerner basically feels as if they
18:08
own us and in a way they they really did
18:10
own us and our countries kind of became
18:13
a playground for
18:14
these
18:15
westerners to kind of run around in and
18:17
find manuscripts and find tax and they
18:19
don't feel a responsibility to treat
18:22
them fairly or they don't see the
18:23
culture that they're coming from as
18:25
equal to them and this is especially the
18:26
case with fitzgerald who translated
18:28
haiyan he did say it amuses me to take
18:31
what liberties i like with these
18:32
persians who really do need a little art
18:35
to shape them
18:37
and that has been seen as one of the
18:40
in a sense most offensive of the old
18:42
colonial statements about translation
18:46
but what fitzgerald does with omar
18:49
is
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he he turns it into
18:53
we must be honest and say an
18:54
extraordinarily beautiful poem
18:57
so successful
18:59
that it's generally regarded as as one
19:01
of the very very few cases where a
19:03
translation entered into the canon of
19:06
english literature
19:08
the world of translation has moved on
19:10
since fitzgerald he wouldn't be given
19:12
such license today
19:14
however more subtle distortions continue
19:17
publishers can play a role here by
19:20
selecting or editing translated
19:22
literature in a way that reinforces old
19:25
stereotypes
19:26
so
19:28
the the passive victimized
19:30
veiled muslim woman
19:33
the barbaric violent arab male you know
19:36
these are these are the stereotypes that
19:37
we're talking about so if the novel
19:39
already has these themes in it
19:42
then it's certainly easier for it to
19:44
land a translation deal in the
19:46
english-speaking world nowales
19:49
this very iconic feminist activist from
19:53
egypt when her texts move from arabic to
19:55
english what essentially happens is that
19:58
she becomes simplified and she becomes
20:01
reduced
20:03
to
20:04
only caring about quote-unquote women's
20:07
issues
20:08
but she had a wide-ranging remit of
20:11
critiques she was an anti-imperialist an
20:14
anti-capitalist
20:17
translation can be a murky process but
20:19
ultimately the publisher gets the last
20:21
word larry price was confronted with
20:24
this after working on in praise of
20:25
hatred by syrian author khalid khalifa
20:29
she later discovered that the final
20:30
chapter she had translated wouldn't be
20:33
included in the novel it charts the
20:36
progression of the narrator who was a
20:38
young girl
20:40
into a very
20:42
intolerant version of islam
20:45
and it's narrated in the context of
20:49
increasing crackdowns against
20:52
any kind of descent within syrian
20:54
society they decided that they preferred
20:58
the book to end after chapter three they
21:00
felt that it was a stronger ending
21:02
in this chapter
21:04
marwa has left syria and she's now
21:06
living and working in london but even
21:09
though she's ostensibly free
21:12
and unveiled she's haunted by the events
21:15
in her homeland and they have not left
21:16
her
21:17
and so
21:18
that ending was excised the way that it
21:22
reframes the story is consequential
21:24
because
21:25
marwah the title character does become
21:29
this kind of stereotypical
21:31
veiled secluded oppressed
21:35
female
21:36
and and it's an image that is reinforced
21:39
on on the cover as well and so
21:42
the text is made to cater to that rather
21:45
than
21:46
disrupt those ideas or those
21:48
expectations
21:50
increasingly translators are becoming
21:52
more outspoken about their work
21:55
persian poetics is the brainchild of
21:57
translator muhammad ali mujarati it's
22:00
where he calls out the world famous but
22:02
mistranslated quotes of persian sufi
22:05
poet rumi
22:07
one of rumi's most popular translated
22:09
verses reads out beyond ideas of
22:12
wrongdoing and right doing there is a
22:15
field i'll meet you there
22:18
the original according to moderati is
22:20
closer to
22:21
beyond heresy and faith there's another
22:24
place we yearn for what's in the midst
22:27
of that desert plain
22:29
they kind of stripped away the islam
22:30
again stripped away the the archaism and
22:33
they took out the rumi and they blended
22:35
in this milieu that was existent in the
22:38
60s and 70s it's kind of vaguely eastern
22:40
buddhism hinduism islam kind of all
22:43
mixed together with words like guru and
22:45
mentor and things like that these books
22:47
have huge impacts on the way that things
22:50
are perceived when islamophobes would
22:51
say oh islam is this it's barbaric it's
22:54
evil it's devoid of any deeper meaning
22:56
deeper truth there's a beauty in islam
22:59
when i would pull up people like rumi a
23:01
lot of times they would say well rumi
23:03
doesn't count because he's not a muslim
23:06
translation has always been somewhat of
23:08
an underappreciated art with translators
23:11
often consigned to the margins or
23:13
remaining totally invisible that's not
23:16
the case anymore the translator's voice
23:18
is being heard and recognized and
23:21
readers are better off when they
23:22
understand how the mechanics of
23:24
translations work and how that
23:26
influences which books you see in your
23:28
local bookshop
23:30
translation is
23:32
a dynamic process and it's a process
23:35
that is never neutral and it is always
23:39
impacted by
23:40
power imbalances
23:42
it holds within it
23:44
all of these different contextual ideas
23:47
and biases and prejudices and being made
23:50
aware of these factors will enhance your
23:54
understanding and your appreciation
23:56
of the text itself and of the culture
23:59
that it comes from
24:00
and how it has come to your culture
24:03
[Music]
24:10
and finally after 16 years in the job
24:12
germany's first female chancellor angela
24:15
merkel is leaving politics merkel worked
24:18
with four american presidents five
24:21
british prime ministers eight italian
24:23
heads of government scored higher
24:25
approval ratings than just about any of
24:26
them and eventually came to be seen as
24:29
the de facto head of the european union
24:32
this next video by puppet regime a
24:34
comedy series by g zero media not to be
24:37
confused with al jazeera includes some
24:40
of the policies merkel will be
24:41
remembered for like opening germany's
24:44
borders to a million syrian refugees at
24:47
a time when other countries were
24:48
shutting theirs you may recognize the
24:50
music it's a remix of a classic from
24:53
another german powerhouse craftwork
24:56
we'll see you next time here at the
24:58
listening post
25:05
i'm moving on to the
25:09
next series
25:15
[Music]
25:27
loved me for it well except for greece
25:30
then a million syrians came i said yeah
25:33
this room
25:34
even though it had to push the neo-nazi
25:37
loans now all the cause i hope as they
25:40
know my name yes i guess i could have
25:43
done a little more to help you cream
25:46
still with me around you were all a
25:48
little spoiled if things go wrong once
25:51
i'm gone i'll feel some shading fire
26:08
leaving

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