Assange Hospitalized: He Was Psychologically Tortured, Says UN Official

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Joe Lauria, the editor-in-chief of Consortium News, founded by the late Robert Parry. And he’s the author of the book “How I Lost, By Hillary Clinton.”

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange is in a prison hospital in serious condition, according to his attorneys, family members, and Wikileaks. Julian was transferred to the prison hospital yesterday after one of his attorneys found him to be incoherent in advance of a court hearing that he was going to do via video. Meanwhile, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture appealed to the UK government today, saying that Julian was being tortured psychologically.

President Trump last night announced onerous new sanctions against Mexico that will take effect on June 10, unless the Mexican government stems the flow of migrants to the United States. Tariffs of 5 percent on all Mexican goods began that day and will rise to 25 percent by October. Stocks and bonds both tumbled with the news, and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said "social problems cannot be solved with taxes or coercive measures," and he accused the United States of being a "ghetto" for undocumented migrants. Isabel Garcia, co-founder of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, joins the show.

Iran today accused Saudi Arabia of rallying regional countries to follow US and Israeli hostility toward it at a summit in Mecca. Saudi King Salman called on countries to contain what he called "an aggressive and hostile Iran." Saudi Arabia says that Iran is behind recent attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf, as well as Saudi oil installations. Brian and John speak with Ambassador Peter Ford, the former UK Ambassador to Syria.

In 1989, five Black and Latino teenagers were arrested and charged with the assault and rape of a white woman in New York's Central Park. Police pressured them into making false confessions. They all served prison time. But a convicted murderer later confessed to the crime. Now a new four-part mini-series by Ana DuVernay is telling the story of the Central Park 5. Called "When They See Us," it was released today on Netflix. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston and author of many books, including "The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America," joins the show.

It's Friday! So it's time for the week's worst and most misleading headlines. Brian and John speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his site Left I on the News and on twitter @leftiblog, and Sputnik producer Nicole Roussell.

Friday is Loud & Clear's weekly hour-long segment The Week in Review, about the week in politics, policy, and international affairs. Today they focus on Julian Assange's grave health crisis, war tensions in the Middle East as the US tries to back away from an escalating confrontation with Iran, Trump's new announced tariffs on Mexico, the failure of Netanyahu to form a government in Israel, and the results of the European Parliament election. Brian and John are joined by Sputnik News analysts and producers Walter Smolarek and Nicole Roussell.

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