 Hello and welcome to International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines. Indonesian parliament passes special autonomy law for Papua despite protests. Undocumented migrants in Belgium reach 54th day of hunger strike for regularization. Strike at Walward Drugs plant ends after company imposes tentative offer in the US. And in our video section, we take a look at the impact of existing inequities on COVID-19 vaccine access. In our first story, the Indonesian parliament passed a revised autonomy law for the Papuan provinces on July 15th, called the Papua Special Autonomy Bill or OSTOS. The legislation revised 20 articles from a 2001 law. The law has been widely opposed by people in Papua and West Papua, who have stated that they were excluded from consultations. Moreover, several public discussions organized around the bill were suppressed by the police. People have now denounced the laws in attempt by the Indonesian government to exert more control over the region. Meanwhile, the government has claimed little advance healthcare education and affirmative education policies. Indonesia took over the Papuan region following a UN supervised vote in 1969 that included only around 1,025 people. Over the years, there has been a growing struggle in the area for self-determination. People are also demanding the release of imprisoned Papuan activists, including Victor Yemo. Several student-led demonstrations against the autonomy law were held in the city of Jayapura on Wednesday. However, these were dispersed by armed police and at least 23 people were arrested and four were injured. Among them were students and activists, with the group Petisi Rakyat Papua. Protests were held on several cities, again on Thursday as the law was tabled in parliament. Human rights lawyer Veronica Corman reported that around 50 students were arrested and beaten up in Jakarta. Protests were also held in the cities of Timika and Monakwari, where people gather on the road outside the University of Papua. Protesters had previously tried to march to local government offices, but were blocked by the police. In Angkor, Belgium, where around 470 undocumented workers have been in a hunger strike for 54 days, they are demanding legal recognition and access to work and social services for migrants in the country. They are also demanding clarity on the extraordinary circumstances that would grant them legal residency. After months of protests, the undocumented migrants launched a hunger strike on May 23. Since then, they have occupied a church in Brussels and the campuses of the ULB and VUB universities. Most of the migrants came to Belgium from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Pakistan. Many have lived in the country for over 5 to 15 years. However, when COVID lockdowns were imposed, they lost their jobs and could not avail any pandemic relief programs. UN special rapprochure, Olivia Descheter, has also pointed to a lack of proper housing and widespread homelessness. At present, there are around 4.8 million undocumented workers in Europe of these 150,000 live in Belgium. With the hunger strike reaching its second month, the health of the migrants has continued to worsen. Medics have reported heart and kidney problems, emaciation and even suicide attempts during this time. However, the secretary of asylum and migration, Sami Mehdi, has so far refused the demands. The migrants currently occupying a church have refused all aid, including doctors. A meeting was held between government officials and the union of undocumented migrants for regularization or USPR. However, an agreement has not yet been reached. Meanwhile, protesters have continued to gather in the area in support of their cause. In our next story, we look at the United States where over a five week long strike by Volvo trucks workers is now ended. The United Auto Workers Union announced on July 14 that the third tentative agreement offered by the company had been ratified. Over 2,900 workers in the plant in Virginia had resumed a strike early in June to demand a fair contract. This was after the rejected two previous contracts offered by Volvo trucks North America. This was after the rejected two previous contracts offered by Volvo trucks North America by a majority of over 90%. Workers found that these deals would increase out of pocket health care costs and cut back on retiree benefits. A major concern was also the tiered wage system, which saw huge disparities between recent hires and workers with seniority. Another issue was the alternative work schedule, which included 10-hour shifts in alternative operations. A third tentative deal was set to be set to vote on July 9. The company claimed to eliminate the tiered wage system. The six-year contract also included a wage progression for recent hires and a 14% increase in starting pay. The company offered to put all employees hired on a before June 30, 2015 on top pay and no increase in health insurance premium. However, the deal was rejected by a majority of 60%. The company then announced that it was its last and best offer and it would not bargain further. The UAW held a second vote for the deal on July 14. The common language of the contract passed with 50.3% of the votes. Meanwhile, the hourly language passed by a narrow margin of 17 votes. However, the section covering salaried workers failed with 54 no votes and 40 years votes. Despite this, the UAW called off the strike late on Wednesday. All workers are now mandated to return to work on July 19. Struggle in Virginia has been going on since April and is among the largest labor disputes in the US at the moment. And for our final story, we look at the persistence of unequal vaccine access across the world. Even as Western countries have managed to inaugurate large sections of the population, serious gaps have remained. Research has shown that undocumented migrant workers are disproportionately represented in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Factors such as overcrowded and unsafe housing and precarious working conditions have put migrants at greater risk. Meanwhile, lack of official documents has also meant that they are unable to access health care often. A report by the European Center for Disease Control in June showed low vaccine rates among migrants and ethnic minority groups. Meanwhile, some European countries are gradually starting to lift lockdowns and even mandatory masking. Here is Dr. Satish Drath to talk more about this issue. So absolutely, the fundamental, completely unsurprising and depressing truth is that existing inequities are exacerbated in epidemic times. They are exacerbated because people are not counted, as you point out. They are exacerbated because marginalized communities are correctly skeptical of the state and therefore show vaccine hesitancy that is derived from a completely different source than that in affluent anti-science communities. And because their vaccine supply and their vaccine delivery systems are much less reliable and far more patchy. And therefore, single-dose vaccination is likely to be far more common amongst those communities, the marginalized, the undocumented, the disempowered communities. And as we pointed out, the emerging more transmissible variants, even though single doses might well provide for protection against severe illness and death, do not provide for particularly good protection against infection and transmission. And all of this together is creating what we said a few months ago as the situation where there are large communities in which the virus is spreading, abutting vaccinated communities in which virus variants that are being generated in this pool are being tested against the vaccinated communities, so to say. We are inviting the emergence of true vaccine escape variants as a consequence of iniquitous vaccination. I must confess that while I see the so-called scientific rationale in the sense simply that the vaccinated are much less likely to be productively infected, I am deeply, deeply skeptical of this advice for withdrawing completely from epidemic-appropriate behavior. It is one thing to begin to open up both the economy and culture at large. It is another to begin to create a situation where there are two classes of people, the vaccinated who have privileges that the unvaccinated don't. This is particularly important because the unvaccinated are not at all necessarily unvaccinated by choice, especially they are not necessarily unvaccinated as a result of some anti-science, anti-vaxxer perspective, but simply as a consequence of not having had access, not having had structure, not having had opportunity, or being justly suspicious of the state. Under these circumstances to create effectively two classes of privileges is an invitation to worsening inequities. I think it is therefore deeply improper for such advice to include this complete opening up. I can imagine that under some very restrictive and specific circumstances, a permission for the vaccinated and not for the unvaccinated, such as Wimbledon, tennis tournaments, such as football matches, all of this I say with less than serious tone. But I can imagine that there are situations where one might allow a vaccination certificate to give some small privilege. But these are policies that need to be extremely careful, extremely graded, extremely specific, and extremely nuanced if they are not to translate into massive exacerbated inequities. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.