 Hello and welcome to Daily Debrief brought to you by People's Dispatch where we bring you top stories from around the globe. I'm Shriya and in today's episode we talk about the political upheaval in Peru which has been seen weeks of protests and a brutal repression from the Dina Bolu Arte government. We also talk about the latest from on and off the court at this year's Australian Open which concluded on January 29 in Melbourne. And finally the International Criminal Court has decided to resume investigation in Philippines controversial war on drugs. In Peru's capital Lima, massive mobilizations are occurring almost daily demanding the resignation of de facto President Dina Bolu Arte and her regime. The pro-democracy protests have gathered support from far and wide while Bolu Arte's government has resorted to brutal suppression of the protesters by deploying about 10,000 police and military officers just in Lima. Fifty days of social protests in Peru since December 7 have resulted in deaths of around 60 people, 7 of whom were minors. We joined by Zoe from People's Dispatch with latest updates on the situation in Peru. Hi Zoe, welcome to this episode. So Zoe in Lima the protests have been going on for weeks now nearly 50 days and the repression has been matched with the scale of the protests. What is the latest that's happening there? So as we've been following on People's Dispatch the past several weeks large delegations have been arriving to Lima from the countryside from the provinces where there had been very very intense repression and road blockades and protesters felt that it was important to bring this message to the seat of the government to the capital city to make sure that their demands were heard and that such horrific repression couldn't would be less likely to take place if it were in the capital. So they've been mobilizing in large numbers both people from the countryside and workers, students from Lima itself. In this past weekend there was another large mobilization on Saturday and we saw a lot of the regional delegations performing traditional dances, singing songs, a large, large mobilization. And then once it started getting a little dark there were confrontations between protesters and police and police began to heavily repress these protests and there's already videos that have been circulating on social media of showing police kind of just indiscriminately firing tear gas canisters, pellet guns at protesters' bodies, at their heads, at their chests. And this very intense escalation of repression has already cost one live, a 55-year-old man, Victor Yaxalvika. He was pronounced dead on Saturday night. He was hit in the head with a pellet gun, bled out on the sidewalk and was immediately rushed to the emergency room but he did die from these wounds. Many others were gravely injured. Journalists were attacked while they were actually filming some of this. One journalist was arrested. So there was a whole slew of violations of protesters' rights, of people's civil rights, human rights that happened on Saturday. Very, very brutal, very shocking. But we've seen a very similar response unfortunately from Peruvian mainstream media who have said that it was other protesters that had attacked these people and that that's why this person died. Some people have said that it was a rock that hit his head. So there's again this dispute of the narrative, but I think above all because of the documentation that there's been from independent media, it's pretty clear what happened. And people are determined to continue protesting, to continue raising the demand that Dina Baluwarte should resign, that there be immediate elections and actually today itself there is going to be a vote on that. Right, Zoe. And like you said, a major demand is the resignation of Dina Baluwarte. What the people of Peru have received so far from the government's end is just repression. So what do you think and when do you think this demand will be fulfilled? Well, it's interesting because a lot of people have been looking at prior examples of when people have been demanding the resignation of presidents and we can look at 2020 when Merino was voted out in impeachment motion, he was an interim president as well. And after two people were killed in protests demanding his resignation, he actually resigned and there began a process of transitional government, etc. And so people have been demanding this for over a month and it's interesting because there's been already 60 people killed, horrific acts of violence against the population, but really Dina Baluwarte shows no evidence, no signs of being willing to step down. In fact, she's reiterated time and time again that she will not step down. And she does have the support of the army, of the police, the right wing has really united behind her. And I think that she's kind of locked in with them as their allies, even though of course she did originally come from a left wing party. That being said, she is also pressuring for elections to be held this year. However, on the street, people are demanding early elections and her resignation, they don't think she can actually last a day longer after all of the crimes that she's committed against approving people. However, as I said, because she does have the backing of the major branches of power, it seems unlikely that she would resign in less for some reason. They split behind her, she loses some of their support or some other major change happens in terms of their support for her. So that's that's what we can see happening. She's made reiterated addresses to the nation continuing to criminalize protesters, continuing to say that everything that the police is doing is immaculate, that there's really that they're responding to violence from the protesters and really just disparaging a lot of the demands and a lot of what's happening on the streets with the majority of the population. And it's important to point out as well that she both she and the Congress have extremely low approval ratings. The majority of the proving people do not want her there. They do not want this Congress. And that's why they're demanding such structural and sweeping political changes in the country. Thank you so much for bringing us very important updates, Zoe. We'll see you as we follow the story very closely again. Thanks so much for having me. The year's first tennis Grand Slam concluded in Melbourne on Sunday with the men's singles final where Novak Djokovic told the world he's still very much up there with the best in the world and has plenty of tennis left in him. In beating Stefano Sisypas in straight sets he equalled Rafael Nadal's 22 Grand Slam singles titles and is on course to make the record his own. Siddhant joins us now to talk about Djokovic and the women's side of the tournament which concluded a day previously. Welcome to this episode Siddhant. So Novak Djokovic's 10th Australian Open and 22nd Grand Slam like you said he's said to make a record which is well going to be historic. Do you have any comments about his trajectory as a player so far? Oh yeah I mean there's if there's anything Svia that move back Djokovic is it's not short on talking points. You know through his career the way he is sort of the ball coming off of course starting in a situation where like at a time when that part of the world where he comes from Serbia was bought on and despite all of the hardship that he in his family had to face still reached the highest levels of men's professional tennis started off as an upstart really you know by then the rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Pedro was already in full swing and as far as most of the tennis world was concerned at least those looking at men's tennis that was the main rivalry that was going to grab headlines for the next decade or so to come but Djokovic wasn't having any of it and over since then he has consistently shown that he's up there among the greatest who have played the game whether men or women and like he pointed out 22 Grand Slam titles now and still like he showed yesterday he was playing against Fanos Cecipa who was born in 1998 so 225 years or so old at least 10 years do me have to know about Djokovic and Djokovic showing that plenty of you know gas still in the tank to keep that keep it going and surpass perhaps Nadal Federer of course is done with the game and Rafael Nadal is still around but we don't I don't think we will see him at the latest stages of the Grand Slam given all the injuries that he's gone through and the condition that his body seems to be in. So for Nadal, Djokovic has the chance now to finally take that number one spot as far as the men's Grand Slam titles are concerned and really establish himself in the narrative as one of like I was saying the best to ever play the game also what they've done Shriya is to like revolutionize the game as a whole. Right Siddhant and on 29 January the women's tournament also came to an end it's been an interesting game for the female players and a notable Asian player Sanya Mirza she also announced an exit of sorts that's eventual so anything on that? Yeah absolutely I mean unfortunately we don't do the show on Sunday so we couldn't really talk about the women's final but but there again the impact of the likes of Serena Williams who in many books is the actual goat as far as singles tennis is concerned. The kind of impact that Serena has had and and Venus Williams for the elder sister before her the kind of impact they've had on the women's game showed in the finals both the finalists Savalenka from Belarus and Ribakina were playing you know very high risk tennis going for the big shots going for the touch line and often hitting it extremely entertaining game of tennis again and in a way what also makes it interesting is the backdrop to all this at Wimbledon Belarusian and Russian athletes have been banned from competing in the hopes of perhaps avoiding this kind of a situation and exactly that has happened and athletes from Belarus everyone knows she's from Belarus has gone and won the title and of course the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian war remains. There's a push happening alongside to include Russian and Belarusian athletes in Asian competitions because of the stance that Europe has taken against and we might actually talk about that a bit more on the show tomorrow over later in the week but for Ribakina sorry for Savalenka and it's extremely important victory of course winning a Grand Slam is a huge thing but it also demonstrates how widely the women's game has actually proliferated. If you look at the winners of Grand Slams over the past maybe two three years you find a number of new countries coming into the forward where from where athletes have been able to push on and go to the not just final rounds but actually win tournaments unfortunately like you were mentioning Sanya Mirza who is India's probably tennis superstar of all time men or women included despite the fact that we've had the likes of Maish Gupti and Leander Pace who've gone on to be world number one in the doubles game. She called time on her career in Grand Slams with a final loss she played alongside Rohan Bopanna another Indian they unfortunately didn't win the final but Sanya Mirza has proved to be a massive icon for I think women's sport in India and in South Asia and all of these parts of the world she was saying in interviews over the past week how very much and she's of course married to a famous ticketer from Pakistan so in Malik so how because the South Asian diaspora is so is spread out so far and wide then the kind of fame and the kind of iconic status that she achieved perhaps doesn't measure up to the kind of success that she had on the tennis court as a single player we remember her she was the first from India to reach the third round of a Grand Slams singles back in 2005 when she played against Serena Williams and you know she remember she sort of flashed back to that time 80 years ago when Serena told her keep fighting and that's exactly what she's done she stood for what she's believed in she stood for what she is and the right for girls to women to you know sit like they are want to wear what they want to play the sport that they want to say their mind speak their mind and this we have to remember it was in 2023 when she started out times were different India was a different country and and the spaces didn't really exist for girls and women to step out and take center stage like that thank you so much funding us to the hand and taking us to the world of tennis this week and we'll see you again for this another episode on January 26 the International Criminal Court said it would resume its investigation into former president Rodrigo Duterte's violent war on drugs Duterte's war on drugs campaign began in 2016 and has claimed thousands of lives by the government's own account some human rights groups put the death toll as high as 12,000 in September 2021 judges at the Hague based ICC authorized an investigation into the anti-drug campaign describing it as a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population we joined by Anish from People's Dispatch with the latest on this issue. Hi Anish welcome to this episode so can you tell us first off why has the ICC chosen to reopen this investigation at this point of time and also give us a little bit of recap about what this investigation is about. Yes so let's begin with the sort of recap because it's been a while since we actually spoke about it in about 2016 shortly a few couple of months after Rodrigo Duterte came to power as president the ICC prosecutor then had actually suggested investigating after multiple reports and pleas from rights groups and movements from the Philippines. Now the thing is that before he became president Duterte was known for his war on drugs when he was a mayor of the Davao city and at that point in time there were even he even raised his government at least has been alleged or facing allegations of having raised a sort of paramilitary or a militia sort of thing to sort of what they call combat drug addiction which eventually led to hundreds of deaths it was even called the Davao Death Scots so we can imagine the kind of impunity that it went about in after 2016 the policy became a nationwide thing and so this is precisely what the ICC investigators have been trying to look into primarily because the toll is quite huge for any country to begin with we are talking about from government official account which is something about 6300 or so to something as high as maybe 27,000 deaths alone deaths alone will be that high you have a massive number of incarcerations that are aside from deaths many of whom were arrested for being you know for using drugs and not even selling or actually being sellers of these illegal drugs many of them are in under trial so we do not even know if the veracity of the allegations put against them are you know something that the courts would hold water in we have also seen the courts also you know sort of doing what the government wanted at least in the local judicial administrations we have seen magistrates just signing of you know mass what are called as mass warrants basically where you can actually arrest a large number of people with just a couple of you know a couple of warrants that were signed at the same time with the same kind of application the same kind of language the same police officer and you know the police station so these are the kind of things that happen and that has often alerted the world the global community not just you know within the Philippines but obviously the ICC investigation was something that created headlines obviously in 2019 we know that the Tarte withdrew from the ICC once the investigation seemed like it would happen quite soon it was at the verge of the of the court sanctioning the investigations to begin with in 2020 sorry 2021 the Philippines government at the time the Tarte's government at the time obviously had actually filed a petition calling for the the court to hold its investigation until an internal a domestic investigation of sorts concludes on the basis of what is called as a principle of complementarity which is basically higher quotes not interfering in the jurisdiction of lower quotes so these factors kind of stalled the process because the court was considering whether or not the Filipino judicial system had the capacity or the intentionality to actually prosecute and you know charge these officers who are guilty of these killings you know and bring them to account which so far the court and the ICC prosecutor have found to be completely inadequate even when even after the government exchange last year when Ferdinand Marcos Jr came to power obviously his vice president being Sara Duterte who again continued her father's legacy as the mayor of Davao city continued the Davao death squads and also the anti drug policy the violent anti drug policy of her father in that city and also advocated for that during her campaign shows that obviously she is also will be part of the investigation or her government at the very least so which is what the ICC prosecutors are trying to go for obviously despite the withdrawal Philippines still has to abide by the ICC charter or the jurisdiction up until 2019 the day when they withdrew unilaterally from its membership so despite that the investigation can happen if the ICC goes ahead with it right Anish and I think there was also a deferral requested by the embassy of Philippines in Netherlands from the ICC and we were talking also about the significance of choosing the reopening of this case so I'll come back to another question and that will be do you think that Philippines will take how will it take to the reopening of this case will it allow the investigations of these killings well there has been some kind of you know bipolar sort of response coming from the Philippines at one point we had the Philippine National Police saying that it will cooperate with the ICC prosecute just two days ago very shortly after the ICC court had reopened the investigation and on the other hand we have them saying yesterday that they are not going to they want the ICC to respect quote unquote national sovereignty and so to allow which is basically them wanting the Department of Justice and complete its own investigation which can go in any direction as we know so far in the current circumstances as we see obviously the one thing we need to talk about is that the prosecution does not talk about the detates be it Sara or Rodrigo Duterte and they are they are not naming names at this point in time because the investigation needs to happen first so they have they will have it is only after that that they will compile a list of defendants that needs to be prosecuted under you know under crimes of crimes against humanity violation of riots and so on so in all of these fact cases we still have a long process to go if the ICC gets to initiate its investigation it can still conduct a different and a separate investigation in absentia outside of the Philippines but obviously this is where we need to talk about whether or not the Philippines government will be you know cooperative with the court because obviously the Marcos government do not want to do not want the ICC to investigate or do not want the prosecutors to interfere at least what the stated position is that they do not want them to interfere in the judicial process but they cannot risk or at least as we have seen so far the Marcos administration does not want to risk being an international pariah and it does not want to you know be known for violating an international code or convention so we have to wait and see how it goes through they have already as you said appealed against the this reopening we will have to wait and see if that appeal goes anywhere but once the investigation is still years long process and it can take a longer time to actually even bring any people to account right thank you so much for joining us Anish today and that's all for today's episode for more such stories keep following people's dispatch.org and also follow our social media handles on facebook instagram and twitter