 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines, India's farmers lead country-wide rail blockade as protests continue. UN Secretary-General condemns widely unfair and uneven vaccine distribution. Ecuadorian Electoral Council cancels partial recount as runoff uncertainty continues. Facebook blocks news and a wide variety of content in Australia. And finally in our video section, we look at workers in the US leading a strike to demand an increase in the federal minimum wage. In our first story, protesting farmers in India held a four-hour country-wide rail blockade on February 18th, that's today. The blockade, or rail roco, protest has been organised by the Samyukth Kisan Morcha, which is the umbrella organisation of farmers' unions leading the protests. Thursday's protest was held as farmers aim to increase pressure on the BJP-led government to repeal its three agricultural laws which they feel are beneficial to corporates. As the protests at Delhi's border almost crossed the three-month mark, the government continues to refuse to repeal the laws which farmers say are like a death wall. The rail blockades were organised from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday. The Ministry of Railways deployed additional paramilitary forces across the country. Farmers blocked railroads and various routes in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Rail blockades and protests were held in more than 50 places in the state of Punjab. Solidarity protests were also held in the eastern state of Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Police forces were deployed to railway stations in the capital as well as in the state of Maharashtra. Hundreds of farmers and the leaders were also detained by the police at a blockade in the city of Gwalior in the state of Madhya Pradesh. This is the third major demonstration by farmers following the Tractor Rally on January 26th and the Road Blockade or Chakka Jam on February 6th. In our next story, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the unfair and uneven access to COVID-19 vaccines across the world. He further stated that 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations while 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose. Guterres made these statements during a speech in the UN Security Council. He further stressed, the need for a global vaccination plan that would bring together those with the required power, expertise and production capacities to ensure vaccine access for all. The WHO's international COVAX program has been struggling to meet its distribution deadlines due to lack of funds and support from vaccine producers. Several rich countries have also been accused of practicing vaccine nationalism by hoarding dosage supplies. This coupled with the high cost has compounded the insecurities faced by people battling the pandemic in poor countries. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also criticized the growing immunity divide across the world. China has donated vaccines to 53 countries and has collaborated on vaccine development with at least 10. Wang Yi also announced the preliminary contribution of 10 million doses of China's vaccine to the COVAX initiative. We now go to Ecuador where the National Electoral Council of the country has suspended the partial recount of votes cast in the first round of the presidential elections. The recount had first been announced in February 13th, following a meeting between the council, the organization of American states and the two second place contenders, Yaquo Perez and Guillermo Lasso. They had submitted requests for a full recount in the Guayas province and a 50% recount in 16 other provinces. Perez has repeatedly alleged fraud in the elections. Lasso later withdrew from the agreement on February 14th. Progressive candidate Andres Arauz, who won the first round with 32.7% of the votes was absent from the meeting and had no part in the agreement signed. A recount request was put to a vote in the five member Electoral Council on February 16th. The request failed to reach a majority with two votes in favour, two in opposition and one abstention. Council head Diana Atamint announced that the council did not recognize the request and it neither approved nor denied the report presented in the technical area. The Electoral Council is yet to confirm who will join Arauz in the run-off election schedule for April 11th. As per the latest estimates, Guillermo Lasso from the right-wing Creating Opportunities and Social Christian Party Alliance has a narrow lead with 19.74% of the votes. Yaquo Perez from the indigenous Pachacotic Party is currently in a technical tie with Lasso with a vote share of 19.38%. Critics have said that the partial recount was the latest in a series of efforts to undermine the democratic process and the progressive movement in Ecuadorian politics. Here is an excerpt from an interview with progressive international coordinator David Adler on this issue. Lasso to say what are the conditions under which Ecuadorians are going to vote, right? They have this precious and incredible constitutional right to popular sovereignty. How is that being exercised? And once again, if you read it forward rather than backwards from the election, you used to see how the ways this rich tradition of legal warfare, which of course was mobilized against someone like Rafael Correa, the ex-president who now lives in exile. But then through the course, this election was weaponized against this party who were thrown off the ballot. So Andres had, you know, he couldn't show up. Just to give you one example, a classic example now, sort of canonical in Ecuador. Correa was planning to come back and run as vice president on this ticket. But they changed the rules so you had to show a signature, right? You had to show a physical signature. But because of the pandemic, they, you know, it was reasonable that you could just send it an electronic signature. But for some reason, Correa still couldn't send an electronic signature. So he was somehow disqualified. It's just the constant bending and rewriting of the rules to exclude the prospect of a progressive politics returning to Ecuador. Mistakes couldn't be higher. Ecuador has been hit harder than almost any country in the world by the COVID-19 pandemic, not just only in terms of health, but also in terms of its economy. And so at this critical juncture of, you know, historic crisis for Ecuador, you're either going to see the rebirth of a certain progressive politics for Ecuador that could be equal socialists learning some of the lessons from a past Corrismo or a doubling down on, for lack of a better word, a neoliberal model that has destroyed millions of people's lives in the country and plans to extract millions more in upper redistribution to the rich and to their offshore bank accounts. So everyone knows the stakes of these elections and they're pulling every dirty trick they have in the book. We could spend all day going through this sort of long telenovela of ridiculous tricks and mud slinging that has been there. But the critical thing is this, that Andres Arauz and his candidacy and the prospect of a progressive block that reaches beyond Arauz and includes the indigenous movement represented by the Conaya. The formation of progressive block really is a dangerous threat, not only to Ecuador and the reactionary right wing forces of Ecuador, but to the region, to the prospects for the integration of Latin America in a new UNASUR to the formation of a deep tie between the mass, for example, that some come back to power in Bolivia and other left forces in the region. So that's why we see this election as such a critical one because it holds in it the seed for a new progressive wave of politics in Latin America and indeed around the world. We now go to Australia where Facebook is blocked news outlets, public information pages and smaller public groups from its platform. Users have also been blocked from posting links to news outlets under the new mass censorship policy in effect since February 18th. The actions resulted from a dispute between Facebook and a new law passed by the Australian House of Representatives on February 17th. The media code presented by the Australian Competition and Crescimbo Commission seeks to address the imbalances in revenue sharing. If signed into law, it will allow news outlets to negotiate revenue sharing for their content which appears on Facebook and Google platforms. Introduced by the conservative government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the draft law is seen bipartisan support and will be debated in the Australian Parliament on February 18th. In the meantime, Facebook censorship policy has blocked important government websites and advisories from the health and methodology departments. This has received a major backlash as Australia is currently facing a bushfire crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Trade unions, left wing organizations including the Australian Communist Party have also reported their content being blocked. An earlier statement by Facebook to SBS News stated that the company had employed, to quote, a broad definition of news content. This had also resulted in several emergency services, including domestic violence helplines and fire services being blocked. Facebook is now reportedly working to restore those pages which have, again, to quote, inadvertently been impacted by its policy. For our final story today, we go to the United States where workers have been organizing to demand a raise in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. A country-wide strike was held by fast food workers on February 16th. Here is a video feature on the strike. More news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.