 Hello and welcome to NewsLeaks International Roundup. In today's episode, we first go to Bolivia to talk about the developments that have taken place since the coup. We then go to Israel to talk about Prime Minister Netanyahu's indictment on charges of corruption. And finally, we go to Syria to talk about the new information that has come to light on the alleged case of the chemical attack. And we're joined by Prabhupur Koyasta. So Prabhupi is starting with Bolivia. Can you tell us about the political developments that have taken place in the recent days with the new elections being announced but Morales being excluded? Can you tell us more about this? Well, you know, coming quickly to the issue of Morales being excluded, already his party, S.A.M., had already accepted or already stated that Morales and Linares, the vice president, will not run for the next election. So whatever elections are held, they had said we'll put up new and younger candidates. So this seems to be a part of a larger attempt at resolving the issues, which is there has been violence, there are continued protests. The coup has led to huge uprising in places like Uchabamba. We have had shootings, killings by the forces under the new coup leader, Anais. And we have therefore seen that both sides now feel that unless they reach an agreement, this will lead to really the collapse of the Bolivian state. So I think that way, even the other side, the coup side, has realized without some kind of a reapprochement, this is not going to work. And therefore, instead of trying to crush the opposition, which was the initial attempt, the fact that she gave orders to the police and the military to use whatever means required that led to massacres in different places, including Sankata, where eight of the people were shot. I think that has their both sides now taking a step back. So this is in that sense an attempt to resolve the issue that going for new elections and see what happens. And I think the MAS has also agreed that there has to be now a move forward and therefore, instead of making Vvo Morales as the only issue, they are basically saying, let's test the whole thing out in a new election, because Vvo Morales, by all accounts, even by those who disagreed with his standing for elections or the election results, agreed that he had a clear lead in the elections. And I think MAS calculations are that any leadership that emerges, if these are free and fair elections, MAS really would do well and therefore, they have no stake in continuing with the state of a coup leadership, which has already started changing the parameters of the foreign policy, sending back Cuban doctors, breaking relations with different countries, including Venezuela, recognizing Guaido, which goes far beyond what this caretaker government is supposed to do. It's really impinging on foreign policy. So that, I think, is something which both sides now are going to take a step back. And hopefully, a new election, which is held, if it is not held under conditions, which we know how the CIA and the US administrations have held, such shall we say fraudulent elections. If any free and fair elections are held, if the United Nations observers are there, if other countries are willing to set their observers, I think some near normalcy prevails, I think the MAS is willing to test its electoral battle against what has happened and they feel that they would perhaps be able to emerge from it with coming back to power. And also, some of the main opposition leaders that were there before, such as Carlos Misa, who ran against Morales, has been absent from the picture. So what do you think about that? Well, it's an interesting issue because if you see the background to the coup, it really starts with charges that the American Embassy played a big role in this. It's Pompeo, as you know, went to Colombia. He went to a place very close to the Bolivian border, Cucata, and held meetings over there. So there are fingerprints of the United States all over the coup. So in effect, the OAS and OAS itself is a problematic organization. I think about 80% of its funds come from the United States. So it calls itself representing all countries. Effectively, the administration of the OAS or its machinery is in the hands of the United States. So the OAS role in also the elections talking about what should happen was extremely problematic. So I think given all of it, we would have expected that the Bolivian leaders who have either been earlier, a very important part of the opposition to Morales or who ran against Morales, Carlos Misa, as you said, or Camacho, who was a leader earlier, they would have been more visible. They have been markedly absent from any of the political discussions or debates that have been going on have kept a completely low profile. It does seem they don't want to identify themselves in the coup establishment either. So therefore, they want to retain their image and if it gets solid, well, it's a coup administration that gets solid, not them. So this will also seem to indicate that this coup administration led by Anais is really not something which anybody wants to back significantly. So I think that also would indicate why there is a sort of drawing down of the protests as well as aggression of the state side and this need to come to an understanding and resolve the issue. So let's see what happens. It's still a fragile state. Things can go wrong. We might still find a constitutional coup in during the elections, fraudulent elections. All these are open. Latin America and the United States have been known to be involved in all this kind of issues, primarily because the United States considers any country that charts an independent path to be an enemy of the United States, which it will not consider its backwaters. This is the official view of the what was there, the Bondar doctrine which has been restated by people like Pence and Popu. And going to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust. So do you think these charges will have an effect on the process of government formation in Israel? You know, these charges have been investigated, framed, various things have been happening for both the last two years. So this has been going on for long enough for people to know that there is a credible case against Netanyahu. It does not seem to have affected his, shall we say, public popularity significantly, nor does it seem to have made a difference within the Neset and within his own party, who still continue to back him. So the question is, with this, does he become a lame duck leader? Which means, will the party stop giving him support? The question really remains, what is the effect on the government itself, government formation and their guns, who has been the main leader who seems to hold as many seats as the party that Netanyahu leads. So if you see the impact right now, it would be that the guns had made a conditional offer. He would back any government in which Netanyahu is not the prime minister. So if Likud decides that they would hold a prime ministership, if the change Netanyahu, if that decision is taken by the front led by Likud, then there is a possibility of a new government, which guns will probably then have to back. But the fact is Likud has been controlled by Netanyahu to the extent, they have not sought to change the leader. In spite of this issue of corruption, his indictment, all of this is not made a dent in the Likud support for Netanyahu. If that does not change in the next 10 days, then you are looking for a fresh elections in Israel. If Likud changes his position and says, okay, Mr. Netanyahu, thank you very much. We like you for what your leadership has been, but could you just leave your seat because we would not like to have a third elections. Otherwise, in Israel, the support for a election is not that great. But let us also recognize, this means no change to the internal politics of Israel or the external politics, because whether it is guns, whether it is Netanyahu, any of these leaders, their relationship with the Arab population inside and externally with the occupied territories and Gaza remains almost entirely identical. So there the question is who can be more anti-Palestinian, more anti-Arab, that's a real question. And militarily, can they continue to stake out their position as a main military power over there, who in that case can bomb Lebanon, Syria at will. They are increasingly constrained by it, but they still would like to retain that position. But as we know and what we have discussed here a number of times, the fact today that this kind of complete monopoly of force it had in the region is slowly decreasing because of the nature of the war, particularly the drones, the missiles that Hezbollah and others possess and the kind of air cover in Syria that Russia provides, as long as Syria does not strike at Israel itself. I think all of it is slowly making this kind of military preeminence of Israel much more difficult. None of these are going to change what irrespective of whether Netanyahu goes to jail, loses his leadership or not. So externally, I don't see that making too much of a difference at this point. Yes, it's important for Israel internally, but externally, I think it's for everybody else, it will still remain the same. And finally in Syria, a new WikiLeaks document shows how the OPCW report, there's an email that the OPCW report was actually doctored, which talked about a chemical attack that was carried out by the Syrian government in Douma last year. So do you think that now with more and more evidence coming forward, the OPCW will come forward and take responsibility and anything will happen here? This has been the tragedy of UN organizations that slowly, even if the UN Security Council is not completely with the United States, because Russia is there who veto pass, essentially what's happened is increasingly the UN agencies have passed into the hands of the NATO countries. And even the other countries who are not formally a part of NATO has more or less left leadership of a critical UN agencies in the hands of the NATO pass. In this particular case, though it's a Turkish headed organization, we do not know which way the Turkish head will go, but the secretariat is really run by it seems a British career officer. And he seems to have in this case played a very important role in the OPCW report as you talked about. As you know, chemical weapons are something that the UN examines and all complaints about chemical warfare is examined by OPCW, which is a UN agency. In this particular case, it is not the first one, repeatedly whenever issues have come up with Syria, they have tended to show that this is something which the Syrian government is doing, though it has been always questioned what is the basis of these reports. Earlier it was about Ghouta, earlier other cases that have happened. In most cases we, including Newsclick, we have argued that there has been very, very weak evidence, the Syrian government attack. And we also know that the other side in this case ISIS and Al Qaeda and UN, not only UN, you are United States itself has accepted that these rebels also have ability to use chemical weapons, including serene let alone chemical, let alone chlorine. As we know, chlorine is something which is really within the realm of any group to really manufacture as weapons, because essentially chlorine chemistry is very well known. It can be got from household chemicals and it is used extensively in the case of waterworks, particularly to clean water. So this is something which is very easy for any group to do. So blaming Syria has always been, the Syrian government has always been a question when we know that this is not the only party which is capable of creating chlorine, weaponized serene is a different case. And even the United States has agreed that at the United Nations, both have agreed that the rebels have serene, weaponizing serene capabilities as well. But leaving all of this out, the Duma case where this issue has come out has been particularly important because there have been earlier questions about whether there was indeed any chemical attack over there and particularly by Syria or was it that some bombing took place, accidentally some chlorine got released, some other chemicals got released. These have been some of the questions or was it an entirely stage accident, a stage incident conducted by White Helmets which we know were founded by essentially United Kingdom MI6 and also supported by the French government and also by the United States. So this White Helmet is not a neutral agency over there, they have aligned with the opposition military forces in Syria and they have been very much a part of shall we say the not intelligence arm of these governments but definitely the media arm of these governments because all their video footage etc. has gone to quote unquote western sources and they have been propagated widely after that. Now if we take this particular case, this earlier also leaks had come about the OPCW report which was placed that there were several omissions and there were several things which were doctored which the teams had not said but which were inserted in the report which this time what the WikiLeaks report has said is that there is they have also reproduced extracts of an email which a part of the team had who had gone or who had been a part of writing the report said wrote to the OPCW saying significant elements of what we have written have been omitted or changed and those emails email that email contains these sections but the sections have already come out earlier that a there was an engineering team which had said it does not seem consistent with the pictures we see. So the cylinders of containing chlorine that is claimed it does not seem to have come to the roof but seems to have been placed by hand that is one that was an engineering report which was suppressed in the final report this does not come out it in fact goes on to say it must have been dropped by the air what is the basis of this assessment is not even till today made clear. The second part of it is that what was the concentration in which chlorine samples were found and that time itself the committee internal to those who were in the committee had said these concentrations are something which can be found in households as well. So therefore this does not constitute the proof of any chemical attack again this part of it was dropped and significantly when the report came out no concentrations were given though this are part of a standard reporting procedure of OPCW to give what are the concentrations on which such toxic gases have been seen chlorine as we know is not serene so therefore it is something which is available in normal households as well. The third part of it that is an interesting part is that the samples which were supposed to be chlorine the chlorine and the symptoms seen by those videos which are circulated widely by white helmets and others they do not match meaning they do not seem to show symptoms of chlorine poisoning therefore also it is very difficult to correlate the claim of chlorine being weaponized and used and the visuals that were shown all around the world saying that do mother has been a chemical attack. So it does seem to indicate what others had shown at the said at that time that probably some place the rebels Al Qaeda ISIS forces had stockpiled hazardous chemicals and when that got hit then that released toxic elements in the air that could have led to some of the visuals that we see but it does not indicate any such chlorine attack I think this is the third time we see whistleblower talking about it in earlier whistleblower and also given a interview to selected people and Jonathan Steele ex-guardian reporter is a long piece on that's been quoted widely by a lot of people that he had said all these things that this is something which the OPCW secretariat seems to have worked and Jonathan Steele's report also talks about how the inspect those who had come though the team which had written the report were were invited in to talk to the secretariat and three American officials who are there with unknown credit credentials and they gave facts and figures which have nothing to do with what the OPCW do so there are questions even at that time what is the locus of OPCW inviting American agents shall be called them intelligence agents or officials into a briefing like this without any locus of these people and that compromises the independent character of the OPCW as a UN institution itself so I think increasingly OPCW particularly in the case of Syria has been used as an instrument of western or day to allies policies in Syria and I think that's a sad day for a UN institution and I hope that other members of the United Nations would try to see what is the corrective on such institutions but today it is Syria tomorrow it can be anybody. Thank you for joining us today for this discussion and this is all the time we have for today keep watching NewsClick.