 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Show number 129, give the people what they want. Brought to you by People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashant. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Coming to you live everywhere that you watch us. Also, of course, available as a podcast. Tell your friends to join us. Send us your selfies. Of course, we should begin and have to begin with the terrible train accident in Balasore in Orissa. When the Chennai Shalimar Coromandel Express collided in a way with the bogies flying up and so on a very sad accident with the Haura Superfast Express train. Two trains. They run at around a hundred some kilometers an hour. 300 people dead. Thousand people in hospital with injuries and so on. A great tragedy. The Indian government has asked for an inquiry. But it's a sad thing that only about 2% of the Indian train lines have fail safes apparently. And I hope that these inquiries are not just going to be about this accident but look wider at the number of near misses as well that seem to take place on the Indian railway. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal curiously in a fact-free environment came up with an article about a Chinese spy base being built in Cuba, incredible. And what made that article even more incredible was that the denials by the Cuban government was not as important as the fact that the U.S. Pentagon felt the need to come out there and say that there was nothing in this article. Wall Street Journal formally a reputable paper that commands the attention of the financial elite remarkable nonsensical story but there it is friends that's the news. It's a good thing you have people's dispatch at your service bringing you what you want. Let's start with a good story Prashant because I mean you know it is extraordinary what is happening in the state of Kerala and India it's extraordinary everybody in Kerala can now watch give the people what they want. Well at least in the coming years that's definitely a prospect because the government in Kerala has launched what is called the K-Phone Project the official launch just a few days ago. Now this is a very interesting project because it follows what happened a couple of years ago which is that the government declared that the internet would be a basic right for everyone and it would work towards that and unlike in the rest of the country where the internet you know internet connectivity services are slowly being monopolized in fact because India is richer one of currently probably India's richest man Mukesh Ambani owns one of the biggest internet companies or internet services in the country and is really capturing a large share of the market what the Kerala government has decided to do is to provide internet connectivity to people starting with of course the poorest people in the state and I think the idea is to start off with maybe about 2 million people who are the poorest bracket in the state and free internet connections will be provided to all of them over the course of some time so I think already the first batch of people has been identified there's a lot of work going on to actually identify even more people who are in need of it and this is one of those things that will actually transform the state because you know especially during the pandemic I think a lot of people felt in the clear impact of the digital divide because a lot of education went online people really struggled with the phones with devices especially students coming from poorer backgrounds there was this huge gap because of connectivity and one of the attempts of this project is actually to start bridging that gap so in fact there are reports of how some of this connectivity has actually gone to say tribal areas where which either two have not been served by the traditional network so that's also very important measure this is also part of you know and this is actually not just some kind of top-down process because it's a local self-governing bodies which have the responsibility of identifying this beneficiary so it's also very you know grassroots driven process in that sense and it's also of course I think I think about 30,000 government offices will also be connected with this kind of service so at a time when the prevailing logic is of privatization and that has really not changed despite all these years Kerala again with this with its left government with the CPIM government is trying to provide a different alternative this is of course not the first instance some years ago a couple of years ago there was news about a paper factory I believe which was you know which had pretty much say completely gone into was not functional being taken over by the government and then reopened so to speak there have been reports of for instance more students returning to government schools because of the focus on education and again to come back to this project this is not just providing internet connectivity alone that's part of the project but on the other side there is also an increased digitization a digital literacy program that is taking place again very interesting to read the reports about that again local based solutions you know people of cooperatives people government officials all coming together to identify those who are not digitally literate in each municipality they started with one pilot project and then they were educating these people in how do you use your you know how do you use internet how do you make digital payments how do you access accounts so I think some 3000 people some some months ago were declared officially digitally you know literate and of course scared lies also well known in India as a state with the highest literacy rates as well there was a very powerful literacy mission which functions so in some senses there's a continuation of that and I think this is an important story because I mean often some of these alternatives and initiatives don't really get talked about so much we talk a lot about how social media giants and tech giants are basically capturing the internet and you know it often seems like a very hopeless kind of a discussion that we have but these kind of initiatives provide the seeds of hope maybe there's a lot more to do no doubts about that but the idea that a government at this at this stage in our capitalist development there's a government which says this is our job and this is your right is a very refreshing example indeed it is I mean I think it's so important to talk about the lack of connectivity as much as anything in the rest of the world Zoe you know I've been looking at data given the pictures coming from New York City I was looking at more numbers you know as I said numbers of people who are not connected to the internet well what about numbers of people who breathe bad air the WHO the World Health Organization says more than 99% of the world's population breathes air that is above the health guidelines of the WHO 99% I didn't realize that 7 million people die every year because of air pollution but somehow you know we are transfixed something happened in New York City what's the story well that's right this week New York City which is normally in the 1% globally in terms of air quality reaching never reaching above kind of healthy quality air quality never reaching these dangerous and hazardous conditions this week was in for a bit of a surprise during these raging wildfires in Quebec in Canada they the smoke from these fires drifted over the northeast of the United States and in New York City on Wednesday not only was the air the outside this orange yellow haze that many people said looked like a sepia tone from a movie or photo but also the air quality was at according to their quality index was at hazardous levels which means that it was over 400 these are levels that are unsafe essentially for anyone to go outside in extremely concerning and as you said this is a reality for 99% of the world's population the air smelling like burned toast smelling like smokiness many many people very concerned over this of course as I said New York normally has extremely high quality air not something that people are used to and I think what what many people are pointing out to is not only the fact that many people deal with this on a daily basis but also this is likely to continue and so places like the United States which of course many areas of the country are already affected by severe climate change we know that in California this is a an occurrence that happens quite often with the wildfires that happen there but in these areas that have been sort of untouched they're more and more frequently going to be feeling the impacts of climate change feeling more floods more wildfires and what's Natalia Marquez if people this fact spoke to Tina Landis who's a environmental researcher and she was saying that actually what's interesting is that not only is it that there are more wildfires but the strategy of forest fire prevention which has just been to completely suppress even the natural fires has made it so that these fires are more frequent because there's more buildup of timber there's more buildup of this burn because the way that forest management happens especially in the North American region was that there would be periodic fires this is the way that the Native American nations really managed it and since colonization of North America that this whole system of maintenance has been completely turned on its head there's more debris there's more instability in these systems cutting down large swaths of forests where integration and so essentially with the unbridled exploitation of these forests of of this land we're going to see this even more and we've already seen wildfires increasing in frequency across Europe across many regions of the world and we got a little taste of that this week in North America the fires are continuing in Quebec but these this smoke is drifting in other parts of the country it seems like today by today and tomorrow levels should be continuing to decrease we're only at dangerous level right now not at hazardous anymore but it's really important to point out as you said that these are conditions that are already a reality for many people across the world and again if serious action isn't taken this is going to continue and get worse it's a terrible thing but at the same time from around the world have been arriving in Canada including from South Africa and other places to offer their very important service to people in the Americas solidarity works in very interesting and powerful ways meanwhile on the third of June a couple of North American military vessels a American destroyer guided missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate were near Chinese territorial waters when they were cut off by Chinese warship this set of alarm bells the video of this was shown around the world showing the Chinese warship going in front and so on United States immediately condemned China for provocation the Chinese came back and said well you're provoking us because you are in or near our territorial waters this kind of incident continues to happen largely because the United States and its allies including in this case the Canadians insist on conducting what they call freedom of navigation exercises exercises that the United States started in different waters in 1979 now interestingly and I mentioned this before and I show United States is not a signatory of the 1982 United Nations convention on the laws of the sea which provides the legal mandate to do freedom of navigation exercises despite not being a signatory to the convention the US is the most vigorous power to conduct these freedom of navigation exercises now just while this was happening in the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore the dialogue was held which is a security dialogue that's been going on since 2002 at this dialogue US defense secretary Lloyd Austin was present but so was his Chinese counterpart defense minister Li Shangfu and it was instructive to listen to the two of them you know both of them suggested publicly that these encounters are very dangerous I thought that was interesting Lloyd Austin said this is a very dangerous encounter made even more dangerous by the fact that the US and Chinese militaries are not actually communicating with each other I thought that was a very important admission from Mr. Austin Mr. Li as well said look these incidents happen they are not advisable nobody wants incidents like this to continue on the other hand he said that look let's be frank here United States is not here for innocent passage you're here to provoke some kind of encounter meanwhile at the Shangri-La meeting it was very interesting that the United States continued to try and bring together as the kind of glue countries around China by kind of intensifying disputes around island chains and the United States has been bringing together unlikely powers for instance in February of this year an underreported story Japan and the Philippines conducted a security agreement which is going to allow Japanese soldiers to be in the Philippines well those discussions were deepened in Singapore at the same time as I thought fairly sober comments from Lloyd Austin of the United States and Li Shangfu from China very sober statements the need for more communication more collaboration and so on the dangers that these communication less communication produces you had that well then but the United States is intensifying this Australia, Japan, South Korea Philippines military alliance against China rough seas in the South China Sea and in the eastern seas very rough waters dangerous waters well one hopes at some point these militaries will start to adjust their orientation and at least communicate with each other you're with give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that Zoe and Prashant people's dispatch dot org your movement news source I hope you go there every day I'm Vijay from Globetrotter very happy to be with you we're going to ship gears Zoe has published a piece at people's dispatch about events going on at Columbia please go and read it Zoe you know this country more than most people outside the country what has been happening in Columbia talks of coups and so on what's the reality well this is something we've been of course following and anyone who's been watching the show knows me make many jokes but we're always talking about Columbia but it's also because it's such a crucial country to follow to really understand what's happening the ships that are happening in the region and right now Columbia's at a very crucial moment so all of the campaign of Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez their election they're swearing in and we've always been wary and we've always discussed the fact that the Colombian oligarchy is has been in power for over six decades has very entrenched as entrenched itself in the economy in all of the different systems in Columbia and that you know the progressive government like we've seen in so many other countries of the region does not mean that it's game over it doesn't mean that the struggles and it doesn't mean that it is a smooth sailing from there on out and especially in a country like Colombia which as I said the the ruling class has really enjoyed so many privileges for so many decades by being in power and commanding many sectors of life and so since Gustavo Petro Francia Marquez has taken office they've of course faced a number of challenges from all parts of you know whether it's the media whether it's the established economic sectors the business sectors whether it's from within their own coalition we know that they had a very very broad coalition to get elected electing a former member of a left wing guerrilla group is not going to happen unless you make very very broad alliances it's just not possible especially again in Colombia so uh Gustavo Petro has been facing a series of attacks and these have really increased um in response to his uh government and the historic pack coalition block in congress their attempts to pass three crucial reforms this is the healthcare reform the pension reform and the labor reform these were sort of the building blocks the cornerstone of the platform of Francia Marquez and Gustavo Petro in what they call this government of change um again as we've covered at People's Dispatch extensively uh Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the region um with people having severely difficult access to healthcare to education to other basic rights um that for example in countries like Venezuela and Cuba are enshrined in their constitutions as human rights as things that the government must provide for them in Colombia to access healthcare uh thanks to the law passed by Alvaro Uribe when he was when he was a senator um it is you have to go through a number of hoops there's a uh private insurance intermediary there's a lot of money involved there's a lot of private companies that actually benefit over on the fact that it's a private system um that makes it very hard for people to get care and so there's serious interest up against uh this being reformed being more uh public being uh an easier uh system for the people where workers can get um better compensation etc and so there have been a number of attacks uh to the government right when congressmen have said they will they will do everything in their power to make sure these reforms don't get passed which is hardly a democratic attitude and alongside all of these attacks against the government because of the reforms a scandal emerges which is essentially uh in many ways pushed forward and manufactured by Simana magazine which has been at the forefront of these attacks against before he was elected and now during his time as president um and this scandal essentially involves uh two former members of the government a domestic worker that worked for both of them a scandal involving this person stealing money and then the employers allegedly wiretapping interrogating etc it was all really blown out of proportion and essentially made this sound like Gustavo Petro himself was telling these people in his government to do this and essentially used as a entry point for the right wing to say that he should step down that he's irresponsible corrupt all of these allegations over a sort of small scale scandal regarding members of his government um and in response to this in response to these continued attacks trade union movements have said we're going to take the streets we're going to mobilize in support of this government we've seen what happens in Peru when the social movements are unable to defend the government we've seen what happens when the the government and the social movements lose touch and don't have this kind of dialectic relationship of support of demands of actually being in the streets to support these governments and that's what's happening Gustavo Petro just arrived in Cuba um for the closing of the third cycle of peace talks between the government and the Ilan big announcement expected there will definitely be following along as well. Well to read more go and see Zoe's article she interviews Colombian congresswoman Maria Fernanda Karaskal who gives the title to the article we will not give into blackmail meanwhile Nigeria has a new president um Prasanthi just spoke to uh leading Nigerian journalist Chido Onunwa for people's dispatch how do we understand the new government in Nigeria right uh which is of course uh the new president of Nigeria Bola Ginubu like I said he's a very uh experienced political player uh known for his governorship of Lagos and uh you know establishing a huge patronage network but when he took charge and he won an election which was to put it lightly very controversial there's still a case going on about whether he actually did win it the verdict is expected by September and it is to be remembered that he won an election which was marked by a very very low turnout I believe the turnout was just about 27% or something of that sort so uh you know uh so I think it's it's safe to say that it was not really uh very say widely attended massive win for this new president and as he took office in his inaugural speech uh he began by uh you know apparently going off script and announcing the end of a fuel subsidy which sparked this massive amount of chaos in the country fuel subsidy a huge part of Nigeria is a very important part of Nigeria's economy right now and it's kind of ironic because Nigeria has huge oil reserves uh but unfortunately and it has four refineries all of which apparently are out of commission uh so there's a huge amount of money spent on fuel imports and because the overall living situation is so bad because inflation is so high fuel subsidies are very extensive and now government after government has been saying that these fuel subsidies need to be removed we are not able to spend any money on education we are not able to spend any money on health fuel subsidies are just taking too much but as uh Jiro Numa and others have pointed out in that interview when you say fuel subsidies it's not about you know rich people in cars as much as everyday people who use generators as because so much of commerce is for instance dependent on these generators so uh after the president made this off the cuff announcement it was complete chaos prices rapidly increasing the administration quickly said no no this is going to be implemented by the end of June but that still doesn't really uh solve the problem and I think this goes back to the larger issue of what Bola Nubu is intending to uh you know address in his term as the president of Nigeria and it does seem like there is very little clarity on what his agenda will be he's succeeding Mohammed Buhari from his say from his own party who is believed to be more free market than Buhari was so that's definitely not a good sign for Nigeria it's a kind of unfortunate because like I said there is no shortage of resources it's really about not being able to invest in for instance say the oil refineries to make sure that these resources can be tapped it is the inability to invest the population in fact Nigeria is a very young population a rapidly growing population however there's a huge amount of unemployment there's a large amount of migration as well and you know generally things are things are chaotic all over and it does seem like even in its initial days the government looked like it didn't have a plan with regard to appointments so what usually happens in these circumstances unfortunately is that the government ends up going to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund and then continues privatization continues removing subsidies continues freezing spending and all this is definitely definitely a bad sign for Nigeria which is one of the most important economies in the continent as well so I think a very important country to look forward for because of its location because of its population but right now it does not seem like the new government of Boratino Bo really has too much of a alternative perspective the one we were talking about earlier in terms of how to address the issues of this important economy so no key phone for Nigeria on the table right now is what you're saying there was actually quite startling news from Ukraine because the Karkovsky hydroelectric dam had a blast in the engine room and the dam collapsed flooding perhaps as much as 80 different settlements around the region what's interesting about this blast and the destruction of the dam was almost immediately all sides blamed the other in a war this is what happens when something like this happens everybody blames the other person there is absolutely no doubt that this was not an accident I mean nobody has claimed that it could be an accident it is interesting that in October last year the Russian government sent a note to the United Nations Security Council warning that they have evidence that Ukraine is going to blow up the dam that was interesting this dam provides the canal system to provide water for Crimea also of course it provides irrigation to the bread basket which is Ukraine so it's not really clear what's going on here and a lot of people dispute things war is the wrong moment to make definitive judgments about things like this I've covered wars from battlefields and I can tell you that in the middle of a war nobody knows really what's happening and disinformation is as much a weapon of war as anything however it is most likely that this catastrophe was not necessarily conducted by the Russians as most of the media is saying although it's very hard to say perhaps it was I don't know what we do know is that nobody really conclusively knows what happened but the net people who are hurt by this of course is a population in Crimea which makes it sort of bizarre that the Russians would do this interestingly around the time of the explosion of the dam really it's a significant issue if it was done deliberately it's a war crime at the time of the explosion of the dam Mr Zelinsky has been on a world tour he was at the G7 meeting in Tokyo stopped off in Jeddah Saudi Arabia for the Arab League meeting he was in Moldova for a meeting of the European political consultative summit around all this period we are seeing some interesting developments at the globe sec meeting Emmanuel Macron of France for the first time publicly said that France should perhaps allow Ukraine a path into NATO very interesting statement from Mr Macron you'll remember that in 2019 Mr Macron called NATO brain dead apparently not any longer now Mr Macron is basically repeating talking about the threats coming out of Washington DC interesting that he's saying these things and that other Europeans are saying let's hasten to bring Ukraine into NATO only Germany is hesitating not on principle but merely saying let's not bring Ukraine into NATO during the war well I'm not sure what Germany's hesitation is frankly because they are saying we don't want NATO involved in the war in fact NATO is very much involved in the war when Mr Zelensky visited the United Kingdom he visited Ukrainian troops who are training in British military bases also news reports come out now rather almost at the level of rumors that German troops might enter into Ukraine already it is 98% of military supplies entering Ukraine's forces come from NATO countries but yes this damn tragedy whoever did it yes there is now almost unanimous agreement in Europe to bring Ukraine into NATO and yes this underlies the fact that this really isn't a war between Russia and Ukraine but a war between Russia and NATO dangerous times friends but at the same time in Kerala soon they'll all be able to watch our show that's a little silver lining in a very very orange colored sky over New York City you always give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that's Prashant and Zoe I'm Vijay from Globetrotter if you're not here next week we'll be very upset