 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup with People's Dispatch where we bring you some of the top stories from across the globe. Let's take a look at today's headlines. US Democrats announced police reform. Activists say it does not go far enough. Palestinians commemorate Naksar Day by protesting against annexation plans. Hundreds of Kenyans protest in the capital against police killings during lockdown. Alisha detains 270 Rohingya refugees, one of them found dead. Massive explosion and fire breaks out at Indian gas well two weeks after a blowout. We begin with an update from the United States where protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd have completed two weeks. George Floyd's funeral is set to take place in the city of Peerland near Houston in Texas today even as demands for justice reverberate across the United States. The Democratic leadership in the U.S. Congress has introduced a bill titled the Justice in Policing Act, purposefully to reform the police system. However, many critics and those who are part of the protests have questioned if it goes far enough considering the overarching demand to defund the police. The bill will seek to ban certain standard police practices like holding suspects in chokehold, unannounced raids and will require police officers to use a body cam or a dashboard cam while on duty. Leaders of the bill also claim it offers provisions to pursue civil rights lawsuits against police officers, ban military gear for police and empower federal bodies to investigate police misconduct. But many social movements have been skeptical of such reforms. A recent study conducted last year published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences demonstrated that body cams have no meaningful outcomes in changing police behavior. Questions have also been raised on the question of funding when police budgets already over a billion dollars in major cities. In the meanwhile, many have questioned how committed the Democrats will be to these measures considering that the presidential nominee Joe Biden has already opposed moves to defund the police. The announcement comes just a day after the city council of Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed announced plans to defund and dismantle the city police. There are also moves announced to bring down funding for police departments by city administrations in Los Angeles and New York. In our in-focus section, Eugene Puryear of Breakthrough News talks about the various dimensions of the demand to defund the police and the possibilities ahead in terms of organizing. Today we are joined by Eugene Puryear of the Breakthrough News from the United States and we are going to be talking about the protests that have been taking place in the country for nearly two weeks now after the death of George Floyd after the killing of George Floyd by four police officers. Eugene, thank you so much for joining us. So happy to be here. Really an honor. Yes. So this is this has been a historic series of protests in some senses. It's interesting because across the world also because it comes at a time when people were thinking what is the future of resistance after COVID? And we see that resistance is very much alive in every sense of the word. But also because this is a very unprecedented mobilization, maybe the biggest in decades. And you've been traveling to many cities in the country. You've been to Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed. You've been to some other cities. You've talked to the families of victims. You talk to the protesters. So could you first start out by giving us a sense of what was happening on the ground while you were there to think of the protests? Well, you know, thank you for that question. Because I think it's so important from, you know, the mainstream American media has been what they've been putting out, I should say, for worldwide and domestic consumption. You know, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that riots are the language of the unheard. And that's basically what I saw on the ground in all these different places, especially in Minneapolis. I mean, one of the things that was consistently expressed to me from people on the ground in Minneapolis was a sense of feeling seen and heard. And it may sound strange, but you know, I'm getting these long histories of people of so many victims of police violence. People are talking to me about the district attorney saying, this guy's been around for 30 years. We've been dealing with this for so long. But Minneapolis, the Midwestern United States city, it's known as sort of a majority white area. So it's not really something people think about in a large part of the country as a place where something like this could happen. And I talked to a guy at the George Floyd Memorial, a beautiful memorial has been set up for him where people are bringing flowers and writing messages. And he just said, yeah, people thought that nothing could happen here. But now people see like what's going down, like who we are and what's happening. And I think that sense of being heard from working class communities, especially black working class communities in Minneapolis was powerful. And on the streets, you know, a couple of weeks ago on Friday night, or a Friday night, a couple of two Fridays ago, we were there on the ground. And as much as some of the images with things burning seemed chaotic. When you were there on the ground, it was very different. I mean, first and foremost, between the protesters themselves and the people there, amazing Bonhami. I mean, every person you saw how you're doing, do you need anything? Can I help you? And, you know, we were in this huge march with this car caravan. And I can't tell for sure, but it seemed like people were calling people and telling them like pick people up and come join this because cars just kept joining it coming primarily from the black community. There's a large Somali American and Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis, many people. So I'm saying six, seven, eight people hanging out of cars, playing music as people are marching alongside them. And from different communities, the Native American community, which is sizable in Minneapolis, the black community, the Somali community, many, many white people from the area and solidarity. And it actually felt not chaotic at all in a way. I mean, things were happening. Yes, I saw some cars set on fires and buildings. Although just to note, even that was a little mis sort of, you know, mistake the token. It wasn't as if every single thing is burning. I don't know if there's any strategy to it at all, but I mean, it certainly was around the edges of the event. And in and of itself, you could feel this sense almost of catharsis and an angry catharsis, a frustrated catharsis, but a feeling that finally the grievances were being aired. Finally, the grievances were being heard. And the final thing I'll say about that is that's what I heard from the mothers of victims of police brutality. We're able to attend an amazing press conference and all of them to a person basically said, this is what we tried to tell people that if nothing happens, if there's no justice in these cases, it's going to boil over. This anger is going to boil over and people are getting exactly what this system has sowed as we've pointed out over many years. So, you know, it was very, very heartfelt, very poignant, a lot of solidarity, a lot of anger. So a big ball of emotion in many ways. But I think bottom line, really, it was a lot of people who are marginalized in our society, whose voices were heard, maybe in sort of a spontaneous, not 100% directed way, but those voices were trying to come to the forefront after so many years of being held down. On Monday, hundreds came out on the streets of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to protest against police violence and killings. The protesters marched across the slums of the city where most of the killings took place and paid homage to the victims. The protesters also extended the solidarity to the protest in the U.S. against police violence. As of June 8th, Kenyas had over 85 fatalities in the COVID-19 outbreak while 21 people have been killed in police brutality since 27th March during nighttime curfews. Although this is not a new phenomenon, activists have claimed that the police have turned excessively violent, particularly against those living in the slums of Nairobi. And all of this has been done in a name of imposing the counter-pandemic lockdown. Kenyas Independent Police Oversight Authority said it has received 87 complaints against police brutality since 27th March, when the night curfews were first imposed. The complaints include killing, shooting, robbery, assaults, and sexual assaults, among others. Missing voices K-E, a group working against police violence and forceful disappearances, has recorded 89 deaths and 5 disappearances so far this year, connected to police violence. Moving on to our next story, on Monday, thousands of Palestinians came out in protest against the looming annexation plans by Israel. Protest was staged all across the West Bank, especially in the Jordan-Mali region, which has been identified as a key area for the annexation. The demonstrations were part of the commemorations marking the 53rd anniversary of Naksa Day. Naksa Day, or the Day of Setback, refers to the defeat of Arab and Palestinian forces in the Six Days War of 1967, which led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Israeli security forces used rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters, as per reports, six injured protesters were treated by Palestinian Red Cross, including one who was shot in the head with a rubber bullet in the northern Jordan Valley. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to annex the Jordan Valley and all the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank by July. This threatens any future possibilities of any viable and contiguous Palestinian state. Moving on to Malaysia, Malaysian authorities detained over 269 Rohingya refugees. On June 8th, as they tried to enter the country, authorities found the refugees after this seized a damaged boat carrying them. At the time of seizing the boat, dozens of refugees jumped into the sea but were eventually captured. Authorities also found a dead body of a refugee woman under unexplained circumstances. The Malaysian government has stated that it will ask the Malaysian government to take in the refugees. Malaysia as a country has refused to recognize the right of asylum seekers and have deemed such refugees akin to undocumented migrants. Ever since the Myanmar's military began a violent crackdown on Rohingyas in 2017, hundreds of thousands of refugees have left the country and sought asylum in various South and Southeast Asian nations. Malaysia alone has over 150,000 of them, most of whom came much before the 2017 violence as migrant workers. Recently, after the coronavirus outbreak, Rohingyas have been targeted over social media in various hate campaigns. The government, on the other hand, has been refusing entry to hundreds of refugees stranded in the seas. Finally, a major fire broke out in India's Northeast at a gas well two weeks after a major blowout. The fire broke out at Oil India Limited's Gas Well in Bagjaan area of Assam earlier today. For nearly two weeks, natural gas has been continuously flowing after the wealth suffered a major blowout on May 27th. The fire broke out earlier today when a team of experts from Singapore and local engineers attempted to control the gas leak. The national disaster response force and other rescue agencies have been brought in to control the fire. Black smoke billowing out of the site was seen from miles away. Between 2,500 to 3,000 residents from nearby villages have been evacuated to relief camps. The damages are still being assessed by the authorities, but many environmentalists have raised concerns of damage to nearby forest and agricultural lands. Locals have complained of their eyes burning and rashes, which is common in gas blowouts. There have also been deaths of the magnetic dolphins and endangered species in the region. The oil wells are located very close to some of the most eco-sensitive forests and wetlands. And this is all we have. In this episode of the International Daily Roundup, for more such stories and videos, visit our website peoplesisfire.org, subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.