 Well, it's the 14th of May 2021, you're I hope joining us at give the people what they want brought to you each Friday by your intrepid reporters. There's Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. Welcome guys. Welcome. Thank you, Vijay. And I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. As I said, it's middle of May 2021. We're already now over a year into the pandemic. The headlines, of course, in most countries are still COVID COVID COVID, although although you wouldn't know this if you were a Palestinian, you wouldn't know that the headline is COVID COVID COVID. You think if you're a Palestinian, the headline is, we may not survive. We may not survive till tomorrow. Israel has launched a full scale barrage of Palestine, in particular of the Gaza Strip. Prashant, tell us what's happening in Palestine. Right, Vijay. So it's, I mean, the news, of course, like you said is around the world, the visuals are of course the visuals, the media reports are there. And I think you'll be coming back to this later. But what is clearly happening, and we have to be very clear about this is basically a large scale offensive by Israel on the people of Palestine. And I think it's very essential that we register this and this will be the central aspect of our understanding, because there are across the world from various centers, various groups of people who are insisting this is, you know, this is some kind of a two sides thing. All of you know, this whole violence is bad. These are, you know, Israel and the Palestinians are two sides of the same coin. The kind of argument that is being made, you might be hearing it among your friends on social media. You might be hearing your government officials to make these kind of statements, but we need to be very clear from reports on the ground that this is an offensive on the people of Palestine. We're talking about Gaza, of course, but we're also talking about the occupied territories, the West Bank, we're talking about occupied East Jerusalem, which is where a lot of this started. Because we cannot see this rocket, this airstrikes on Gaza in isolation from Sheikh Jarrah. We cannot see the airstrikes on Gaza in isolation from the invasion of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We cannot see it in isolation from the Damascus Gates protests. And above all, we cannot see it in isolation from decades of apartheid policies, because there's no other way to describe it. You have, you know, there's the everyday of apartheid, so to speak, for lack of better words. The way the police function, the way construction happens in the occupied territories. The way, for instance, Gaza's fishermen have suffered because their fishing rights have been diminished. The blockade imposed by Israel in conjunction with Egypt, which has prevented, say, supplies from coming in. For instance, the latest news says that the power plant in Gaza has been affected because the supply inside into Gaza has been sealed off. And this poses the question, what do you do when, what do hospitals do? We were talking about COVID, we were talking about the injuries caused by the death toll is 119 now, the injuries are into hundreds. But what do we do when hospitals are starved as supplies? And like I said, this is not only in Gaza because in various cities in the occupied West Bank, you've seen Jewish settlers supported wholeheartedly by the security forces of Israel, indulging in wanton violence. You've seen the highest levels of authority of the Israeli government indulging in very, very dangerous rhetoric. For instance, Benny Gantz, the Defence Minister, proclaiming in a video message that the devastation this time will be worse than what he ordered in 2014. So Benny Gantz, who many are used to see as a moderate for some reason, always used to campaign talking about how he commanded the offensive in 2014. And now he's openly given a video message to the people of Palestine saying that this time will be worse. We've seen Netanyahu make similar statements. We've seen the highest levels of Israeli government making statements where they blame Arab residents of Israel for the violence. And I think amid all this, what we also need to register is that the resistance has been exemplary. It has been amazing in terms of the protests that have been organized inside Palestine in the face of this kind of brutal violence inside Gaza as well. And I think that this has to be, I mean, we've always said that Palestine is one of the central questions of our time. It's one of the central, I mean, it's a political question, it's a question of imperialism. But I think across the world, it's also a moral question that is posed to people because, you know, it's a question of how do you deal with the question of oppression of occupation, or do you just bury it in words about, you know, anodyne words about violence being bad. And, you know, everyone has to come together. These random, these calls for de-escalation or, you know, unity, which are essential, of course, but which I think completely bypass the question of the two forces at play here. One is the forces of resistance, the forces demanding liberation, and one is in occupying apartheid power. So I think this framing is something that we need to keep in mind centrally. Every time we talk, think, there have been great number of solidarity protests across the world also, and we need to support them as much as possible. But this framing has to be very much central as far as we are concerned. I think we're going to come back to this in a little bit, Prashant, in terms of the framing. I think you've put the story very well. This is a story that doesn't begin with rockets, and I think we're going to come back to that. A story that doesn't begin with rockets, meanwhile, of course, in Colombia, I mean, I'm tempted to turn, give the people what they want, which is, guys, one of your best shows. And we love hearing from you, and we love it when you tell your friends about our show. I have half a mind to change the name of this show, Update from Palestine, Update from Colombia. Frontlines right now, great resistance, great violence. The finance minister resigned. The foreign minister has now resigned from Colombia. Most likely, she is probably repulsed by what's been happening in terms of Ivan Duque's government. What's the latest from Colombia, where we are hearing people come to the streets, continue to come to the streets and say, we are not scared. We are not scared. They sound like Palestinians to me, these Colombians. Yeah, I think, you know, the historical links between Palestine and Colombia are so strong. I mean, in 1948, when Jorge Alicia de Gaetan was assassinated on April 9th, that's the same year, in some respects, that, you know, we recognize as the Nakba, the beginning of Nakba, and that, you know, these decades of resistance of Colombians and Palestinians, you know, of course, facing very different situations, but, you know, faced with an oppressor that is backed by the United States, militarily, financially, and people just fighting for their right to exist and fighting for freedom. And we see that till today. We're, of course, now, more than two weeks into the national strike in Colombia. Really impressive images from the streets. I mean, people, you know, in the countryside, people in cities, we've seen insane levels of violence. I mean, there was a video even last night, you know, this didn't start, this hasn't stopped since the first initial kind of nights of killings, and Kali, it's continued, and there was, you know, a really horrifying image last night of police just attacking protesters with huge amounts of tear gas canisters and someone tweeted saying, this isn't Gaza, this is Buga, Vidal Cauca. And so I think, you know, the links are clear, the constant repression of the people who are undeterred by violence and continue on the streets is clear. I just wanted to share there's a very, just to give people an idea of the violence and the intimidation that people are facing there. Last night, a young woman was recording, was out on the streets and she was recording some of the protests in the city of Popayan in the southwest of Colombia. Police picked her up, she's a minor, she's under 18. Police arrested her violently, the anti-riot police, about five members of the police are, you know, grabbing this woman, bring her to the police station, sexually assault her, release her once they find out that she's a daughter of a police officer and she committed suicide last night. And so, I mean, these stories, while horrific and terrible, you know, we just, we have to share them. We are journalists who are telling the truth and telling the reality of what's happening because we can't look away, we can't look away from Palestine, we can't look away from Colombia and we can't stay silent in the face of such atrocity, especially when the people of Palestine and the people of Colombia are so brave in continuing to be on the streets and continuing to demand to live in freedom and with dignity. You see, friends, what Prashant and Zoe have covered from Palestine and from Colombia, both these stories have within it the arc of resistance against, I mean, maybe I can use this word, although it's a word I don't like to use in print, which is resistance against a kind of tyranny. They face a kind of tyranny. Look, in 1967, the Israeli armed forces seized East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza. These became recognized through UN Resolution 242 as the occupied Palestinian territory. The story to some extent begins there, although we know it actually begins in 1948 at what Zoe mentioned is the Nakba or what Konstantin Zorak, you know, coined as the Nakba, the catastrophe. It of course begins then maybe even begins earlier at the Balfour Declaration. It begins earlier in the root in the heart of European anti-Semitism. You know, that's where it begins. I mean, Theodore Herzl's cry for a Jewish homeland was not about Arabs, was not about Palestinians. It was about European anti-Semitism. It was a reaction to European anti-Semitism. But nonetheless, in 1967, when the Israeli seized East Jerusalem, they seized a very small neighborhood called Sheikh Jarrah. In 1972 already, that's just five years into the occupation, Zionist settlers start court cases to evict the residents from there. You see, none of this is in the media coverage. The media coverage typically begins with the rockets fired by Hamas and other, you know, militant groups from inside Gaza. Now, why did Hamas fire the rockets? They don't want you to know that because as far as they want you to know, they want you to think of Hamas as a barbaric organization which wants to kill innocents for no reason. So then you don't give the reason. If you do as a journalist, give the reason, then they say you are justifying Hamas. You are justifying the violence. It's a trap, you see, set by the media for itself, set by the corporate media for itself. And this is what's despicable about the coverage of Israel and its occupation of the Palestinian people. Firstly, occupation. Let's be clear. It's not a moral term. Occupation is a UN designated category. It's a legal term. The Palestinian people are under occupation. Now Human Rights Watch has said there is a pathide, you know, conducted by the Israeli state. These are, let's say, in the realm of legal categories. United Nations Economic and Social Commission of West Asia has said it's a pathide. These are legal categories, not moral categories. It's a legal designation. And yet the media treats it like its propaganda. You know, if you say a pathide or you see occupation, they say, well, you're exaggerating things. It's no exaggeration. Those are legal categories. You see, they want to push that off. In fact, like a stone stuck in the throat, like a stone stuck in the throat of the corporate media, they don't like to say the word Palestine or Palestinian. They prefer, instead of Palestine, they prefer Gaza. And instead of Palestinian, they prefer Hamas. So they would like the story to be that Hamas from Gaza fired into Israel rather than that the Israeli project has occupied Palestinian people in the land of Palestine and that Palestinians, therefore, are resisting. Because, again, as the United Nations has said, they have a right to resist. Media in this case is falling apart. I spent some time before our show reading, you know, the usual suspects, the Washington Post, the New York Times, even Lamont, the Guardian, and so on. And yes, yes, to be fair, there is embarrassment in a little outrage, to be fair, a little outrage. The Financial Times is of a different league because they came out yesterday with an editorial saying that, look, it doesn't start at Gaza. This starts in Jerusalem. It starts at Sheikh Jarrah. I was very impressed with the Financial Times editorial yesterday. It might help that the editor of the Financial Times is Lebanese. It may help that she has a better understanding of the situation in the Levant than the New York Times editors who basically take their talking points from the U.S. State Department. The U.S. State Department, front-page news. The United States government refusing to allow a U.N. resolution to call for a ceasefire and condemn the violence. The United States government of Joseph Biden refusing to allow a U.N. resolution should have been front-page news. Instead, the front-page is Israel-Arab or Israel-Palestinian conflict. It's not a conflict. It's an occupation. I think we need to have a serious conclave of reporters around the world just to have a talk. You know, fellas, when you report Palestine, why do you lose the plot completely? Why? What's going on here? Why can't you report it for what it is? These are not Gazans. These are Palestinians. You know, they're not Gazans. When you talk about Sheikh Jarrah, that's part of Palestine, occupied Palestine. It's Israel that wants to make East Jerusalem part of Israel. That's an illegal land grab that's taking place there. It's a strange business we're in, you know, and we don't have too much time. I don't want to get into Colombia, but you know, Zoe, when you read the press about Colombia, if you read the corporate press, it's quite amazing how, you know, there are suggestions that these protesters are motivated by the Venezuelan government or that there is some plot afoot here. These are ordinary young people, many of them on the streets because they're frustrated with their government to then use this as a way to score points against Venezuela and so on is such a cheap form of reporting. But, you know, you're listening to give the people what they want. There's no cheap reporting here. You get it as it is, which is why we want you very much to be supporting us and to be telling your friends about us. Of course, as we began Prashant said, what did we talk about? We said, look, it should be COVID, COVID, COVID. Instead, it's what, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, you know. Let's come back to COVID, COVID, COVID. Vaccinations, horrible display of vaccine apartheid. Again, a phrase that we started using in give the people what they want. I saw this the other day in the Financial Times. Well, maybe Ed, you know, watches give the people what they want. What's happening with vaccinations? Seriously, if the Financial Times goes this way, it's soon to lose its status as the doyen of pink papers. But yeah, I think it's a very dangerous situation that we have right now because, I mean, we carried a report a few days ago where the WHO had stated recently that vaccination rates in Africa were actually declining and which Africa 17.21% of the world's population, whereas the number of the vaccines administered was only 1% or something on those lines. And I think that even when you take a look at those global maps that are so in demand, they're so common these days, whether vaccination rates displayed, you see, again, sections of Africa almost in white, which indicates that there's very minimal vaccination that we see. And I think this is a question that it's like you said, when you talk about front page news, this is a question that the media does not, I think, necessarily do enough because it's your fundamental challenge to the people of the world, to the popular movements of the world, to the governments of the world. Why aren't there enough vaccines for all? It is not that we do not have the capacity to produce it. For instance, it's only very recently that WHO approved the Chinese vaccine as well. So there was all this time when there was no question of that as well. You go to the vaccine capital of the world, which is India's so-called vaccine capital of the world where there are now major questions on when the entire population, by which time the entire population will be vaccinated. Some people even say 2024, which is a really alarming number. And it's clear that the central government's vaccine strategy is running to a massive crisis. States have been left more or less on their own. They may get only a small amount of the overall supply being manufactured. In India, the rest will go to the center and to private companies. So there's a complete and utter chaos. You see people anxiously exchanging messages. I got my first dose, will I get my second dose? And there are others, of course, who are struggling to find to get even the first dose. And there's this whole utter sense of chaos and we're talking again about India, which is supposedly the capital. On the other hand, in the more developed countries, we have accelerating rates of vaccine. I think in the US, they've decided to vaccinate teenagers as well, which I think shows the inequity that we're dealing with. And in between all this, the fact is that even now the limited-pated pavers, which was so celebrated last week, for good reasons, of course, are nowhere. They haven't really been announced yet. We haven't seen any and we haven't seen the impact of that yet because like we talked about last week, this is apparently a consensus-based process. So everyone has to sit together and agree that there is a logic in the limited-pated waiver for the vaccines. So I think that, like you said recently about, like you just said about Palestine also, the question of vaccines for media should be paramount. It has to be a singular question that media organizations, people need to keep asking. I mean, the governments of the world are going to confuse you with a lot of terminology, with numbers, with all kinds of chemical, say, combinations that are being talked about, but the answer to the question is very simple here. What is stopping the delivery of these vaccines? And I think there we get down to the root issue, which is capitalism, which is profit, which is the imperialist world order, of course, and all this basically stopping this. So I think definitely something that we need to keep coming back to again and again. You see, vaccines are interesting. Chile is a country which has vaccinated at very high rates, I think close to 50% or so, and yet continues to see surges in the number of cases. It's a matter of some concern. Some of the countries with high vaccines are continuing to see surges and we're not sure exactly what is going on, but nonetheless on Saturday, the country of Chile population, I think 17 million, is going to the polls. It's going to elect a constituent assembly, a new constitution, the last ghastly one, 1980, the constitution of that fellow, Mr. General Pinochet. Zoe, what does one anticipate from that election? Well, these are very important elections that we're seeing in Chile because they're a direct result of mass mobilization that we saw in Chile in the end of 2019. Of course, this was a moment where there was a huge wave of protests against neoliberalism and against neoliberal economic policies in Chile and Ecuador and Colombia as well. The key demand on the streets was to get rid of this Pinochet constitution which essentially does not guarantee basic rights of housing, healthcare education to the people. Chile is one of the Latin American countries which has most expensive higher education, private pension system, private healthcare. All of these basic things which actually in a lot of neighboring Latin American countries do exist, of course we have the shining example of Cuba and Venezuela, but even in Argentina there's free healthcare, free university, this doesn't exist in Chile. People have to go outside their country to study to be able to get these benefits or as majority of the working class live in very precarious situations. So people identified this is one of the key structural issues that is holding back the aspirations and the livelihoods of millions of Chileans and we need a new constitution. This has been the demand on the streets. They have organized, mobilized. They were able to get these elections with constituent assembly, the constitutional convention, sorry, and this weekend they will be electing the 155 members of this convention. I mean, it's a challenging situation because the left right now is a bit divided. There's several different lists of left parties and left forces, but the right has been really strong in kind of having a unity of the right and essentially they run the risk of that if there is a majority of people from the right in this constitutional convention, it will be very hard to get anything passed. So, you know, we're really hoping that the left is able to score a majority in this constitutional convention and be able to take the demands from the streets into actually writing a new constitution that will guarantee all of the demands. Also, Chileans will be electing the mayors, municipal counselors, and governors. So, you know, this is another COVID electoral process. Of course, these elections have already been postponed twice. And so, you know, sending all of our love to the people of Chile and hoping that they can take, you know, what was an incredible mass uprising that, you know, inspired people globally. I think images of Chile still continue to circulate because of the strength and the unity on the streets, and hopefully this can turn into, you know, a new constitution for the people and rights for the Chilean people. It's true that this is what is on the table. It's also true that it's difficult to transmit or to transfer energies of mass mobilization into electoral gains. We just had assembly elections in India, in the state of West Bengal, the state where I was born, a million people gathered at a public rally at the Brigade Ground. A million people called together by the left and their coalition, the left one no seats in that election to transfer from mass mobilization to the ballot box. Very complicated when democratic institutions are suffocated by money, by media power, by the kind of corruptions of social media and so on. We got to face that fact and somehow break through that. It's a great limitation. But of course, that doesn't mean that there can't be a transfer from the big demonstrations, rolling demonstrations, which began by high school students in this particular wave. High school students angry about, you know, subway fees and so on, public transport fees, such brave kids with their backpacks jumping over turnstiles and so on. Unfortunately, they may be too young to vote, although some of them by now might be voting. Let's see where that goes. Just crossing the mountains into Argentina, test case of the difficulty of emerging out of the COVID catastrophe. The Argentinians are in a serious economic trouble over the last three years. The poverty has increased from 26%, right this down friends, 26% of the population under poverty now 44% in poverty. The IMF and the Paris group, you may not know this, but there are two sets of creditors. There's the London group of private creditors and the Paris group of country creditors, you know, the Europeans and so on. Finance Minister of Argentina, Martin Guzman has been traveling through the European capitals, trying to negotiate with particularly the Paris group, getting some relief. You know, they're under pressure to raise electricity tariffs in Argentina. This is going to put a lot of pressure on the population, now 44% under poverty. The reason I said this is something to do with the COVID catastrophe. World Food Program just released a report which shows that hunger rates globally are on the rise. Now upwards of a trillion people suffering from hunger, lingering through hunger. This means they're not able to project their next meal and so on. That's a very large number of people, one in seven or so on the planet struggling with hunger. This is serious hunger. This is not just, you know, occasional hunger. This is serious hunger where you don't know where your meal is coming from. At this time, when in the global north, liquidity is being opened. Central banks are being asked to flood the economies with money. At this time, for the poorer countries of the world, the IMF is operating with an extremely orthodox mechanism. They're trying to force Argentina into a default. They've told the government of Alberta, Fernandez, if you don't cut subsidies, if you don't lift electricity prices or tariffs up to meet inflation, we're going to punish you. So we're not seeing any let up from the International Monetary Fund. We're not seeing let up from the Paris Group, as far as using debt as a disciplinary mechanism against the countries of the world. Martin Guzman's task is very complicated. They're trying to hold together a coalition in Argentina where there's great disagreements about this. Lots of people in the coalition don't want to buckle under IMF pressure. If they don't buckle under IMF pressure, there's a certainty that Argentina will be cut off from world financial markets. Very difficult for the central bank, therefore, to make the kind of payment obligations that Argentina has. Don't exactly know what's going to happen. I keep thinking every time this kind of story comes up of Fidel Castro's attempt in 1983 to 1985 to create an international debt coalition. Thomas Sankara said that, well, they have a Paris Group. They have a London Group and a Paris Club. Why don't we make an Addis Ababa Club of those who refuse to pay debt or make a Ouagadougou Club and say we refuse to pay debt? It's a good point. Don't think it's happening. The political power on the side of the people is not there at present. Might be at some point. We started this show today with Palestine. We should end it with Palestine. Our hearts are with the people as they continue to resist against a very unjust occupation. Unjust not in a moral sense, but in the sense of an occupation against the United Nations Charter. A very, very great document. You've been listening to give the people what they want. Zoe Prashant from peoplesdispatch.org, one of the best places to go if you want to go and find out what's happening in the world. Movement centered reporting guys. Go and check it out. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. I hope you're going to be back next week. Do you think they'll be back next week, Zoe Prashant? Absolutely. I can say with a lot of certainty. I think they'll be back next weekend. And remember, bring a crowd. Bring a crowd. Don't come alone. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much.