 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. Today is July 8th, 2022. You're with Give the People What They Want. Coming to you from People's Dispatch. That's Zoe and Prashan. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Pretty stunning news from Japan. Really quite stunning news for several reasons. Well, the news first is that former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated, killed by a 41 year old man. Shinzo Abe himself long serving Prime Minister, 67 years old, was speaking at a campaign stop. He was campaigning for the right wing. It's a parliamentary election. Japan politicians are relatively unprotected because there's not much crime there. Coming to that in a minute, Shinzo Abe was killed by a man that the police is saying and they're not saying much, is perhaps not what they call mentally competent. He has been making all kinds of bizarre statements. Not clearly what's happened. I don't want to speculate too much, but the news is that Shinzo Abe is dead. Why this is surprising? Twofold and they are related. Number one, Japan has one of the world's lowest homicide rates. What is known as the intentional homicide rate. Not a car accident. Although I'm not sure car accidents are not always intentional, but the intentional homicide rate in Japan is 0.3 per 100,000 people. Now, why this is so interesting? Why this is so important to reflect on is the intentional homicide rate in the United States is 4.7 per 100,000. That's 0.3 compared to 4.7. Japan's gun death statistics are barely registrable. This comes right after another mass shooting in the United States in Chicago. Gunmen opened fire. Really hard to say what's going on in the United States, but the intentional homicide rate is so very low. 0.3 per 100,000 as opposed to the United States. 4.7 per 100,000. That's one of the first surprising point is low level of violence. Now, on the other hand, people will reflect on the fact that Mr. Shinzo Abe comes from a far-right wing family. His grandfather, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was stabbed in the thigh in 1960. His family has seen political violence before. There was a reception in the Prime Minister's office when Prime Minister Kishi was stabbed. But listen, he survived the attack. And in fact, there have been many attacks on Japanese politicians, mostly politicians of the left, starting with the attacks on the Socialist Party and so on. A communist also attacked, but largely members of the Japan Socialist Party faced a number of these kind of attacks, mostly again with knives. The debt is very low in these attacks. One doesn't see the kind of, again, if you compare to the United States where a large number of presidents have actually been assassinated. They were also attempted assassinations, the killing of John F. Kennedy, for instance, in Dallas. They attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. He was killed, almost killed right outside the White House. In the United States, there's been actually fatalities. From the 19th century onward, Japan, there have been attacks, but not that many fatalities. And many of the attacks against politicians in Japan, particularly in recent years, have been of local politicians, mayors, governors and so on. And the attackers have been largely from the mafia. In 2007, I well remember when Nagasaki's mayor, Ito, was shot and killed. He was shot and killed by a Japanese gangster. This was not a political attack as it were, but because Mayor Ito was trying to clean up the situation in Nagasaki. It's a pretty shocking event to have a world leader. Now I can say quite frankly that I never very much, you know, agreed with the policies of Mr. Shinzo Abe, but at age 67 to be shot to death in cold blood, to be killed in cold blood by an assassin, whether sane or not sane is a sad thing for anybody. And so there it is, friends. We have an assassination to open the show, give the people what they want, coming to you for people's dispatch, globetrotter. Meanwhile, a different kind of assassination. Et tu, Brutee. If they were still speaking Latin in Britain, what would Boris Johnson say to Rishi Sunak? Et tu, Rishi. You too, your knife stabbing me as well in the back. Et tu, Liz Truss, all of you. All of you surrounding me as I tried to make my way into the major issues. Prashant, the UK, such a confusing and interesting story at the same time. Right, which in fact the whole Conservative Party and government has always been a collection of people with knives in each other's backs. So it's no surprising at all. It's no surprise at all. The major crisis for the party, it seems. Boris Johnson has announced he's going to quit. He's quit as a party leader. The new Prime Minister will be elected in a couple of months. You know, there's been scandal after scandal. We talked about this show. The rate is being about the intersection, misconduct of a person who was then appointed to the position of Deputy Chief Whip. These allegations were very much known. But this just reflects, I think, what has been a tendency in the Boris Johnson administration. The party gates, scandals earlier. You know, issue after issue of ethical and moral failures by this government. All of which, you know, people just get the party leadership and the key ministers, including all these ministers sort of were okay with. And now that they saw that there was a moment to basically overthrow Boris Johnson, it was all the knives were out as you see. So I think many observers have pointed out that this, we don't see this as any kind of radical or drastic change at all, because this is just the party sort of reassembling the chairs or shuffling the chairs, pushing out somebody who is extremely unpopular. A new Prime Minister will come who will probably be as unpopular and will implement exactly the same policies. All this happening, of course, in the midst of, you know, sort of the worst crisis the UK has faced in recent times. We know about the energy costs. We know about the soaring inflation. And mind you, these are not the reasons why there is consternation in the government because the entire Conservative Party more or less agrees on all these policies on the fact that they need to be for the tax cuts, on the fact that they need to be for the spending cuts. You know, on the fact that, you know, they need to crush as much as possible the unions and the organ of working people or the country, although they'll call it different ways, but that's essentially what's happening. So on this, there's no real difference between any of the people in the Conservative Party. Actually, it's just a matter of rapidity for lack of better words. So, you know, whoever the new UK Prime Minister is going to be, of course, no change in foreign policy, no change in the kind of aggressive stance they've taken towards the Ukraine war, the sanctions, you know, in so many parts of the world, nobody's going to change the policy of close alignment to the US definitely in the Conservative Party at least. And the disappointing thing, of course, is that Labour Party, the main opposition, is also pretty much in the same boat. They're seizing this moment as, you know, a kind of moral victory or whatever the truth remains, is that the Labour Party leadership has also, you know, consistently pushed back against or tried to expel any sign of radicalism in the party. We know that they've isolated Jeremy Corbyn. We know that many of his supporters have been pushed out. And what we have is a Labour Party, which even if it comes to power, is going to implement pretty much the same policies. They'll have some better slogans maybe. So this crisis of governance that is there, this crisis of politics that is there in the United Kingdom, not going to change with one Boris Johnson resigning or a couple of his ministers or a new Prime Minister coming to power. So I think the left in the UK has really called out this, in some senses it's a very significant politically, but in some senses it's also very much a charade and all this, you know, hand-wringing over ethics and morals that the senior ministers of the Conservative Party are doing these, you know, morally motivated resignations, so to speak, are just considering that just a few months ago there were other scandals. It's quite funny actually, for lack of a better word. So that's pretty much where we are. We need to see who the new Prime Minister will be, what fresh horrors they're going to bring to the country and to the people. The interesting thing, of course, is that it probably marks yet another step in the further collapse of the UK's ruling classes, some have pointed out. I mean, they're driving their country to a very, very difficult path. There is very little solid, you know. Integration Scotland has definitely moving in its own direction. As far as Irish unification is concerned, positive steps taking place. All those, of course, are definitely very positive signs that need to see what's going to happen. Prashant, you know, I don't know why I do this, but I went back and looked at the two previous resignations that I was interested in, David Cameron and John Major, two Conservative Prime Ministers of England, and they were super sad and emotional as they announced their removal from office. Boris Johnson seems to live in his own bubble. He was completely unfazed. His wife standing behind him, unfazed. David Cameron's wife was crying. He had to escort her back inside number 10 during their press conference and then come outside again. The Johnsons were completely on another planet. It's so interesting how people take, you know, what really is a kind of personal defeat. Let's be quite clear for Mr. Johnson. We go now from an assassination against a former Prime Minister in Japan to the removal of a Prime Minister in Britain. Well, it may not be an immediate removal, but an imminent removal. We go to the perhaps coronation of Mr. Lula in Brazil. It seems to be ahead in all the polls, Zoe. As the sun moves from Japan to Brazil, does the political fortunes of people on the left improve? All polls in Brazil at this moment would indicate that that is in fact what's going to happen. Lula is polling in first and all of the major polling companies on voter intention. However, American lawmakers from the United States have raised many concerns with regards to the upcoming elections are taking place in exactly three months. These concerns are related to a report that was given to U.S. lawmakers in a visit from the president of the Supreme Electoral Court, Edzin Fakin. He was telling people in the United States that Brazil is looking at a situation that could look like January 6th, which of course for those of you who don't remember, this was when supporters of Donald Trump raided the Capitol building, alleging that electoral fraud had taken place. There are many indications of why people in Brazil and now in the United States are concerned about this happening in the elections in Brazil. As I said, Lula is polling in first and all of the major polls on voter intention. Jair Boltonaro has one of the lowest approval ratings. He has completely destroyed the economy. I mean, his actions on COVID-19 have been morally, you know, reprehensible. 700,000 people died. So he has extremely low ratings, not doing very well in the polls. He still maintains his base of very, very ideologically committed Boltonaristas, but he's really looking at a defeat and he knows it. And he has extremely important alliances within the armed forces of Brazil who have made statements saying that if there aren't changes made to the electoral laws in Brazil, they've come up with a series of potential fraud situations which have to do with the electronic ballot versus the paper ballot. We made a whole fuss about these necessary, allegedly necessary changes to electoral laws in Brazil saying that if they don't take place, they will not recognize the results of these elections. Again, this is a fraction of the armed forces, but you know, a part that has significant power. And so the judge Edson Joaquin has raised this in the United States. A group of US lawmakers has released a statement saying that they will suspend financial aid to Brazil if this takes place. So I think, you know, there's a lot of optimism looking at these elections. Lula is, you know, by all means leading. He's very popular, having a lot of events, a lot of positive momentum, but there is this underlying concern of what will this erratic character of Jair Bolsonaro do? He has an extremely, you know, a turbulent past. He's linked to militia groups and Rio de Janeiro. There are significant investigations showed that people who are allied to him may have been involved in the murder of Marielle Franco. There's definitely reason to be concerned. There's already action being taken. I think the fact that there are statements coming out already is significant. So it's definitely a cautious optimism with which we have to look at Brazil. Cautious optimism sounds okay. It's a dramatic statement. You've made cautious optimism. You're listening to give the people what they want, coming to you from People's Dispatch, Zoe Prashant. Really good stories up on the site this week. Hope people will go and read it, People's Dispatch.org. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. You know, Prashant, occasionally I get news alerts on different parts of the world that I'm interested in. I've been looking at Sudan ever since, you know, the turbulence there was actually quite surprised to see very little mention of the fact that Sudanese and Ethiopian troops have been clashing over a disputed border region in the Javala-Leban area. That surprised me. I actually didn't realize that that conflict had turned hot. Shows you how little is reported about the horn in general, but Sudan, Ethiopia and so on in particular, you're not looking of course at the border clash right now. Nor are you looking at the fact that over a few thousand sheep have drowned of a Sudanese freighter. This is what I got from my news alert on Sudan. You're looking at something very serious taking place inside the country. Tell us about the major political clash taking place in Sudan. We are having a story out on that soon as well, so I do invite all of you to take a look at it. This is a major, major development in the country which has been in tumult for many years right now ever since the Sudanese Revolution overthrew the dictator Omar al-Bashir. And as we know in the subsequent months, the military pretty much began to capture levels of power, held a coup against its own government in October, has been holding power since. So recently we had the leader of the military, Abdul Fateh al-Burhan, announcing in what seemed to be a very magnanimous gesture that the military would withdraw from talks on forming the new government and all civilian forces should come together and do that. Now for those of us who follow military regimes and coups and dictators, this seems a bit of a surprise because here you have without anyone asking for seemingly a military leader saying that, but the catch is all in the details which is what we're finding in the sense that while Abdul Fateh al-Burhan has said that the military will withdraw from the negotiations, what he has called for is a kind of civilian process which brings together all sections including those sections aligned with the former dictator Omar al-Bashir, some of the most right wing sections. So what al-Burhan has been trying to sort of present to the international community which is kind of concerned about what is happening in Sudan, the international community has been urging negotiations between the civilian and the military sections and so what Abdul Fateh al-Burhan is basically trying to say is that we are withdrawing from the negotiations and if all sections of the civilians cannot agree on a plan forward, it's their fault, it's not our fault. So this is actually a bit of a trick as far as the military is concerned, the military has also said that it will dissolve what is called the sovereignty council which is the highest decision making body which will form a new body only for military affairs, so to speak. Now again the catch here is that this body which is supposed to manage the military is also going to manage key sections of the economy, is also going to manage key sections of the foreign policy, etc. So underneath these announcements which make it appear like the military is sort of giving up power what Burhan and his forces are looking for is basically a consolidation of their powers and all the messy parts to the civilians and then blaming the civilians later for anything that does not work out. The important thing of course is that I think large sections of the civilian protest movement in Sudan have recognized this, they have refused to give in to this military strap, the left of course has been one of the most powerful forces in this protest for long, they have of course rejected it but interestingly even the centrist forces what are called the forces for freedom and change collaborating with the military have also refused to give in to this tactic, they have said that we are not going to take part in, we are not going to give in to this arrangement we want a proper structured kind of change to be brought to Sudan, they are coming up with their own proposals various sections and also important to note that despite all of Burhan's pronouncements about the military withdrawing the repression on protestors is continued they have been attacked on various protest sites in the Khartoum state which have continued after this announcement so it's not that suddenly the army has turned good in any sense recently just a few days, just about a week or so ago we saw one of the most violent incidents of repression in the country, in recent times 9 people died over 600 people being injured and it was after this that Burhan made that announcement and even after that the repression has continued important thing to note of course is that the protests also continuing so now it's very significant to see whether the centrist sections are going to stick to their word, will they continue to refuse the military's option or will they give in as they have done before the left's position on the other hand is very clear they are calling for a structured bottom approach to building democracy building institutional change and they are calling for a very different set of slogans than the international community or the military so very tense moments in the country I think the next few weeks will prove very vivid we are going to watch this carefully again please go to peoplesdispatch.org when the story comes out there on what's happening in Sudan peoples dispatch has been one of the principal places to learn about events taking place in Sudan our reporter Pawan Kulkarni has been in touch with people on the ground there to get the best, clearest picture of the very tense situation which has been going on for a while very tense situation in Panama think of Panama, I don't think of politics certainly don't think of strikes one thinks of the canal at most if you ever do think of Panama but it has a very difficult history people may not know that in 1989 the United States essentially launched a major assault on Panama to go and extract the leader Manuel Noriega former CIA operative it's the kind of preview to the first Gulf war and so on Panama no stranger to some major political developments Zoe but now it seems like every Panamanian is on strike what's been happening the last week well since July 1st the people of Panama have been on the streets on the highways blocking the roads demanding that the government take immediate action to resolve the crisis of the cost of living these are, we've seen I think this is a crisis that's been on a global level that has intensified of course due to the COVID-19 pandemic but really became acute at the beginning of the war in Ukraine with the increase in the fuel prices we've covered it a lot happening in Europe there has been of course significant impact but this affects the world and in Panama people have seen a serious deterioration in their standards of living their ability to access basic food items basic day to day necessities medicine amongst the other things and it's interesting as you say you know Panama a lot of people think about the canal they think of it as a very reliable tax haven it's always been a cornerstone of and a reliable ally of international capital there's no taxes on offshore companies that don't have operations within Panama this is a place where people go to store their capital and their wealth where they know it won't be touched yet at the same time the people of the country that are living there that are dealing with the proliferation of all these companies having their holdings in the country are not able to buy medicines and so there is an alliance for life that was launched in May due to this acute crisis that the country is suffering under a lot of different organizations the construction workers union is one of the most combative organizations in Panama extremely active has been a key player in pushing for social mobilization for social change in the past couple of years the difference of social movements for economic and social rights has also been very active and they've put together a list of 32 demands that all really address specific factors that they see need to change immediately in order to address the grievances of the people in the country as I mentioned you know access to medicines not only are medicines extremely expensive but they're also having a supply crisis a variety of different things freezing the costs of fuel for example many other different things the government has summarily said that none of these demands can really be taken seriously and this is quite interesting because at their disposal they have hundreds of millions of dollars within this country yet none of it is for the people none of this wealth can be actually given to the people or used to address their legitimate problems and concerns so the people have been on the streets for over a week and they're making these demands it's really impressive images in the smallest towns and all of the different highways they're out there demanding the government take measures there's some really beautiful images of the interactions between people making the road blockades and the community members this is really the entire country up in arms saying we can't take this anymore and we need there to be changed so keep an eye on Panama on the just struggle of the people there it's a really important struggle because it's country sandwiched between other important countries including Colombia a couple of updates from Latin America before we close up the show the first the people of Chile will now have the opportunity to put their fingers on a new constitution the constitution draft is out there to be looked at by people widely debated and so on it's a pretty interesting pretty radical constitution also common sense constitution in fact I don't know why I said the word radical it's a pretty common sense constitution Colombia coming back to the top of South America has had a pretty common sense constitution for the last 30 odd years which has never really been properly implemented we're seeing now in dribs and drabs the incoming president of Colombia has been announcing his cabinet it will be interesting to see what kind of common sense constitution you know they will be able to interpret how they will take the old constitution finance minister in interesting choice José Antonio Ocampo Ocampo has played a big role in the United Nations in fact surprisingly he was nominated to head the World Bank not by his native Colombia this was in 2012 he was nominated by Brazil Colombia refused to support their own national in the end he of course pulled out because it's quite embarrassing to be put up to head the World Bank by somebody other than your own country Mr. Ocampo is not a radical he taught for many years at Colombia Colombia Colombia sure he had fun with that in his life he's not a radical but he's a man who believes in the United Nations charter certainly somebody who's going to struggle alongside the rest of Petro's cabinet to establish these the sustainable development goals in Colombia hunger unemployment illiteracy medical care basic social democratic values that's basically where Mr. Petro has gone for his finance minister when it comes to the peace envoy he picked somebody very interesting Alvaro Leia a man who is very close to the FARC rebels the Marxist rebels in Colombia a man who comes from a you know by Colombian standards and aristocratic families so he comes from the elite close to the left especially the sections that have refused to come under the peace accord let's see what happens there to be quite interesting to see that because in Colombia you can't actually advance a human you know agenda unless you deal with the fact of the civil war and the violence so anyway he is there the most interesting person to be announced in the cabinet and I was in Havana Cuba when the news came that Patricia Ariza is the new culture minister she was in Havana in fact at the signing of the peace accord between the Colombian government and the various rebel factions she at the time gave an interview to El Pais about how she cried when she saw that signature take place now Patricia Ariza is a leading poet a theater personality a person who is taken to the streets painted her face white in the middle of the protest it's quite a well known figure in the country it's interesting when we look at the cabinet of Mr. Petruits balanced out between Mr. Campo establishment figure maybe even center right if you're honest and Patricia Ariza face painted white red lipstick out on the street demonstrating with the people in the cycle of protest that has been taking place now shift attention to Havana Cuba you see it's interesting to look at the question of Cuba in this context because there was a great sense of anticipation with the new period opening up from Havana looking out to developments in Colombia developments in Chile these are not radical governments as such but governments of the center left looking at the government in Mexico very much a center left government making interesting moves comments about Julian Assange and so on we are in a different phase people this is give the people what they want yes fine giving you what you want you want the truth well the truth is the world isn't perfect we started a show with an assassination an ugly killing of a former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe like to end by saying go and check out people's dispatch where there's an interview with Shata Ode a Palestinian health activist it's important to go there because remember we started a show with an assassination still there's an assassination on the table in Israel the assassination of a journalist United States has admitted it was a US bullet that fired into her and killed her this is Shirin Abu Akhle but they deny who did the killing they still say it's too confusing they know where the bullet came from but they think that the shooter may not have acted maliciously very strange world we live in give the people what they want Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch I'm Vijay from Globetrotter see you next week