 More U.S. sailors and marines have landed up in West Asia, bringing their number to, maybe nobody knows really how much, but what are they actually here for? Over the weekend, we saw a peace summit held in the Saudi city of Jeddah, a very unique peace summit for the Russia-Ukraine war for which Russia was not invited. So what really is happening with that peace? And finally, top contenders in the United States have been knocked out of the FIFA 2023 Women's World Cup. What lies ahead and who are their favourites? We will be discussing all these stories in this episode of Daily Deep Brief. So do keep watching and also please don't forget to hit that subscribe button right under this video. Over 3,000 sailors and marines from the United States have reportedly landed up in the Red Sea region in West Asia and they are apparently being deployed to counter the Iranian threat. Now Iran did see some tankers over the past few months and the United States seems to indicate that that is the reason why so many marines and sailors have been moved so far from U.S. territory into Iran's neighbourhood. But what really is happening? What is the logic of this decision? How is Iran responded? To know more about this, we have with us Abdul. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. So more U.S. troops in West Asia, nothing new. Of course, there are a lot of U.S. bases, U.S. deployments, a fifth fleet is there. But what is the justification that is being given for the latest deployment of around 3,000 marines and sailors? Well, yesterday U.S. Central Command issued a formal statement claiming that the latest surge in troops, U.S. already has more than 10,000 troops in and around the region. Because of course there is a U.S. fifth fleet is based in Manama, Bahrain and there are troops in Iraq, in Syria, in other parts of the Gulf region. So it claimed that the surge is primarily because of the increase in quote-unquote threats from Iranians which have attempted to seize, according to the U.S. statement, various civilian ships and the oil tankers in the region. And they claim that in the last two years at least 20 ships, either Iranians have seized or attempted to seize. So that is the primary reason quoted in fact in this defense ministry last month also announced deployment of further fighter jets in and around the region, F-16 and so forth. So this is a part of the larger built up according to the official versions against the aliased Iranian threats in the region. So that's exactly what the U.S. is claiming. But of course one should not go by these statements issued by the U.S. Central Command. As I said before, the U.S. of course already has thousands of troops there and if it wants to provide security to those ships passing across the Persian Gulf region they are more than capable enough to do it. As Iranians are claiming, this is basically a provocation in order to be as a part of the larger built up against all of course the changing geopolitics in the region as well as what they consider as a larger Iranian influence, rising Iranian influence in the larger West Asian region also. Abul so could you also maybe give us a bit of context for what is called this so-called tanker war between the countries there have been incidents of seizure. So what does Iran say for instance is a reason for some of these seizures and have they also responded to this latest troop deployment? Well as far as the response is concerned there are multiple ways Iranians have responded to it. Nasir Kanani, the spokesperson of Iran's foreign ministry said that U.S. troop deployments in the region has never provided insecurity to the countries in the region. In fact it has never been about security, providing security to the countries in the region. It is primarily to serve the strategic interest of the U.S. Then the IRGC commander Spokesperson also talked about the possible mischief which this particular surge could kind of provoke in the region, can cause in the region and warn against all kind of such attempts saying that Iran is capable enough to respond to all those attempts by the U.S. Then of course there is a larger question put forward by the Iranians that why in a region which is thousands of miles away from the U.S. the U.S. needs to be there. If the security of the ships in the region is a concern the countries in the region can of course safeguard can do it on their own. Iranians have also proposed a regional security alliance, maritime alliance including all the countries in the Persian Gulf region primarily to provide security to address the security concerns, whatever security concerns may be and basically to exclude all possible external interventions U.S. being one. In fact Iran has been very vocal to all foreign troops presence in the region and has repeatedly demanded their withdrawal. As far as the tanker war is concerned well the tanker war started following the U.S. sanctions on Iran after it unilaterally withdrew in 2018 and attempted to seize various tankers, Iranian tankers all across the globe one in Mediterranean then in Atlantic and other places in retaliation Iranians also started seizing some of the ships carrying of course different flags but considered to be serving the interest of the U.S. and this basically happened in 2018, 2019 in particular it heated up for some time it was of course not that hot but it has started you can say gaining pace in earlier this year but Iranians have claimed that the recent surges in seizure of the ships has nothing to do with the larger U.S. claims made about Iran being irresponsible and so forth it is primarily Iranians attempt to control the smuggle of Iranian oil and also to basically address the security concerns in the region Iran has a long maritime border and some of the ships it claims basically had threatened its maritime security so all those and of course there are certain claims made we have been refuted by Iranians that those ships never tried to seize and this is a part of the U.S. propaganda so it's a very complex situation and it seems that U.S. has used incidents of tanker seizure some instances of tanker seizure to basically create a hype against aliased Iranian threats. Over the weekend we saw a peace summit in the Saudi city of Jeddah where representatives from a number of countries gathered to discuss President Vladimir Zelensky's peace plan also unique peace plan because one it does not involve talking to Russia and second it puts a lot of conditions on Russia in order to come to peace now what really came out of this summit is a bit confusing it's not really clear there was no joint statement for instance but we have with us you go back to Abdul to actually understand the nitty-gritty of it Abdul so we discussed this right before the summit this curious case of Russia Ukraine peace summit without war peace summit without Russia but what were the major conclusions the Ukrainians are spinning it in a very positive light well that is exactly what it is spinning if you see the reports whatever reports are available in public it seems this is only Ukrainians claim that certain things have been achieved apart from the fact that the most of the participants which also included some of the close allies of Russia like China agreed to have another set of meetings in six weeks from now apart from that nothing else is concretely there in the public domain Ukrainian claim that they have all the participants in the meeting agreed to the 10-point proposal given by Zelensky the 20-point proposals as we have discussed before are nothing more than an attempt to put to portray Russians as the sole villain sole country responsible for the war in Ukraine and to held it responsible without it being invited to any talk so that was that is the gist of the talks as claimed by Ukrainians but of course no other country including China has made any public utterances about what happened during the meeting whether the proposals put forward by Zelensky were discussed or if they discussed whether they were accepted or not in fact Ukrainians also claim that some of the countries considered close they did not name it of course name them considered close to Russia tried to create certain problems during the meeting but ultimately it turned out that all of the participants agreed for the next week so just to put it in a nutshell it seems from all the reports available in the public domain that nothing concrete has been achieved so far apart from what Ukrainians are claiming and there will be a meeting in some six weeks from now again and where what will be the integrities all those details are not there there is no joint statement issue there is no concrete record in public so we are in no position to verify what Ukrainians are claiming Abdul also of course looking at it this is a larger context I mean on the one hand there is fighting there have been some talks of negotiation both sides have talked about it but clearly there is no serious will or proposal from both sides so do we see the situation continuing as you know in this pretty much what it has been for the past few months well it seems that this will continue primarily because the negative responses which all the peace proposals which involve both the countries sitting together and talking means Ukraine and Russia sitting together and talking under some mediation have been rejected primarily by the Ukraine or the countries which are backing Ukraine through armament and other supplies and until Russia is involved in any negotiation there cannot be nobody can should hope that there will be a successful peace agreement so all of even if all the countries which Ukrainians are claiming meet again and say some of the countries withdraw from it in the future the majority of countries are those countries which have taken pro-Ukrainian stand which has taken pro-NATO stand in the international forum wherever the war of Ukraine has been discussed and since they have a particular perspective about the conflict of course it is possible very likely that they basically declare the Zelenskyi proposal as something to be kind of accepted by all the parties in the war that would not pressurize Russians to agree to it and that would that means that the stalemate which is there as far as the political settlement of the conflict is concerned will continue and until there is a serious attempt made and all the proposals which have been submitted about bilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine are taken seriously of course there is no end of the conflict in sight right thank you so much Abdul for explaining that as well and we'll hopefully come back to you for more developments from the region finally continuing our regular coverage of the FIFA women's World Cup 2023 being held in Australia and New Zealand there have been quite a few developments the United States has been knocked out a very formidable contender lot of interesting football taking place we go to Siddharth and you for the latest Siddharth thank you so much for joining us our continuing coverage of the FIFA 2023 women's World Cup so it looks like the final eight teams have been determined big surprise of course being the fact that the US women's football team very renowned team is out of the tournament so take us to the last eight what's interesting what stands out what are the surprises absolutely Prasanthi I mean spot on like so right at the early on in this tournament the US has always been a favorite when it comes to the women's World Cup and a couple of coaches actually came out and made this statement that the physical difference that existed between their side and the other teams in this competition has greatly reduced because there's a much larger number of women players now who are getting the same kind of playing time same kind of exposure same kind of coaching as well and so like at least at a physical level many of the teams now at a tempo from a tempo perspective and all of that are really well matched so what we've seen at the round of 16 is almost I mean maybe France is an exception but other than that very little domination by a single team it started off with Netherlands versus South Africa you know a bunch of new teams in this stage of the competitions so Netherlands South Africa even though it ended 2-0 in favor of the Netherlands South Africa had some really good chances and with a bit more perhaps time and at this level they can probably compete even more but all the games have been really tight Sweden versus the US ended in that quite tense penalty shootout and Sweden have always had a very strong sort of women's football program they've done really well at various tournaments whether it's the Olympics or at the World Cup so they will feel like they were never really underdogs in that game but given the sheer amount of exposure the kind of investment in the sport in the US beating a US team is always going to be a great achievement so that was I guess one of the surprises Nigeria ran England pretty close as well that went down to a penalty shootout as well and the English women there coming through that but I think it's a really good mix at this point because you have Columbia representing South America they also went through earlier tonight after a 1-0 win over Jamaica who we've heard so much about this tournament and seen a lot there actually coming here has also been a great story Bob Mali's eldest daughter for example helping them find sponsorship their GoFundMe program to get support to actually continue the program to get exposure and now I think the federation back in Jamaica will have plenty to think about when this team gets back because definitely if it is a comparison with the men's team then there's so much more potential here for the team to go deeper in the tournament and play on and we also saw for those who talk about the women's game and the context of it being far less physical and it's a contact sport but they play with a little more sort of care and all of that today's game Jamaica versus Columbia was full on I mean as full contact as you can imagine and played with the kind of fire that you would expect from around a 16 knockout tournament at this level and both teams looking to sort of keep their regions not just their countries in the World Cup so it's been a really good round of 16 Peshant and we're hoping for more of the same when it comes to the quarters Absolutely Siddharth you mentioned of course Columbia of course a lot of us associate football so closely with Latin America so must be a happy moment for Latin American fans in Australia and many other parts of the world Yeah for sure inside I was talking to an artist she's a vocalist and I think the local organizing committee is talking to her to do the national anthem of Columbia if they make it through to the last stage of the tournament and she was talking about how the entire Latin American community Sydney is where they've played a bunch of their games so there's a largeish community and people are wondering how there are 60,000 Colombians in Sydney but it turns out that actually the entire Latin community or whether you're from Argentina or Peru or Chile everyone has picked up a Colombia jersey and now is sort of backing the team from the regions so I was asking her how this fits in with what we've covered often or what we continue to cover on People's Dispatch with this kind of resurgence of Latin American collectivism and that approach and she was saying yeah it's very evident in the community here they are looking at what's happening back home and also banding together they've organized in various different ways to have these kind of social events to expose people because they are also they are diaspora so they are Australian as well as belonging to whatever nationality they belong to so exposing both sides to each other's cultures and what she was telling me was that because of this World Cup also coming in here the kind of interest level in the sport in general has gotten such a boost that groups who are not perhaps before involved have gotten in it much more and so for this entire lot of people here I mean they are in that World Cup mode so it's like when you have a World Cup in Brazil on days when there are matches happening the national team are playing it's a national holiday it's a given so it's almost like that kind of vibe here which is great to see and otherwise it's a small town but we're hoping like tonight after the win over Jamaica Sydney might be a little bit alive later into the evening in a more sort of asian way so in that sense those kind of I don't know whether it's spirit or what you want to call it but it's also taking over a country where rugby and other sports are actually a little bit further ahead than football is thanks for the usual bringing in a bit of politics into sports in fact we really don't buy that distinction here at People's Dispatch so thank you so much for speaking to us and hopefully we'll get back when the semi-final line up is ready and that's all we have time for in today's episode we'll be back tomorrow with many more stories from countries across the world so do keep watching and reading People's Dispatch and do hit that subscribe button on the YouTube channel