 The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders meeting isn't the news due to the scheduled meet-up between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, and also due to protests from people's movements. What is happening in San Francisco which is hosting the summit? A harsh critic of former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs has got bail after six years. Why was Leila Jilima in prison? And finally, French doctors are outraged at a bill that seeks to eliminate health coverage for undocumented migrants. What is this bill about? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit that subscribe button. All eyes are on the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders, which is taking place in San Francisco. But it's mainly because the scheduled meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Now the two leaders last met almost a year ago, but relations between the two countries tanked soon after, before gaining some stability in recent times. But the meeting is not the only highlight of the summit. People's movements have been holding protests against the very structure of the forum and its agenda. Anish has the details. Anish, very important summit of leaders of one of the most volatile areas right now in the world. Of course, no active wars taking place, thankfully, but a lot of geopolitical tension in the region which you've been covering very extensively. And like I said, the highlight of all this seems to be the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden taking place after almost a year. It's ties between these two countries have really seesawed over the past many months. So what are the sort of expectations or what are the key issues that people think are expected to be discussed in this meeting? Well, if we actually go by some of the statements that have been made since last month about to the run up to this meeting that is going to happen, what we can see is that there is a certain understanding between both sides. And just something as we have covered on the show is rare in the last couple of years on certain issues, which is that trade cannot be compromised, trade cannot be affected by disputes that arise between these two countries. Obviously, the two largest economies in the world, the two major producers of various things in the world are not to be at longer heads and that is going to affect everybody. And so the fact that there is more coverage right now as you can see of the upcoming meeting than the actual apex summit of the 21 economies, it clearly shows that this is far more important right now at the current moment. On the other hand, if you actually look at some of the aspects of their statements where they do not have any kind of understanding or you do not see any kind of confidence, it's basically on the issues that they want to avoid being affected by or affecting trade itself. So for instance, Taiwan, US wants to keep bringing it up. China wants to assert the fact that Taiwan has to be dealt with within the one China policy that has been insisted upon by both China and Taiwan and also every other country in the world. And so obviously the fact that there is that sovereignty of the region cannot be compromised because US thinks that some of the government, a government there needs to be supported by them. You also see issues of South China Sea coming up, but only by China this time and not so much by the United States despite the fact that it has brought itself into the conflict virtually through different proxies, especially Philippines at this point. And there are other issues that the US wants to talk about. One is the Ukraine crisis, but not more than that, it's the crisis in Gaza right now in Palestine where it wants to actually try to use China. It thinks that China can somehow control Iran or other regional players that are raising warnings against Israel for their escalation and their violence or to actually escalate the Middle East crisis, which is something that China has not talked about. But we will have to see how they're going to go forward with that if there is going to be any kind of understanding. But definitely the US, as we have also covered, the US has very different ideas about how the violence there should be dealt with than with China, obviously. So that aside, you will actually see trade as being the most important and central part of this meeting. So while there might be statements from both sides on different issues, this is going to be the key and the most important one for them because obviously there are pressures, especially within the United States, especially within the capitalist plus, who have been obviously threatened by China's attempt to restrict rare minerals who would be affected by it to actually find a middle ground with China so that they do not lose that large market that they obviously depended on for a lot of their own innovations at this point in time. So there is definitely that pressure and that is going to be the central piece, to say, of this meeting in San Francisco. Right Anish, like you said, a lot of attention paid on the meeting of these two presidents. But the fact also is that the APEC summit has also been, there have been a lot of protests around the summit as well, which is quite interesting and often ignored by a lot of the media, which focuses only on the geopolitical aspect, people's movements taking to the streets with a variety of demands. So can you maybe also take us through what some of those aspects were? Well, I think at the central aspect of the protest or any kind of criticism against APEC is the fact that it is a body that is not representative. It has no representation or any kind of democratic representation from any of the countries. It's basically led by technocrats and politicians and corporations. And for the fact that they actually push for some kind of a free trade arrangement, that can actually affect sovereign control over various issues, including quality control or protection for their farmers, for their own companies and their economy. And that is something that has been at the heart of the protest right now. And this is something that the protesters have been talking about. It's not a new thing. It has been happening for a while now. Every APEC summit, you actually see massive protests happening everywhere it has happened. And San Francisco has known nothing new at this point. But they are actually bringing out this factor, reiterating these aspects of the summit and the organization itself. On the other hand, you can actually see protesters also bringing out U.S. attempts to push countries into at least not doing, if not able to doing its line on Palestine and Israel, but at least accepting some aspects of their line on the matter. And you can actually see a significant section of pro-Palestinian protesters within the current set of protests in San Francisco, primarily because as I said, there is an attempt by them to push for a certain level of criticism or maybe even isolation of the Hamas or other Palestinian resistance fighters, which many of the countries may or may not agree to, but there is definitely an attempt towards that. And these aspects also highlight the key issue with APEC as well, that it is another tool of imperialism as well. It's a culmination of that. And that is something that many have talked about. APEC has often been used as a forum to run through various policies that many countries may not accept, but has been pressured into. And very many times you actually have very unpopular governments taking up policies that will affect national interest of their country, especially when it comes to South Korea, Philippines and other countries, even Chile. And in most of these cases, imperialism has always been the issue that has affected their national economy, their national interest over time. And that is something that the protesters has been definitely highlighting. And obviously, we are also highlighting at this point through our coverage. Thank you so much for that analysis, but do stay back because we are coming back to the Philippines, one of the countries you've recently mentioned is which is being used as a proxy as well. So we'll come back to that. After six years in jail, Leila Dilima, a former senator and fierce critic of the drug war in the Philippines, finally got bail. This so-called war against drugs, drugs in which thousands were killed, was the handiwork of former President Rodrigo Duterte. It was widely condemned, but to this day there has been no institutional accounting for the murders. We go back to Anish. Right, welcome back, Anish. Six years in jail for being critical of Rodrigo Duterte's so-called war on drugs, which has actually been widely condemned by organizations across the world and rights organizations. So maybe could you take us a bit to the case itself? Why was this former senator behind the bars? Well, the case itself is about, was just a frame up of her in very iron, not so iron, if you actually think about it, on a drug charge that she had facilitated illegal or illicit drug trade through her contacts and through her influence as senator. But this aspect of it doesn't really look to the fact that she has been one of the most vocal critics in the Philippines Congress when it comes to the war on drugs. And that has been one of the reasons why most civil rights, civil society organizations have condemned this attempt to basically shut her down. And that is something that pretty much was in part vindicated when she was given bail, considering that the evidence and even the address procedures were quite shoddy and had its own set of problems. Nevertheless, the fact that she is out right now means that she won't be able to do as she might be if she was completely left without charge. So she has to fight her case. She is yet to be declared not guilty of the charges against her. And that means that she will be under certain set of restrictions. But on the other hand, she is free to meet with people organized in some ways for the cause that she believes in. And that is something that a lot of people are celebrating at this point. But the important aspect of this obviously is the fact that there has been a fine use of misuse of law enforcement agency and obviously the anti-drug trafficking laws in the country to actually stifle civil society. And her arrest was in fact cited as one of the examples of how civil society groups and anybody critical of the government has been targeted by the anti-drug trade laws in the country and even killed at some levels. Obviously, she was a senator, so she had some level of immunity. But many civil society, grassroots activists were killed. We had journalists killed in the past that we have covered about who were later framed as having practiced in drug trade on based on very flimsy evidence. And they were often targeted by vigilante groups that were pro-Dutati at the time. So this violent sort of history, very recent history actually that Philippines had in the five or six years that Dutati ran the country. This aspect pretty much also illustrates how there was a generalized violence when it came to this war on drugs campaign where most of the victims were not necessarily people who were involved in the drug trade and even those who were involved, many of them were dependent on substance abuse rather than being people who were involved in the trade itself. And many times we have seen how it is more likely that law enforcement agency where mixed up with the drug trafficking networks, very recently with Percy Lapis assassination, we've seen how that nexus went really high up into the government of it. And so these factors were often avoided. And as I said, the attack has always been to whip up certain kind of nationalistic, very right-wing sort of frenzy, very populist frenzy at the expense of people's lives and obviously, you know, general democratic rights in the Philippines as well. Ranishj, of course, we know that some of this was condemned internationally. In fact, the ICC also, it was brought before the ICC also at some point, but within Philippines itself, after Duterte's term, has there been any revaluation or reconsideration of all these policies of the intense damage it caused society? Well, there has been some statements. We have seen former officials and even current ones, the Justice Department, talking about so-called misuse or abuse of power. And even there is some admission on the part of government on the number of killing, we have a certain, you know, an official record of more than 5,000 people killed in the anti-drug operations. But in most cases, what is overlooked is how it has animated a certain section of the society into becoming vigilantes. And that is where the violence, the primary aspect of the violence was. Many people were basically just empowered with, you know, outside of constitutional setup to target the suspected drug traffickers. And many of them, it was obviously abused. None of that has been admitted to. There has been some level of reorganization within the police. But all of that, whatever official admission we have seen, has only come up to multiple, you know, very consistent set of international pressures. And not the least of ICC, but definitely of different organizations around the world and also within the Philippines who have exposed, and also several media outlets have exposed the corruption that has gone behind these anti-drug operations and also the kind of violence that has, you know, cost, as you said, major damages in the civil society. So these factors are, those pressures are the reason why you have some level of admission, but not enough to actually bring people to books. There hasn't been any major convictions that can actually bring to account people who are responsible for it. Some people were either given leave or, you know, asked to take, you know, earlier retirement, but other than that in the reorganization. But other than that, you don't have any major person being held accountable for this matter. And least of all, obviously, Duterte, who actually began this entire frenzy, he continues to be scot-free in the current system, in fact, being protected by the government under Pertinand Marcus Jr. In fact, he has been protected even more so against any kind of international pressures even. So that clearly shows that the current government does not want actual people to be held accountable or change the setup itself that has actually caused and continues to cause violence and killings in the current setup. Anish, thank you so much for that analysis as well. And finally, members of the Senate in France are proposing to scrap health coverage for undocumented immigrants. The move has been fiercely opposed by doctors who have said they will disobey if this law is passed and will provide treatment even if they're not paid for it. We go to Anna of the People's Health Movement for more details. Thanks, Anna, for joining us. So before we go into the exact demands and points by the doctors, could you maybe give us a brief context of what is this bill, what is the Senate trying to amend, what exactly is it about? Well, France has a measure called the State Medical Assistance in place since the early 2000s. The point of this mechanism is to provide healthcare to undocumented people who have no access to other ways of accessing healthcare. So the measure was introduced and since it was introduced, it has been a contested point from the right, particularly because of the usual argument. So the right-wing parties are claiming that it's too extensive, that people are using it too much or that even it's inviting undocumented and irregular migration into France. Of course, proof and research by civil society as well as academics has proven over and over again that this is wrong. Of course, still more than 20 years after the introduction of the bill, the overall cost of the mechanism is less than 1% of the total health expenditure in France and it's essentially underused even among those who have the right to access it. It's definitely not recognized as a significant reason for people immigrating to France. So essentially what we are looking at if the measure is abolished, if the parliament passes this law, is that people who now have access to a wider range of healthcare services, including primary healthcare, which we know is very important for providing good quality healthcare, comprehensive healthcare, they will be forced to use the health system only in case of emergency, which again, of course, makes it less secure. So it makes health outcomes worse, it also makes the procedures more expensive. So what the opponents of this amendment to the bill are saying is that what makes sense is not only to keep the state medical assistance in place, but also to expand it to make sure that people are more aware of it, that it's easier to use. And so could you explain a bit more detail, some of the points that doctors have made, I believe there's a letter also and they've taken a very strong stand, I believe, even saying that they will disobey this law if it's brought to practice here. Yes, that's right. So this weekend, over 3,000 French doctors signed an open letter saying that even if this amendment is passed as a part of this wider immigration reform in France, they will continue to provide care to undocumented people. They said that they will do so although they know that it's not going to be paid. So essentially what will happen in this case will be that the doctors will provide care, which is usually then reimbursed to the health insurance mechanisms. In this case, of course, it won't be so it will be unpaid work, but they said that it's because of the importance of providing health care to this population group that it's essentially worth it and that when the right-wing parties are proposing something that goes against the right to health in this regard, is that essentially they're not making a significant contribution to health reform, to improving health care or even to reducing expenses, they're just using something as a talking point of theirs because they find it opportune to do so. So of course, you know, the health workers have also been supported by other groups. It has to be said in this regard that the government is not supporting this amendment to the bill. It's not something that's coming from the Macron government. It's coming from the right-wing part of the parliament. But on the other hand, it's a bit unclear how important this is going to be since it's expected because of the divisions in parliament that at least the Senate will pass the bill quite easily. But then on a different point, civil society organisations have been very vocal in the period leading up to this discussion in the parliament that the measure which is being suggested is essentially, you know, it's a failed, it has failed even before it started. As I said, people are already underusing the measure of the state medical assistance because of a number of reasons. Just one recent report by doctors of the world with other civil society organisations has shown that people avoid, well, okay, so many of them don't even know that they have the right to use this mechanism. Then for others, it's simply a question of barriers in language or in financial barriers. They don't have internet. They don't have money to upload the phone credits. Then there's a whole set of administrative procedures which were essentially introduced because of the right-wing pressures before. Essentially, what they're saying is it's not about scrapping it. It's about making it work. It's about making it more functional so that the benefits of this program can be felt. Thank you so much for that analysis. Everywhere across Europe, it seems very clear that a very stringent and strident stand being taken against immigration, against refugees, against asylum seekers. We are seeing this attack taking place in the health sector as well. Very interesting that doctors across the country are taking a very principled and ethical position against such kind of laws. Thank you so much for that. That's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow with a fresh episode. Until then, do visit our website, peoplesdispatch.org. If you're watching this on YouTube, do hit that subscribe button.