 Iran has launched a series of strikes against those it has claimed are responsible for terror attacks. What will be its implications? Oxfam's latest report paints a dismal picture of inequality in our world. What does the report say? 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 the subscribe button. On Monday and Tuesday, Iran launched a series of missile attacks on locations in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan. Now, the attacks were reportedly against those responsible for terrorist attacks in Karman earlier this month, other attacks in December and also against an alleged Mossad Operation Center. On Thursday morning, Pakistan struck back against what it said were terrorist bases in Iran. As tensions did increase across the region, what lies ahead, we go to Abdul to find out. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Very dramatic developments in the region, strikes by Iran and counter-strike by Pakistan in this case. But before we go into the details, could you maybe first take us through what Iran claims are the reasons for the strikes it conducted on Monday and Tuesday in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan? Well, Iranian IRGC claims that the attacks which were carried out on Monday and Tuesday basically were related to the recent terrorist attacks inside Iran. Of course, we know that there was an attack in Karman where more than 100 Iranians were killed. Those who were gathered to basically commemorate the death anniversary of General Qasim Soleimani. Then there was another attack in one of the cities in Iran, Iraniansistan, Balochistan province earlier in December in Rusq, where around 10 to 12 Iranian policemen were killed. These two terrorist attacks, of course, the Karman attack was claimed by ISIS. So IRGC claimed that it attacks inside Syria, the rebel-held areas in Syria, were primarily targeting the ISIS bases there. And its attacks inside Pakistan were related to what it called the JAS-AL-Adal terrorist organization, which basically works for kind of separatist reasons inside Iranian Sistan, Balochistan province, also active in Pakistan's Balochistan province. So their bases were attacked inside Pakistan. It also targeted, and that was the central, you can say, set of attacks which were carried out in Erbil, in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan, where Iranians claimed that Mossad, an Israeli spy agency has a base, and this base was used to coordinate attacks inside Iran, both the terrorist attacks and the targeted assassination of Iranian scientists or the military commanders and other top leadership. And therefore it has attacked. One should not forget that Iran has similarly attacked northern Iraq in 2022 as well, claiming the similar reason that their Mossad has basically made some kind of center there, and that center is used against anti-Iranian activity. So this is the reason which was given by IRGC. IRGC also claimed, by the way, that the attacks are also related to Mossad's coordination or role in the assassination of top Hamas leader in Beirut last month. Basically was part of, one can see, the ongoing war in Gaza, which Israel has waged since October 7th. Right, up to the context now Pakistan has responded with attacks of its own. So how do you see the situation going from here? Well, the Pakistan, of course, the kind of reaction which Pakistan had made following the attacks on Tuesday, where of course, reducing the diplomatic relationship, kind of withdrawing its ambassador from Iran, and also kind of, in a way, of course, Iranian ambassador was Iranian at that time, saying that he will not be allowed to come back to Pakistan soon. Apart, if you see what was the statement made by Pakistan's foreign ministry following the attacks on Thursday, early morning inside Iran was basically a continuation of the similar statements made by the Iranian foreign ministry on Wednesday. Iranian foreign minister who was visiting both the foreign minister, by the way, in the house, and it seems that they had a conversation related to it, related to the attacks, and they kind of exchanged opinions about a need of greater coordination among themselves to fight against the terrorist ministers, which apparently bothers both the countries in a similar way. And in fact, both the foreign ministers have claimed that they respect each other's sovereignty and do not think this is the strikes inside each other's territories is the right way of carrying out the operations against the terrorist attacks. In fact, the Pakistani foreign minister in a statement on Thursday has claimed that they are already coordinating with the Iranian government when it comes to operations in the region, and they will continue to do so in the future as well. So given the longer history between Iran and Pakistan, and given the statements made by both the foreign ministers and their respective government agencies, it is not likely that this set of other attacks and counterattacks will continue in the incoming days. It seems that there will be some kind of reconciliation made, and there will be, because that does not fit in the larger scheme of things which Iranians are looking forward to, they do not want a new confrontation in the region, which West Asia is already having so many other conflicts at this moment. There is a war in Gaza, there is responses coming from different what we call axis of resistance against the Israeli and U.S. prisons all across the region, and then Iranians are also basically taking actions against the Israeli and the other groups which basically are creating some kind of trouble in the region. In that context, if there is another front opening with Pakistan that would not be in interest of Iran, and I think the Iranians understand it and also Pakistan, one should also, by the way, as a thing that there is an election coming in Pakistan, and such kind of conflict has different political connotations as well, and I think this is not good for both Pakistan and Iran, and their statements made give indication towards that, and hopefully they will have a coordinated step towards some kind of settlement of this recent escalation. I think we can all hope for de-escalation also, like you said, Pakistan going towards an election and currently controlled or ruled by a KTEC government, so it's not even there a government which has a full mandate, we'll be closing, attacking these issues closely, and hopefully we'll have you soon. The rich keep getting richer and how, that's what the latest Oxfam report chronicles and the details are shocking. The wealth of the world's top five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, while 4.8 billion people or 60 percent of humanity have been further impoverished. The report also talks about the complete failure and even lack of policies to counter both poverty and inequality. To understand the report and why it's an indictment of the current world order, we go to Anish. Anish Oxfam reports always a benchmark to understand the very glaring and horrendous inequality that exists in today's world. So maybe first take us through what are some of the significant findings of this report. Well, it clearly edges out the kind of concentration of wealth that has happened, especially since 2020. We are looking at the world's five richest men having accumulated our witnessing a growth in their wealth by about 114 percent in the past four years. And the four years is quite significant because much of it was spent under the pandemic. And we have also spoken about this during our various reports on not just the counter pandemic measures, but also workers mobilizations and the cost of living crisis that we have covered very extensively on this show and also on our website, which is that the wealth of the richest have grown tremendously under the pandemic. And that has come at the expense of their workers, of the countries that they're operating in. And so in many of these cases, there has been no attempt to actually share that. We are seeing probably like in a decade, Oxfam is predicting that the world might have the first ever trillionaire in human history, but we might not see the end of poverty even in the century, or maybe in the next century to begin with. So this clearly shows the kind of inequality that is running. It is also showing that there is a considerable stagnation in counter poverty efforts like attempt to eradicate poverty, much of which we must remind that was pretty much taken up by just one country, because whatever poverty elevation that we have seen, a bulk of that came out of China and maybe India at some extent. But most of the other part of the world, it hasn't really impacted much. And we are seeing that sort of concentration of wealth continuing. On the other hand, there is also the imperialist angle. Because what we often forget is that poverty is not just relative scale. It is also something that happens in a global mode of production and in our relations of production. We are seeing a concentration of about more than two-thirds of the wealth in the global north, specifically the West. And about 74% of the world's billionaires being set or based out of these countries clearly shows that how much of these billionaires, the wealthy, benefit from the kind of imperialist policies and not to mention how they also control much of the world's wealth as well. And we are also seeing concentration of wealth in different forms. Even fiscal wealth has been concentrated within a very small number of people, people that can be counted on and not just, we are not talking about shareholders or corporations, we are talking about individuals. And in most of these cases, corporations do control about more than half of the world's fiscal wealth and its resources, clearly showing the dependency that the world, like much of the dependency that the world is right now arriving at, coming out of this sort of capitalist structure that is pretty much exploitative at the very core of it. And as you mentioned, the lack of counter-poverty measures that are today, there's a clear lack of it definitely, but does the report also have suggestions or a roadmap into how to sort of, say, decrease the kind of inequality we're talking about? Well, the roadmap that they are trying to, or the suggestions that we have seen in the Oxfam report pretty much is nothing new. It's pretty much the same kind of very liberal social democrat suggestions of controlling the corporate power, controlling the inequality or the expansion of the wealth gap within each country is revitalizing the state is something that they're talking about, which is basically to talk about how welfare state really needs to be rejuvenated, investments need to be made so that there can be some level of wealth redistribution. But none of this actually addresses some of the very core issues in the manner in which wealth is distributed around the world and how these individuals, these corporations work trans-nationally, how they influence not just domestic policy, but also foreign policy of many of the countries, even some of the most powerful countries in the world right now. And it doesn't really address how these corporates could be reigned in on a trans-national level, how there needs to be. Let's talk about an international cooperation that is required to make sure that this sort of inequality doesn't grow, but it doesn't really give out a blueprint of how that kind of cooperation would happen. Obviously, corporate tax is one of those things that has been talked about for a while now, which will help at some level, but it is definitely something and even such a piecemeal thing is something that is being very strongly opposed by many parts, many corporations, many powerful elite around the world. And so we are looking at even such very moderate talks of controlling the wealthy is being radical in many ways. We do not see them, even though some of these policies being viable or viably implemented by most of the governments that we know today. So that is one of the issues. There is the fact that these wealthy do control, do have political power in the manner in which they can influence policies around the world in an orchestrated manner. And that is something that obviously the report doesn't really address and that is something that really needs to be addressed if we need to talk about poverty, eradication and the wrong done. Right, Anish, thank you so much for that update. That's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. In the meanwhile, do visit our website, peoplesdispatch.org, follow us on all the social media platforms, and if you're watching this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button.