 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. 11th of February. Give the people what they want. Brought to you every week from Zoe and Prashant. They come to you from People's Dispatch. That's peoplesdispatch.org. I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter. Friday 11th of February. United States President Joe Biden signed an order this morning in the United States where he said that the Afghan funds. Now you need to understand something. 20 years the United States occupied Afghanistan. The Afghan Central Bank which is known as Da Afghanistan Bank. It's basically the main bank in Kabul held much of their external reserves in the New York Federal Reserve. $9.5 billion on August the 15th of 2021 when the United States withdrew from Afghanistan. Immediately the US government froze those assets. $9.5 billion. Very important money for the Afghan people. That was frozen immediately at the US withdrawal. Today the 11th of February after all these months the United States is unfrozen that money but what does this mean? Now the United States is focused on $7 billion of the $9.5 billion and Biden has said that the US government wants to divide the $7 billion into two tranches. $3.5 billion which will go to the Afghans. No procedure created yet. It's not as if a button is going to be pressed now and the money will flow directly to Afghanistan. A process is going to start. Not sure if that's going to be allowed because of the other tranches on the table. The remainder $3.5 billion is to be handed over to the families of people who died in the 9-11 attack. Now right after the attacks on September 11th, 2001 a group of families consolidated themselves and they opened a court case in the courts in Lower Manhattan in New York City where they essentially targeted the government of Afghanistan for recovery of money towards paying for the loss of lives of people who died. They didn't blame the government of Saudi Arabia from where most of the attackers came they didn't blame Al-Qaeda they actually put this on Afghanistan and others as well. Well, between the period of this 20-year occupation by the United States no question of delivering the money from Afghanistan because the government in Kabul was a pro- US government. The day the Taliban took power on the 15th of August 2021, the families essentially approached the court asking for the money that was frozen by the US government in the Federal Reserve to be handed over to the families. Well, the order signed by Biden on the 11th of February is to say, well, you don't get all 9.5 billion not even the 7 billion liquidity the liquid money there but you're going to get at least 3.5 billion. Now, the reason I say 4.5 that's supposed to go for aid to Afghanistan not going to move is that they will be immediately a challenge in court for all 7 billion to be handed to the families. This is important. United Nations in the course of the last couple of months has said by mid-2022 97% of the Afghan people will be below the poverty line. I looked at the numbers this week in fact the 97% of the population is already below the poverty line based on some calculations they did with the collapse of the gross domestic product. It's already collapsed. Customs officials in Pakistan saying that trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan has collapsed down to 25% of the volume it used to be that's the principle land trading partners are very significant fall people that I've been speaking remains food in the marketplace people just don't have the money to buy it they don't have the money because employment has collapsed by about a million workers out of work since August. A lot of this is because the Afghan government simply doesn't have money it doesn't have the ability to pay people now they could of course just invent their own money and start paying people but it doesn't work like that it's not so easy you have to have money it's not so easy just to invent things it's a dire situation in Afghanistan 97% of the population beneath the poverty line people are beginning to waste away I have a story that will come out either later this week or early next week which is about the wasting of children in hospitals that's where it opens really bad situation UNICEF says it's a very difficult place now keep an eye out for this Biden has said we're going to split the money 3.5 to Afghanistan I don't think it's going to happen because I think the 9-11 families are actually going to stop it that's Afghanistan Afghanistan I don't think took part in the Olympics I'm not sure Winter Olympics took place or taking place in Beijing I must say I haven't followed this at all I don't even know really what's going on I'm just a little Zoe of the opening ceremony but since then I haven't paid attention what's been happening with the Olympics the Winter Olympics in China well we're about a week into the Winter Olympics the Winter Olympics are sort of smaller in scale than the Summer Olympics a lot of skiing skating sports very common to snowy areas so it's a little less all encompassing as the Summer Olympics more versatile so to speak but nevertheless it has come to the center of the geopolitical stage because a couple a month back the US rallied some of its reliable allies the UK, Australia and attempted to pose a diplomatic boycott of these Olympics because they're being held in Beijing and China it was pretty ridiculous they had one of the spokespersons of this anti-China crusade and as Cantor who is a former basketball player at the Boston Celtics I think he was just traded and trying to rile up people against these Olympics saying that how can the games be held in a place that is such a creator of genocide human rights violations happening they ended up abandoning this campaign because they faced so much backlash for politicizing these games for imputing their athletes from competing in these games it's a really long process to participate in the Olympics and they were trying to just put a wedge in the road for them in the end, they ended up participating of course in these games for one weekend and controversy once again because there is a Chinese-American athlete who a couple years back decided China, her mother is born, grew up in China and many people do this there's a lot of people who have dual citizenship or mixed backgrounds that maybe if they're living in one country they decide they want to compete for another and this skier Eileen Gu she is competing for China in these Olympics games that has just received an insane amount of hate if you google her name it's horrible the mainstream media is dedicating so much energy dedicating all of this hatred and vitriol about their anti-China campaign in all senses on this 18-year-old athlete that she's a traitor how could she do this it's really ridiculous and I think it speaks to the ongoing obsession of the United States with villainizing China at the same time also there's been a lot of the mainstream media reporters from imperialist countries like the U.S. the U.K. who have been in the Olympic village and of course we're also in the middle of a pandemic and China has a zero COVID policy very strict measures doing everything very planned and carefully so to make sure people aren't getting sick to make sure they're able to participate and that nobody's life is at risk and they're also using this COVID policy to say look at how ridiculous it is that people are wearing these outfits and that were contained these should be a celebration of sport of coming together nations the Olympics is always a very joyful occasion it has of course been a politicized occasion but I think the backlash that China is facing that athletes are facing that there's zero COVID policies facing from across the board all of these mainstream media representative of how determined they are to villainize China even when they're doing the best to protect their own athletes, their own people and the people from across the world so I think maybe don't tune into all of the skiing competitions but do pay attention to how the media is treating China how the media is treating these athletes and just their determination in this sense well generally I like to watch sports but for some reason I'm not keen on the winter sports you know, some of the Olympics my favorite 1500 meters you know 5000 meters actually I don't know Prashant what you like but you know those middle distance things it shows some kind of fortitude so do these South African workers good god they've been on strike since what November, haven't you been talking hasn't people's dispatch run already enough articles about this strike when is it going to end it's a strike at a dairy factory correct the South African dairy giant clover the strike started November 22nd 2021 it's one of those it's one of those strikes which you know has captured popular imagination not just in South Africa not just among the dairy sector but actually across the world in fact I believe towards towards the end of January they were massive international protests in solidarity with the workers also we'll come to that the most recent incident of course was the fact that some of these workers in Clayville in the Clayville factory of clover were attacked and it is a very important attack to note because this is not the first time it has been happened it has happened we saw earlier last month there were instances of workers being threatened in fact what are they one of the car vehicles so while the workers was attacked but this incident also had an element of an organized attack to it because what we saw was that taxis you know suddenly came out grabbed a couple of workers and then took them inside the factory of remises where they were beaten up for hours apparently at least two workers were beaten up and three workers in total were hospitalized and a very scary incident because for multiple reasons one the workers of course are stating that the management was very definitely involved in this the management is responded to us saying that you know they were not involved etc etc but four people have been arrested but the more important thing of course is the fact that an attack like this took place these taxis have been known to ferry people basically scab workers who have been you know breaking the picket so there's a bit of a it's a complicated and problematic picture for the workers because it shows that there's a series of attacks going on against them maybe because of the international solidarity because the effectiveness with which they've actually pushed this agenda of the workers have pushed the agenda in terms of the industrial action because it's important to note for them this is not just a matter of wages that there is a matter of wages there is a matter of retrenchments there is a matter of the fact that you know a company which was supposed to give five additional jobs was planning to retrench more than one thousand people and there was this whole you know chain of events whereby so many promises given to the workers have been broken and the workers have been continuously pointing out that the reason behind this is to basically destroy Klover's market and then bring in foreign products which you talked about before but another key thing we need to notice of course is one topic we come to almost every week that Klover is essentially owned by the Israeli central bottling company which has factories in the occupied Palestinian territories and the movement that is built up by the Klover workers by the working class in South Africa actually also encompasses the Palestinian solidarity movements become a movement much larger than one sector the demands of just some workers which are very important of course but also it has been in some senses a much larger struggle to bring together the working class the trade unions, Palestinian solidarity organizations labour itself in every sense of the term through with the kind of with the kind of solidarity that we used to see in earlier decades past when the Palestinian cause and the workers cause and many other progressive causes allied together very strongly. South Africa of course is a very long tradition of such struggles as do many other countries but it's especially important at a time when critics of Israel are being stigmatized are being called anti-semitic are being called all kinds of names it's important to note that the Palestinian cause and the call progressive causes across the world have this bond of solidarity that connects them and that's actually I think a very interesting and important aspect of the Klover struggle as well so the company has made some concessions in discussions the workers still point out that many of these concessions are half concessions or they in effect not actually provide a lot of the benefits that the company is claiming so at one level discussions are going on but I think this struggle is something that will resonate far beyond the impact of what those talks are at the final conclusion that is reached at the discussion table and it's a question to governments a government in South Africa but also governments across the world as to how how do you sort of deal with the situation like this how do you deal with the situation like this people's dispatch has been on the case following this story looked around earlier today Prashant very few publications outside South Africa covering this story go to peoplesdispatch.org you can read about it in some depth including video footage of the taxis that Prashant talked about very chilling images you are listening to give the people what they want from peoples dispatch with Prashant Zoe I am Vijay from Globetrotter we are going to move on to Honduras recently we celebrated on this show it's an amazing thing got a new president first woman president and so on now there is less good news from Honduras court case comes in Zoe this has to do once again with environmentalism and environmental defenders and so on what's been happening what is this court case well it was bad news and then last night well I will give you this whole scoop but there has been a reversal in this bad news so there in Honduras one of the tendencies and one of the processes that happened after the 2009 was that the country which is very rich in natural resources there are many forests rivers a lot of you know minerals as well the coup governments the successive governments began a process of concessioning off these territories to transnational corporations local subsidiaries of these corporations and just you know national companies with in Honduras for you know exploitation of the minerals hydroelectric projects and other such projects and you know in one sense you say okay maybe there's going to be development maybe this will serve the people but by and large all of these projects for example we're exporting energy to other companies we're being you know constructed on indigenous land violating their land rights destroying the very fragile ecosystems and one such case cases of these is the with the guapino case and this has been you know a really emblematic case over the past couple of years of land defenders of water defenders who have been in prison since 2019 they basically were pressed with pretty outrageous charges by the company itself that was trying to build this mining project with the community alleged was illegal they had been resisting quite you know furiously and the company retaliates by you know inventing these charges getting you know false witnesses testimonies and creating this whole case against the community there were you know eight defenders water defenders in particular that were you know put in prison there were other members of the community that were also pressed with charges but eight of them were actually put in prison since September 1st 2019 they have been insisting that they're innocent that all of their actions were in defense of their lands and against this project they were receiving threats you know this is emblematic I say because this has happened time and time again in Hunters of course the case of Bertha Caceres is really similar in this sense she led very fierce resistance to the hydroelectric project in the Lenca territory also received threats was put in prison eventually she was assassinated in the midst of this case and so the Guapinol case is really important in that sense and it really mobilized a lot of people across Hunters society to demand their innocence to point out that the persecution of these eight water defenders is an example of this punitive system in Hunters where the companies are being given the land the communities are being kicked out and furthermore they're facing persecution the whole legal system is going against them instead of protecting their rights and so there was you know for the past couple of weeks the trial has been ongoing which would decide they were in preventative detention for you know the past three years and so this would be their sentencing and the day before yesterday the court ordered that they would be continuing to be in this preventative detention and then last night the Supreme Court ruled that this detention was illegal and they should be immediately freed and this victory was really really important that this moment as you mentioned the first female president was just sworn in it's a new time for Hunters I think this case in particular especially because first the case the court condemned them the Supreme Court had to step in I think shows how big the obstacles that remain are and that it's to really reform Hunters and to make it a just society for people to live in it's not enough just to change the legislator to just have a new president but the entire legal system in the country has been set up has been designed to persecute the people and so that this process is going to be a lot longer much deeper but you know that it is important to keep fighting these battles to keep you know defending the land defending the rivers and defending the people who are protecting them it's an important story I'm glad to hear about this reversal we're going to move now to India to the southwest state of Karnataka the town of Udupi was the real epicenter of this I have of course always think of Udupi as vegetarian food but I know it's a real place and in this case it had nothing to do with vegetarianism although that's been itself a battle in India around beef eating and so on seems to be a same kind of thing as the whole beef question Prashant this is now about Muslim girls in particular covering their head in other words the hijab what's been happening in Karnataka in Udupi and in the whole of India really right it's a very disturbing series of events actually because what we've seen over the past weeks actually this has been going on for weeks it's not a new thing it's been escalating with codes getting into the picture with governments giving all kinds of instructions but fundamentally the issue is that towards the end of last year girls who were wearing the hijab were not allowed to enter the college in Udupi district because apparently it was against the norms of the uniform that's what the college administration said and these girls of course were unhappy they sort of protested as there was a photo of them sitting in the halls of the college on the stairs because they were not allowed into classes which kind of went all across social media and it was a bit puzzling as to why this is an issue because across the country we have people of innumerable religions, faiths in India, people come to education institutions there are often marks of faith in some of them that's generally how things are that's how all of us have seen that's how all of us have been to school so you really can't sort of what the authority is starting from the administration, the local college administration to various sections the government has sort of tried to present this as some kind of you know attitude of fairness or attitude of equality or uniformity you know where it's like okay we don't allow any kind of you know any kind of religious expression or whatever but what actually this is is pretty clear Karnataka is a state where the Bharati Janta Party the ruling party is in power there is a long history of Karnataka being one of those states which has been used as a laboratory to sort of create this Hindu centric vision of society where the minorities are basically stigmatized and the minorities are treated as second class citizens and this seems part of a larger agenda to sort of bring that about and it's instructive because it's not we're not even saying that you know this was ordered from the highest levels of government also this is kind of instructive as to how when a government behaves like this every level of society chooses to respond in this way and it's not just the fact that these girls are not allowed to enter classes because they're very hijab but once it became an issue there was mobilization in which young boys for instance in large numbers started wearing saffron scarfs to class school and you know behaving in a hooliganish manner, conferencing some of these girls you know creating a massive air of tension very extreme kind of so very shocking visuals and videos coming out of many of these education institutions so an education institution becomes a space for strife because these basically is organized groups of boys wearing these scarfs in a very threatening manner going ahead and this is given the administration the opportunity to sort of come down and say okay there are going to be no symbols of religious expression at all so this is actually in some ways how this entire issue has been stage managed or say handled in such a way as to basically tell the minorities that you know in this case the Muslims of course but other resistance of the targeted that basically you're walking a very thin line here at any moment of time anything you do whether it be a choice of food whether it be a choice of clothes could be a reason for you to be targeted and a very important thing to notice is that fundamentally these students are being denied the right to attend classes so you know and the Indian constitution is a wide variety of provisions about equality about the right to practice your religion about the right to education all of which seem to be getting violated in this process and now basically the courts have also said that okay you know we don't want to cause tension so again no no clothing that causes controversy that's general term in various sections administrative authorities are throwing it out so this has been an issue which has been sort of taken in one and a half months to tell the entire country and this is like I said not just one incident to tell minorities in the entire country that your existence your access to public spaces any aspect of your life could be under threat purely because of the fact purely because of your religion or purely because of your identity or whatever so in that way this is not just one localised incident this is an incident that speaks I think to how India as a whole is pretty much shaping up which is really a cause for concern it's an insane story Prashant because I mean the whole of Indian society is filled with all kinds of religions I come from a Sikh family people wear turbans all over the place you and I work for a newspaper where people had giant cast marks painted on their foreheads and so on and important to note that the Chief Minister of India's largest province is the head of a religious order and is always clad in saffron so and the Prime Minister has been seen recently dressed in all kinds of interesting Star Wars like robes so it's a bizarre story but of course not so bizarre it's a direct assault we're going to close out today's show with a little update again on Ukraine because God knows what's happening there but let's start with buffoonish Prime Ministers Boris Johnson you know now a photograph has appeared of him at one of those parties in Christmas standing there behind the fellow with tinsel on his head and you know bottles of Prosecco on the table and so on well he's immediately decamped to NATO headquarters front line of the struggle now going to Warsaw Poland England on the case Boris Johnson in the lead let's forget about the scandal that's detaining him at home but there's actually more chilling business before us we have the United States making the statement that Russian troops must withdraw from the Ukraine Russia border in fact just yesterday, Thursday the 10th of February there were exercises conducted by Russian and Belarusian troops about 30,000 troops not far from the border but still on the Russian side it should be said meanwhile there are 500 US troops in Lithuania Lithuania Lithuania government has asked for more troops there are special forces troops in Ukraine that is in the public it's not secret information but quite chillingly the government of Denmark has asked that is Matti Fredrickson the social democratic head of the government of Denmark has asked for US troops to enter now this has created a little scandal in Denmark about the entry of US troops apparently barred for decades on the other hand Greenland is a colony of Denmark and in Greenland the US has a base and has had one for a long time it's really interesting how these stories get reported one tends to forget what exists and then says wow there's a controversy in Denmark around US troops entering and there is also of course no hesitation to say Russians have to withdraw from the border on their own territory but the United States can send troops to Ukraine, Lithuania Denmark and other countries including Poland very strange period we're in right now there was a meeting held between the UK's defence minister and the Russian defence minister it's an important meeting took place in Moscow Sergey Shugo he talked to the United Kingdom's people and he said that look let's start a process as a defence chief to defence chief in a way of you know civilian leader of the military to defence chief by slowing down on weapons deliveries into Ukraine let's start a process of trust building and so on I don't think that's going to be taken seriously at all the United Kingdom and NATO have been saying that Russia is going to do some kind of false flag operation in Donbas to in a sense allow Russia to intervene not sure exactly what the evidence of that is but this is chilling and one hopes that they'll be able to dial back from this looks like Emmanuel Macron is going to play a role in doing some of the dialing back at NATO headquarters this week and into the weekend let's see we'll be following this carefully you've been listening to give the people what they want we hope this is what you want let us know what you think we always look for your suggestions always happy to hear from you you have good stories that we don't cover tell us we'd like to know about them also you've got documents to send us send it to 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