 The United States, as we reported yesterday on the show, continues to block aid efforts into Gaza. Meanwhile, the UN's relief agency that operates in the besieged enclave says that the people feel abandoned and shunned and alienated. UN aid efforts are also on the verge of collapse in Gaza. And Israeli occupation forces have intensified suppression in both East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank. We talked to Abdul and asked him what Friday was like in the occupied territories. Ford, which is among the biggest automakers in the United States, has capitulated and reached a historic tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers Union that represents 57,000 of its employees. They are said to win bigger raises than they have in the past two decades or more. Does this right the wrongs done to workers in the past and set the tone for US labor movements in other sectors as well? And our last bit today is on the ICC cricket World Cup, which is ongoing in India. The tournament is at its halfway point and the sport has received the good news while the tournament has been going on after the IOC session held in Mumbai. Then it will be included in the Olympic program for the summer games in Los Angeles, 2028. Is this the logical next step in the process of making cricket more global? Or is the International Olympic Committee just chasing cricket dollars? Salam, you're watching Daily Debrief coming to you as always from People's Dispatch. I'm Sajan Thani and before we go any further, I ask you to take a second and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Gaza is being strangled, says Philippe Lazzarini, who is the Chief of the United Nations Relief Refugee Agency for Palestinians. He also said that the people of Gaza feel shunned, alienated and alone at this time they're receiving very little help. The United States, as we were mentioning earlier, continuing to block the kind of aid efforts that are required to meet the basic needs of the 2 million plus people that live in Gaza. Meanwhile, reports also coming in that the United States has hit targets in Syria. The US, of course, has said that these are unrelated to what is going on in Israel as well as in the Gaza Strip and the occupied territories. But is anything unrelated at all? Abdul at this point, how does this figure, Abdul, if we can start maybe with that part or actually maybe we can start given that it's Friday and we're seeing increased sort of suppression by Israeli security forces, by occupation forces in both occupied East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank. What were scenes like at Aqsa Mosque where normally on a Friday perhaps tens of thousands would gather for prayers and social activities? Well, everything is connected to just to kind of refer to what you were mentioning about in the beginning of your interaction. And as far as Aqsa Mosque is concerned, remember that as you rightly pointed out, this is Friday. Every Friday, thousands of people, thousands of Palestinians gather to offer their weekly prayer at the mosque. But this time Israelis kind of tried to prevent people from gathering there. The reasons are of course obvious. One is that we have also discussed so many times on this show in the past that how any large gathering, particularly when there is a war going on in Gaza, kind of becomes a kind of an issue for the Israeli occupation. And this large gathering on Friday was of course one of those gatherings which of course it was expected that post the prayers there will be a solidarity protest. There could be a solidarity protest in favor of the people in Gaza. And Israel wanted to prevent that. And that's why its forces basically did whatever they could do except for the firing like bullets. They tried everything. Basically they fired, you can say basically tear gas and so on, tried to kind of prevent forcefully these people who were kind of trying to go and pray. That is one. What was happening is Jerusalem is one. If you see the larger West Bank, I think we have also discussed that on this show before, but you will see in Jenin more than four people were killed. And there are reports that Israeli forces were basically trying to kind of cut the communication lines, which basically joins the Jenin refugee camps where thousands of Palestinians live with the rest of the West Bank. And they have basically kind of surrounded it with forces and they have also kind of destroyed the road, the only road which connects it with the rest of the West Bank. There are also reports of of course arrests and shootings in different parts of the occupied West Bank. So if you see the war is not going on on just one front in Gaza. All the Palestinian occupied territories, whether it is Israel or it is occupied West Bank, the Israeli forces are trying to kind of oppress Palestinians in whatever way possible. They don't want the Palestinians in occupied West Bank and Israel to kind of even show solidarity to their fellow people in Gaza. And that's what basically explains the kind of operation which the people in Israel are going through. Right. And we'll get to those US strikes now, Abdul targeting, coming also along with new sanctions. What are the details on those strikes? And as you were saying, nothing is unrelated. Tie the sort of threads together for us, please. Well, ever since the war began on October 7, US has been trying to kind of prevent the war to become much more reasonable. And despite their attempts, it is not possible to restrict kind of to constrain the war within the Palestinian territories. And we have seen how the Hezbollah has been basically trying basically clashing with the Israeli forces. Israel was forced to remove thousands of settlers from the northern parts primarily because there is a kind of viable threat from Hezbollah. Then there are reports of how Houthis from Yemen are also kind of gradually trying to kind of make some interventions. Then there are reports from Israeli base observation base in Eritrea being attacked. One of the soldiers was killed yesterday on Thursday. Then there are also reports of, of course, attack on the US basis all across the region. Primarily, the attacks have increased in recent days ever since the war began. And the main reasons cited by the groups who basically claimed that they were behind the attack is that the way US is supporting the Israel's war effort in Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is basically primary, you can say, reason for them to kind of target the US basis. So according to the US own claim, around 19 attacks have been reported ever since the beginning of this month. And most of these attacks have happened in the recent time, ever since the war has begun. And they can see that there is a growing kind of mobilization against the US assets all across the region. There were similar attacks in Iraq. There are, and by the way, one should remember that the number of US assets in the region have also increased in the last few days. Apart from the US warship which was deployed in the initial days. Now, US has also deployed more troops and more warships in the region. So it seems that there and all of this is related to the war in Gaza. The US want, as I said before, US wants to kind of threaten all these regional players. The states have not been proactive when it comes to kind of putting physical threats to Israeli and US interest in the region. But what we call the non-state actors or the groups, popular groups, the resistant groups have been very vocal and very active. So the US is trying to put a quote unquote deterrent against all these groups. And that's why the number of assets is increasing. And that basically puts US in much more vulnerable position. And that is the reason that the two military bases in Syria were targeted on Thursday. And the US claim that this is unrelated is basically a bogus claim. It has no bases on the ground and everyone can see it. If you see, if you just to kind of conclude that what Austin claimed, the US Secretary of Defense claimed that these attacks were unrelated. If you just see what is happening in the UN General Assembly at this moment, there is a debate going on. And during that debate on the first day, on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister quite obviously said, which was similar things were reputed by the other speakers who came after him, that if US is backing Israeli genocide in Gaza and if US continues to do that, there is no way it can escape the repercussions related to it. And it will face those repercussions. So if you just see everything in that context, it becomes quite obvious that US claims does not have any rational basis. It's just a PR attempt to kind of justify that this is independent to what is happening in Israel as in Gaza. And that has no other aspects attached to it. But of course that nobody is buying of course. But they are still selling and as you're pointing out rightly Abdullah, it just creates a cycle of increasing assets, therefore increasing vulnerability and increasing resistance as long as they continue to hold this stance of not allowing even basic aid and demanding or imposing like we were talking about yesterday and internationally mandated ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible to end the kind of horror that we've been witnessing and the people of Gaza, Palestinians living in Gaza have been living through since the 7th of October. Thanks very much Abdul for your time today. We move on to our next story on debrief which is a big one. We've of course covered the UAW United Auto Workers strike on the 25th of October. The leaders of the Union announced that Ford which is among the three biggest auto manufacturers in the United States has capitulated. There is now a tentative agreement in place between the Union and the manufacturer and the company. 57,000 Ford employees will benefit from what is the biggest hike in 22 years. So massive win there for workers for unions. Anish is looking at this story. Anish, the agreement provides among other things and I'm sure you'll get into the details for us. 25% increase in base wages going through to April 2028. So it's a massive win and comes along with other demands also being fulfilled including better retirement benefits and the right to strike when maybe future plant closures are planned and for workers to oppose those kind of management decisions. Take us to some of the more important details. Well, let's begin with the wage hike itself. It's quite a historic one. It hasn't happened in decades. This is one of the largest victories that they have come up with because apart from the base wages, base hike of 25%, they're also seeing a cost of living adjustment system mechanism that used to exist earlier but was withdrawn in the previous contract term primarily because companies like Ford, GM and Stellantis were actually going through a certain kind of loss and workers pretty much sacrificed cost of living adjustments at the expense of their own wages being completely stagnated and real wages declining over the next few years. So this return of the cost of living adjustments is actually going to bring up the base wage hike to about around 33% or to 35%. That is what the union leadership is calculated and that would be a significant increase over the next five years. Apart from that, we are also looking at an immediate wage hike of 11% at the very minimum for people who are not contract workers. For contract workers, there's a different kind of wage hikes and benefits that are being announced. We are looking at about a 150% increase for contract workers for the next contract tenure and on top of that there's an 85% immediate increase in their wages. Now contract workers are the lowest, the least paid group of workers, class of workers within these automobile sector. They do not have any kind of retirement benefits or medical benefits and so acquiring this kind of massive hikes for them is also a major victory and clearly shows that the union has not left anybody behind. You're also saying, obviously, apart from the cost of living adjustments, you're also saying major return of arrangements that exist for pensions, for retirement benefits and for medical care and that where the employer's contributions will also go up over the next couple of years and that is going to actually benefit a lot of workers. Now this is obviously, there are arguments about how this might, how much this can actually help workers considering that inflation and the cost of living crisis that has unfolded over the past two years, for us two or three years because of the pandemic pretty much actually brought down real wages in several areas, especially for people who work in contracts. But nevertheless, this historic settlement that might actually create a sort of precedence also for workers in Ford and Stellantis, sorry, for General Motors and Stellantis and that can actually benefit about close to 150,000 workers in the automobile sector in the United States and this obviously also shows that strikes work and labour mobilisation, labour militancy has worked and this is pretty much a very good example of that success. Absolutely and you led us very nicely into that second part of our conversation today, Anish, which is the kind of impact that this will have not just on the other workers of course at GM and Stellantis who are also striking but we've seen massive labour mobilisations across sectors in the United States for some time now. What are they likely to gain from this victory and how is it, in what way will it sort of add or invigorate the struggle for workers' rights, better wages, decent working conditions all of the things that we've talked about on the show before. It's going to be an interesting thing to watch because obviously this Ford agreement is coming after 40 days of this progressive strike that has been there and that is definitely going to have its own impact and in the negotiations that we are going to see in Stellantis and in General Motors, we can expect that there will be more or less similar or same terms hopefully for the rest of the workers within the automobile industry and this is also definitely not coming at a time when the industry is going through a bad phase. The industry has made billions in profits over the last few years especially during the pandemic and obviously it is time for them to share part of that to the workers as well but the question definitely comes as how far this can go how much it will affect other industries which still have different kinds of contracts but we have recently seen how labour mobilisations across sectors have played wonders in many ways in actually giving workers some very crucial historic protections we have recently talked about the right to strike in Hollywood and how they secured a major victory of their own we have also recently spoken about labour mobilisation in the retail sector in fast food chains and this is definitely going to make this is definitely a very new era where you are actually seeing a return of labour mobilisation in a country which among the OSED nations has one of the poorest labour unionisation rates is known for very restrictive labour laws or union laws that actually respect a lot of mobilisation in itself from the get go even putting up obstacles in forming unions so that clearly shows that this labour mobilisation making such major strides is going to definitely affect how people view labour unions now in a very different era it is far away from the kind of demonisation that we used to see against unions so definitely this is going to mark a different period and obviously the automobile sector was one of the places where labour mobilisations were massive and entered massively into the US political system this is going to be no different the current set of strikes and the kind of victories that they are going to make in the coming days Thank you very much Anish for giving us the low down on that massive victory for the United Auto Workers Union and as you pointed out for the larger labour movement and all unions across sectors particularly in the United States our final bit for today is from the ICC Cricket World Cup which as I mentioned is ongoing in India now if you follow the sport of cricket you will already know that India has emerged or has turned into the global driving force for this sport particularly from a monetary or a financial aspect most of the television revenue, advertising revenue interest comes from either India or the wider Indian subcontinent so it was kind of interesting that two major things happened in the sport of cricket back to back first it was Afghanistan the Afghanistan men's cricket team that beat the reigning world champions England at the World Cup that was a massive shock the other was a development that impacts the sport at a macro level which is at the IOC session held in Mumbai which we reported on earlier on daily debrief the team was included in the program for the summer games Los Angeles 2028 players across the board including some of the best players in the world talking about how they are excited to be Olympians and you know part of what is I suppose the biggest spectacle in global sport but we will be asking Sharda Ogre is joining us he will go across to her Sharda I want to ask you first though in the context of the World Cup because it's being hosted in India because Pakistan are participating because it's just ahead of a general election and nothing gathers interest as much as cricket does when it comes to India so is it all political? Absolutely Siddharth what's happened in this World Cup is that India are the host nation we are halfway through the team has performed very very strongly but the entire manner in which it was organized with regard to say particularly the Pakistani players their visas were delayed which technique never happens if they are all clear from governments to have Pakistani cricketers come everything is very smooth this time the visas are delayed their media had difficulty getting visas for accreditation and literally there has been hostility in the crowd as well so this whole thing about the World Cup without the world was a headline in an article in the Melbourne age and that is true because it's almost like India celebrating it's cricket where there are ways to celebrate it but the world is here so you need to celebrate the game more than just your specific identity of your great Indianness but regardless of that what has happened is that the Indian team has done exceptionally well in this tournament they are looking like the strongest team we are halfway through five matches out of the nine that they will have to play before the knockouts and they have won all five they are the only team that have won all five so it's a very interesting tournament because everyone else is there trying to compete for the big prize this is the biggest prize in world cricket but it's almost like the sort of nationalist project of the Indian government seems to be as much a part of it as the Indian team's performance it's almost, it's alongside it there were stories about the Indians maybe playing in an all saffron uniform against Pakistan so saffron of India was the green of Pakistan is also a parallel sort of religious kind of symbolism that was there you got all these things going on right and if we can talk about the second major development Sharda cricket at the Olympics is this sort of the next step in making it a truly global sport or is it more about the marketing people and the suits of the International Olympic Committee wanting to sort of get a cut of cricket's money pay I think the revenue and the eyeballs are very important in this entire argument in terms of its popularity now everybody tells you that cricket is not a global game only few countries played, only 10 countries played at the highest level which is absolutely true but what we have to remember that in terms of the highest media rights value for sort of nation versus nation competition so it's like world championships in any sport number one is possibly the FIFA World Cup number two are the Olympic Games and number three is the cricket World Cup now that is a huge, that's a massive number in terms of what the media rights value is which is possibly one interest for the IOC because it's in what brings this media rights value it's probably the Indians have continent the population and the passion that they have for cricket so that's the IOC side of the picture in terms of what it looks like and it's a very young population in this region as well and also the format which is 2020 cricket is the one that is the most easily marketable elsewhere so I think viewers say in parts of the world where cricket is not a game in their sport at the top of the mind there is a price to know that for example Thailand women have a very good women's team Brazil have a very good women's team Papua New Guinea play men's cricket as well so you're getting all these combinations and permutations working into this format and I think in say in parts of Africa as well they're trying to have the African Nations Cup and bring people into cricket and the Olympics will both then spread the money that comes from Olympic participation all the way down the line and help the cricket sort of globalization project and in that context this 2020 which is a three and a half hour short format of the game is the best ways very exciting it's very fast and whatever we old people may think about the format it's really easily communicable which a lot of cricket tends not to be sometimes quite complicated to both to teach and to learn but 2020 works for everybody and let's see how it does in Los Angeles because you'll see you'll be seeing the top six teams of the world competing and you'll see really really high quality cricket all right thanks very much Sharda pretty interesting how I think cricket particularly in terms of how it's run around the world we'll deal with this Olympic question but we'll get to that somewhere later and now that's all we have on this episode of Daily Debrief from Sharda, myself, everyone on the show and the entire team at People's Dispatch thank you very much for watching you can of course get details on all of these stories at our website People's Dispatch.org we'll be back for a week-ending show tomorrow until then stay safe, goodbye