 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You're with Give the People What They Want. That's Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Show 154. 154 seems like a lot of shows, but if you look back and think about the kind of things we've covered, there's been a lot of war that's been on the table. It's pretty shameful how frequent we have to cover war and so on. It's a pretty shameful situation, but nonetheless that's where we are. Reports coming from Gaza continue to be horrific. The United Nations says that they have actually documented evidence of war crime. I want to start with one of them, which is a report that was put out by the Human Rights Agency of the UN, which suggests that they received what they call disturbing information. This is two days ago on the 20th of December, the summarily killing of 11 unarmed men in front of their family members in the Al-Ramal neighborhood in Gaza City. What they said is between the night of the 19th December into the 20th, the Israeli Defense Force surrounded and raided the Al-Aouda building. This building is in the Al-Ramal neighborhood. Three related families were taking shelter in that building in addition to the Anand family, the main family that lives in the building. The Yoro met Human Rights Monitor, UN and others interviewed and saw sources telling them that the Israeli Defense Forces entered the building, separated the men from the women and children and then shot and killed 11 of the men. Most of the men aged in the late 20s and early 30s in front of their family members. Then allegedly they ordered the women and children into a room and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room. Reportedly seriously injuring some of them including an infant and a child. This entire incident, the reason I'm describing the entire incident, this is one incident in the last 48 hours or so. 300 Palestinians have been killed but this is one incident where there are eyewitnesses who document one particular war crime. This is again part of a process of wiping out either entire families or the men in a family. Wiping them all up. But there's something egregious in this of going into an apartment building separating men and women and then killing the men in front of the women feels like something from another planet. Something that has been conjured up by a novelist doesn't seem real at all but indeed this is where this war has gone. Continues to be like that. UN has now shown that around 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza. That's 1% of the population. I've been over this before on give the people what they want. 1% of a population, you know, by and large, okay, that just seems like it's not such a big amount of people but I want you to consider if you take a population say United States 300 and somewhat million 1% is a lot of people. 1% of Gaza is a lot of people. And as I mentioned to you already in the last show they're wiping out entire families for whom it's not 1% that's been killed but 100%. United Nations again trying to pull together various forces to talk about ceasefires and so on. This idea just falls off the table. You know, they've come up with some new terminology. Really strange language, sustainable ceasefire, humanitarian pause. These are new words. They don't really mean anything. What is a sustainable ceasefire? That's the phrase used by Lord David Cameron of the United Kingdom giving the reason why the UK decided to abstain on the vote on the ceasefire in the UN. Meanwhile, got to be said it has escalated into the region. It has escalated certainly into the Red Sea the Gate of Tears where the Yemeni forces are beginning to mine the waters warning the United States that if US ships come near the Yemenis will fire at them. In fact, there are reports of Yemeni forces already firing out into the bubble towards what they see as hostile militaries that are coming close to the waters of Yemen. If Ansar Allah in Yemen is taking this kind of position, Hezbollah in the region in the southern region of Lebanon also very active ready to continue this fight one of the great dangers of not having a full ceasefire now is that this is going to become and indeed already has become a regional war. That's where we are in Gaza but again let's not forget this is one war of many that we've been covering. Another conflict a serious conflict has been in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo well the Democratic Republic of the Congo just had another election. This is the second civilian transfer of power in that country Prashant what happened in the Congo's election right that's a very good question because the Congo's election which is supposed to be held on one day that's the 20th of December you know went into the second day that's the 21st because the sheer amount of chaos that accompanied the process voters finding it difficult to vote some reports of violence as well an important thing to note is that this was predicted way back because the completely chaotic way in which the elections had been organized there had been a revamp of the electoral role system a lot of irregularities reported by activists which people's dispatch also has covered a few days ago we didn't have a report by our colleague Tarpreya on the context in which the DRC elections are being held and it's very important to note two or three elements as far as these elections are concerned one of which of course is what you mentioned which is the conflict in the eastern part the M23 rebel group backed very clearly clearly by Rwanda a close ally of the United States and close ally of the United Kingdom of course we've been hearing about the Rwanda deal for some time now but Rwanda has been backing the M23 rebels which have played a huge role in continuing warfare in that region despite multiple declarations of truth despite all these attempts by regional forces to sort of bring about some kind of a truth the war has continued with the explicit backing of Rwanda that is one aspect of it and our second aspect is that the incumbent president who is seeking a second term is viewed by a large section of the population as very compromised starting from the fact that the last election in 2018 itself was viewed as compromised because of a deal struck with the form of President Joseph Kabila and the deal between Shashikari and Kabila is believed to be the reason for so activists have actually contested the fact that Shashikari even won the elections but that it was basically a result of a backdoor negotiation between regional powers between Kabila and Shashikari which allowed Shashikari to sort of become the president so here we have a president who from day one his whole legitimacy to remain in power has been questioned and now he is seeking a second term at a time when the the imprinted rebellion back by Rwanda has considerably sort of caused huge amount of number of deaths the government's own forces responsible for attacks on civilians including Massika recently but like our colleague Kamala Musawadi has mentioned this article that ultimately this election as other elections in the past are really a test of question for the sovereignty of the people of DRC who are in this strange but not so strange position of having sitting on top of one of the vastest mineral resource hordes in the world but are suffering from immense poverty and it's basically the companies of multinationals were benefiting and the attacks by Rwanda back attacks for instance are seen as a pretext for this kind of mass looting of resources while the people who are supposed to have sovereignty over these resources are not able to in any sense benefit from them and not only that are also not able to even have the sovereignty to elect their own leaders so this I think has been the real challenge for the people of DRC over the past many many years we have seen this continuously raised by activists we have seen this call justice for Congo of your fault starting from the genocide took place in the late 90s in which Rwanda and Uganda were involved and to this day these countries as well as other countries in the region interrupting the sovereignty or disrupting the sovereignty of the DRC and that has been the central crisis, the central conflict in that region that for the pursuit of mineral resources these neighboring countries back by the United States back by the United Kingdom have pursued this policy of fomenting in violence and chaos in the DRC so we are going to wait for the results and see but many activists fear that is not really going to change the situation on the ground this question of sovereignty this question of control over your destiny this question of control over your resources this question of building a better life of eliminating poverty it requires the people to be able to not face this kind of a proxy war and that will still remain the fundamental question in the DRC even after these elections one of the great loan words from Hindi or Hindustani into English is the word loot this word comes into English after the rebellion of 1857-58 was crushed by the British forces allied by the royal families of the region and afterwards the troops were told they could go and loot the people whom they had overthrown well Congo is a country the democratic republic of Congo experienced immense looting and now Argentina with this new president empowers decreed a number of things open door for the looting of Argentina Zoe Mr. Millay, Mr. Loot yeah and I think I'll just warn everyone right now I think we're going to be talking about Argentina a lot because the level with which Millay has been empowered to take forward the most backwards economic policies against a population that's already reeling from an economic crisis is really ridiculous and of course this is going to be confronted by the mass organizations on the streets and that's exactly what we've seen so far again in these now it's been 12 days of Millay in office and he has by decree essentially implemented a series of legislations one in particular which is the labor form which again he implemented by decree in modifying 300 labor regulations affecting 11 labor laws and this is largely attempting to just right off the bat hit people where it hurts affect for example how much they're paid for overtime change for example how much they're compensated if they're fired or let go change for example who is allowed legally to strike this is a trend that we've seen across the world that people understand that there are there is going to be a response from the streets and that the executive as much as possible has to do everything that it can to make sure that people's right to strike their right to protest their right to demand better conditions is done in the most vulnerable way possible so for example these modifications so labor laws says that there's certain activities that cannot fully go on strike and that if they do go on strike they face penalties and we've seen this again we've seen this in many different countries countries across Europe and this is clearly preparing for the scenario where people's economic situations are going to be in a very bad state even Millay himself had said these months are going to be bad we saw last week we started off with the currency devaluation the cutting of the state budget now we're seeing in order to prepare for this scenario where we know that people are going to be pushed further into poverty now we're going to take away their right to strike we're going to make sure that every single hard fought for victory the labor rights having access to overtime pay all of these other things which not even all of the Argentine population even enjoys because of course we know that so many people are employed in the informal sector but these few rights which a small portion of the working class even has access to even those are just being completely taken away but again we have seen such a strong response on the streets already day long protests famous picatheros are back we're going to see a period of high high high mobilization in Argentina of course this is seeing people are going to be suffering even more but I think we're going to see a rebuilding of workers power of rebuilding of organizations and it's only in December is a historic month for Argentina and Marx of course the uprising in 2001 where they actually drove a president out of office we know the Argentinian people are capable so I think we're going to see some very very interesting months people are not happy with what Mila is doing and again as you said he's also opening the door for deregulating the financial markets it's across the board hitting people where it hurts and making it possible for big capitalists to get away with what they want you're with give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that's Zoe and Prashant I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter very happy to be with you this is 154th show the next two topics we're going to touch on are in fact a little related they're related because they have to do with individuals who have been caught up in the kind of let's call it the imperialist struggle I can't think of a less ideological phrase that is being taken place around the world the first is of course Julian Assange who remains in Britain and Prashant is going to take us there but then after that Alex Saab who is a Venezuelan diplomat Zoe will go there after that I mean one case a case of great sorrow Prashant well there's a little bit of good news but why don't we go to Assange first a case of some tribulation right Vijay of course we just got to know a few days ago that Julian Assange's appeal will be heard by a two judge bench of the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom this is after the 20th of February it's a two day hearing and this will basically be challenging Julian Assange will be challenging a single judge's order which basically pretty much dismisses grounds of appeal now for keeping the legalese aside we know that Assange has been in Belmarsh prison since 2019 since April 2019 that's more than four and a half years and it's important to note that right now he is not facing any charge he has been held in jail because the US government wants to extradite him and they want to in the United States indict him or charge him on 18 counts including 17 counts under the SPNRJAC the first time a publisher is facing charges under the SPNRJAC the total jail term for all these charges together is 35 years in prison but it's not just what happens at the end of the trial as much as even while being held for trial the kind of horrible conditions he's going to be held when the trial takes place as well now these are all well known facts and the other fact remains that also time and again medical experts have certified that Julian Assange is also there is a suicide risk there and all these factors were considered by Judge Vanessa Britser who basically said that Assange should not be extradited to the United States but the later codes basically pretty much overturned that verdict and they overturned that verdict purely based on assumptions or assurances given by the United States that oh we'll treat them treat him well etc etc which are it's quite absurd to say the least but more importantly I think we need to remember two things one is of course the fact that why is Assange in this situation today and while we talked about it on this show on People's Dispatch many many times before we have written articles about it it's very important to remember that Assange is in jail for the crime of journalism for exposing the kind of war crimes for exposing the kind of atrocities of the United States and its allies committed that is basically his crime and that is why he's been hounded all these years we're talking about over a decade of being hounded by the richest by the most powerful country on this one man and his project especially that one man being hounded in various ways culminating in him being dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019 and I think the other important thing to remember is that even by the standards of any even by any standards of justice this whole legal process has been a complete farce because we know that Assange and his lawyers were spied on we know that even while Assange was in the Ecuadorian Embassy there were plans to actually assassinate him which were being considered at the level of the United States Government the Donald Trump administration at that time we know that in there have been so many aspects of miscarriage of justice by any standard of the law Julian Assange should be allowed to walk free immediately but nonetheless this pretence of a legal process has continued Assange and his team continuously resisting the fact this fact has been recorded by leaders across the world we had Latin American leaders especially take a very powerful stance calling for the release of Assange recognizing his contribution to journalism to giving people the kind of information they need to make the regulations they even had the irony of irony that you had right wing Republicans come on board to say that what is happening is not right we've had parliamentarians in Australia are doing that but despite all this this current Joe Biden administration which kept claiming that how we are so different from Donald Trump and his regime nonetheless continued that persecution and is continuing that persecution today so very important is February 21st I believe there are going to be huge protests across the world there's already been a call even for these protests so we're going to see people and maybe for that matter even the leaders issuing statements for people across the world taking to streets to express solidarity with Assange to basically say that journalism is not a crime journalism is not a crime Julian Assange of course mainly a publisher and that's important to say because at the time when WikiLeaks published the findings that were given to them by Chelsea Manning so did the New York Times so did the Guardian so did the Hindu so did a number of newspapers around the world and it is quite shocking that these newspapers aren't almost daily calling for the release of a fellow publisher that's the shocking part of this Alex Sam is not a publisher he's not a journalist he's a businessman also a diplomat picked up very strangely Zoe held in again strange circumstances and now equally in strange circumstances released what's going on with Mr. Alex Saaba of Venezuela well he arrived back to Venezuela Caracas greeted by President Nicolas Maduro and his family who have been fighting tirelessly for his release since he was detained in Cape Verde in June 2020 so it was he has had a very complicated road to say the least Alex Saaba is a Colombian businessman who started working with the Venezuelan government and he was a very crucial element a very crucial person in essentially negotiating deals that would help kind of break the sanction so when you're a country like Venezuela and you're facing one of the harshest sanction regimes that exist today currently but at the time from about 2016 to 2020-21 Venezuela was essentially banned from doing business with anyone very few governments would actually do this business and so how are they going to import food during a pandemic how are they going to import supplies to build homes for the people how are they going to maintain any of the basic and fundamental services that they provide for their people and Alex Saaba was essentially one of those people who through his expertise was able to broker these deals and actually get food imported into Venezuela of course on a parallel note there is a process within Venezuela to make sure that Venezuela can also be food sovereign and produce its own food but that doesn't take away the fact that actually you need to do trade with other countries and that you can't actually survive just yourself by yourself and in this context the US government sanctioned Alex Saaba and said that actually this businessman who was later appointed as a special envoy of the Venezuelan government in his capacity which is a diplomatic title the US government said that he had engaged in money laundering and corrupt etc etc and he was put on the sanctions list just to remind people there's dozens of people in Venezuela who are sanctioned the US government their tactic of sanctions is not only to strangle the financial markets you know usurp for example Venezuela's SICO and prevent it from engaging in certain financial transactions but also to make anyone who's related to the Venezuelan government in any capacity make their lives a living hell and this doesn't just block them from visiting the United States but it also just puts in many senses kind of a target on their back there's literally a bounty on the head of Nicolas Maduro from the US government so Alex Saaba again was sanctioned by the US government and then when he was traveling from Venezuela to the Middle East he was detained his plane was refueling and he was held in Cape Verde for I think over 500 days essentially the behest of the US government this case again was met with many many irregularities why was he detained he's a diplomat under what grounds and then shockingly enough he was extradited to the United States from Cape Verde to countries who don't have an extradition agreement he was held in the United States and through intense negotiations in many different fronts he was finally released in a prisoner exchange between Venezuela and the United States he is back in Venezuela he gave a press conference with Nicolas Maduro with his wife who was one of the forefront people fighting for his release and I think that again this has to be seen in the larger geopolitical scenario where Venezuela despite being you know a declared enemy of the United States also has something which the United States desperately needs which is oil and so I think that they're coming around because of their desperate situation their neighbor has oil it's a lot easier than dealing with other dynamics that is unwilling to so I think that we're seeing a softening a de facto recognition of the validity and the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro's government so it'll be interesting to see what happens next year 2020 for Venezuelan presidential elections well so the sanctions on Venezuela pretty harsh the United States today ordered new sanctions not only against Russia but against any institution that enables Russia to do business hitting Austria's refence and bank international hitting Italy's unique credit hitting the OTP Bank in Hungary an attempt to go after Russia but you know it's interesting these sanctions haven't really hurt Russia that much earlier I mentioned Ansar Allah in Yemen saying that they won't allow certain ships to go through the Babal Mandir the gate of tears but they said Russian ships can go through and ships carrying Russian oil can go through this has become a real point of contention how these sanctions are working whether they are going to be something United States going to find valuable to push even harder on meanwhile the sense of remove that the Biden administration is facing from the rest of the world escalates trying to push hard on this campaign in Ukraine the Ukraine war as we mentioned last time looks largely at least the possibilities of any advance stalled no possibility there in the middle of all this news comes from New Delhi that the Indian government has decided Mr. Biden you are not going to be the chief guest this year at the Republic Day ceremonies it's going to be Emmanuel Macron of France this is an interesting case the case of India and France underneath this case of course is a indelicate agreement to buy French military equipment in the last BRICS meeting there was a push to get Algeria entry into BRICS and at least Algeria people are convinced that it was India carrying the water for France that blackballed the entry of Algeria into BRICS at the last meeting they might come in coming through the next meeting very interesting you know this whole thing about the lowered role of the United States in the world and the fact that the Indian government can rescind an invitation to Joe Biden and then transfer it over to Emmanuel Macron who is trying to position himself once more as the more sensible of the G7 leaders you know inclusive on the question of of Ukraine well Mr. Macron is reason to be afraid election results in Germany show the alliance for Deutschland making gains in the western part have strength and Mr. Macron is feeling the hot breath of the national front you know those right wing formations in France whatever name they go by now keep changing their name but effectively it's Marianne Le Pen and her crowd and people even to her right breathing heavily at the back of Mr. Macron can he do it I said Narendra Modi rescinded the invitation from Joe Biden provided it to Macron Mr. Modi gave a very interesting interview to the Financial Times where he said India is on the cusp of takeoff interesting statement to come right after Mr. Modi's party had ejected over a hundred and forty parliamentarians from the Indian parliament from both the upper and lower house were removed in the middle of all this the Indian government has decided to put even more pressure on our colleagues at news click having the income tax department do something completely unheard of which is place a big hole in the middle of news clicks finances not allowing it to function in fact suppressing the press through administrative means takeoff in what way you don't have an opposition sitting in parliament and you're telling the press to be silent we're not silent here and give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch that Zoe and Prashant I'm Vijay from Globetrotter bringing you the world but also hopefully bringing you a slice of humanity see you next week