 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines, Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Arnold's criminal convictions against Lula de Silva, trial of former police officer charged with the murder of George Floyd to begin in the US, Libyan parliament to hold vote of confidence on UN backed internal government, protesters across Latin America marked women's day by demanding an end to gender based violence and in our video section we take a look at the possible reasons behind the recent explosions of the SpaceX SN10 rocket. In our first story, the criminal convictions against Brazil's former progressive president Luis Inashi Lula de Silva have been annulled. Judge Edison Fashin from the Supreme Federal Court announced the verdict on March 8. All legal sentences against Lula under Operation Car Wash in Curitiba now satan cancelled. He was convicted on charges related to corruption and money laundering in 2017. Lula served nearly two years out of a 12 year prison sentence between April 2018 and November 2019. The judge on Monday declared that the criminal court in Curitiba did not have the jurisdiction to try the cases. As per the verdict, the legal proceedings will now be analysed again by a federal court in the capital of Brasilia. The court will determine if the sentences are valid. Meanwhile, the judge's decision to annul the convictions will also be reviewed by the full Supreme Court. The verdict has also restored Lula's political rights. This means that he will be able to contest in the 2022 elections. As per the research and consulting intelligence group, Lula's leader for over 12% over the far right President Jair Bolsonaro when it comes to potential vote. His defense team has welcomed the verdict as an acknowledgement of the efforts to prove Lula's innocence since 2016. For our next story, we go to the United States where renewed protests demanding justice for George Floyd were held on March 8. Floyd was murdered by the police in the city of Minneapolis in 2020. Monday's protests coincided with the first day of the trial of the former police officer who is the prime accused in Floyd's murder whose name is Derek Chauvin. He is facing charges of second degree murder and manslaughter. If convicted, he will face a maximum prison sentence for up to 40 years. Derek prosecutors are trying to add another charge of third degree murder for a higher likelihood of a conviction. Chauvin is currently out on bail for $1 billion. Hundreds gathered in several cities across the US on Monday. Protesters were met with police repression and 88 people were arrested in the city of Grand Rapids. The jury selection for the trial is set to begin on March 9 and is expected to take three weeks to finish. The process was delayed by a day given that the charges against Chauvin had not been settled. District Judge Peter A.K. Hill has ruled that the jury selection will proceed despite the pending appeals, court decision on the charges. The hearings have been scheduled for March 29. In the meantime, the courthouse in Minneapolis has been fortified with barbed wire and concrete. Nearly 3,000 troops from the police and National Guard have also been deployed. Over 370 individuals might be asked to testify in the case which sparked mass protests in the US last year. We now go to Libya where the parliament is set to convene today for a vote on the vote of confidence on a new interim government. Lawmakers are expected to approve the UN-sponsored government and national unity led by Prime Minister-designate Abdul Hameed Dabaiba. Tuesday's vote will follow a meeting of the House of Representatives in Sirtia on March 8. The Libyan political dialogue forum had elected interim government in February. As per the norms of the forum, the parliament will now have 21 days to approve the new government. Prime Minister-designate Dabaiba has proposed a 35-member unity government. He was called into parliament on Monday for consultations. A few legislators asked him to clarify reports of vote buying during the election. Monday's session in Sirtia was the first combined meeting of the elected parliament since the split in 2014. The split occurred after a failed coup attempt in the capital of Tripoli and the failure of the UN-led peace process. This was followed by years of conflict among the various factions. Though the parliament remains divided, 132 out of the 200 members joined the meeting in Sirtia. If the interim government is approved, it will remain in power till the national elections on December 24. The peace process also revived hopes of ending the decade-long war in the country. The war had broken out following a NATO-led invasion in 2011 against the government of Muammar Gaddafi. We now go to Latin America where hundreds of thousands of women across the continent took to the streets on International Women's Day. March 8 was marked by protests against gender-based violence and other forms of oppression perpetuated under capitalism. Massive demonstrations were held in Argentina to demand an end to workplace inequalities and gender-based violence. Protesters in Brazil took to the streets to demand the resignation of President Jair Bolsonaro. They demanded better vaccination coverage and denounced the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Women also condemned the increase in feminicides in the country and the violence against women and members of the LGBTQ community. Thousands of women led marches in Chile to demand an end to gender-based discrimination and the need for non-sexist forms of education. Women also demanded the right to free, legal and safe abortions. Similar protests demanding the decriminalization of abortions was also held in El Salvador or the Dominican Republic. Protesters were also held in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras, which have been witnessing a surge in cases of femicide. For our final story, we take a look at the recent explosion about the SN10 Starship rocket developed by SpaceX. The rocket landed in the Boca Chica, Boca Chica in the state of Texas in the US following a high altitude test on March 4th. The landing was an improvement at least from the SN8 and SN9 rockets which had crashed into the ground. Shortly after landing, however, a fire developed in the SN10 rocket base leading to an explosion. In the meantime, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has announced plans for a manned mission by 2023. Here is D. Raghunathan from the Delhi Science Forum to discuss the possible reasons behind the SpaceX explosions. So with a looming deadline hardly three years away, Musk is clearly pushing it while at the same time innovating in the craft. Now even under normal circumstances and with any other technology, innovation, rapid innovation, large scale innovation, along with tight timelines is, as you can imagine, put strain on the entire system and can certainly lead to crashes. And I'm sure this is one of the contributing factors to these crashes that we have seen because the team must be under pressure to deliver quickly. So one of the, to my mind, answer to SpaceX's troubles with these would be to elongate the time frame. If you give yourself time till 25 or 2026, then I think you would see fewer crashes of this nature because after every crash, you need to have sufficient time to analyze, rectify, and then launch with eight, nine and 10 that does not seem to have happened. More or less the same things are happening now. Of course, we don't know the technical details from inside the establishment, from inside SpaceX. And Elon Musk is notoriously tight about divulging technical details. One of the reasons for which is, by the way, Elon Musk is also averse to patented. He doesn't patent many of his technologies, but in order to do the innovations that he does quickly and usefully, he has to keep a very tight lid on the technical information. So that's one reason why from outside, we may not get too many technical details of what happens inside SpaceX. But as I said, I feel that the tight schedule that he has given himself plus the number of innovations that he's trying out on this craft add to these problems. One such innovation, I'll just as an example I'll give you is, he has changed the body of the spaceship. And if you see the videos, you'll see it glistening and glimmering in the sunlight because the craft is made out of stainless steel. While normally one would have gone with carbon fiber or some such. But Musk, of course, as you know, wants to cut costs in terms of space launches. And he has come to the conclusion that carbon fiber ultimately ends up costing about $200 per kilo, whereas he can use stainless steel to build the rocket or the spaceship at about $3 to $5 a kilo. So he's pushing that as well. And that may lead to some of these things because carbon fiber is more resilient and material, while stainless steel can tend to be a little rigid and hard. So that's a contributory factor. So I was just giving that as an example to show that you try a number of innovations, while at the same time you give yourself a tight time schedule. I think this is putting too much pressure on the system. That's all your time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.