 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. As usual, bad news from Israel and Palestine. Once again, the town of Jenin, the home of the freedom theater. Once again, under terrible attack, Prashant take us directly to the events taking place in Jenin in Palestine. Expressing what happened in the past week in Jenin. And Israeli forces not just sending soldiers, which is what is pretty common. Which has really become a common occurrence in many parts of the West Bank. But actually sending a full-fledged military force. We saw helicopters, we saw drones, we saw armored vehicles of all kinds. So definitely a full-fledged invasion. Many people have compared it to the invasion that took place in 2002. Which in which about 52 people were killed, I believe. This time the death toll has been around 12. But it has also been marked by a huge amount of injury and a massive demolition drive that has taken place in Jenin. Specifically targeting the refugee camp. You mentioned the freedom theater, a very iconic institution there. Whose people are actually activists associated with that have written about the kind of damage that has taken place in Jenin. And it has really set back relief work, any kind of reconstruction work. And we need to remember that this is not an attack in isolation. Jenin has been continuously targeted by Israeli forces for many, many months now. So it's not like this came out of nowhere. There's been a continuous pattern not only of attacks on Jenin. But attacks across the West Bank and also in Gaza. I think this year, last year was 2022 that way. Was the most deadly, I believe since the UN had started collecting data. And this year it does definitely look like this year is going to beat that very horrible record. The number of Palestinians killed and injured is likely to be even more. So that's pretty much what the situation is right now. So after two and a half days they withdrew. And Israel made it very clear that they're going to be back. So it is not that I think they wanted to make that a very clear point. Now I think two or three things that we need to sort of remember or recollect in this context that Israel's stated aim is to sort of crush the resistance that has been growing in Jenin. And obviously that is definitely not going to work because the resistance is a result obviously of Israel's own oppressive policies as well as the desire for the very powerful desire for freedom among Palestinians for self-determination among them. And the kind of resistance that we are seeing building up in Jenin is cross-faction in some senses that there are members of various groups who are coming together who are increasingly working together. Their forms of resistance have taken on more sophisticated forms. They're able to target some of the Israeli heavy vehicles as well. And so this definitely means that these kind of invasions and attacks are absolutely not going to stop that resistance that is building up and is even likely to spread to other parts of the West Bank as well, although it's already there in other parts. So definitely what we're likely to see is that despite all these Israeli claims, of course, there's a domestic angle as well. Netanyahu trying to sort of bolster his support among the settlers. We have seen over the past year or so, especially since this government came to power. We have seen a huge wave of settler violence targeting Al-Aqsa, targeting many other parts of the West Bank. We've seen massive legitimization of illegal outposts. We've seen ministers like Ben Will openly taking the racism, the extremism, the sheer violence to a completely new level. And we've also seen, of course, verdicts like what happened yesterday when the verdict on the killing of Yadil Halakh was announced, a 32-year-old Palestinian with autism who was killed in 2020 by a police officer. And now the court has concluded that they're killing the police officer actor in good faith and it was a tragic accident and he has been acquitted. And I think all of these are parts of a larger pattern which has continued for many years, which is definitely intensifying. But all of Israel's attempts to just bulldoze the resistance or to use missiles or heavy military equipment at the resistance is absolutely not going to work. It definitely looks like because the resistance is reaching a completely new stage there. So unfortunately, it does look like many more of these might happen like Israel has warned or whatever you call it. But I would foresee that the resistance also continues to grow and spread as well. This is a terrible situation and of course we've been following this for a while, people's dispatch on the beat covering the violence done to the Palestinians, but also as you say, the resistance. We're going to switch gears, cross Atlantic, go to Guatemala, there are elections. Zoe is an expert at covering Latin American elections. Come at it Zoe. Well, last week we spoke about the results of the Guatemalan elections. As we reported the biggest kind of the most significant result was the abstention in this electoral process. The prior acts of sabotage if you want to put it that way of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of barring certain candidates, the amount of null and blank votes that were cast in this election. However, now, a week after the elections, there's been another update and that's the fact that two right wing parties filed a complaint saying that the electoral results were not correct, that they were fraudulent, that there was tampering, all sorts of accusations. And in response to Supreme Electoral Tribunal has suspended the release of the official results of the elections. And it says that it needs a 15 day period to sort of do a recount and reevaluate these results. And this is quite a concerning development, given the fact that this is an electoral process that, as we said, despite already having all of these irregularities of not being a process that generated confidence, trust of the population that already had its defects. We still observe the actual day of voting itself had widespread electoral observation, everything in order of the reports have been submitted by all those different bodies, and essentially due to this far right pressure of parties that had traditionally held power that had traditionally done quite well in these elections. This body, this authority has decided to sort of cave to their pressure. And this is quite concerning for many reasons. There's already been statements released by not only human rights organizations within Guatemala expressing concern over this, but also major embassies of, for example, the United States, other global north powers, sort of expressing concern over these developments. And I think that the key element in this, in this story in this development in Guatemala is really once again, it's a show that this whole process, this, this electoral process, this alleged democracy that exists in Guatemala is extremely fragile. It not only has the ability to sort of exclude candidates that it does not want to participate like the progressive popular candidacy of Alma Cabrera from the MLP, other candidates even more towards just the center. But now when the right wing is upset with these results, it appears that the electoral authority is just going to say, okay, well, since you guys are upset, we're going to actually make a significant decision to suspend the announcing of these results. So once again, it's a process that's already been embroiled in a certain level of turmoil, certain level of discontent of mistrust. But this is once again undermining the democratic system, the electoral process. And, you know, they said on June and July 2nd, that'll be a 15 day process of reviewing these results. We'll see what happens in I guess now will be another week. So that these potentially official results might come out. Will they be large, quite different. Will there be a dramatic shift that remains to be seen but I think when we look at other examples across the continent. These moments are often generated even more distrust within the population even more anxiety about what's happening about what it means when an entire authority says actually this process despite having been acknowledged and verified is not legitimate. So we'll definitely be definitely be following this story seeing what happens with the results and of course with the response of the people in the streets. That's a great story important to keep up with. Last night I spent two hours in the German Bundestag the parliament listening to the debate on the bill for Ukraine's membership in NATO very interesting debate. Almost everybody who spoke on the motion of Ukraine's entry into NATO spoke for Ukraine to enter NATO very interesting. Almost everybody that is to say, of course, the social Democrats who are in power with the Greens and the free Democrats the liberals, all three of them spoke in favor. The Christian Democrats hesitated, but also essentially back NATO. You might be surprised to know that the right wing Alliance for Deutschland or ADF, AFD was not only for, you know, in a sense, NATO but they are for increasing Germany's military spending to 2%, which is a demand by the United States of NATO countries. Of course, they are hesitant about this particular war but it's not like they have a position that threatens NATO's grip on German society. Only the linker the left party and its delegates spoke against the motion and that was that was seven Douglas who spoke about NATO's, you know, position in Yugoslavia in Afghanistan and so on. Very interesting discussion in the German parliament. Next week on the 11th and 12th of July, NATO will meet in Vilnius in Lithuania. It's the next summit. It's important to remember the last NATO summit in June 2022, the NATO Alliance pledged to quote unquote deliver the full range of forces for high intensity multi domain war fighting against nuclear armed peer competitors. You know, it was chilling language last year. It looks like it will be pretty chilling this year as well. Three things that NATO has signaled will come out of the Vilnius meeting. First, it is expected NATO as a block is going to announce increased military spending, including towards the war in Ukraine. Secondly, and most dangerously, NATO is suggesting a surge of NATO troops into an up to the Ukrainian border. Now, does this mean they will cross the border? Certainly NATO is already involved by arming the Ukrainian military and there are many, many reports of special forces of different NATO powers already engaged inside Ukraine, including in digital warfare. It's not clear if troops will cross the border formally, openly, not covertly. And third, it is very clear that they're going to announce that they're going to intensify their actions inside Ukraine, that is to say military actions. Now, recently, President Lordomir Zelensky made the claim he accused Russia of mining the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant with the aim of blowing it up. I was struck by the fact that right when Mr Zelensky made this claim, a very influential military strategist and diplomat from the United States, Evo Dalder, a former ambassador of the US to NATO, published an article in Politico, very suggested that if there is a, quote unquote, deliberate nuclear incident, then the NATO powers must directly, militarily, overtly enter in the conflict inside Ukraine, not covertly and not just by weapons delivery and so on. But they should directly, chilling to read Evo Dalder, very influential person in the world of NATO and in the world of military strategy of the United States to make that comment in Politico, just when Mr Zelensky said that if that he claimed that Russia is mining the nuclear power plant and might aim to blow it up. Meanwhile, the question of Sweden's entry into NATO is still on the table. You will remember already talked on this show about how Sweden was promised entry into NATO with two other Nordic countries, they slipped in. They slipped in but Sweden was not allowed. Why? Two countries vetoed the entry of Sweden into NATO. And of course, every NATO country must consent by, you know, there must be universal consent to allow a new country to enter. The two countries being Turkey and Hungary. Hungary because they say Sweden is unfairly critical of the Hungarian government. Now Hungary says this about the United States and everybody else, but they've been in NATO since 1949. Hungary cannot exercise a veto against them. But they are upset with Sweden. But if we're honest, Hungary is tailing Turkey in this. Everything is in the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He holds the key. He says that Sweden is harboring Kurdish terrorists and he says that the attacks against the Quran and Muslims in Sweden is inexcusable. Interestingly, the Swedish government has attempted to answer some of the things that Mr Erdogan has said, including on June 1 Sweden rolled out an updated anti-terrorism law which Turkey had effectively pushed for. And to prove the extradition of some Kurdish militants that have been in Sweden. But this has not been enough for Mr Erdogan. Mr Erdogan, you know, was very clear to the foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden who met in Brussels on Thursday, made it very clear it's not going to happen. We're not going to let you in this Vilnius summit. Join NATO. It's an interesting time we live in and we're going to watch this carefully what happens in Vilnius Lithuania on the 11th and 12th of July. You're listening to give the people what they want coming to you from people's dispatch and globetrotter happy to have you here. We're going to move on. We have a pretty interesting lineup here. We're going to go to Central Asia and Asia in general, because the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had a meeting. Prashant, what did the SEO do this time? Right. So the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting was strangely a virtual meeting. It was last year they had met in person, caused quite a buzz and the meeting happening this year made a very high increase in interest. And I think across the world in interest about both the BRICS, about the SEO. Because for many countries, they seem to sort of constitute a different way of how the world could be organized, a different way of how international relations itself could be conducted. And of course, we also know that many of the members of the SEO are very powerful economies in themselves as well. So this time it was a virtual meeting which I suspect has something to do with Indian politics as well, which we can come to later. But it was an interesting meeting because we saw for one the fact that Iran was admitted as an official member of the SEO. And this, you know, I think cements the process of Iran, say, establishing its own track in the region. We saw some months ago the whole Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement thing which had been mediated by China. Iran, of course, now by joining the SEO, it is also sort of I think it is attempting to buffer what the United States has often been trying to do over the years, which is to isolate it as much as possible, accuse it of all kinds of crimes, etc., etc. But if you also read the statement that the SEO heads of state summit released, quite interesting in terms of how it advocates, you know, the role of multi-polarity, how it talks about the need to avoid a block-based mentality, how it talks about reforming the world trade organization, for instance, making a very strong cognizance of the fact that global trade rules are so prone to manipulation, so prone to be used by any country the United States is not happy with. Of course, calling for greater cooperation, there has been talk about greater economic cooperation as well. One interesting aspect is the fact that the Beltry Initiative also mentioned India, of course, being part of that specific part of the statement which expressed support for it. India and China, of course, have had quite severe differences over a number of issues. But I would still think that the fact that the summit took place itself, the fact that there continues to be momentum in this direction is a very positive sign. I think BRICS is about 40% of the world's population, its combined GDP is quite substantial and very interestingly, a lot of countries showing interest in joining the SEO. So although it began as an organization that was focused on Central Asia, which still is a very powerful focus, was more on the eastern side, we have countries from West Asia, for instance, showing a lot of interest in joining Belarus, officially begun the process, we know that many other countries including the UAE are interested. So it does definitely look like BRICS has a lot of momentum, SEO has a lot of momentum when it comes to growing as a block. I keep saying BRICS because we also have the BRICS summit coming up in August, which is going to be another very pivotal moment when leaders of these countries are going to have these discussions. And again, there's a lot of interest in joining and entering BRICS as well, what is being called the BRICS Plus. So overall, I think, especially after the Ukraine war, contrary to what the United States and its allies expected, rather than the collapse of Russia and the withdrawal of China or the, say, encircling and restriction of China, what has happened is precisely the opposite. We have all these countries forming greater groups, the possibility of more trade taking place in currencies other than the dollar, the BRICS Bank is being talked about, even some talk about the SEO Bank, for instance, Putin talking about the need for more trading in respective currencies, a lot of logistical hurdles to cross, a lot of institutions that need to be built, but there does definitely seem to be a lot of momentum in this direction and that definitely clearly worries the United States and its allies. It certainly worries them as well that the European Union, which they've been trying to yoke back into the Atlantic Alliance, is holding a meeting in Brussels with the CELAC Group from Latin America. Zoe, what's going on with this CELAC EU summit? Well, you're exactly right. You notice the EU is not holding a EU OAS, that's Organization of American States Summit. So I think that in itself is something important to point out. And on July 17th and 18th, yes, there will be a summit between leaders of the CELAC Group, which covers Latin American, the Caribbean. And it's currently presided over by Raul Phil Monsalves from St. Vincent and Grenadines. This is an important platform of regional integration within Latin American, the Caribbean. It's a platform that was founded during the first progressive wave by Will Chavez with the initiative of Cuba of Fidel, a very revolutionary platform to really counteract the strength of a platform like the Organization of American States, which has been explicitly against Cuba, for example, from its foundation has consistently excluded Cuba. And so CELAC emerges as an alternative to this. So this is a summit that's going to take place in Brussels, as I said, in the middle of July. They're going to discuss different issues of economic agreements, trade opportunities, generally as many of these summits do, discussing the issues facing our societies today. I think everyone, even if they don't call it capitalism, when they say that there's great challenges facing humanity, at least we know what they're talking about. And so it's going to be a very interesting moment. I think we're going to see leaders such as Miguel Diaz-Canel, who of course is the target of many U.S. policies, Nicolas Maduro, Gustavo Petro, Lula da Silva, all of these progressive leaders that have in some way or another tried to be minimized by the United States, who are really representing this new, as Prashant was talking about, new spaces of creating integration, of using different currencies. Lula, immediately once he was sworn in, talked about using not the dollar to do trade agreements. And so the fact that these kind of leaders, these leaders who are trying to forge a new type of international relations, a new type of diplomacy are going to be meeting in the European Parliament in Brussels. They're going to be meeting with these European leaders who the U.S., as you said, Vijay, tries to corral so much to respond to their desires. And it's also important to mention that parallel to this official summit, which is going to again have diplomatic bodies, have heads of state, there's going to be a people's summit that's organized by people's movements within Europe, but also in conjunction with people's movements in Latin America. There's going to be important delegations going there. Because as we know in these official summits, it's a lot of government-to-government level discussions. But of course the integration of people's, their desires, their needs, their desire to build together is just as important. So there's going to be a series of very interesting panel discussions, talks. There's going to be a festival talking about the involvement in the legacy, for example, of Europe in Latin America. Of course, Latin America, most of Latin America was colonized by European countries. There's a long legacy of domination. Many countries in the Caribbean, which Ralph Consalves, of course, is representing in his presidency in CELAC, are still colonized by European countries. And so there's a very, very important dialogue to be had, not only of what are the issues that the people of Latin America are facing, but how are the movements of Europe going to continue fighting against imperialism, which is infecting not only them in Europe, but of course this region of Latin America and the Caribbean. So it's going to be a very interesting summit, both the CELAC summit with heads of state and also the People's Summit. It seems like there's going to be some special guests at the People's Summit. Maybe some of those heads of states are going to engage with the movements there. We'll be covering it next week and a half in Brussels. Well, we will be on the ground, but we will be receiving important updates on the ground and sharing that with people on People's Summit. Well, Brussels is also the headquarters of NATO. We already said that five or six days before this EU CELAC summit, NATO will be meeting in Lithuania. The United Kingdom in this interim decided to announce in a very small trade show that they've developed a new Royal Navy Type 83 destroyer. Interesting development. You might remember that in July 2021, the UK's Navy sent the Queen Elizabeth II out into the South China Sea in a deployment against China. Very important deployment. Now, reading the UK's 2022 national strategy for maritime security, it is very interesting how the United Kingdom has focused so much of its maritime ambitions on the South China Sea. It's almost a return to the early 19th century. The strategy document said the UK will deploy at least two vessels, a frigate and perhaps a destroyer into the South China Sea. The development of this Type 83 is interesting because here we have a situation where the UK is interested in building naval ships that are able to defend against missile attacks. What I find fascinating in what the UK has been saying is the UK has essentially been saying that they want to be as heavily involved as possible in the South China Sea as much as the United States would allow them. They've written about this directly. Fascinatingly, the South China Morning Post reported and I must say, although I do read the South China Morning Post, it's not always the most reliable newspaper to talk about news about China, although this was fascinating. They argued that there has recently been a simulated, you know, all defensive strategy by the Chinese called the Z-Day or Z-Day Total War Scenario, which the counterfeit was published in a Chinese journal called the Chinese Journal of Ship Research, where they talked about how the Chinese were preparing themselves for a hypothetical attack, which would include some of these UK vessels. In the simulation, the People's Liberation Army, the Navy had 50 destroyers, you know, they went out there and defended themselves. What I found quite interesting, both about the South China Morning Post report and the reports coming out of the United Kingdom was that it was very clear to everybody that the Chinese are developing weapons systems and developing weapons planning or military planning regarding defensive maneuvers to defend against attacks. I think this is pretty interesting. It's also, of course, true that there have been prior simulations that have been released by the Chinese about what would happen if they decided to launch an invasion of Taiwan. I don't want to minimize the fact that that exists. But largely the evidence here from the Z-Day Total War planning is a defensive plan against an attack largely would come from the United States, United Kingdom, NATO powers against the Chinese mainland. Fascinating development. We're going to keep watching this and tracking it. You know, news reports very, really track these military developments. You want stuff about these military developments? Come to People's Dispatch. Come to Globetrotter. Come to give the people what they want. You've been with us half an hour, a 133rd show. We'll see you next week where we have a 134th show.