 Okay, well, it is the 7th of May 2021, you've tuned in because you really love this show. You've tuned in to give the people what they want with Zoe and Prashant from, well, People's Dispatch and me, Vijay from Globetrotter, always happy to spend a piece of Friday only half an hour, the whole world's news in half an hour. This has been an interesting period, elections in many parts of the world, disappointments, some not disappointments, some jubilation balance of forces for the left seems more in the column of disappointments. In India, of course, there were assembly elections, the results came out on Sunday, the 2nd of May in Kerala, extraordinarily for the first time in the history of that state of 35 million people. For the first time, the left was able to beat incumbency and come in and get reelected. It's the first time any incumbent has been reelected since 1980, but it's the first time the left has actually overcome the anti-incumbency and comes in on a mandate to continue good governance, mandate to continue humane policies and so on. So bright spark from Kerala, but not the rest of India necessarily. The Bharatiya Janta Party right wing made immense gains in West Bengal, one in Assam and in the state that borders Kerala and Tamil Nadu, of course, the Hindu right was wiped out and we have a new Chief Minister, Chief Minister Stalin. So we've got a Stalinist in Kerala and Stalin in Tamil Nadu. So take that, take that. But meanwhile, in Spain, not so good. In Spain, the watchword from the right wings, Isabel Diaz, I also was communism or liberty, a choice as if the communism part of it is a bad idea. This is not a message that would be heard in the same way in Kerala, but it was heard by the voters in Madrid at least. Podemos suffered a serious loss. Its leader Pablo Iglesias has stepped down. Some things good, some things not good in the planet. Meanwhile, in Peru, Pedro Castillo continues to make gains in his attempt to become the president of Peru, the first authentically left president in a very long time. Veronica Mendoza, who ran also on a left slate, basically endorsed Pedro Castillo's campaign. Very good. Financial markets don't like it. They took a tumble. The bond market didn't like it against US Treasuries. The soul, which is Peru's currency, was very unhappy. So money doesn't like what's happening in Peru. The people seem to like Pedro Castillo. Maybe they like his hat. Maybe they like his attitude. Maybe they like the fact that he liked Pinaray Vijayan in Kerala or like KK Shalja teacher in Kerala. They speak forthrightly. They don't sit back and hide things. Some good things, some bad things. Very, very bad thing in Colombia. Very, very bad thing. But even in that very bad thing in Colombia, some good, some bad. Zoe, what's happening in Colombia? Why are we seeing so many images of fighting, so many images of harsh repression from the government of Iván Duque? Well, last week, we were speaking two days after the national strike had begun in Colombia. As we mentioned, people have been participating in mass numbers in a national strike that was in its most essential nature planned against a tax reform bill, which would raise prices across the board, largely hitting the pockets of working class people in Colombia, people who have already been very impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as we know in a lot of countries across Latin America, majority of the workforce employed in the informal sector. So pandemic restrictions have had a huge impact. And what we've seen since Wednesday, April 28th, is that in normal fashion of the Colombian state, they have responded with very high levels of repression against the people. We've just seen the anti-riot police, members of the National Army just open fire on protesters. We're already seeing this as of April 28th, but we've seen an intensification of this violence against the people. There was in Cali a lot of there was a high concentration of this police brutality and violence in Cali, a city in the southwest of Colombia. In one night, over five people were killed by state forces for the simple act of being on the street and protesting. Not only were police repressing the protests, but they were actually invading poor neighborhoods driving around on tanks, shooting, terrorizing the population. I mean, the images are horrifying. They're really, really horrifying, because it looks like you're in the middle of an occupied zone. Riot police on tanks, army. And all the while, the national government is making declarations saying that these protesters are vandals, that we have former president Álvaro Rívez saying that the security forces, he supports the security forces, and they should be able to use their weapons against vandalism, essentially giving a call for all this bloodshed that we've seen. In just over a week, 37 people are confirmed to have been killed by the police. There's over 1,900 complaints of police violence, 11 cases of sexual assault that have taken place during the protests, 26 people who have lost eyes. We've seen a pattern of this repression of police shooting to kill, shooting to maim, and shooting to above all dis-incentivize people from taking to the streets. They wanna instill fear in the population, instill fear in the people who are taking to the streets to demand an end to this state repression and violence. I think what's really key to highlight here is that these protests go much beyond just protesting against a tax reform bill. In Colombia, there's a deeply consolidated, neoliberal economic model that has been implemented over the past three decades through fire and blood and through six decades of repressing dissent, of annihilating all forms of political opposition. I really recommend people follow our People's Dispatch Coverage of Colombia, of the assassination of, following the genocide of the social leaders of movement activists, but also understanding that this has been going on for six decades and that the Colombian people have historically been declared an enemy of the state and they have been treated as such. And so when we see the images of this violence, it is a continuation of this. It's a continuation of the strategy and the US of course needs Colombia. It is its primary ally in the imperialist attacks on Venezuela. It's its primary ally in military training, military exercise, military partnerships. We can't lose the imperialist angle and we can't lose this historical angle in understanding that this is a cause of the Colombian people for decades. Political violence in Colombia, a serious problem at People's Dispatch, which is of course at peoplesdispatch.org, reporters have covered the violence on the people of Colombia, the assassinations, the arrests of social movement leaders and so on. Political repression, a serious problem. We are seeing it now in post-Pole violence in West Bengal in India, where the Victoria Srinamul Congress has decided to run rampage, burning down offices of opponents, killing people, slaughtering people actually. It's quite grotesque, the kind of violence. We see in South Africa, history of political repression. Recently, Abakhali based on the Shack-Dweller's movement, seen a lot of repression. May 4th, one of their leaders arrested, whom you interviewed for People's Dispatch. Prashant, what is happening in Durban, South Africa, with the Abakhali leadership? All right, Vijay, as Zoe mentioned, of course, the war on the people and the people being treated as the enemy of the state. And I think what has happened with Abakhali is a classic example of that very approach. Because we've seen Abakhali is a Shack-Dweller's movement, what they're focused on is building land occupations, where they've actually focused on getting the homeless homes and actually building an entire ecosystem around it. So their focus has always been to ensure that the homeless are not, like I've seen in many parts of the world, the homeless are not victims. The homeless are not some kind of passive recipient of aid, which is how a lot of policymakers tend to see it. But active controllers of their own destiny, people who are actively taking a stand, there's a lot of, we didn't be interviewed, the leader we talked about last month, I'll get back to that. But what has happened right now is George Bonono, who's a key leader of the movement, has been arrested on what can be called the most bizarre charge. He held an open meeting of fact-finding mission to inquire about a murder. And for that reason, he has been accused of conspiring to commit a murder. Now the meeting in question took place in the office of Abahalibasya Majandano. It was not some kind of secret conclave. But this has been the reason due to which he's been arrested. He was arrested on May 4th. On May 6th, he was produced in court. And on May 13th, he'll be again. There are already credible reports that his life may be at risk. So in fact, the court did you permission for him to be kept in the police station till then. But what we need to understand, of course, is that this is not an isolated incident. Abahalibasya Majandano has been in existence for 16 years now, last 2020, March 15th year. They've lost a lot of activists, I believe. About 18 activists have been assassinated, have been murdered since the founding of the movement. And the reason I think they are such a threat to the African National Congress system is that what they're done is envision a different kind of society where the homeless, not only create their own houses with whatever material they can scavenge. They've set up cooperative farms. You know, they've set up a cooperative poultry. They have a very internationalist perspective. In fact, when we talked to George last year, he mentioned his close, the lessons they had learned from the MST in Brazil regarding how to run cooperative industries and the kind of give and take that happens between these organizations. So from this classic perspective of, you know, this is very liberal policy perspective, the homeless being just a recipients of aid. What we see is a movement with very different vision. The leader of Abhalali Sibos Dikode has had to go underground a number of occasions due to assassination threats. The movement, the land occupations of this movement, they are faced attack after attack after attack. You know, randomly police personnel coming in, destroying these houses, which the government did not provide for by then, which the people built with their own effort, destroying these houses. An eviction even taking place last year at the height of the pandemic when there was actually an order that, you know, there should be no evictions. So what we're saying is basically this being part of a very sustained effort at persecuting Abhalali and persecuting that vision of how society should be. In fact, last week, they marked unfreedom day, which was a couple of weeks ago, which was meant to show that despite the fact that, say with the coming of the African National Congress to power and the end of apartheid, there was a new era. So to speak, nonetheless, a lot of the structural issues have remained the same and their struggle continues. So on May 13th, George Bonono is coming in front of the court again. I believe there will be a global, there's already expressions of solidarity across the world. There will be some more. So definitely an issue to keep following. You see, this is our show. Give the people what they want. You're listening to Zoe and Prashant from People's Dispatch. You must go and read People's Dispatch. It's a very important place to get the, as we say in India, taza khabar, the fresh news, but not just the fresh news, fresh news with the correct perspective, the perspective of people's movements. It's very important that you tell people about the existence of people's dispatch. We're leading with two important stories. We're leading with stories about the violence in Colombia, violence by Ivan Duque's government. We're leading with the story about the repression of the Abba-Khali activists and leaders in South Africa. We didn't lead with the story about what the United States is doing. We didn't lead with the story that every other periodical seems to lead with. And now that I'm going to turn our attention to the so-called waiver at the WTO about vaccines, our perspective is very different friends. We are not going to come with you with a press release from the Biden administration, saying that the United States government is finally going to get on its white horse and charge around the planet delivering vaccinations for everybody for all 7.9 billion people. That's not our perspective friends. Yes, it's true. The US trade representative, Catherine Tyre, released a statement in the middle of the WTO negotiations, but the text of her statement is extraordinarily important to read. She says that the United States government believes strongly in intellectual property protections. That's important, but to end the pandemic, it supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines. That's great. We celebrate that. That's a victory for the People's Vaccine Campaign, but the next two sentences are key friends and they are not being reported in the press. She says, we will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the WTO. That means word-by-word negotiation of any waiver that's produced. It won't be that they're going to sign on to the Indian and South African resolution. No, no, they're going to do a text-based negotiation word-by-word by word, very specific to defend ultimately the rights of pharmaceutical companies. The next sentence, even stronger. I bet you didn't tune in to give the people what they want thinking. We'll have a explicazione de text, as they say. Text-based interpretation, but we're talking about the United States government. You've got to pay attention to what they're saying as much as what you think you're hearing. The next sentence, those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution. There's two points here, it will take time. It doesn't mean that from tomorrow, they will release the Serum Institute of India to produce any vaccine. No, no, it doesn't mean mRNA vaccines will be produced now in Russia and so on. No, not at all. It will take time and secondly, the consensus-based nature. As soon as Catherine Time made this comment, it became clear because Angela Merkel of Germany, the chancellor of Germany, said that Germany doesn't support this move by the United States. Now, Germany by itself doesn't have a seat in this negotiation, but the European Union does. And Germany is the most powerful country and the European Union will shape the direction of the negotiation. You can be sure that the European Union negotiator is not going to come into that meeting. And even in a text-based negotiation, sign off on what the United States is saying. The United States might actually go to the left of the EU on this as it turns out. Pharmaceutical companies have been lobbying in Washington, DC, in Brussels very hard. They don't even want a text-based negotiation. That's where we are friends. We don't have a waiver now to be lifted immediately. We don't have vaccines for everybody. It is still the case that India, where the epicenter of COVID-19 remains, it is still the case that India most likely will not vaccinate the public before the end of 2022. It is still likely, despite what might or might not happen at the WTO. This is the true story. We're not giving you a press release from the US State Department. It's a true story, because in the middle of stories, the political repression, we're going to return to political repression. There was a terrible massacre in Brazil, almost virtually unreported outside the country. Zoe, what happened in Brazil, and why is it a massacre? Well, it's just been a week of tragedies, to be honest. Yesterday morning, quite early, members of the military police in Brazil invaded a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Jacarezinho, and slaughtered 24 people. And this was under the guise of an operation, an anti-narcotic operation. They called all of the victims suspects. But I mean, you said it. It's nothing more than a bloodbath, a massacre, dehumanizing these people, trying to justify the murder of 24 people in the city. And I think what's really important to highlight here is in Brazil, like Colombia, the murder of, especially black people in the favelas in Rio de Janeiro is very, unfortunately, common practice. The military police have been slaughtering civilians, justifying it, saying that they're attacking criminals for years. Of course, we remember the brave councilwoman, Marielle Franco, who was also murdered. She was part of a commission in the city of Rio de Janeiro to investigate the killings carried out by the military police. And this is key to highlight. The military police work alongside with the militias in this city to carry out this terror against the working people, against the people living in the neighborhoods. And similar to the case with Colombia, they use the guise of anti-narcotics, anti-drug trafficking to not actually affect the drug trade. Because as we see with the case in Colombia, actually drug exports have increased. They've massively increased. Colombia continues to be the biggest exporter of drugs, despite a war on drugs in the country. And so instead of actually targeting the roots of the drug trade and the people who are benefiting, they target the people. And I mean, I really recommend that people check out Brasil de Fato. They've been doing extensive coverage. We'll be publishing something from them at People's Dispatch later today on this horrific bloodbath. And it's key. We have to always be looking from the perspective of the people who is getting affected. And I mean, it's just a horrific, horrific situation. And of course, people, human rights organizations, leftist organizations in Brazil have been widely condemning this massacre. As you mentioned, it's not in the mainstream media. It's not being covered. But we cannot turn our eyes away from this situation. Political repression in Colombia is where you started, Zoe. Now we're at Brazil. We went to South Africa. I mean, the world is on fire. The world is on fire. It's been a longstanding situation in Palestine for the Palestinian people to get emancipation, liberation, and so on. Key area, of course, has been these so-called Palestinian occupied territories. This is, by the way, a United Nations term, the occupied territories. It's not an emotional term, not a moral term by itself. It's a legal designation. One part of that legal designation turns to East Jerusalem. Yet Israel seems to believe that every part of the Palestinian occupied territories is its own. Prashant, we've seen clashes first at the Damascus Gate. Now in Sheikh Jarrahar, tell us a little bit about what's happening in Sheikh Jarrahar, which has been a flashpoint for quite some time. For quite some time, yes, Vijay. Actually, what has been happening, of course, is that a locality in occupied East Jerusalem, quite close to Damascus Gate, in fact. And there has been a longstanding push from groups of Jewish citizens supported by parts of the political establishment to evict Palestinian families, which are living there. And many of these Palestinian families were refugees from the Nagba of 1948, and they settled in Sheikh Jarrahar based on assurances they got that they would be allowed to settle there. And for decades now, the Israeli Jewish, certain Jewish communities have been trying to approve these families, people living there, of course, for generations. They've been filing cases, demanding that these people be evicted. And the latest development, of course, was earlier this month, when a court ordered that six families should be evicted in May itself and out of this seven by August. And this has again led to a fresh wave of protests, almost daily confrontations that way, of course, daily resistance. The Israelis, of course, being brutal, among other things, using something called skunk water, which is apparently a treated form of sewage to disperse the protesters, of course, arrests taking place, brutal pictures coming out. There was yesterday, I believe, the photographer and journalist, Oren Ziv posted a video where the deputy mayor of Jerusalem is publicly advocating that a Palestinian activist should have got a bullet in his head. And of course, those are just some of the examples. But what has also been inspiring, I think is that the resistance has been relentless, it has been steadfast, and it kind of continues with the waves you were seeing at the Damascus Gate a few weeks ago. And from all this, I think, of course, the case is still in court. There's going to be a hearing on May 10th with the Israeli Supreme Court, I believe, when this will hear the case. They've tried, of course, one of the courts tried to get the families in the Jewish community to reach a settlement, which is kind of ironic, the idea that people who are out to throw you out somehow, you reach a settlement with them. But that, of course, has not happened in what the resistance definitely intensifying. A lot of commentators have pointed to the fact that there is a very strong, fresh wave of resistance taking place in Palestine, an entire generation, a new generation coming out on the streets, unwilling to take Israeli occupation apartheid policies. And this movement, there have been a lot of solidarity events also planned, I believe, across the world with Sheikh Jarrah. If I'm not mistaken, there's one in the US tomorrow. So I think globally this is an issue that definitely needs a lot of amplifying as well. I mean, it's an issue that makes it to the front pages, but often just as a photograph because it is so ghastly often. And even here, the images coming out of Sheikh Jarrah out of Jerusalem, quite dramatic. People need to, of course, remember that the Trump administration decided illegally to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the heart of the Palestinian project, particularly East Jerusalem. There was no debate that Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem would form part of a two-state Palestinian solution, what would become Palestine. And now the way in which East Jerusalem is being taken, I mean, it's the heart of the political conflict and we're reporting it as a political story, not as the picture you see on the front. Now comes an interesting story, guys. By the way, if you missed it, you're listening to give the people what they want from people's dispatch and globetrotter. Now comes an interesting story. You see, we've covered Colombia, we've covered Brazil, we've covered political events of the highest order. And here I am spending two days reading a 173 page report from the United Nations Environmental Program, just for you, because we give the people what they want. Let me just tell you, and I have to look at my notes here, just tell you the name of this report because you'll be surprised that people read reports like this. It's called Global Methane Assessment, benefits and costs of mitigating methane emissions. This is what we do for you. This is what journalism should be. The United Nations released this report, and I have notes here because this is important. And the UN report shows that if global methane emissions are reduced between 2020 last year and 2030 by 40%, this would prevent 255,000 unnecessary deaths. That's the first thing. It would also hold down global warming, very, very important. It said that if this is done, if we are able to control the leakage of methane out into the atmosphere, we will be able to actually have a serious impact on climate change, serious impact. What I found most interesting is what was causing this enormous leak of methane or 40% of it turns out to be from animals, but not animals in the way you imagine animals. It's not your rabbits and so on running around or your stray cats. This is the food industry, the food complex, particularly in the advanced industrial countries, the way cattle and so on are raised. Just enormous production of methane gas. You've got to wonder as a people whether we want to continue to eat meat at the rate at which we do. Now, we began this program. I was talking about Kerala. It is heresy in the state of Kerala to talk about whether we should cut back on meat consumptions. I'm not proposing that in any way. I'm just saying that it is what 40% of the situation appears to be from animal farming and it may be that the quantity is a bit much. Now, this comes to waste. An enormous amount of food is wasted and I think there needs to be some rationality or at least a public discussion between food waste and the animal production or the meat production industry. The next thing is fossil fuel leaks. The leakages from power plants and so on are quite incredible. The report was extremely depressing on this. There just isn't upkeep of power plants. So when we talk about fossil fuel impact, a lot of it is just from the fact that power plants don't have the necessary investment to upkeep themselves, tighten valves and so on. I understand we need a green transition but until we get there, let's clean up our power plants that we have, very important. And the third thing here was in landfills and wastewater and what was interesting about the report, friends, is it suggested that most of these mitigation strategies would pay for themselves. Because if you are able to harness the methane, that's natural gas, you can produce energy from it. So you have landfills which are just leaking methane. We're not able to capture it because we're not using our technological skills that we have. Interesting report because it's not as dire as it sounds. That's why I thought I should present this report. It's not really saying, oh my goodness, the planet is disappearing. It's saying there are actually practical steps we can take from now, practical steps. We need investment to tackle the methane problem, not just massive investments for a green new deal. This must be part of it. Very important that the UN has done this study. I'm happy to have read it and even happier to have shared this with you. We started with Columbia, Zoe, a very, very disturbing situation. We'll be continuing to watch this. Please go and bookmark peoplesdispatch.org, follow the Globetrotter stories. Zoe and Prashanta are always, always on the alert. They are 24 hour reporters and 24 hour editors. They don't sleep because they're working for you. Pretty good show today, Zoe, Prashanta, anything else you want to say? Pretty good. It's pretty good and pretty exhausting. Tell us what you think of this show. We like your feedback, even if it just is feedback about amazing clothing choices. We like hearing from you. We want to see you again next week. We don't want to see you alone. We want you to bring a crowd, bring your family, bring your mothers, cousins, siblings, bring them. Bring a crowd, don't come alone. Thanks a lot. See you next week. See you.