 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news round up. What can I say? This is the 99th episode of give the people what they want brought to you by the extraordinary people's dispatch. That's Prashant and Zoe from People's Dispatch. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Happy to be with you again. Just to let you know that next week, our 100th episode is going to be postponed by a week. There'll be no give the people what they want next week. Zoe and I will be in the trenches at football clubs in the middle of rallies and so on reporting directly for you from Brazil trying to make sense of the second round of the presidential election. So as a consequence of that, we've decided to postpone our 100th episode. So we can have a real bumper episode for you the following week. Well, speaking of bumper episodes, United Kingdom seems to be undergoing something quite interesting. So many chancellors. I didn't even know they had so many capable people to be chancellor. So many prime ministers can't say that they've been capable people. Well, it appears that even the IMF warning that the policies of this government in Britain was going to increase inequality, a surprising statement from the IMF. All of that together seems to have created some further chaos in the United Kingdom. Prashant, what's the fate of Liz Truss? Right. I mean, there's hopefully or probably no fate as far as she's concerned, except in the history books where she probably has, she definitely has secured a place as the prime minister with the shortest tenure in the United Kingdom. It's been a remarkable 45 days in power for Liz Truss. I think for journalists across the world, especially people who write on issues like we do, her tenure has been exceptional, like I said, because it was probably the most concentrated version of a particular ideology that we've seen over the past 30 years, which is that make the rich richer and everything will be fine after that. And we know that governments in the US, in the way in Europe, in many parts in the global south have also followed these principles because of the IMF and the World Bank, other institutions forcing them to. But Liz Truss, I think in her government, the government was specifically unique because it was probably the most concentrated version of that we have seen in recent times. And a lot of these people stem from a think tank founded some 10 years ago which advocated exactly these policies. So in fact, Liz Truss was so pro-rich that it seems that the usual guardians of the rich had problems with how pro-rich she was. That's what her policies seem to indicate because each of her policies, there was such a massive backlash, even from the financial markets, even from, like you said, the IMF raised flags, the financial press in the United Kingdom raised flags, all of whom are like swan upholders of capitalism, all of them were worried about extremism. So in that sense, it's not surprising that Liz Truss and her government collapsed. So easily, I mean, the immediate trigger was the fact that on Wednesday there was a complete bungling of a parliamentary vote on fracking, which led to, of course, there being complete confusion, MPs complaining of being pushed and shoved and bullied. But that's more of a sideshow because I think the larger issue was the kind of financial proposals she was planning to bring. We've already talked, I think, about the reduction in taxes for the super-rich, the removal of corporation taxes. And I think in one of the most illustrative points, they were considering removing caps on bonuses to bankers. I mean, that in 2022, a government could consider increasing bankers' bonuses shows how completely clueless the government was about the sentiment of the people and how wedded to this kind of an orthodoxy it was. And this is one part, of course, and I think the other part is equally important to remember because while Liz Truss is probably consigned to the pages of history, the kind of intense orthodoxy might subside for a bit, it'll be a bit more concealed. But what they also planned was a very vigorous attack on labor. By labor, I mean organized labor, not the labor party. In terms of actually reducing the possibility of workers to strike, they plan to introduce penal provisions which would have made it far more difficult for workers to organize and workers to strike. And this is a response to the fact that workers in the United Kingdom, the poor in the United Kingdom are rising massively. Inflation is at 10%. Food inflation is at a 40-year high or something. The economic situation is quite horrible. The energy prices are going to be higher. And people are on the streets, people have been protesting. And the solution of this government or this conservative party was to attack workers in every sense possible. So, and I don't think that just because Liz Truss and this government is gone, these proposals are also going to kind of vanish. So that's really the important thing to note because so about, there have been rollbacks in some of her economic proposals. But this attack on labor, or the attack on refugees and migrants, which we saw started with Boris Johnson's time, even earlier before, but specifically started with Boris Johnson, continued under Liz Truss, will definitely continue under the next Prime Minister as well. So I think there's been a lot of humor, a lot of memes about Liz Truss disappearing, but it's important to note that the underlying policy framework will very much be there, which is why trade unions are taking this moment, the Left is taking this moment to say that it's just not enough that one Prime Minister is gone. Well, the IMF came in and said that Liz Truss's policies would increase inequality. IMF has never said that about the austerity trap that Haiti has been in for a long time. Interesting, what is good for the goose doesn't seem to be good for the gander, Zoe. What's the situation now with Haiti? Well, as we speak today, the United Nations is going to be voting on a resolution to see if they do authorize a multinational mission to Haiti to provide military assistance. And it's quite remarkable. It's quite upsetting how things have progressed in the past week as we spoke about last week. The de facto President and Prime Minister Arielle Henri requested officially to the United Nations military assistance and support as gang activity is at an all time high in the country as armed groups are taking control over significant portions of the territory in Haiti. However, as written about, of course, on people's dispatch and also in the red alert that was released by track on the continental yesterday along with Alba Moivientos, a military intervention in Haiti is not what Haiti needs. As we've been reporting on for the past several years, there has been mass uprisings in Haiti precisely because of imperialist intervention in the country, precisely because the people have not been able to have sovereignty over political decisions in the country, precisely because every single autonomous solution that they come up with, whether it's a transitional government, a transitional council, the Montana agreement, so many other proposals to overcome and get out of their political crisis have been thwarted by the United States, by the United Nations, by the European Union, by France. It's important to point out that the situation that Haiti sees itself in today is the result of colonial plundering of 200 years. Once Haiti freed itself and became the first Black Republic in 1804 and a heroic, heroic war for independence against the French colonial power, they were given essentially an ultimatum to have to pay 150 million francs in reparations to the former slaveholders. And it's really important to underline this because it is unprecedented that a former colony would have to pay reparations to its colonial masters, and especially because they're reparations for slave owners. However, in a lot of other English-speaking Caribbean islands also have a series of payments that they've given to former colonial masters. It's important to remember this because as we're talking about, for example, the economic crisis in the UK as we see what happens in Europe, these countries also benefit from these colonial reparations. That aside, what's happening now in Haiti is that with this crisis of violence, with this crisis of institutions, of political crisis that has been undeveloping over the past several years, and of course, decades, the core group, which is made up of the United States, the European Union, United Nations, has essentially put its support in Ariel Henry. Many progressive groups allege that he has things that these armed groups would have taken over large courts of the territory, that this situation is not coming out of the blue, and that now his call for foreign intervention is really only going to wreak more havoc. And I'll just say quickly that other foreign interventions into Haiti have not done anything for the people of Haiti. We only have to look at the series of UN peacekeeping missions that have killed thousands of people, that introduced cholera into the country, which organizations in Haiti say killed over 30,000 people. Mass rapes were committed against Asian men and women and children, horrific, horrific human rights violations that were committed by these delegations. And so it is of extreme importance and necessity that we stand against intervention in Haiti, that the United Nations peacekeeping is nothing about peace. It is about inflicting violence and imposing a colonial regime in the country. And so we have to stand with the people of Haiti and oppose this intervention. And as journalists, it's extremely important that we continue to raise awareness to what's happening in the country and advocate for the people's solutions that they've been consistently proposing. Well, that's in the Caribbean. If you go out to the Japan Sea, even more alarming developments are taking place. In the first two weeks of October, the United States and Japan conducted one of the largest military drills seen in that part of the world, a military exercise called Resolute Dragon. Now it's got to be said that this is year two of Resolute Dragon, which the United States and Japan have said will take place every year. What's the issue with this? Well, firstly, it came right after the U.S. conducted an important naval exercise in the Sea of Japan with the South Korean Navy. And then Japan, South Korea and the United States conducted another exercise. All of this happening in the Sea of Japan. For those of you who want to go and look at your maps, the Sea of Japan borders, of course, the major countries of Russia and, well, China. These are two countries which in the National Security Statement released by the United States government, they have called upon their power to weaken Russia and China, calling them the great threats to U.S. military command. Well, Major General Jay Bar Jayron of the Third Marine Division was quoted by the press to say that these exercises Resolute Dragon, but also the exercises with South Korea will ensure that we are prepared to rapidly respond to crises throughout the Indo-Pacific. We are rapidly, we are prepared. We, the we is very interesting here because largely this is, of course, the United States that is building up, I suppose, its power arrangements, including alliances with South Korea and Japan and so on, building up these in its confrontation against both China and Russia. This is now on the Eastern flank. We already have a war on in Ukraine. More will be said about that in the weeks to come, but for now let's focus on this flank. Why is this so significant? It's significant for two different reasons. I'm going to talk about the economic reasons first and then talk about the military implications and political implications. What are the economic ramifications of this? When Russia entered Ukraine on the 24th of February, there were sanctions placed on Russia by the G7 countries. This included Japan, of course, Japan being a founder member of the Group of Seven in 1973-74, first meeting held in France. Japan has been there from the beginning. So Japan signed on to the sanctions against Russia, subsequent to that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet decided that it would be impossible for Japan for economic reasons and for energy security reasons to actually cut ties with Russia. What we began to see, therefore, was the Japanese sovereign funds, Japanese government monies be used to invest even more in the Sakhalin II pipeline project in Sakhalin Island, which is part of Russia, as well. Alongside the Indian government's energy company, ONGC, Japanese were also buying up assets in Russia that were being sold by Western companies who wanted to get out of Russia as a consequence of sanctions. Well, it looked like in May, June, July, that the Japanese were basically going in a different direction than the United States vis-à-vis at least Russia. Also, vis-à-vis China, the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was making sort of conciliatory noises, even though this is a right-wing government regarding China for the simple reason that Japan and China are integrated into an economic arrangement that includes, of course, most of the Pacific Rim of Asia in also the trade alliance RCEP and so on, the largest trade alliance in the world. Well, so as a consequence of all this, Japan looked to be going in that direction. Immediately we see pressure on Japan to conduct Resolute Dragon II and Fumio Kishida makes a statement. It tells the Financial Times in early October, we need to do a thorough examination of whether Japan's defensive capability is adequate or not. For the first time in 10 years, Japan will release a national security strategy in December. We'll be looking to see what the implications of this are. For instance, will Japan abrogate Article 9 of its constitution which prevents Japan from any kind of overseas military activity? Lots to look at here. Taiwan is in the equation. A lot to investigate and look at. We'll be following this very carefully. You always give the people what they want, coming to you from people's dispatch. The only place you're going to read about things like this sort of military engagement in the Sea of Japan and brought to you by Globetrotter. Again, this is our 99th episode, a very special episode. On this episode in the eve of the Brazilian election, Zoe, what's going on there? Well, it's been a flurry this week. The president of the Supreme Electoral Court, Alexandre Murais, said that in this period between the first round and the second round, the dissemination of fake news has intensified like no other. And this week has been no different. There's been many different scandals and fake news being shared that's really wrapped the Brazilian people. The largest of which involves a clip, not fake news, a clip of Bolsonaro speaking in an interview wherein he is talking about walking through Brasilia and coming upon seeing some young girls 14 and 15 years old. In the interview, he says, I saw these young girls. They were pretty. They looked nice. And there was a vibe, a sexual vibe. And I asked if I could enter. And then he goes on to say that he thinks that he stumbled upon a brothel of young Venezuelan girls. This clip of this interview was shared widely, I think now. It's probably been seen over millions and millions of times. It really provoked a huge debate on social media. Bolsonaro himself has attempted to create a lot of campaign messaging saying that I'm not a pedophile. Those are the exact words that are in these campaign messages. He even made a video with the fake ambassador of Juan Guaidó in Brazil. I mean, it's been wild. The involvement, the Venezuelan question in these elections has been very present. Guaidó has also been very actively supporting Bolsonaro. This is one development. But also yesterday, Bras de Fato published an extremely informative report about the correlation between support for Bolsonaro and environmental crimes being committed. It's extremely important. We published a translation of it on People's Dispatch. I think it's such an important element to keep in mind. The interests that are at play in these elections. This map essentially shows all of the major areas where there's been burning of the Amazon rainforest, illegal mining being committed. And these are the major areas of support for Bolsonaro. Areas where he won over 60, over 70% of the vote. This directly coincides with environmental crimes being committed. The destruction of the Amazon and support for Bolsonaro has consistently given these people a free hand to do what they want with the forest and completely destroy it for not only the people living in the area, the indigenous communities, the native communities there, but of course impacting the environment of the world. All of these questions are at play. The social media continues to be a huge battleground where different stories are coming out. People are battling, engaging in this way. There was also a different podcast recordings that took place this week, Lula on Tuesday in a very, very popular podcast episode giving a lot of different points about what his platform is going to be, how he plans to support the working class. Bolsonaro has continued to go in the offensive, attacking Lula. The polls are extremely, extremely close. It shows Lula winning, but maybe by four or five percentage points. At this point, it's really tough to say what's going to happen. I think the polls, as seen in the first round, they're not necessarily going to be able to give the extremely accurate report that people would like it to. Of course, a lot changes on election days in this volatile climate, in this polarized moment, everything really comes down to the line. Lula has been attempting to court the evangelical vote. He had a big event on Wednesday with evangelical leaders. He wrote a letter to the evangelicals. It's really a neck and neck race these days. You're going to be on the ground, Vijay, meeting with people, speaking to a lot of different voters in different sections that are mobilizing. It's a dynamic moment, and we'll continue to be bringing you all of the reports that we can. Yes, it's going to be a very important election. We'll see how it goes. Hard to say it's correct that this is a touch-and-go situation, not a touch-and-go situation in Egypt, where that military government now over almost a decade in power and for almost a decade, lots of people in prison. Of course, the current context for this is the fact that Al-Abdul Fattar, the Egyptian activist, has completed 200 days on hunger strike. He's surviving purely on liquid calories at this point in a prison which, according to the Egyptian authorities, is a model for how... It's a reform prison. It's a model prison. It's supposed to show how Egypt has made many strides in their human rights record. That itself, I think, pretty much shows what the situation is. One of his sisters posted a Facebook post recently talking about how, while most prisoners are allowed radios supplied by their families, of course, Allah and his cellmates have been denied that, and apparently his cellmates were told that you are not allowed to radio because you are with Allah Abdul Fattar. And this petty vindictiveness, I think, is what characterizes the Egyptian government today. It's bad enough that you have imprisoned him on a charge which is as meaningless, as spreading fake news and belonging to a terrorist organization without providing any evidence, without any Ayod and Ayodhah of evidence, which is credible in a sense. It is bad enough that Allah has been behind bars for most of the time since 2013. He was first sentenced. He was released and very shortly, again, he was arrested, spent two years in pretrial detention in violation of the law and was finally sentenced on these very, very flimsy grounds. And now, of course, through a litany of everyday attempts to subjugate his spirit, the most petty kind, the assault on Allah Abdul Fattar is continuing by the Egyptian government. One of his sisters, Sana Sahif, has now begun a sit-in in front of Whitehall in London to raise the issue, to keep highlighting the issue because he's also acquired British citizenship. So it's, again, incumbent on the British government also to answer to this question. Now, many of these governments have been raising voices, have been sort of making polite noises on this issue. But the real question is that countries like Britain and the United States, for instance, are the backbone of Egypt's security infrastructure. The fact that in COP 27 is being held, the entire world leadership is going to descend on Egypt and talk about saving the future of the world and making all these grand speeches about how they are going to commit so much for the future of the world. In a country where those who dare to raise their voices are being treated in such a manner. We do know that in recent times there have been some release of political prisoners in Egypt and it is believed that the COP 27 summit is a major reason for this because Egypt is doing its own, the whole whitewashing of its image, so to speak. But the fact that as long as someone like Alaa and many of his other fellow compatriots, human rights activists who have been detained for years, who have been imprisoned for years on such flimsy charges are not freed. All these actions are pretty much, they're just symbolic, they're just attempts to sort of convey a particular image. And I think that is pretty much the reason why his sister is also at a sit-in over there and Alaa's hunger strike itself has been on those grounds and we do know that we have at least 60,000 such political prisoners. That was the last number that was provided and at this point of time, I think we've talked about this before but the juxtaposition of this COP 27 summit with the suffering of people in Egypt who for about nine years have been facing this kind of continuous assault, wave after wave of protests has happened over the years, each time the assault by the government has been relentless, brutal, and targeting anybody who dares raise a voice. But the fact remains that all these activists, all these people have continued protesting and raising their voice and I think in the run-up to this summit we'll actually probably see more of such protests. And it's important that we keep track of this because I think the Egyptian government most likely will try and use the COP event as a kind of whitewashing, as you said, and might even release some prisoners in a show of good faith or whatever. But of course, people like Alaa will remain in the dungeons of Egypt. Well, let's go to the central belt of northern Africa, the Sahel region, where they've been, as we've now reported, quite regularly for people's dispatch and globetrotter, we've focused attention on the two coups in Mali the two coups in Burkina Faso. These are a kind of coups that have been part of a massive anti-French wave taking place actually not just in the Sahel, but also in North Africa and Algeria and Morocco and so on. This wave has been quite significant. Well, there was also a coup in September of last year of 2021 in Guinea where the long-term government of Alpha Conde who had been in power since 2010, Alpha Conde was trying to have a third term. He was trying to push forward a constitutional change and so on. Well, before President Alpha Conde could get through with this 41-year-old Colonel Mamadi Dumbuy overthrew the government. This is not the first time in Guinea you've seen a military government come in. I think it's the third time that a government was overthrown. Now interestingly, Colonel Mamadi Dumbuy had given a pretty powerful speech in 2017 condemning French and US interference in the Sahel region. He has some political opinions. He has also said that he is a fan. Let's say, I know the word fan is a curious word to use but he's a fan of Captain Jerry Rawlings who had conducted a coup in Ghana and said that maybe the military is a more appropriate way to go forward. On the other hand, after the coup of September 2021, Guinea began to chart a path away from French interference. At the same time, they didn't really make any comment. Partly, this is the disorientation of militaries that have come to power in the Sahel. Colonel Dumbuy didn't say much about what was going to happen in Guinea, whether there would be a transition to civilian rule and so on. Well, outside the gates of the barracks and then the presidential palace, there had been a big platform created which is called the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution, NFDC. Well, the NFDC was made up of very large number of different kinds of groupings, civil groups, trade unions, political parties and so on. In fact, the NFDC had been on a rampage in the summer of 2021 into August 21 and had created the political crisis for President Alpha Conde that led to the coup. In other words, the coup of Colonel Mamadi Dumbuy had been produced by these mass demonstrations led by the FNDC. Well, since the government of Colonel Mamadi Dumbuy hasn't been able to advance an agenda, you began to see this summer, the summer of 2022, a year later, the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution began to make some noises about the need for a path to civilian rule. In August of this year, the military government decided that the NFDC had to be now closed down. In fact, by decree dissolved the NFDC. This Thursday in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, protests broke out led by the now banned NFDC, the FNDC. This Thursday, very large protests in Conakry. There were clashes with the security services and so on. We don't really know yet, even though it's 24 hours later. We don't know yet what the death toll is or anything like that. We're going to keep an eye on what's happening in Guinea as we've been keeping an eye on the Sahel. Interesting developments, anti-French sentiment. Yes, but also a sentiment on behalf of a kind of democracy. It's the 99th episode of Give the People What They Want brought to you by your favorite channel, People's Dispatch. That's Prashant and Zoe. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Next week would have been a 100th episode. We're going to take a break next week in order to prepare for you a fantastic show. The following week, our 100th episode. Send us those selfies on Twitter. We want to see you watching our show and we want you to bring lots of friends for our 100th episode. Also, be aware that on social media, you're going to see some special photographs about the People's Dispatch team towards our 100th episode. See you in two weeks and thanks a lot.