 France has finally announced that it will withdraw its soldiers and ambassador from Niger. What led to this dramatic turnaround? After nearly five months of striking, Hollywood writers may be close to a tentative deal with major studios. Have the demands of the workers been addressed? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before you go any further, if you haven't hit the subscribe button already on YouTube, please do. Almost two months after the military coup in Niger, France has finally said that it will withdraw its troops and ambassador from the country. Now this comes after weeks of demonstration in Niger against its former colonizer France, which has kept 1,500 soldiers in the name of fighting terrorism. The coup leaders have also taken a strong stand against the French presence. It's been a dramatic time in the Sahel region as a whole. Last week, we saw Niger join Mali and Burkina Faso to form the Alliance of Sahel States, which could be a defining moment. We go to Kambale Musawili for more on all these developments. Kambale, thank you so much for joining us. Very interesting development with the French announcing that they will withdraw. It's been a battle of wills it looks like for the past many weeks, the government sticking to its stand very closely while the French, you know, trying all their propaganda weapons, trying to say that they were being besieged, trying to say that they were held hostage, etc. Although the fact that their soldiers were in a foreign country, so avoiding that. But what do you think forced France to finally capitulate at this point of time? It's very fascinating time to be on the African continent. It doesn't really matter if they will live, it's really when they will live. In Niger, and of course in many of the Francophone countries in West Africa, the presence of the French military, the presence of French multinationals has not been welcomed. And the people of the region have for over a decade, they have been saying, France, the gage, France must go, France must live. And he has expressed itself in the past few months or a couple of years in the multiple coup d'etats taking place in the Sahel, where you hear very clearly from the coup leaders saying, we want to break from the connection from the, I could call it really, I mean clearly he said colonial yoke. Controlled by France, where they see the currency controlled by France. They see a foreign military basis led by France most of the time. They see French multinational extracting resources in the region, be it oil, be it gold, be it also uranium in the case of Niger. So hearing that statement simply means that the people have won what they've called for. They've called for France to leave, France did not want to leave. France was very arrogant in saying that they will not actually remove the soldiers and diplomats. But they have capitulated where you hear Macron say that they are leaving and they add the reason why they are leaving is because the country is no longer in the case of Niger. The country is no longer interested in fighting terrorists, which is bizarre to hear that statement. When you see a few days ago, the countries of the region, the Takoguma area, Mali, Niger and Bukina, signed an alliance where in that alliance, in one of the articles, it's clearly stated that they are coming together to stop the terrorists. Right, Kambali context, I think we are entering two months since the coup took place and in the immediate aftermath, there was a considerable amount of threats from Echoas. Of course, still continuing to this day, Echoas backed by France, of course, to some extent the U.S. also maybe. But there was talk about military intervention. The chiefs of staff met. They said that D-Day had been decided, etc., etc. But in the following days, we actually saw a lot of that initial aggression coming to a halt. So maybe if you look at the past two months, what really kind of led to this initial threat not really working out? This was really exposed. The people of the region have exposed Echoas. They have exposed Echoas in showing the world that they are an entity that does not reflect the aspiration of the people of the region. So what is the context? The people of Niger, Niger borders Nigeria. When you look at Niger and Nigeria, the people of Niger literally have family members across the border. So when you see the president of Nigeria calling for a military operation to find Bazuma, put him back into power and you hear the people of the region, especially the northern part of Nigeria. All the governors of the northern part of Nigeria clearly stated to the president that you are not going to use our provinces to enter Niger. Why? It's the same people. These borders are porous. The people of the region have celebrated the people of Niger have celebrated the end of Bazuma and the neighbor country wants to have a military presence to bring him back, which is not what the people want. So that's really what happened, that the people have won what they wanted. And unfortunately, Echoas, not CDL in French, are not in tune with what's happening with the people. But the second thing also, people need to understand why the people of Niger support the junta. When you just look at the past administration, and I mean, you can read the statement from the co-leaders about why they did the coup. People don't even realize what Bazuma did beyond a rigged election where he sidelined all the opposition leader, Isuf, the president before him, created a system to make sure that he actually won the presidency. But when he was president, only speaking about security, not even the corruption cases, do people realize that Bazuma released terrorists numerous times that were arrested? Can you imagine, I think earlier this year in 2023, about nine terrorists were released after they were caught? And this was a shocker, even to the military, that the president of the country who wants peace and security in the country decide after we arrest the terrorists, we are going to release them. And that's when we speak with comrades in Niger, they keep reminding us this, that Bazuma is a threat to security in the country. They want peace and security, and he has done many things while he was president to sabotage the army, to release terrorists back into the wilderness, and these terrorists come back and attack the country. So the people of Niger, they are clear. Ekoas is not clear. Ekoas has not engaged in bringing about peace and stability in Niger. So the people of Niger took it upon themselves to now take control of the country, remove Bazuma, and to see the future of Niger, what will take place with the junta, how they will engage with the population, the rapport, the force that will exist between the people to hold the current leader accountable. But with every indication now, we see that the people are holding the leaders accountable, and the leaders of the junta leaders are following the interests of the people. So I'm not surprised that Francis capitulated to the will of the people, and it's only to see now what will come out of the alliance that's been built of the region to bring about peace and stability in the Sahel. That is my final question as well. The alliance of Sahel states, like you already mentioned, very interesting moment there, because we have three countries which are on very similar trajectories it seems like, and facing very similar challenges coming together. So what did you think were the highlights of this charter at this point of time? This alliance is a security alliance. Two things come up very clearly, sovereignty and security. They want to make sure that they work together to bring an end to the jihadist attacks, the terrorist attacks that's taking place in their countries. And second is that they are committing to making sure that for any external intervention in any of the countries, they will help one another to protect the country. That is really coming out of Kwame Krumah's vision. When he thought about the United States of Africa calling for a command center, a United Command Center to protect African nations from foreign attacks. We've seen three African countries do that. It's innovative and it's very important. Can you imagine if from the beginning of the attacks, the jihadist attacks in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso, these two places with ACOAS, that the ACOAS forces were actually coming together for that? That would have been amazing. So for me, I'm very inspired with the alliance. Taking place, the implementation of it is going to be difficult. Still with the foreign military bases still present in the region. I'm worrying about the U.S. military base in Niger, the drone base that's there. The data has not yet been dismantled. So all we can do at the moment is support the will of the people, explain the challenges that we face, and be the voice to sound the alarm of what is taking place there. But I will also say that even when we're talking about the jihadist, the terrorist attack, we're talking about it in a very short time stamp in history. We've had a context. We should know that the destabilization of Niger, the destabilization of Mali, the destabilization of Burkina Faso with the terrorist attack is in direct connection with Hillary Clinton's action and Barack Obama's action backed by NATO of toppling Gaddafi in Libya. So what we will talk about is security issue. We are completely forgetting that we have a security issue in the Sahel today because of the unilateral action of NATO and the United States in Libya. So while we are protecting ourselves, we should look into history to make sure that to hold the U.S. Africa accountable, to hold NATO accountable for the operations which has destabilized the Niger. But I'm very hopeful to see these nations coming together for peace and security in the Sahel. And I'm very happy to also see that they continue to listen to the voice of the people. History may absolve them, but for now they are following the voice of the people of the Sahel. Thank you so much, Kambale, for that analysis. We'll come back to you soon because it's definitely a rapidly developing situation. Thank you so much. The Writers Guild of America, the union representing screenwriters, has reached a tentative deal with studios. Screenwriters have been on strike since May 2nd with a series of demands including pay, staffing and the impact of artificial intelligence. However, the deal still has to be approved by the union membership and the work stoppage in Hollywood won't end exactly yet. This is because actors who are organized by the SAG after a performance union are still on strike. We'll go to Anish for more details. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. Of course, a bit early to talk about what might finally be the deal that will come out of this. But right now from the reports, what does it look like? What are the tentative terms, so to speak? Well, they're talking about, we do not have a clear idea of what they're talking about actually at the current moment because the final language of the contract is yet to be decided. And that is the tricky part. You can agree to a whole host of things, but if the language gives the bosses some kind of leeway in certain very key aspects, that can actually undo a lot of gains that were made. So this is something that the WGA wants to be very careful about and it might take a little bit more time than other kinds of deals that we've seen on tentative deals where it leads to the membership within days, not even within hours after it was struck with the negotiating team. Nevertheless, the bargaining team spoke about how major victories and protections were gained and that very clearly indicates that they have secured some level of protections from the advent of AI. And possibly, and this might be a landmark thing, if it actually does happen, some kind of revenue sharing agreement for streaming broadcasts. And that is something that is going to be very revolutionary for not just Hollywood, but for the entire entertainment industry and that can impact the whole world itself. So this is something that the writers have, and these two were some of the key, the most central issue. Apart from other factors, obviously, better contract, minimums stopping for writers and stuff like that. These two were actually some of the essential demands and that's why the strike was needed and this was the most tricky point. So we can assume that there must have been some kind of good level of protections or gains made in these areas and that is something that we need to wait and see what final draft of the agreement was saved. If they have actually secured a deal that is at par with TV broadcasts, then this actually would be something that actually changes how streaming platforms even work and function in the current scenario and how revenues are going to be shared from there. Protections for AI is going to be very dicey and that is where we need to wait and see what kind of protections that they might have secured because the fear is real. It's not something that has been talked about. AI can and has, there has been potential where they can actually cut down on the number of writers. Where studios might use AI to cut down on number of writers and maybe even do away with a team that's been something that some of the major studio bosses have talked about in different forums. And that is something that is going to affect not just livelihoods of writers but also like entertainment in general. And so we need to wait and see how even that is going to pan out in the current scenario. Just to go in some depth into two of these issues, you talked about the revenue sharing issue. Could you explain what the real issue behind this is? Because I think with the coming of firms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, all that there is a shift that has taken place. So could you explain what the contention was really? Well, it is kind of taken to granted today but a very similar issue happened when TV television actually came into the scene in the late 50s and 60s when broadcast television was the most common medium of entertainment. And what happened was repeat broadcast of shows would mean that there will be extra revenue that were generated and studio bosses would eventually get most of it. And that is something that the writers at that point in time found to be very unfair to them because it was their work and their royalties were essentially taken away from them primarily through these repeat broadcasts. And that is something that they had a very similar kind of strike which went on for months and they secured that victory, they gained that revenue sharing. And that has been going on, that same kind of deal of revenue sharing has been going on for decades now. With the advent of streaming platform, it's a very similar case but it's just that when it came to streaming, while it is technically considered as television in most other cases when it comes to revenue sharing it was not considered television. Or it was not considered broadcast or repeat broadcast because streaming is essentially you can pay on demand, stream on demand and watch on demand. And that created a different kind of setting as well and studio bosses use that as a way to generate income revenue that need not be shared with the writers or any kind of creative, even artists for that matter act as even and that has created this situation where writers were losing revenue and losing wages and royalties in real terms. And that affected them because most of this shows, most major shows that we today watch and know about actually are big on streaming platforms and it very rarely goes to television first these days. And that has created this scenario where wages and royalties were essentially stashed away from them. And this is what the writers have been demanding that there needs to be a new kind of revenue sharing agreement. And that pretty much is a very similar demand that the SAG APRA strikers have been calling for because it has actually affected them the worst even. And we can actually see some kind of, you know, spillover of these, whatever happens with this final draft contract into the SAG APRA strike as well. Because it will be very similar kind of, it was a very similar kind of strike in the sixties that created a revenue sharing agreement for actors and writers. And it is very likely that this is going to affect how the actor strike will also take shape and how the demands will be delivered by studio bosses. Right Anish, that was really my next question that has there been any signs of breakthrough in the actor strike because many of the demands like you said are quite similar. How are the studios responding? We need to wait and see because we have seen that talks right now have not really gone or, you know, progressed any further since the strike began. But the kind of victory that WGA is talking about, and if at actually whatever shape it takes and obviously whatever deal happens will need to be ratified by the members, majority of the members for it to be finalized and for the strike to get but also it will take weeks obviously. So whatever victory happens with the writer strike will also affect how actors and, you know, performing actors will be dealt with. It is very difficult because SAG APRA is actually fighting two different strikes right now. Obviously the AMGP is one. There is the video game strike which we spoke about earlier, which might happen in coming weeks. And so these two battles are going to go hand in hand. There are some fundamental differences. Obviously AI may not be the, like at least in the days of television shows, AI may not be affecting performance artists as much as writers do. But they are very concerned about revenue sharing and obviously minimum wages. One of the major things about actor strike is the fact that a large number of staff, there has been obviously stopping shortages or, you know, inadequate stopping by major studios. There's also working conditions that are not very safe for many of the artists. And we need to remember that we're not talking about millionaires or, you know, you know, A-listers, but more than 90% of the actors who make basic minimum wages essentially speaking, or, you know, at part with median wages of California, basically living wages. And they are the ones who really need these deals to happen. And so if the revenue sharing deal happens in the manner in which the WGA wanted with their strike with the EMTB, it is going to have a similar impact and might be a model for that actors and performing artists might use for their demands as well. So we need to wait and see how their negotiations are going. But this clearly shows both this entire scenario clearly shows that strikes are working. Strikes are pretty much that labor mobilization is working and it is delivering what workers want. And even in a very high profile, you know, very star-studded kind of industry that Hollywood is, even their strikes are working and it is making a big impact right now. Well, any strikes are working and strikes are necessary because I think one thing we learned from this is that the entertainment industry is not just about the A-listers like you said, but tens of thousands of people, writers, supporting actors who actually earn very little. And while we consume a lot of this entertainment media, it's important to think about all these people and their struggles as well. Thank you so much for talking to us. And that's all we have today in this episode of the Daily Debrief. Please come back tomorrow for another episode. In the meanwhile, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org, follow us on all the social media platforms. And if you haven't hit that subscribe button on YouTube yet, please do.