 Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. You're with Give the People What They Want. Coming to you from People's Dispatch. Today it's just Prashant. We lost Zoe. We haven't lost her. Just lost her voice. She'll be back next week. I'm Vijay from Globetrotter. Coming to you every week. This is the 159th show. 159 weeks. In fact longer because we had to skip some weeks. We've been with you for a long time. Accompanying you. Trying to bring you the important news from around the world. You might remember that in the US administration of President Joe Biden there's a person who's basically in charge of human rights to some extent the concept of genocide. In fact she wrote a book on genocide. Her name is Samantha Power. An important figure in the human rights community used to be at Harvard University and so on. Well interestingly after the International Court of Justice said released orders saying that there is plausible evidence plausibility of genocide being conducted by Israel against the people of Palestine in Gaza after the International Criminal Court had said this really within hours. The Israelis started to say that the principal UN agency Anarva founded in fact during the catastrophe of 1948 and is the principal provider of education health and other services to the Palestinian people the Israelis who have hated Anarva for a long time accused Anarva staff at least about a dozen of them of participating in one way the other in the October 7th attack across the fence from Gaza. Well few days later they reduced the number to less than 5 from just over a dozen. They reduced the number just in a few days. The classic Israeli ploy they sort of exaggerated the number and exaggerated the scale and then reduced it. By the way over 150 Anarva employees have been killed during this particular bombardment just to put in context this numbers game. Well you know not only did Israel make this statement that Anarva employees were involved in the attacks of October 7th and therefore Israel said not only did they make the claim but they then said that funders of Anarva should hold withhold their funding until Anarva decides to go a different way and so lining up right behind Israel were a number of western countries Canada the United States and so on and I was interested in listening to Samantha Power who again has written a book on genocide high official of the Biden administration defending not only Israel's brutal bombing of the Palestinians in Gaza but defending the defunding of a relief agency in the middle of what the international court of justice has said is a plausible genocide in the middle of a plausible genocide the high official of the US government wrote a book on genocide is okay with cutting funding to the one relief agency that might ameliorate the effects of this genocide. Now what's interesting as well yesterday former Anarva spokesperson said that in fact Anarva wasn't even shown this evidence this evidence was sent overseas to other countries it was not even shared with Anarva there was no discussion with the UN agency to talk to them to find out and verify if indeed the names on this Israeli list were actually Anarva employees or if somebody else had just conjured the name there was no conversation with this UN agency and immediately the Israelis accused it of terrorism. In fact I must say having covered the 2014 operation protective edge bombing of Gaza in which over 2,000 people were killed in a matter of just a few weeks the Israeli government targeted a number of of UN buildings including UNICEF UNICEF being the UN Children's Fund interesting one European country decided we are not going to stop funding Anarva and that's Belgium. Belgium said we are going to continue to fund Anarva. Well hours later a Belgian funded NGO was struck by Israeli bombs inside Gaza was that retaliation was that basically just an accident I mean cannot just be a coincidence that a funded organization was struck immediately. What is very clear to anybody who is watching this Prashant what is very clear is this has got not really much to do with October 7 because Israel has been after Anarva for a long time. This has got to do fundamentally with the Israelis demand that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in Jordan and other places who avail themselves of Anarva services no longer do so and have to therefore become citizens of Jordan, citizens of Lebanon and suspend or in fact further than that to annul their Palestinian citizenship. This is in fact a violation of the Security Council Resolution 194 which gives Palestinians the right to return. If Anarva is closed down then it becomes difficult for Palestinians to maintain themselves as Palestinian refugees who have a right to return they now become citizens of Lebanon and other countries. Quite an outrageous a set of events but I really would oblige Samantha Power to once again go to her bookshelf pull down her own book and read her own book about genocide she might learn a few things so Samantha if you're watching this let's read the book together you can do a kind of online discussion of it could be interesting or she could come on people's dispatch Prashant and do an interview to talk about her book and so on we'll give her enough airtime maybe an hour long interview would be interesting an hour long interview not available for Imran Khan or his wife. Pakistan part of one of these countries two billion people or so that are going to have elections this year Pakistan some people Pakistan decided through the wisdom cancel Imran Khan and cancel his party Prashant tell us about that. What we're seeing of course is a campaign against Imran Khan that has been on for many many months now and it's interesting of the two cases in which he was sentenced for 10 years in prison in one case and 14 years in the other the first case is what is called the Cypher case. Now the Cypher case it's quite an interesting case because it refers to a particular document a government document which Imran Khan held after the rally around the time he was basically deposed and he said basically there are foreign powers working to overthrow me and later it turned out that the Cypher involved was basically sent by Pakistani diplomat with comments from an American diplomat saying that they would be all would be forgiven by the words if Imran Khan was to be overthrown in a no confidence motion. Now as you know Imran Khan was overthrown in no confidence motion in April 2022 I believe and just before he was overthrown what had happened was that he had visited Russia around the time as the war broke out he had kind of indicated that he was taking a position where he would for Pakistan's energy and other needs sort of continue to stick or at least maintain good relations with Russia and then there was a very serious question as to whether the deep state in Pakistan the establishment in Pakistan which has really been in control for many of these years would allow that to continue and of course as we know the establishment largely comprises the military which has kind of maintained even which has either been in direct power through various coup d'etats or has you know been the has created politicians like puppets and the fact was that it seemed increasingly unlikely that that would be allowed to continue or Imran Khan's defiance would be allowed to continue and as you can guess it was not he was first of all deposed and then hit with a barrage of cases we are talking about almost 150 cases if I am not mistaken and he has been sentenced to three of these two of these of course are the Cypher case and another case related to the sale of gifts from the government gift storage facility so to speak the Cypher case like I said is especially interesting Imran Khan had said that you know that was an evidence of foreign involvement in his overthrow now of course he is saying that it was just a piece of paper but that piece of paper actually existed in which a US diplomat was on record saying that now all of this especially important because Pakistan is said to see elections in a few days I believe in February 8th to February it is going to elections and all polls all indications seem to show that Imran Khan and his party are by far the most popular choice for a number of voters but one thing is that because these sentences Imran Khan can't contest and more importantly his parties has not been allowed to use its traditional symbol which is a cricket by Imran Khan being of course a very famous cricketer as well many of the party candidates contesting as independents and this follows months and months of crackdown on his political party the Pakistan Perikin Saaf party many erstwhile leaders leaving politics all together because of the extent of pressure that the establishment was applying on them and what we saw was a very rare phenomenon during this whole period of the past one and a half years which is that two traditional rival parties the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan People's Party of Bilawal Bhutto the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who were the traditional rivals for almost two decades uniting with clearly the patronage or clearly the approval of the military to form this kind of a government which succeeded Imran Khan and this was the government which massively cracked down on the Pakistan Perikin Saaf party of Imran Khan and basically inflicted considerable amount of damage on a lot of leaders like I said leaving the party or facing a number of cases by which they were not able to continue to be verdicts anymore so the battle lines definitely drawn for the elections in Pakistan now Imran Khan will definitely appeal these two verdicts the judiciary is also has also behaved in a number of varying ways so we really can't say unlike in some other countries what position the judiciary might take on his case it's possible that they might suspend the sentence it's possible that you know they might take a more favourable verdict towards him but what remains is a very fascinating situation where we have a personality and a party more a personality who is actually sort of defined in many ways towards the establishment and has managed to garner a fair amount of popularity for that and I think we also need to sort of see this in the context of a deep systemic crisis in Pakistan's economy in Pakistan society as well the country of course has gone repeatedly to the IMF it has been complete the people facing massive amounts of inflation the cost not only the cost of living but at every level there have been economic woes which no government including Imran Khan has been able to sort of face in any way so Imran Khan having the benefit of being sort of seen as an outsider even now because the persecution is faced an outsider someone who is you know against all these entrenched interests so all this together a very very unique political situation in Pakistan right now we have three parties the two parties which are earlier together that is Pakistan people's party and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz have now are now contesting separately we have the PTI led by Imran Khan so there is basically a three-party contest here in between all this there is of course also I think the left position which needs to be you know I think followed as well there is a lot of powerful significant left forces that Pakistan have combined together and are presenting a very different and different and alternative agenda which basically poses more fundamental questions to the people as to why is it that Pakistan is time and again to go to the IMF why is it that you know there is this almost what do you call this politicians keep cycling around but nonetheless there is no structural solution to the problems of it that the people are facing why is it that so much the industrialization has happened in the country and why is it that ultimately people are almost dependent on even way for very basic needs for the basic economy to function for grants from the IMF these are very fundamental questions that people are going to confront they have to decide in this election so we will come back next week by next week I think the election results will be out very very interesting elections in a very important country in Asia it's very interesting because in the last parliamentary election Prashant Imran Khan's party got over 30% of the vote I think somewhere near 32% if I'm not mistaken and when you add up Sharif's vote with Bhutto's vote the other two main parties they are just about more than Imran Khan's party just about I think Sharif's vote the Nawaz party got about 20 some percent and the Bhutto party people's party got about 10-12% very interesting how they've been able to get him out of here for this election maybe make it hard for him to return although he remains one of the most popular candidates popular politicians in Pakistan also phenomenal all-rounder when it comes to cricket we remember him fondly coming into bowl on the other side was Sharif Nawaz another great fast bowler from Pakistan give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch there's Prashant here today I'm Vijay from Globetrot I almost said I'm Zoe because I'm so used to saying her name right after yours Prashant it's a tough tough period in the world lots of wars lots of conflicts and so on very quick report for you friends on what's been happening with Iran now the war in Gaza the bombing of Gaza has in fact created a great mood in the Middle East of anger and frustration with the fact that Israel seems to be getting away with genocide for which reason many groups around the Middle East Ansar Allah in the lead of this in Yemen closing down the Red Sea Channel saying that we're doing this in support of the Palestinians Hezbollah pinning down Israeli troops in the northern part of Israel along the perimeter with Lebanon Hezbollah playing a major role there and then various other militia groups in Syria in Iraq and in Jordan frustrated wanting to do something there was an attack at a U.S base they keep calling it a remote U.S base you wonder why there's a U.S base in Jordan in that sort of knuckle area of Jordan beneath Syria well it's from the U.S base that the United States ran a lot of operations in its attempt to destabilize Syria during the heart of that conflict at any rate in this base there was an attack some U.S. service persons died soldiers died well the reaction has been interesting firstly the cliched responses came from the United States Government you saw Mr. Biden and Lloyd Austin who had been ill made a return you know Lloyd Austin at his press conference on the first of February said something which I think all U.S. presidents have said ever since 1823 Monroe Doctrine he said we will respond when we choose where we choose and how we choose I mean those of us who cover United States know and are familiar with this cliché but Mr. Austin also said something that demonstrates the kind of Brigado in the U.S. Government he said well these militia groups have a lot of capability he paused for dramatic effect and then he said but we have more so we can bomb them it's very interesting the U.S. Government Biden, Austin and others have been talking about these groups as Iranian-backed proxies or Iranian-backed militias Ansar Allah, Hezbollah, Kataib this that and the other in Syria and in Iraq these are two things. Number one it's pretty clear that these are not really Iran-backed in the way that one understands these are Iran-supported organizations Hezbollah is supported by Iran but Hezbollah has a history that is prior to Iran's involvement it has a pre-history around the Israeli occupation of Beirut from 1982 it has a history of fighting the Marines in Beirut and so on it's not Iran proxy these organizations have their own history Ansar Allah is in fact an organization that goes back to the period of the fight against Ali Abdullah Saleh who was the president of unified Yemen after the unification of Yemen and also Ansar Allah goes back to the 9th century I mean for God's sake long before when Sufism comes to Persia the Zadis set up an emirate in northern Yemen in somewhere around the late 900s they have a long history and by the way Zadishism for those who don't know has much more in common with Sufism and in fact Sunniism then with Iranian Shiism it's really kind of illiteracy to talk about these things as if they're all Iranian puppets second thing is Iran doesn't want a conflict Iran in fact has made a public statement saying that these groups should stop randomly attacking US positions very interesting well they don't want to be bombed by the United States at this time they are not ready for a hot war the US seems to be trigger happy ready for a hot war in Venezuela again ready for a hot war in Iran and ready for a hot war with China the Iranians say not for us friends Lloyd Austin full of bluster we'll respond where we want meanwhile here we go Iranian saying we don't want a war put those guns back in the holster this is not the time for a showdown then Prashant in the Sahel region a whole other demand saying put the guns back in the holster what are those governments saying in the Sahel region of Africa I think what we're seeing in the Sahel region is probably a culmination of a process that has been taking place for many years now which is that Mali Burkina Faso and Niger have left Ekovaas the West African regional block for economic cooperation etc now Ekovaas has been in the news especially in the latter half of 2023 for the kind of regressive positions it took on a variety on the coup in Niger and how out of touch it seemed to be with the people in its own countries now Ekovaas said 15 countries with these 3 countries leaving it has come down to 12 countries right and but if you look at the landmass because Mali is a huge country it's a considerable blow to its landmass but I think more important is the fact that it's a considerable blow to its reputation its prestige as a block of countries in the region because in many ways it has been exposed in the aftermath of the coup in Niger in July 2023 when you know it almost seemed to act like an agent of French imperialism by threatening an armed intervention despite the fact that the coup in Niger was actually welcomed by its people that earlier coups in Mali and Burkina Faso had also been welcomed even in earlier occasions they had taken a very negative stand towards these coup d'etat let's not call them coups as much as military takeovers because we have discussed this before the military takeovers in those regions have been kind of different from what you would the traditional military takeovers that we saw in Latin America for that matter which are basically CIA sponsored operations these seem to be operations where a section of junior officers you know pushed back against rulers who were considered too close to France and seem to sort of encapsulate in trying to manage a popular vast popular sentiment on the ground against the presence of France and against the presence of French proxies in the form of the leaders now Ekova's response to the coup in Niger was to pretty much threaten invasion an operation which quickly the wheels fell off because we saw that for instance in Nigeria which was one of the leading countries and Ekova's senate refused in many other countries we saw massive dissatisfaction over that possibility and that itself you know I think was a huge dent to the credibility of Ekova's in coming in the later months Ekova sort of indicated that you know we are going to negotiate we still believe that all these regimes are not so legitimate but we somehow negotiate etc etc but I think what Ekova's is confronting right now is basically the fact that many of their countries face the leaders of many of their countries face a massive crisis of legitimacy many of these leaders are seen pretty much as French proxies as people implementing the agenda of France whether it be Maki Sal especially Maki Sal in Senegal for instance but the crisis even extends to people like Bola Pinupu in Nigeria or for instance the leaders of Ivory Coast as well many of these co-devour as well many of these places I think there is a substantial crisis of legitimacy faced by these leaders Islamist insurgencies in many of these places France not being able to you know despite all its claims not being able to provide any solution at all and I think there is a massive sort of pushback that is taking place and in general across the region a sort of a region-based pushback and I think that is what has crystallized in the form of these military takeovers in these three countries so what we're seeing also is the fact that in these three countries established a relationship into the form of the alliance of Sahil states you know they said that in the attack on one of us would be considered an attack on the other one probably one key factor why the Nicaragua's so-called invasion intervention force did not take place there's a great interview with Crazy Pratt Junior on breakthrough news General Secretary of Socialist Movement of Ghana where he talks about some of these aspects the fact that Niger has actually seen a considerable amount of growth since the coup the fact that the economic subservience of many countries in West Africa to France is really what is hindering their development as well and he poses some very interesting questions I would encourage all our viewers to watch it but I think what this poses right now we have been talking for about over a year and a half about how this is one of the most important regions in the world a very successful pushback against French imperialism definitely taking place you know a desire to sort of seize their destiny seize control of their resources but the question is that whether the rulers of that region the new military rulers who are taken over will be able to address those aspirations so I would think that it's a definite a very positive sign that these countries have exposed ECOVAs for what it is I think for the ECOVAs leaders themselves is a very important question it's a wake up call for the people in the country that remain the countries that remain in ECOVAs also a very important moment right now yeah I can't you know say that I agree more than that because I agree with everything you just said you know as I said this today Prashant is really so much about war and destruction and we can't avoid that these are the compelling issues of our time and here we are yesterday first of February you know Lloyd Austin one side of the Atlantic full of bluster saying you know we'll attack whoever we want perhaps even Iran and then the European Union 27 countries gathering together deciding to put 54 billion US dollars or 50 billion euros in the pockets of the Ukrainians to continue that war this has been an interesting dance in December Victor Orban of Hungary said that he would veto any attempt to continue this war in Ukraine that a peace agreement must be found and so on well Orban meets Zelinski in the at the inauguration of the Argentinian president Javier Millay they had some conversations they didn't really publicly say what they talked about but what most people are saying is that at the EU meeting in December when Orban said we are going to veto he thought he would get support from other countries where there's a kind of recognition and exhaustion in the population with this war that other states may say okay fine let's pull everybody to the negotiating table he didn't get any support and then EU came back and said well we are going to reconsider the understanding in the EU if you don't go along with this in fact Hungary received a lot of money from the EU so the EU then essentially blackmail Victor Orban Victor Orban after the vote saying this 54 billion will be given we draw a veto after that Mr. Victor Orban said we will not succumb to blackmail well you just did you just buckled under EU blackmail and Charles Mitchell can spend this as much as he wants on behalf of the EU that's effectively what this was now interestingly the US military establishment Navy Admiral Sam Paparo gave a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee where he said something interesting and I think people need to follow sometimes what these military people said say he said that it is important that the West continue to support Ukraine and its ambitions against the Russians not because of Russia not even because of Ukraine but because of the important message this will send to China that if the West buckles in Ukraine said Navy Admiral Sam Paparo then the Chinese will believe look there is nobody holding us back if we want to go and see three uninhabited islands next to Taiwan nobody is going to say anything you know they don't have the fortitude to continue very interesting revelation by Mr. Paparo open statement that really they don't scare so much about the human lives and suffering in Ukraine or the question of weakening Russia this is a much bigger geopolitical game and he puts the map down on the table in terms of the war in Ukraine it is now almost universally acknowledged that the front line just can't move this $54 billion is really about shoring up the front line the front line is not able to shift there is going to be no improvement of the situation which again begs the question why not come to the negotiating table if nobody else wants them to come to the negotiating table the European farmers Prashant certainly do just in the brief time we have what have these European farmers been up to Vijay I mean I think it's important to note that the media in many parts especially the western countries have sort of portrayed it as farmers being farmers resisting green policies are being intransigent or whatever they are being unwilling to change but we have a couple of good pieces on the people's despite side of the protests in France and articles that appeared on the workers party of Belgium which really kind of I think paints a very different picture of why farmers across Europe are protesting there have been protests in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium all these countries protest in Poland taking place earlier Ukraine wore one key factor the kind of subsidies that EU countries gave to grain from Ukraine was definitely a factor but I think what these farmers in many of these countries are protesting is as much a factor that a bulk of their a bulk of the huge amount of profit has been made by agribusiness companies at this point of time whereas the farmers have been struggling the consumers of course facing inflation facing a huge cost what is called the cost of living crisis but farmers also really facing a massive crisis they haven't been getting the kind of prices that they should be deserving the amount of land that is under agriculture small farmers increasingly vanishing a huge amount of land being taken over by big corporates and it is these big corporates who are also getting the benefits of various programs including what is called the CAP by from the European Union it is a big farmers with the big corporates who seem to be benefiting from all these policies so the smaller farmers the individual farmers really in a very bad shape really doing economically very poorly while these big companies are really profiting that is the angle that needs to be looked into as opposed to being seen as farmers just being resistant to any green transition policies which are really important at this point of time and of course also the fact that the bureaucracy itself the kind of bureaucratic hurdles it is placed the fact that when it comes to many of these policies there has been absolutely no consultation with the farmers and the workers who are involved in agriculture these are factors I think the farmers are trying to stress at this point and it will be very wrong to sort of see this as a farmers versus environmentalism debate which it is very unfortunately I think being presented whereas I think it's more on terms of farmers opposing very big questions about the nature of the economy itself and there you have it friends give the people what they want brought to you from people's dispatch today it's Prashant I'm Vijay from Globe Trotter next week 160th show Zoe will be back see you then